It’s not that there is a requirement to pass new legislation, but that courts don’t want to strike down laws and create legal uncertainty. They want to give the Parliament time to fix it, rather than have the court impose a new legal rule.
This option often comes up when the court finds that the existing rule is unconstitutional, but there are different ways to replace the defective rule. The courts defer the replacement to Parliament, and temporarily suspend their constitutional ruling so the law remains clear for the time being.
It’s the opposite of so-called “judicial activism”. The court identifies the constitutional problem, but leaves it to the elected branch to decide how to fix it, taking into account the constitutional issue that has been drawn to their attention.
Ugh, the government is now in turmoil, Jagmeed Singh has withdrawn his support of the Liberals. Which means he can bring down the government whenever he wants, and cause an election. Immigration issues are looming so ominously even Mr (‘You’re welcome here!’) Trudeau, is admitting it’s time to ‘re-examine’ the numbers, blah, blah, blah.
In this climate it strikes me as highly unlikely that they’ll take a decision any time soon. Who knows how this plays out, we could see an entire switch of government. Interesting times and all that. While it’s likely the Conservatives will come to power, and they have been very vocal about slowing migration, this seems like something they could easily choose to green light so as to prove they are NOT anti immigrant.
I would think that at some point, if no legislation is passed, Justice Akbarali might just decide she is not going to grant any more extensions and let the first-generation limit lapse by letting her decision of last December take effect? But who knows, really? She’s already granted a year’s worth of extensions. I would think that the possibility of that happening might make the Conservatives think that any new legislation that passes Constitutional muster is better than nothing at all?
Seriously, another three-month extension? Essentially nothing has happened in nearly a year, most recently due to the Conservatives filibustering the replacement bill. How will another 3 months fix anything, a large chunk of which will be spent with Parliament in recess?
Can someone with greater inside into domestic Canadian politics than I have explain what the heck is going on here?
(I don’t have a Toronto Star subscription, so I can’t link the article directly and am not seeing this reported anywhere else yet - I believe the judge just issued the decision yesterday. I will post directly from an official source as soon as I find one available. If the Toronto Star does gift links and someone here can add one, that would be greatly appreciated.)
Here’s the recent decision. If I may paraphrase, Justice Akbarali is chewing out the Government for its lack of diligence in pursuing a legislative solution and its lack of forthrightness in acknowledging that, in spite of protestations to the contrary, other legislative business was indeed accomplished since the last extension was granted, at least some of which was not as urgent as resolving citizenship issues of long standing.
I am reading in other sources that the Canadian government is in somewhat of a turmoil right now and that there may even be a successful vote of no confidence before the next extension deadline.
Anyone care to handicap the prospects of C-71, or is that flat-out impossible? Any other light folks could shed on the current Canadian political situation would be welcome.
Yes, turmoil. The Deputy PM / Finance Minister resigned today, right before she was supposed to give the quarterly budget update. Her resignation letter threw a few bombs at the PM.
I don’t think the judge’s assessment of the political process is very accurate. Immigration and citizenship are significant issues (although not as much in the US). The Tories and the Bloc Québécois both have positions on it, that don’t necessarily align with each other, let alone the Liberals. The fact that the Gov’t got « other stuff » done is not a clear indicator that they could have got this done, in a minority Parliament.
It could be that the Liberals don’t want to raise it in the house because they are afraid it could lead to a loss on a confidence vote. As I said, I don’t think a judge is the best positioned person to assess the political difficulty of moving this forward.
Which indicates that for whatever reason, the Liberals are not prepared to push it. A trial judge is not in a position to assess why the government is not prepared to push it. It could be that doing so would trigger a confidence motion on the bill.
They need a majority to impose closure. (It’s not like the US Senate, where you need 60% of the Senators.) They need 50% + 1 of the members of the Commons to impose closure. And they don’t have a majority, they have a plurality. They would need the support from the Conservatives (no way), the Bloc (doubtful), or the NDP (who knows?)
For all we, or the judge, knows, they’ve explored closure with the other parties, and have concluded that they have no hope of passing closure. And if they tried and failed, that could be taken as an implicit vote of non-confidence.
To make a VERY long story short, today my application for a discretionary grant of Canadian citizenship was approved, and I will be swearing an oath of allegiance to King Charles next week via videoconference (which feels totally bizarre to type).
It’s a process that has been offered upon request to certain people covered by the Bjorkquist case. Since Parliament has been prorrogued and it seems probable that a) a new government is in store in the near future; b) any citizenship by descent bill tabled by the new government is likely to exclude people like me; and c) even though the next deadline in the Bjorkquist case is before Parliament returns, nobody can reasonably predict what the judge will do. So I decided to strike while the iron was hot, and it worked.
Judging by how U.S. politics are looking at the moment, I may actually consider moving to Canada much earlier than originally planned. It’s all kind of surreal, honestly.
Congratulations, and welcome! If you do want to move north, by all means pm: I first moved here when I was just under 40, and it was tough but well worth it.
Thanks, and I may just take you up on that one of these days! It’s been a hell of a week in U.S. immigration law, and I don’t think I can take another 4 years of this. I definitely need a major change of some kind.