By Bruce Pardy, published by the National Post
Two years ago, with much fanfare, the Alberta legislature passed a new Alberta Bill of Rights. It was a signature plank of Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party government. Smith said it would guarantee property rights, protect firearm owners and prohibit vaccine mandates. But the bill does not do these things. Instead, its compromising language enables government action at every turn. It was a fudge. [Continue reading at the publisher’s website here]
In Brief
Smith and her government could have driven DEI out of Alberta for good, says Pardy. Instead they produced another fudge.
Although it claims to ban DEI hiring in Alberta’s public sector, Bill 33 leaves the Human Rights Act’s “amelioration” exception intact, contends Pardy. It adds a government power to grant exemptions with no criteria, covers only hiring and promotion, and skips the notwithstanding clause—leaving it exposed to section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the very equality provisions that have long been read as requiring equity).
The principle is unambiguous; the legislation that claims to embody it is not. As Pardy puts it: this is not how you end DEI.
Bruce Pardy is executive director of Rights Probe and professor of law at Queen’s University.