Erosion of our rights is a betrayal of those Canadians who died to protect our freedoms

Remembrance transcends ritual commemoration; it demands active reclamation of the democratic legacy.

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.

As the chill of November settles over Ottawa the solemn rituals of this week’s Remembrance Day ceremonies are now etched into our collective memory—a moment to salute the valour of those who ventured into the inferno of global conflicts. From the blood-soaked trenches of Europe, to the beaches of Normandy, the frozen hills of Korea, and the dusty trails of Afghanistan, Canadian service men and women laid down their lives not for glory, but for the sake of “freedom” and “democracy”, or so they were told.

In total since World War One, over 113,000 Canadians perished, their ultimate sacrifice helping to forge a Canada where citizens’ voices could speak out and dissent, where people could gather without fear of reprisal, and political leaders could be held accountable for their actions. These warriors did not storm foreign shores merely to repel invaders. They battled to enshrine a birthright of freedom from tyranny, equality under the law, and governance by the consent of the people, free from the shadows of authoritarianism.

However, as the wreaths are removed from cenotaphs and as the red poppies are put away for another year, a disquieting question lingers, what endures of their legacy when the very foundations freedom, democracy and human rights they bled to secure are being slowly dismantled bit by bit? In the years since those cataclysmic struggles, Canada has morphed into a nation where safeguards against governmental overreach now yield to the imperatives of “security”, and to ideological fervour.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the aspirational 1982 compact born from decades of constitutional struggles, now faces insidious encroachments. Nominally a society that embraces freedom and civil liberties, Canada now grapples with a creeping curtailment of personal freedoms, masked as bulwarks against terrorism, crime and societal harmony. If the ghosts of Vimy Ridge, Dieppe, or Kandahar could peer through the mist of time, they might recoil at the sight of a democracy seemingly adrift, where the clamour of protest is muffled because it bothers certai n communities, where expressions of dissent are branded as dangerous, and where elected official’s voices are reduced to mere echoes of their political masters.

Consider the legislation coming out of Parliament, cloaked in the garb of safety and security. The Strong Borders Act (Bill C-2), unveiled in June, promises to fortify our borders against shadowy transnational threats. At first glance, it evokes the steadfast resolve of those sent off to distant lands to defend Canadian values. Yet, within its pages lies a network of provisions that erode the bedrock of privacy and mobility enshrined in the Charter of Rights, ones that empower Canadian Border Service officials with sweeping authority to scrutinize digital footprints and personal data, often without judicial approval or oversight, under the flimsy veil of “reasonable suspicion. Critics from more than 300 advocacy organizations, representing refugee networks to digital rights sentinels, decry it as a Trojan horse for unchecked surveillance which could threaten human rights, refugee and migrant rights, and the privacy of all Canadians. This legislation is no mere bureaucratic tweak but rather a concession of the freedoms that Canadians fought to defend from the spectre of authoritarian ideologies.

No less alarming is Bill C-8, the Critical Cyber Systems Protection Act. Framed as a bulwark against threats to vulnerable infrastructure—from power grids, to telecommunications infrastructure, to financial institutions—it compels companies under federal jurisdiction to undertake exhaustive audits of their vulnerabilities, with regulators able to dictate the removal of suspect technologies or the overhaul of protocols. While the spectre of cyber incursions is a real threat, with this legislation the federal government tilts perilously close towards a scenario where the Charter’s protections against unreasonable searches and protections of personal security—Sections 7 and 8—are ignored in the name of advancing national priorities and strengthening Canada’s economic resilience. In an era where data and technology is critical to economic success, such overreach risks transforming the open and free spaces where Canadians live their lives into places of constant surveillance, much like it is in present day China.

