OTTAWA—It was the trade-off that may have saved the deal, but for the NDP’s young justice critic, the “notwithstanding” clause was nothing short of a deal-breaker. He was the only MP to reject it because of the “notwithstanding” clause. To his dismay, this so-called notwithstanding clause applied to core elements of the Charter, like legal rights, freedoms from discrimination and freedom of expression. So he voted against prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s constitutional reform package, the only MP to reject it specifically because of the notwithstanding clause. It was those provinces, along with Manitoba, that pushed for a notwithstanding clause in the early 1980s.

Source: thestar September 11, 2018 22:44 UTC