Events south of the border this week have blotted out the sun. It’s hard to escape the implications of the American electorate openly embracing the authoritarianism and ignorance embodied by the now 47th President of the United States because it’s going to affect us here before too long, but I would argue that some of our politicians here are pretty good at leaning into authoritarian tendencies themselves.
Last week, 13 of Ontario’s big city mayors signed a letter asking the Government of Ontario to use the notwithstanding clause of the constitution to let them remove homeless encampments as they see fit. No more court action or threats of court action, just some refreshing violations of individual Charter Rights in the name of sweeping a problem under the rug. Cool, normal stuff.
What I find interesting is that of the 13 mayors that signed the letter, only four of them, it seems, went to law school, and while I assume that comes with some education about the Canadian Constitution, constitutional law itself is a specialty in the field.
Another thing I found interesting is that among the signees is Sudbury Mayor Paul Lefebvre, who was at one time counsel for the Ontario Human Rights Commission, and Oshawa Mayor Dan Carter, who was once himself homeless and addicted to substances. Carter ran in 2018 on improving access to health and social services, and his Cinderella story even made the pages of the New York Times.
“We offer everything we can to provide shelter but 97 per cent of the people don’t accept our help … but families don’t expect us to give up on their kids,” Carter reportedly said in an article on INsauga.com. “Millions of people have been saved because of intervention and we should intervene every possible time we can. That’s our responsibility.”
It’s understandable why Carter believes in intervention because it worked for him. He’s talked about how his sister literally and figuratively gave him a slap upside the head and how he finally put in the time and effort to overcome personal issues that put him on a path to homelessness and addiction.
I’m glad Carter’s sister was there to help him after years of suffering in silence, and I’m glad Carter had the common sense to listen to her, but, in the end, Carter had a choice, and he had support. Using the notwithstanding clause will take away people’s choice, but it doesn’t guarantee them support. It also doesn’t guarantee them treatment either because the wait list is long for people that already want help, whether that’s affordable housing or treatment.
Over in Chatham-Kent, Mayor Darrin Canniff faced grilling from his council about his support for using the notwithstanding clause to allow municipalities to do what they will on encampments. Many of his council colleagues believe that the Chatham-Kent logo was a signal that the letter had their support too, but Canniff tried to downplay those concerns.
It’s not getting any better. . .. It’s going to get worse, so we need to have as many tools as we can to deal with this,” Canniff said.
Except the notwithstanding clause is not a tool because they call it the “nuclear option” and nuclear weapons are not “tools”. You’re not supposed to retreat to nuclear weapons because other strategies aren’t working as fast as you think they should, you go to them when the intention is to scorch the Earth.
There’s a lot of room to blame Doug Ford for this. He made us less afraid of “the bomb” by deploying it three times since 2018, the only three times an Ontario premier has used it. The first time was shortly after Ford took office when he decided to cut Toronto city council in half mid-election. Is it any wonder that Ford, another individual with no expertise on constitutional law, believes it’s a proverbial get out of jail free card?
It's also not surprising that some mayors feel the same when they should be weary. The more the “nuclear option” is deployed, the less scary it seems. It starts to become a crutch. Why bother trying to reach consensus, or let law get tested in the courts, when you can just use the notwithstanding clause and skip all that bother?
But in this case, the use of the notwithstanding clause is not about deploying a solution, it’s about getting rid of a problem. Suppose the notwithstanding clause is used as these mayors want, suppose it’s used to force people to get treatment, set up diversion courts, and create harsher penalties for repeated trespass. What then?
Are we supposed to believe that the people encamped in St. George’s Square, for example, are worried about getting a ticket, or spending the night in jail, as opposed to all the other things they’re worried about? How are people supposed to suddenly find a home when there are people who’ve been on the by-name list for a decade or more?
And if we’re just being blatantly lawless, why not do something radical like mandate that for every nine units of private development approved, one unit has to be donated to the housing provider to be re-sold or rented at an affordable rate? We’re not going to do that because people with privilege and status will see that as punishment for their success. And yet, we don’t think twice about taking away the only thing some people in poverty have, their Charter rights.
This coming week, the people encamped in St. George’s Square will be evicted. What that means, I don’t know. What that will look like is pretty concerning. What happens next is a question no one has an answer to. It’s another action that has the appearance of action, and because maybe you won’t see a tent downtown anymore some people will think the problem is solved. It won’t be.
It’s remarkable that we will do anything, up to overriding the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, just so that we don’t have to look at the endgame following decades of underinvestment in social services and healthcare. Meanwhile, there’s no announcement of new investments coming, and no new permanent funding to help cities out. All we seem to have left is cruelty and malice towards people who were already victimized by a system that’s never really wanted to help them anyway.
Shame.
