The Globe and Mail has the story of San Francisco’s disdain for Armand Vaillancourt’s massive brutalist fountain on its Embarcadero Plaza, and his fight to keep it from being demolished.
I don’t know what kind of force a Quebec mise en demeure would have there, and in addition, the plaza itself is a sterile paved area mostly encircled by brutalist office buildings, as you can see here, so the fountain is exactly where it should be.
François Legault has begun the political semester with attacks on the unions and radical islamists, which are obviously the two big problems afflicting Quebec today.
More today on Legault’s plans for the last year of this administration, what CBC sycophantically calls a bold economic and social plan and CTV a new economic vision. This involves deep cuts to the public service, “a Quebec constitution and a new bill to strengthen secularism.”
I can’t decide whether this Tom Mulcair piece on Quebec, rights and the notwithstanding clause makes sense, or not.
What does not make sense?
When the notwithstanding clause was floated, the people behind it claimed that no government would have the gall to use it to deny fundamental rights because the political cost would be too high. It ends up that because various bigoted populations are actually in favour of denying people their fundamental rights, not using it is what costs you.
Successive federal governments have done little or nothing to stop provinces from denying rights, most notably by Quebec, which has invoked it 15 times (not including when it was applied to every law passed from 1982 to 1985). All to keep the peace, which is fine for these careerists because the denying people their rights does not affect them personally.
Mulcair is entirely correct in saying that Carney and Rodriguez are cowards.
Devil’s advocate time: but if the majority of the population of a province, e.g. Quebec, really wants to contravene a stated right – or feels that it should not have been declared a right at all – isn’t it democratic to obey their will?
Realpolitik time: every prime minister since the notwithstanding clause was passed has been too cautious to shake the bars of Quebec nationalism by pushing back against the use of the clause. Arguably this could be described as a tacit admission that Quebec is a distinct society with different values from the rest of Canada.
Maybe people like Carney and Rodriguez don’t want to have their administrations turned into dumpster fires over Quebec nationalism? Keep the peace, attend to other things, and let Quebec play its games. This outlook has allowed the CAQ to essentially pretend that Quebec is a separate country, a trend that PSPP will be happy to extend after he wins the next election.
That’s well known as the tyranny of the majority and it’s generally considered a problem, whether or not it’s democratic. We can discuss the realpolitik of it, where I think you’re right — not that they are admitting that Quebec is a distinct society exactly but that they need Quebec’s votes, and it’s unpredictable, so they just let it go.
It may be democratic to flout rights, but it is not moral–at least in the conventionally used human sense.
And those who believe democracy gives them the right to impose their will should not be surprised when their opponents resort to other measures to achieve their own ends.
A modern understanding of democracy includes minority rights and other rights that can not be simply overridden by the majority.
In a recent column Andrew Coyne wrote:
“How did the people who drafted the Charter think the notwithstanding clause would be used?
We don’t have to guess at this. They told us at the time. It would only be used, said Roy McMurtry, then Ontario’s attorney-general and one of the authors of the “kitchen accord” that sealed the constitutional deal, “in the unlikely event of a decision of the courts that is clearly contrary to the public interest.” It was “a safety valve,” his federal counterpart Jean Chrétien agreed, “to correct absurd situations … unlikely ever to be used except in non-controversial circumstances.”
Constitutional scholars concurred. It “will rarely be used,” predicted former Supreme Court justice Gérard La Forest. “The exercise of the power would normally attract such political opposition that it would rarely be invoked,” said Peter Hogg, the eminent professor of law.”
Two of his columns on the subject are worth reading:
It’s like those guys never read any history at all. What a pile of stupid.
Democracy is founded on the rule of law as much as majority rule. If you put an asterisk next to your fundamental law that says “optional”, you do not have rule of law, you have rule of bigot demagogues. So, we have these judges, like La Forest, who when faced with glaring violations of human rights, sit there with their thumbs up their asses, like their ass-thumbed colleagues in Parliament.
Here’s a choice I would give the provinces and Canadians: either you get rid of the notwithstanding clause, or you get rid of the Charter. You cannot have both.
I think what is really frustrating for Mulcair is that the Liberal claim the mantle of being the party of rights – they talk about values and the Charter constantly – but then show no leadership in actually standing up for these things. If you care about something, and you’re a politician, you make an effort to persuade people. If you don’t care and just want to go with the majority, fine, but then be honest and stop pretending to be something different.
