Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he spoke with Ontario education unions Friday morning as they engaged in what the province calls an “illegal” strike and reiterated he was “extremely concerned” about the use of the clause however to force a contract with the workers.
Trudeau made the comments while speaking in North York about his government’s GST credits for families.
“It is a very, very serious thing to suspend people’s fundamental rights and freedoms,” he said. “The proactive use of the nevertheless clause is actually an attack on people’s fundamental rights, and in this case, it’s an attack on one of the most basic rights available: that of collective bargaining.”
“I think there are a lot of people, a lot of parents like myself, who have kids in Ontario schools who are concerned about the labor action, about the strikes, but I can tell you that every parent, every parent, should be extremely concerned about the suspension of our most fundamental rights and freedoms”.
He added that the federal government is looking at “all options” to protect these freedoms; however, he did not go into detail about what those options might be.
This is not the first time Trudeau has spoken out against Bill 28, an Ontario law passed Thursday that uses the notwithstanding clause to override sections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to outlaw the workers’ strike.
The bill also legislates a four-year contract for 55,000 members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which includes custodians, administrative staff and education support workers.
Earlier this week, Trudeau called Ontario Premier Doug Ford and told him that using the clause nonetheless was “wrong and inappropriate.”
The clause is however part of section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and gives provincial governments the ability to override certain parts of the charter for a period of five years.
Ford, meanwhile, has used the clause quite liberally. He first threatened to use it in 2018 to trim Toronto city council seats during a municipal election and then invoked it to restore parts of the Election Finance Act in 2021.
In the case of Bill 38, the Ford government argues that it is necessary to keep schools open and avoid disruptions for children.
“The outrage that we’re seeing across the country right now with this latest use (of the notwithstanding clause), building on past uses that I’ve consistently condemned, I think it’s a time for all Canadians to reflect and say, ‘yes , our fundamental rights must not be canceled by governments that want to do things as easily and efficiently as possible at the expense of people’s fundamental freedoms,” Trudeau added on Friday.
Ontario is also requesting that the strike and the union leaders’ actions be declared unlawful by the Ontario Labor Relations Board.