Overview

• The federal government filed arguments urging the Court to give judges a role in reviewing use of the notwithstanding clause.
• Ottawa proposed that courts assess whether continual use causes an irreparable impairment of rights or amounts to an indirect constitutional amendment.
• Alberta’s attorney general filed a brief defending the clause as an essential, hard‑won constitutional compromise and supporting Quebec’s pre‑emptive use for Bill 21.
• Quebec and Ontario oppose imposing new limits on the clause’s use in the case centered on Quebec’s 2019 secularism law.
• Bill 21 bars public workers such as teachers and police from wearing religious symbols, and the upcoming Supreme Court hearing, not yet scheduled, would be the most in‑depth review of the clause in nearly four decades.