Complacency and political posturing are chipping away at the rule of law in Canada as well
Well, this is all feeling alarmingly too close for comfort, isn’t it? Once upon a time, we Canadians could watch American politics the way you’d watch a slow-motion car crash from a safe distance – horrified, but at least not directly involved. But now? Now, it’s like watching that car crash barrel through the guardrail, straight toward our house, while the driver shouts, “Fake news!” before slamming into the living room.
The erosion of democratic institutions in the US isn’t some abstract academic debate – it’s happening in real-time. Lawyers are being targeted for doing their jobs, inconvenient laws are being tossed aside like last week’s garbage, court rulings are seen as mere suggestions, and lying is no longer a scandal – it’s policy. Meanwhile, dissenters are being harassed, sometimes jailed, and journalists are being locked out of the White House for daring to do journalism. And yet, too many people – including lawyers in Canada – are treating this like just another episode of a bad reality show instead of the flashing red warning sign that it is.
And here’s the terrifying part: Canada is not immune to the anti-democratic rot that has infected the United States. With an increasingly belligerent America that now openly flirts with the idea of annexation, it would be easy for Canadians to focus on external threats while ignoring the erosion of our own democratic institutions. And quite frankly, we’ve gotten pretty good at staying silent – or worse, excusing – anti-democratic actions at home.
Back in October 2023, as the crisis in Gaza escalated, writer Omar El Akkad posted a sobering truth: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” His words cut to the heart of a pattern we see repeatedly – silence in the moment, followed by retroactive outrage after the damage is done. The same principle applies to the erosion of democracy – we cannot wait until the danger has fully materialized here in Canada before speaking out, or we will have been complicit in our own democratic decay.
So, let’s start with the genocide in Palestine. Around the same time El Akkad posted what would become the title of his newest novel, 74 law students signed a poorly drafted letter supporting the Palestinian people. And for daring to exercise their Charter-protected right to free speech, some of the biggest names in the legal profession – seemingly nostalgic for McCarthyism – called for them to be expelled from school and effectively blacklisted from the profession. Nothing says upholding the rule of law, like pre-emptively destroying legal careers over political dissent. Then there’s former Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella, who dismissed the International Court of Justice’s genocide hearings as a “cynical abuse of principles” – a bold take for a judge, considering literally hearing cases is the court’s entire job. If we’re outraged by Trump’s ideological war on lawyers who disagree with him, we should be equally horrified when Canadian lawyers and judges pull the same authoritarian nonsense. Because if we let legal independence and free expression crumble here, we might as well roll out the red carpet for the same democratic collapse we claim to abhor.
And what about our cherished Charter rights – you know, that little document enshrined in our Constitution, the same Constitution we claim to be protecting from a violent annexation? It turns out that we’re doing a pretty solid job of chipping away at it ourselves. Provincial governments have been swinging the notwithstanding clause around like a legislative sledgehammer – overriding the rights of unionized workers, limiting participation in elections, and targeting religious minorities and transgender and non-binary youth. And then there’s Pierre Poilievre, who has all but promised to wield the notwithstanding clause like a dictator’s cheat code, bulldozing through legislation that would otherwise be blatantly unconstitutional. So, while we gawk in horror at Trump and his cronies gleefully setting fire to the US Constitution, maybe – just maybe – we should take a good, hard look at our own government’s enthusiasm for eroding constitutional rights before we start feeling too smug.
Down south, Vice President J.D. Vance has openly mused about defying court rulings, saying that if the courts step in to limit Trump’s power, the response should be, “The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.” And while this kind of blatant defiance of the courts hasn’t fully materialized in Canada, we’ve seen a slow erosion of judicial legitimacy. Premier François Legault dismissed a Quebec Court of Appeal ruling – allowing asylum seekers access to subsidized daycare – because, according to him, the court comprises federal appointees. His takeaway? That trusting the judiciary over the provincial government is some kind of act of submission to Ottawa. Meanwhile, Premier Doug Ford has openly boasted about appointing “like-minded” judges in Ontario and threatened “accountability” for those who rule in ways he doesn’t like. So, let’s be clear: Canada's erosion of judicial independence isn’t just a looming threat – it’s already happening.
And here’s the thing about democratic backsliding: it never arrives all at once. There’s no grand announcement, no single moment when it becomes undeniable. It happens in small, seemingly disconnected steps – each one a little easier to ignore than the last – until suddenly, the damage is done. We know how this story ends because we’re watching it play out in real-time just south of the border. Canadians cannot afford to sit quietly, waiting for a comfortable moment to speak out. If we do, we’ll wake up one day to find ourselves in a country we no longer recognize – where democratic norms have crumbled, the legal profession has been politicized, and the courts are no longer independent.
So, this is the moment to speak up. Put politics aside. Defend the institutions that protect democracy while they still exist. We’ve seen the carnage of this democratic car crash in the United States – we cannot wait until the Canadian democracy is the same twisted wreck before we speak out.