This escalation of restrictions extends to municipal governance in several jurisdictions across Canada, where officials, reacting to persistent protests against the genocide in Gaza, have instituted “bubble zone” bylaws that impose spatial buffers around key civic institutions. In Toronto, a city characterized by its pluralism and diversity, the city council approved a regulation establishing 50-meter exclusion zones around places of worship, educational facilities, and childcare centres, prohibiting assemblies deemed “disruptive” on the basis of subjective reports of discomfort. Initially conceived as a protective measure for entities affected by intense demonstrations—many of which have condemned Israel for committing horrific atrocities—the policy has evolved into a broader mechanism of control, targeting non-violent gatherings under the rationale of “protecting” citizens. Violations incur penalties of up to $5,000, administered by municipal enforcement officers with police support, even though law enforcement authorities maintain that existing legislation is adequate.

Similar measures have emerged in the cities of Vaughan and Brampton, north of Toronto, and Ottawa is developing its own framework. This creates a fragmented landscape of censorship of political activism that undermines the Canadian Charter of Rights’ protections under Sections 2(b) and 2(c), which cover freedom of expression and assembly. Advocates for civil liberties caution that these bylaws impose a deterrent effect on legitimate and legal protest, especially among underrepresented groups advocating for global justice, thereby converting historically inclusive public spaces into government controlled no go zones.

Exacerbating these trends is the gradual institutional adoption of broadened criteria for identifying prejudice, specifically the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, which has been integrated into governmental policy since its federal acceptance in 2019 and subsequent provincial implementations through 2025. Jurisdictions including Ontario, Alberta, and Quebec have codified the definition, presenting it as an instrument to combat rising intolerance. However, its non-binding examples—some of which equate specific criticisms of Israeli state policy with antisemitic intent—risk conflating political analysis and criticism with ethnic and racial animus, thereby capturing human-rights advocacy concerning the Levant within the scope of prohibited speech. Progressive Jewish organizations, like Independent Jewish Voices, and allied civil-society coalitions contend that the definition is being weaponized to suppress substantive and legitimate debate while insulating those who support the suppression of legal free speech contested from scrutiny, thus eroding the freedoms that Allied forces sought to secure during the Second World War. In a society that embraces multicultural integration, such instruments threaten to undermine social cohesion by elevating one interpretive framework above rights guaranteed under the Charter.

Provincial governments, ostensibly custodians of regional autonomy, have increasingly invoked the Constitution’s notwithstanding clause (Section 33) to suspend Charter protections for disadvantaged populations. Quebec’s 2019 secularism law, reaffirmed in 2024, prohibits public-sector employees from displaying religious symbols, thereby overriding guarantees of religious freedom and equality. Saskatchewan’s 2023 requirement for parental consent in cases of gender-identity disclosure by minors, alongside Alberta’s 2025 legislation enabling teacher dismissals during labour disputes, both deploy the clause to preempt Charter challenges. Ontario’s adjustments to electoral boundaries and New Brunswick’s language-policy directives similarly shield contentious measures from judicial review.

Originally conceived in 1982 as a limited override to be used only in the most extraordinary circumstances, to balance parliamentary sovereignty with rights adjudication, the clause has been activated six times by five provinces since 2019, diminishing the Charter’s normative authority and enabling majority governments to violate constitutional rights under the guise of democratic prerogative. The framers of Canada’s constitutional order, informed by the injustices of wartime internment and the use of the War Measures Act during the FLQ Crisis in Quebec, intended the mechanism as an exceptional safeguard. Its contemporary proliferation signals a regression toward discretionary governance in which fundamental rights are sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.

At the core of this democratic deficit lies Parliament, the institution designed to translate popular sovereignty into accountable administration. In principle, it functions as the primary arena for executive oversight, where rank-and-file legislators interrogate policy, compel evidence, and, if necessary, withdraw confidence to precipitate governmental collapse. The 1873 Pacific Scandal, in which parliamentary censure over railway corruption toppled Sir John A. Macdonald’s administration, exemplifies an era when Members of Parliament were able to exercise independent judgment unconstrained by party directives. By contrast, the contemporary House of Commons, comprising 343 members following the 2025 redistribution, operates within a rigid disciplinary party structure that prioritizes caucus cohesion and party loyalty over constituent representation. Informal yet coercive party protocols brand nonconformists as outliers and even traitors, and consign them to irrelevance. In the recent federal election the prime minister sustained a narrow electoral plurality, retains exclusive authority over cabinet formation, committee placements, and ancillary benefits such as international travel or remunerated parliamentary roles. Policy direction largely originates not from elected colleagues but from an insulated “palace guard” within the Prime Minister’s Office and the Privy Council Office—apparatchiks whose primary allegiance is to the executive. Empirical analyses reveals that members adhere to the party line in 99.6 percent of recorded votes, rendering their contributions perfunctory.

