Clark: Sprinkle a little notwithstanding on every governing headache [medical schools and mobility rights]

Clever critique:

…That implies its use should be judicious, and not an easy shortcut to a policy goal. Yet there has been a growing willingness to use it to brush aside Charter inconveniences – sometimes to replace the need to file a court appeal or draft new legislation that meets a policy objective without unreasonably infringing on Charter rights.

It’s true that Quebec’s political culture is different. For a period after the 1982 repatriation of the Constitution, the Parti Québécois government invoked the clause on every bill as a protest. There was never as much of a taboo on the use of the notwithstanding clause.

But Mr. Legault has in the past used it to override the enshrined rights in Quebec’s own Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, too. It has become an easy reflex.

Source: Sprinkle a little notwithstanding on every governing headache