Freedom from Ideologies: Why Ottawa’s Attack on the Notwithstanding Clause Betrays Our Heritage

 

A Forgotten Foundation: Freedom from Ideology

Western democracy did not arise from ideology, but from a rebellion against it.

• 17th-century empiricists—Bacon, Newton, Locke—recognized that human progress depends on escaping idealism (systems of abstract thought unmoored from reality).

• 18th-century Encyclopedists—Diderot, d’Alembert, Condorcet—argued that liberty required the active development of empirical faculties, not submission to dogma.

• The result was political liberty, scientific achievement, and the institutions that still anchor Western society today.

In other words, our democratic heritage is freedom from ideology itself.

Quebec, the Quiet Revolution, and Autonomy

Quebec’s use of the notwithstanding clause should not be seen as an attack on rights but as an assertion of autonomy—an extension of its Quiet Revolution tradition.

• The clause was deliberately embedded in the Charter because premiers in 1981 knew that unchecked judicial power could override both Parliament and provincial legislatures.

• It is not a loophole or abuse—it is a constitutional safeguard, a pressure valve to prevent Ottawa’s ideology or judicial activism from steamrolling provincial authority.

Quebec is exercising this right properly. Other provinces should consider it as well.

Ottawa’s Centralizing Authoritarian Drift

The Carney/Trudeau Liberals have repeatedly shown disdain for the clause, and their latest attempt to restrict its use is revealing:

• They have stacked the judiciary with Liberal-friendly appointees while presenting themselves as guardians of “rights.”

• They denounce provinces for invoking the clause even as Ottawa itself has trampled Charter rights during COVID, through speech restrictions and through regulatory overreach.

• Their real goal is not liberty—it is centralized control, dressed up in the language of rights.

To weaken the notwithstanding clause is to betray the very compromise that made the Charter possible.

The Irony of Liberal Gaslighting

• Pierre Trudeau only secured the Charter by agreeing to include the clause. Without it, there would have been no constitutional deal.

• Today, his son’s government wants to pretend the clause is a constitutional accident. It isn’t—it’s the linchpin that keeps Canada a federation instead of a unitary, Ottawa-dominated state.

• To frame Quebec’s use of the clause as authoritarian is a form of gaslighting. The real authoritarianism lies in Ottawa’s attempt to strip provinces of their only meaningful constitutional shield.

Conclusion: A Call for Courage

Canada is not a one-party state, and our Charter was not meant to be a Liberal monopoly.

• The notwithstanding clause exists for exactly these moments—when ideology masquerades as law, when courts forget Parliament, and when Ottawa forgets federalism.

• Quebec, by invoking it, is not betraying Canada’s heritage. It is protecting it.

If Ottawa truly wishes to defend rights, it should stop weaponizing ideology and start respecting the constitutional safeguards that make our federation work.