This structural weakness arises from the imperatives of minority or slim-majority governance and a leader-centred political approach, where the leader tolerates no internal dissent that might jeopardize legislative stability. Career advancement—parliamentary secretaryships, committee chairmanships, or cabinet portfolios—function as an incentive for compliance, while resistance invites sanction. Consequently, the House of Commons, intended to constrain executive overreach, has devolved into a compliant assembly where rigorous examination atrophies and democratic accountability is limited. Without a credible check on prime ministerial authority, the system ceases to embody representative democracy as was originally intended.

The Canadian combatants who fell at Juno Beach, Kapyong, or Panjwai did not sacrifice themselves for this faded silhouette of self-governance. They confronted totalitarian regimes to defend a society where freedom and democracy is the norm, where dissent is a catalyst for reform rather than repression, and where elected officials serve the public rather than entrenched elites. Their legacy is undermined not by external adversaries but by internal erosion—federal surveillance regimes that intrude upon personal autonomy, municipal ordinances that stifle public expression, provincial suspensions of constitutional rights, and legislatures shackled by partisan discipline.

Reforms of the inadequacies of society requires deliberate intervention. Legislation should mandate conscience votes on ethical issues and insulate committee assignments from leadership discretion. Judicial oversight of Section 33 invocations before they are implemented should become the norm, restricting its use to genuine existential emergencies. Bubble-zone bylaws and the IHRA definition’s overboard applications should be rescinded to restore unencumbered forums for critique. Border-security and cybersecurity initiatives must incorporate robust transparency and warrant requirements. Most critically, statutory reforms should affirm that Members of Parliament owe their primary duty to constituents, not party hierarchies.

Remembrance transcends ritual commemoration; it demands active reclamation of the democratic legacy. We honour the fallen not through ephemeral tributes but by reinvigorating the liberties they secured. Only through such renewal can their sacrifice resonate as the foundation of an enduring, resilient Canada. In their memory, we are compelled to act, before the principles they defended dissolve into oblivion.

© 2025 The View From Here. © 2025 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

Danielle Smith’s assault on the Charter of Rights: The latest chapter in a saga of provinces violating rights

As authoritarianism creeps in through provincial actions, it turns provinces into fiefdoms where there are rights for some but not for others.

  
By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.
  

In the early hours of October 28th, as members of the Alberta legislature sat bleary-eyed after a marathon session, Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party rammed through Bill 2, the so-called “Back to School Act.” This draconian piece of legislation didn’t just end a three-week strike by more than 51,000 teachers—the largest walkout in the province’s history—it invoked Section 33 of the Canadian Constitution, the notorious “notwithstanding” clause, to suspend the fundamental rights of those educators to associate, bargain collectively, and strike. Teachers, who had walked out on October 6th demanding better wages, smaller class sizes, and support for students with complex needs, were ordered back to work by Wednesday, October 29th, under threat of $5000 daily fines for individuals and up to $500,000 per day for their union.

 

The four-year contract that was imposed on the teachers offers a meagre 12% wage increase, the hiring of 3,000 additional teachers and 1,500 educational assistants, without addressing the other issues—a deal that the teachers had rejected by 89.5% in September. Premier Smith, conveniently absent on a trade mission to Saudi Arabia, justified the “nuclear option” of using Section 33 as a moral imperative for student welfare, demanding swift action.