Thank you, H. John.
Here are archive links for the pieces H. John linked:
Though it affects us very directly (especially in QC) it’s interesting that none of the Canadian immigration testing materials – which deep-dives into the verbiage and history of the Charter – mentions Sect. 33 and its uses/implications. Immigrants have to learn about all this extracurricularly.
If more provinces successfully invoked it (see Alberta’s latest attempt) more often, it might force the Feds to contend with the quandary. If it remains mostly ‘oh, them again’ Quebec – then what’s human rights, really?
Kevin hit the nail on the head. What happens when you’re the minority? Many (most?) visitors to this blog are (historic) anglos, a minority in Quebec. How will the anglos feel when the government finishes quashing Islam and sets their sights on the anglos?
…”Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me “
@dhomas no need to wait…
I am not unsympathetic to Mulcair’s perspective and any Canadian Liberal Party should ostensibly be in favour of tilting the balance back in favour of minority rights. But there are two problems that Mulcair doesn’t address (inexcusably, IMO).
First, Pablo Rodriguez, who is not currently premier, can do basically nothing unless he wins the next election, and it seems unlikely that taking a stance against the notwithstanding clause would do anything other than hurt his electoral chances. It does not surprise me that Tom Mulcair can’t quite grasp this concept.
Second, even if he were premier, this is not a decision Quebec can make on its own – and I imagine the consensus in Quebec would establish itself fairly quickly: that Quebec ‘gets’ more from having it in place than if it were repealed. I imagine a similar consensus would emerge in Alberta, Ontario and potentially elsewhere.
Again, I’m not trying to make excuses, and there is a lot of virtue in taking the correct moral stance – but if it harms your chances of getting elected and there’s not much you can do about it on your own, does it amount to much more than (it pains me to say it) virtue signalling? Better yet: what is the purpose of an ex-politician grandstanding on this kind of issue if they can’t even come up with *practical* alternatives?
That Mulcair lost to Trudeau becasue Trudeau campaigned further left than Mulcair was willing to commit to says it all. And of course Trudeau didn’t come through.
It’s hard not to be cynical but yeah, if you don’t, play the game your opponent will, and will make you look the fool as a thank you.
Projet is promising to reorganize Park Avenue to make it safer and include a rapid bus lane.
Ugh! They’ve had eight years to do this very obviously necessary “reorganization.” There would be a few people who would likely not be dead right now had they gotten around to it earlier.
« La portion devant le Mont-Royal, c’est comme une autoroute. C’est hyper large », déplore notamment M. Rabouin, qui veut s’assurer que l’avenue cadre mieux avec le « 21e siècle ».
This stretch was rebuilt in the 21st Century. I wish the interchange had been torn down ten years later. I’m sure a 2015 rebuild of the street would have looked completely different from the 2005 one we ended up with.
It will be interesting to see what they come up with. If they try to be all things to all people they will fail. For example, I don’t see how express bus lanes can co-exist with REV bike lanes, especially if the goal is to slow and calm the vehicles. (Express buses and REV lanes do the opposite; the speed up those vehicles. Frankly I’m surprised the REV that goes along St-Denis between Mont-Royal and Roy isn’t a bloodbath given how fast people ride their bikes along there, right alongside the pedestrian sidewalk where oblivious pedestrians glued to their phones often wander on to the REV without even looking.)
@Blork especially when the sidewalks adjacent to the REV are shorter than usual (e.g., around Place des Arts).
@Blork I’m usually on that stretch of St-Denis twice a day and it’s actually surprisingly easy to tell when a pedestrian is about to wander onto the bike path. You just kind of develop a sixth sense for that kind of thing.
@Joey The REV doesn’t go near Place des Arts, are you thinking of the de Maisonneuve path?
@DeWolf, that’s speaking for yourself, and I’m pretty sure it would be for me too. But what about the idiots going 35kph while wearing headphones or texting on their phones? (I see it regularly.) Or the dopes on electric scooters who are going fast and zig-zagging around other riders like they’re on an obstacle course? Or the approximately 50% of the human population (by my unscientific estimate) who are simply oblivious to their surroundings and other people?
I’m also amazed at how many people seem utterly clueless but it’s also amazing that, somehow, they don’t end up hitting each other. Some close calls to be sure, but it’s pretty rare in my experience that there is an actual collision.
@Blork: “I don’t see how express bus lanes can co-exist with REV bike lanes”
Take a spin on Henri-Bourassa and you will see how they can beautifully co-exist.
