Canada

The horrific crash at New York’s LaGuardia airport last weekend, in which an Air Canada jet collided with a fire truck on the runway, has been described by Canadian politicians as a “crisis” that’s completely “unacceptable.” Only they weren’t talking about who may be to blame for an accident that killed two pilots and injured 40 others. Oh, no. This is Canada, where a crash landing sparks a discussion not about aviation safety, but about language “rights.”

It’s silly to eliminate non-speakers of French from jobs in their own government.

Interest groups have been asking the Supreme Court to consider race, international law in notwithstanding clause case

The Supreme Court held hearings last week regarding Bill 21 — Quebec’s secularism law, which prohibits religious dress and symbols from the province’s public-sector workplaces. The ban flouts the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but Quebec, so far, has gotten around that by invoking Section 33, the constitutional override known as the notwithstanding clause.

Quebec’s ban on religious symbols — and a measure that suspends constitutional rights — are being tested in a case with far-reaching repercussions.

In a top court case with far-reaching consequences for Canadian unity, opposing sides clashed this week over an increasingly used measure to override constitutional rights that, one lawyer warned, could give rise to a “mini-Trump” in Canada.

The long anticipated case at the Supreme Court of Canada focuses on a 2019 Quebec law on secularism and religious symbols. But it also touches on many sensitive issues that have torn at Canada — the balance of power in its federation and the distinct nature of the French-speaking province of Quebec.