But this was no existential emergency of war or insurrection, the dire scenarios envisioned when the notwithstanding clause was forged in 1982 as a compromise to repatriate the Constitution. It was a calculated political move to strip Charter protections not for reasons of public security, but to crush political dissent and impose a rejected deal. This act cements Danielle Smith’s transformation from libertarian firebrand to anti-democratic fascist, and a threat to democracy in Alberta.

Elected in 2022 by a razor-thin margin within her party—scarcely 1% of Alberta voters—she has since pursued a relentless centralization of authority, eroding the checks and balances that define liberal democracy. The teachers’ strike was merely the latest flash point in a pattern of authoritarian overreach. 

Recall the “Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act” of 2022, which critics decried as a dictatorial blueprint allowing cabinet to nullify federal laws without legislative scrutiny and bypassing the courts. At the time NDP Deputy Leader Sarah Hoffman warned it handed Smith “dictatorial powers,” a sentiment echoed by constitutional scholars who saw it as an assault on parliamentary sovereignty. Then there was Bill 20 in May 2024, granting cabinet unchecked authority to fire municipal councillors, overturn bylaws, and introduce political parties to local elections—targeting urban strongholds like Edmonton and Calgary while sparing rural UCP bastions. Mayors decried it as “authoritarian,” a “power grab” that would chill free speech and strip voters of their elected representatives. Edmonton’s Amarjeet Sohi called it a degradation of local democracy, while Calgary’s Jyoti Gondek warned it erodes the public’s right to choose their governance.

Smith’s fascism isn’t bombast, it’s real and a danger to democratic norms. She styles herself as a “freedom-loving” premier, yet her policies reveal an oxymoronic “authoritarian libertarianism”—a worldview where individual liberty means obedience to her party’s unmediated truth, where dissent is vilified as villainy, a style very similar to that of Donald Trump. As political scientist Patricia Roberts Miller explains, this ideology thrives on victimhood, justifying coercion against perceived threats. In Alberta, it manifests in political cronyism—patronage appointments to ethics bodies, threats to public servants’ pensions, and hobbling renewable energy to prop up fossil fuels. Her pursuit of an Alberta Pension Plan (APP), despite 63% public opposition to the idea and economists warning that Alberta’s claim to more than 50% of the Canada Pension Plan will never fly, also demonstrates authoritarian leanings. Similarly, her push for a provincial police force—which would have start-up cost of at least $366 million to transition from the RCMP, and annual operating costs of approximately $164 million, opposed by 67% of Albertans—centralizes coercive power, reducing oversight and ignoring the will of an overwhelming majority of Alberta residents.

These aren’t the choices of a self-proclaimed libertarian. They’re the decisions of a fascist manoeuvring to consolidate power, implement unpopular policies through state compulsion, echoing historical strongmen who draped tyranny in freedom’s garb. Bill 2 is the apex of this drift, but it’s not isolated to Alberta. Since 1982, provincial and territorial governments have invoked the notwithstanding clause 26 times—not in response to existential crises, but to advance partisan agendas at the expense of the Charter rights of Canadians. Quebec leads as the “worst offender,” using the clause 17 times over 43 years, including for Bill 21 (2019), which bans religious symbols for public workers, a law that disproportionately targets Muslim women and violates equality and religious freedom rights. The Quebec Court of Appeal upheld the bill in 2024, but not without acknowledging its “cruel and dehumanizing” impact on hijab-wearing teachers. Section 33 was also used for Bill 96 (2022) which violated the equality rights of English speaking Quebecers once again, by further curbing English use in public services.

Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe is another offender who invoked it in 2023 for the “Parents’ Bill of Rights,” violating the rights of transgender youth under the age of 16, endangering their security of the person—a policy Alberta mirrored in 2024 by shielding three anti-trans bills with the clause. Ontario’s Doug Ford wielded it on three occasions since 2018, slashing Toronto wards in 2018 (later stayed), limiting third-party election ads in 2021, and imposing contracts on 55,000 education workers in 2022—a decision which was reversed due to a massive backlash. However, the precedent lingers.

