Delighted to see this stellar set of essays on section 1 of the Charter come to life! As editors, @derekbmross and I were honoured to work with a wonderful group of authors. This project stems from a @CLF_Canada conference held at @AllardLaw in 2022, supported by @SSHRC_CRSH.

🚨 EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT – TESTING THE NOTWITHSTANDING CLAUSE? THE CONSTITUTIONAL BATTLE OVER QUÉBEC’S BILL 21 🚨 Please join the Runnymede Society’s Western University Chapter, in partnership with the Christian Legal Fellowship @CLF_Canada (CLF), the Jewish Law Students Association, the Muslim Law Students' Association, and the Sikh Students Association, for an expert panel discussion on the constitutional challenges surrounding Québec’s Act Respecting the Laicity of the State (Bill 21) on Monday, March 9th! As litigation over religious symbols in the public sector continues, this panel will move beyond political headlines to examine the constitutional mechanisms at the centre of Bill 21. Speakers will explore the scope and limits of the notwithstanding clause (section 33), the argument that gender equality (section 28) cannot be overridden, and the federalism questions raised by the division of powers implicated by the legislation. The panel features Prof. Ryan Alford @ryan_p_alford (Lakehead) on the use and implications of section 33, Prof. Kerri Froc @KerriFroc (UNB) on the interaction between sections 28 and 33, and Derek Ross @derekbmross (CLF) on federalism and jurisdictional validity. The discussion will be moderated by Prof. Rory Gillis (Western). All students, faculty, staff, and community members are welcome to attend. Register by scanning the QR code or clicking here: forms.gle/afLYSfJRMXUUa7wW9

I’d like to share some advice I give to my students–especially those of my students who aspire to academic careers. Although it's natural and, in itself, good to desire and even seek affirmation, do not fall in love with applause. It is a drug. When you get some of it, you crave more. It can easily deflect you from your mission and vocation. In the end, what matters is not winning approval or gaining celebrity. Your mission and vocation is to seek the truth and to speak the truth as God gives you to grasp the truth. There is a particular danger for those who dissent, as I do, and as many of my graduate students and top undergraduate students do, from the reigning orthodoxies of the prevailing intellectual culture. You may be tempted to suppose that your willingness to defy the career-making (and potential career-breaking) mandarins of elite opinion immunizes you from addiction to affirmation and applause and guarantees your personal authenticity and intellectual integrity. It doesn’t. We are all vulnerable to the drug. The vulnerability never completely disappears. And the drug is toxic to the activity of thinking (and thus to the cause of truth-seeking). To me, the reality of this temptation, no less than any other temptation, should keep one mindful of the need constantly to tend the garden of one’s interior life. If anything can immunize us against the temptation to love applause above truth, it's prayer. We all need that immune system strengthener. Even those of us who think we are strong, who flatter ourselves with the thought that we are invulnerable to the lure of approval, are weak. In fact, in our self-flattery we are, perhaps, among the most vulnerable. It is so easy to think of oneself as Socrates … until the hemlock is served.

For some further thoughts on Kloubakov, the legality of prostitution in Canada, what the current criminal laws do & do not capture, and what PCEPA & the Commodification Offences aim to accomplish, see my article forthcoming in the Supreme Court Law Review dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5885…

"Across the globe, people continue to be harassed, attacked – and even killed – simply for what they believe. 𝑾𝒆 𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒅-𝒐𝒏. Freedom of religion and belief is an inalienable human right." - @antonioguterres

"...Decisions about whether to “express and inculcate religious doctrine” through worship, proselytization, or religious education when performing charitable work are, again, fundamentally theological choices..." supremecourt.gov/opinions/24…