Thread by @thevrplumber

Why is #bill31 so horrible? It's just fraking around with "liberals" you say. Let's troll those stupid Toronto elites... but the moron suspended EVERY charter right from sections 2 and 7-15.

He COULD have just suspended section 2b (freedom of expression) and maybe 2c (freedom of assembly) or even 2d (freedom of association).

Instead, he suspended the rights in 7 (life, liberty and security of the person)... so in theory if you get in the way of Ford's election you can be thrown in prison, made to perform a medical procedure (sterilization, anyone), or even killed. WTF?

And he suspended 9 (so detention can be arbitrary) and 12 (so you can be tortured while your in jail) and 10 (so you can't get a lawyer). What the ever-living frak is this arsehole thinking?

To be clear, obviously this is STUPID and no rational person would think that prison or death would be a reasonable response to someone e.g. running a municipal election with 47 instead of 23 wards... but they are passing a law to allow it.

Ford is suspending almost every right of Canadians to enforce something obviously, stupidly, pointless and can't even be arsed to reduce the impact of the tool. Again, he could have just tabled the legislation in late October.

Do I think someone will wind up killed, imprisoned, or locked up in a hospital over this particular thing? No, I don't think so. But this precedent says that Doug Ford is willing to suspend almost the whole Charter for things too trivial to warrant.

What happens when he decides to pass something overtly "populist" like a Muslim ban? He's suspended our core Charter rights over a papercut, why would you think he won't over something that would get his base excited?

Politicians who support this shyte need to be driven from the legislature and never seen again. This farce isn't just to screw with a running election. He's put up a trial balloon with this garbage for when he wants to pass something truly odious.

He's used something seemingly trivial to make it seem that opposition is overblown; "Why are you so worked up about this, are you a big-government stooge" so that he can normalise the use of this tool under cover of seemingly unreasonable responses.

But then why not include the notwithstanding clause in every piece of legislation to avoid lengthy legal issues? It will save taxpayers money, as no-one can challenge any of our laws on charter grounds, after all.

And so dies the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. With a trial balloon on a seemingly stupid issue paving the way for a modern populist dystopia. But of course, we are over-reacting; he's just suspending the Charter...