Author: Tim Platnich Original Date: April 1, 2026 Revised: May 2, 2026 This is not an April fools day joke, but some may think it is! The press has been ripe with rhetoric about how s. 33 of the Charter, the dreaded 'notwithstanding clause', will lead to tyranny when Charter rights are overridden by provincial legislatures. [1] This follows from the recent proceedings before the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) concerning Quebec's Bill 21 in the case of Hak, et al v. Procureur

Author: Tim Platnich Date: February 12, 2026 Oh, oh. This sounds like a philosophical debate. What does it have to do with modern controversies? First, let's roughly define some terms. I say roughly, because these terms are loaded and have a long historical pedigree. Truly detailed definitions would involve us in deep philosophical debate. Roughly, rationalism promotes the use of logic and reason to identify truth. The scientific method is an off-shoot of rationalism. Convers

Author: Tim Platnich Date: February 12, 2026 One of the attributes that makes Canada great, supposedly, is the rule of law. There are rules. People are expected to follow the rules. For those that do not follow the rules, there are consequences. Though most people follow the rules out of a sense of public or, perhaps, moral duty, some do not. We have significant infrastructure in place for dealing with the rule-breakers: police; prosecutors; criminal courts; and prisons, for

Author: Tim Platnich Date: January 30, 2026 Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is in the news again. As usual she is being criticized by the media. The current issue is her opinion about the judiciary. Essentially, Premier Smith says that judges need to stay in their lane and leave policy decisions to the elected representatives in the legislature. My, how scandalous! Kevin Martin, in a piece published in the Calgary Herald on January 29, 2026, took umbrage with Premier Smith's v

Author: Tim Platnich Date: January 18, 2026 As the title of this post suggests, the following is meant to be tongue-in-cheek. For more serious readers, see the links in the notes. Just the name 'ultra-processed' sends a shiver down one's back. But should it? Did you know that the following foods are considered in some of the literature to be ultra-processed:[1] sweetened orange juice low fat yogurt, especially flavoured yogurt virtually every type of bread but especially whit

Author: Tim Platnich Date: January 5, 2026 There is much press these days concerning provincial use of the 'notwithstanding clause'. This clause is part of the Canadian Constitution. It is section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is as much a part of the Constitution as are the sections of the Charter that can be overridden with its use. Section 33(1) says: "Parliament or the legislature of a province may expressly declare in an Act of Parliament or of th

Author: Tim Platnich Date: October 31, 2025 On Tuesday, October 28, 2025, the Alberta government passed Bill 2 - Back to School Act. [Please note that the link provided is to the Bill before it was assented to. I was unable to find the actual legislation online]. This legislation has three main components for our purposes in this post. First, it orders the teachers back to work. Second, it imposes a four year collective agreement between the various school boards (defined as

Author: Tim Platnich Date: October 23, 2025 In this post I question whether the rule of law in Canada is a fiction. In law, according to Black's Law Dictionary, a fiction is "an assumption that something is true even though it may be untrue .... ". Legal fictions are used by legislatures and judges when they deem it necessary to do justice. Here, the untrue assumption (the fiction) may be that in Canada, we are ruled by law and not by capricious decision makers. I am talki

Author: Tim Platnich Date: October 12, 2025 Revised: October 13, 2025 Alberta K-12 teachers have grievances which include: pay and working conditions. Regarding pay, they argue they are underpaid. Let's analyze that a bit. Teachers argue that their pay has not kept up with inflation. Their existing pay scale was negotated and set by a collective agreement ratified in June, 2022 covering the school years of 2020/21 to 2023/24 (three years). According to a news article by CBC ,

Author: Tim Platnich Date: October 10, 2025 It strikes me that 'right-wing' and 'left-wing' are weaponized labels used to smear someone...