[Canada] Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland resigns from Trudeau's cabinet

[u/feb914]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/finance-minister-chrystia-freeland-resigns-from-trudeau-s-cabinet-1.7411380

[u/e00s]

Sorry, but you’re just wrong. The federal government has the exclusive power to enact criminal laws. This power is not limited to criminalizing things that the federal government would otherwise be entitled to regulate. This is why, in Morgentaler, the old criminal law regarding abortion had to be overturned on the basis of the Charter rather than on the basis that provincial jurisdiction trumped federal jurisdiction when it came to healthcare.

You are right that that the federal government generally has no power to pass non-criminal regulations in relation to healthcare.

[u/Big_Muffin42 → u/e00s]

If your scenario was true, then the government would have simply passed a law making NB law essentially null. But it hasn’t. And this has been one of the most outspoken governments on rights like this.

There are limits on what laws they can and can’t pass, especially When it comes to provincial authority

[u/e00s → u/Big_Muffin42]

I’m a lawyer and, while constitutional law is not my area of practice, I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.

The federal criminal law jurisdiction is restricted to criminal law. You can’t just slap the label “criminal” on a law repealing a provincial funding decision and expect the courts to respect that.

The federal government does actually have the power to disallow provincial legislation. It’s in section 90 of the Constitution Act, 1867. But it hasn’t been used since the 1940s. Keep in mind, this is just a power to disallow, not a power to require a province to do something. It couldn’t be used to compel NB to fund abortions, since that takes more than just disallowing an NB law.