These right-wing premiers—Legault in Quebec, Ford in Ontario, Moe in Saskatchewan, Smith in Alberta—form a quasi-fascist phalanx, normalizing constitutional overrides that eviscerate minority rights under the guise of “parental rights,” “secularism,” or “fiscal prudence.” This proliferation threatens Canadian democracy at its core. The notwithstanding clause, born of a constitutional compromise to appease provincial premiers, was meant for “exceptionally rare circumstances”—not routine rights suspension to push political agendas. Yet its pre-emptive use—before courts can rule on legislation—transforms the Charter from a bulwark to protect human rights to suggestions that can be violated at the whim of a government, making the current situation no different than it was before the Charter of Rights was adopted.

The use of the clause erodes judicial independence and public trust, and allows government to behave no differently than one would find in countries led by authoritarians. As former prime minister Justin Trudeau warned in 2022, Canadians themselves should be extremely worried about the increased willingness of provincial governments using the notwithstanding clause pre-emptively to suspend their fundamental rights and freedoms . . . The Charter of Rights and Freedoms cannot become a suggestion.”

In the above-mentioned provinces, representing 60% of Canadians, the use of Section 33 in all cases targets those with little power to push back against government—trans youth being discriminated against in schools, hijab wearing Muslim women barred from teaching or being public prosecutors, police officers or judges, teachers gagged from bargaining or legally protesting. This isn’t federalism, it’s fragmentation and balkanization. It a series of unsavoury instance where majority governments tyrannize minorities or impose their will on political opponents, thereby creating a patchwork of rights that mocks the concept of a nation where all rights are protected equally.

All Canadians—not just Albertans—should be alarmed. If unchecked, this contagion will invite broader erosions of rights, like in the United States, where voter suppression, ID mandates, academic censorship, grant vetoes for those not toeing the ideological line, or the weaponization of police against anti-government protests which are endangering American democracy.

The federal Liberal government bears a moral, legal, and constitutional duty to counter this fascist tide. Section 90 of the Constitution Act, 1867, empowers the Governor General-in-Council to disallow provincial laws, a relic of colonial oversight now a dormant shield for national values. Used 112 times until 1943, the power has atrophied amid cooperative federalism, but it remains viable given that it was retained in the Constitution Act 1982. Disallowing Charter Section 33 overrides of Smiths back to work bill, Saskatchewan’s pronoun law, or Quebec’s “secularism” law would enforce the Charter, declaring human rights non-negotiable in Canada.

Morally, Mark Carney’s Liberals must act. Canada’s hypocrisy—condemning human rights violations in countries like China, Russia, or Iran while ignoring domestic abuses—undermines its global credibility. Legally, invoking the power of disallowance would uphold the Charter’s supremacy. Politically, it would be popular, with recent polls showing that 58% of Canadians are deeply concerned about the use of Section 33, with 55% wanting the clause abolished. If he has the political will, Carney spend some political capital and rally Canadians by wielding Section 90 as a threat to compel first ministers to codify limits on Section 33’s use, and by referring the matter to the Supreme Court for a judicial opinion on those limits. Alternatively, the federal government could incorporate Section 90 into legislation to pre-emptively restrict both federal and provincial governments from invoking the notwithstanding clause except in the most dire emergencies, as originally envisioned.

As authoritarianism creeps in through provincial actions, it turns provinces into fiefdoms where there are rights for some but not for others. The federal government, steward of the Charter, must halt this drift or watch Canadian democracy fracture, not in a coup, but via a constitutional clause invoked casually, with rights denials renewed every five years like leases. All Canadians deserve better than to have their human rights violated on a whim by provincial governments, and it looks like it is up to the federal government to ensure that the Charter rights of Canadians don’t slowly dissolve away, until the Charter is a mere shadow of what it was intended to be, and Canadians are back to where they were in the era before the Charter where rights are no longer guaranteed.

© 2025 The View From Here. © 2025 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.