The 2 blocks between Pins and Mont Royal is a highway? Uh yeah a highway with a 40kmh speed limit, lol. Making cross streets one way and pedestrian crossings from Pins to van Horne scramble lights would be far less expensive and much more effective, but whatever.
Ian, there’s something about that stretch past the Cartier monument – maybe how the road crests a hill that impedes visibility for a few moments – that makes drivers hit the gas.
I agree that the street needs work all the way up to Van Horne, though.
That section of the street may have a 40km/h speed limit but it was built like a highway and drivers use it accordingly. Cars drive well over the limit and burn the red light near the monument constantly. More than once I’ve driven there at the speed limit and have had drivers behind me aggressively pass me very much over 40km/h.
It also doesn’t make sense. The street widens for a short stretch and then on both sides becomes two or three lanes which inevitably creates conflict with the intersections. Once the drivers get to the narrower streets, they’re accustomed to driving faster and get frustrated that they can’t anymore. It seriously needs to be redesigned and should never have been built as it is in the first place.
I do think part of the problem going north is everyone jockeying to get in the correct lane. I’ve seen lots of people accidentally end ip in Outremont trying to gt up the mountain, or trying to turn left on Parc becasue they missed the curve. It’s a really weird interchange even if you know it well, and is downright mystifying to people from out of town. Heading south is even funnier as after Pins it narrows to one lane and you kind of have to know which one it is in advance… or just squeeze in like all the Audis, Teslas & BMWs.
Considering how often there are cops with radar hanging out at Duluth it’s pretty surprising that people speed but maybe it’s the thrill of the hill. I’ve seen a lot of nasty spills at the bottom of Remembrance when cyclists lose control on that last curve. At least those downhil skateboarders found new ways to seek near-death experiences – at least I assume so as I haven’t seen thenm around for a while.
With Canada Post on strike and the election looming, the UMQ (Union des municipalités du Québec) is concerned that the usual distribution of voter cards will be impossible.
For provincial and municipal elections if you remove someone from the voter list the local office must send a form to the address addressed to that person telling them if they don’t want to be removed come to the office by a certain date. And they generally have a staffer bring it over, it has to be served like a legal notice. So they could hire staff to do this, and they would save on postage. But there will be more errors, and I don’t know where the printing is done: for provincial elections it’s all printed and mailed from Quebec City, so that would make distribution way harder if municipal is also like that, which I assume it is.
Older readers may remember that until the early 90s the government did enumeration, where every single election they went door to door to see who lived there and registered them. And this took a ton of staffing, and of course many people were not home when they knocked, and they only had a month to do it, so now we have a permanent electoral list. We could hire that many people again, just to drop mail. But it takes a lot of planning, and while election staff are great at doing a ton of work in an incredibly short period, it takes a lot of planning, and I bet there would be many, many failures.
I remember entire streets not getting enumerated for the last referendum. I had to go downtown and swear on a bible to get enumerated.
A man in his 50s died in a hit‑and‑run early Tuesday downtown. This is the second hit‑and‑run fatality here within a week: a woman was killed in Lachine on the weekend.
DeWolf 22:14 on 2025-09-30 Permalink
That is an extremely cool fountain and maybe it says something about San Francisco if they don’t appreciate it.
DeWolf 22:33 on 2025-09-30 Permalink
I just read the Wikipedia page and anything that critics called a “pestiferous eyesore” is probably worth keeping.
Nicholas 22:33 on 2025-09-30 Permalink
I don’t generally like brutalism but that’s an awesome fountain. My guess is the techno libertarians want something like Trevi.
Bill 06:04 on 2025-10-01 Permalink
Go Watch Bullit to the fountain’s star turn from 1968, or the U@ concert from 1987 for a second one…
MarcG 07:26 on 2025-10-01 Permalink
On the other hand, the piece made more sense with the tall trees and freeway running behind it. The most recent street view shows how the city is finding creatve uses of the open space that clash terribly with it – obviously not the fault of the fountain but certainly isn’t helping people see the beauty in it.
Orr 21:49 on 2025-10-02 Permalink
People who don’t like Brutalism should learn to appreciate it more. The grande bibliothèque has Owen Hopkins’ Phaidon book Brutlism’s Best Architects. Awesome!
The thing that’s awful and needs to be demolished is the stunningly mislocated freeway behind Vaillancourt’s fountain.