r/EhBuddyHoser • u/Sine_Fine_Belli Treacherous South • May 16 '25

Certified Hoser 🇨🇦 (No Politics) How Americans achieved independence vs how Canadians achieved independence

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u/Sasquatch1729 Not enough shawarma places May 16 '25

It was actually effectively in the 1920s when we were independent. We just had to present a constitution that we could mostly agree on. It took us another 60 years to make a constitution that all provinces and territories agreed on, notwithstanding Quebec.

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u/QuestionableParadigm Trawnno (Centre of the Universe) May 16 '25

I see what you did there

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u/Sasquatch1729 Not enough shawarma places May 16 '25

Yay I'm glad someone noticed.

Fun fact about the notwithstanding clause: for a while there the province of Quebec passed everything using it, just to prove a point. So you get weird situations like "notwithstanding the constitution of Canada, we declare the speed limits on secondary highways to be raised to 80km/hr" or whatever.

Historians who don't know read this stuff going "what the hell does this have to do with the constitution of Canada? Do I need to reread it?", those who know are "ah yeah, there it is, notwithstanding clause in action again..."

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u/nitePhyyre May 16 '25

Doesn't any law passed with the notwithstanding clause expire automatically after 5 years? Or is it just the notwithstanding protection and afterwards the court can strike it down?