In 2024, Quebec’s Court of Appeal upheld virtually all aspects of the province’s secularism law based on the invocation of the notwithstanding clause. At the time, provinces argued that it was a necessary balance between the power of the legislature and that of courts. Instead, it argued that use of the notwithstanding clause should be limited, though it left how to the court. If accepted by Canada’s top court, the proposal could create the first ever substantive limit to the use of the increasingly popular notwithstanding clause. The lawyer, Frédéric Bérard, told the court that nothing would prevent a future Canadian “mini-Trump” from invoking the notwithstanding clause.

Source: National Post March 23, 2026 19:15 UTC