Forgive me, but I don’t understand the subtleties here; why is it that when the Supreme Court declares it unconstitutional for Quebec to mandate the French language only on public signs in Quebec, the Quebec legislature can invoke the NWC to override the Charter in Quebec. But when the SC declares that Parliament can pass a law on SSM, the Alberta legislature is precluded from using the NWC to override the Charter in Alberta? How does this make sense? Is it a question of jurisdiction? Surely language rights are no less a federal matter than marriage rights?
Basically, yeah, it’s a question of jurisdiction. The jurisdiction question with regards to Bill 101 isn’t language rights per se, but regulation of commercial signage. Or at least, that’s what I’d think. Questions of federal/provincial jurisdiction aren’t my strong suit.
Sorry, that wasn’t very clear. Let me try again. What the Notwithstanding Clause lets you do is ignore the Charter (or at least, a couple sections of it). It doesn’t let you ignore another level of government. For Alberta to refuse to recognize SSM, it would need to override not the Charter, but the federal government. This it cannot do. In contrast, Bill 101 isn’t overriding any federal legislation which grants the right to post signage in whatever language one pleases, and I’m presuming that the feds don’t have the jurisdiction to do that in the first place.
Some stuff is under provincial jurisdiction. Some stuff is under federal jurisdiction. Have a read through sections 91, 92 and 93 of our Constitution to see what is in which jurisdiction: http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/const/c1867_e.html#distribution
You’ll notice that what is missing is jurisdiction over language. When the Constitution was drafted, this issue did not make the list. There’s a whole bunch of stuff on railroads and steamships and eleemosynary institutions, but zippola on language. When trying to figure out who has the right to make what sort of language law, the courts look at the institution or activity to which the law applies.
S.92 gives a province a constitutional right to make laws concerning property and civil rights within that province. Commerce within a province is considered to be part of property and civil rights. Advertising is part of commerce. Signs are part of advertising. Language is part of signs. Therefore, Quebec can make laws concerning the language of storefront signs.
S.91 gives the feds a constitutional right to make laws concerning peace, order and good government. Laws concerning the federal government are part of peace, order and good government. Language is part of federal government. Therefore the Federal Government can make laws on bilingualism.
Thus in Quebec you can have one set of language laws for some things, and another set of language laws for other things, based on not whether those things are under federal or provincial jurisdiction.