Democracy Watch

Now, this next conversation, you can read more, get into the full thing at democracywatch.ca.

Joining us to discuss, Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, which is a nonpartisan group, on a piece called Alberta's Referendum is Undemocratic in a Dozen Ways.

Duff, welcome back to the show.

Thank you.

So you say that this referendum is undemocratic.

Can you unpack that? Because that's a big claim.

Yeah, well, just because you use direct democracy, which Democracy Watch believes in and believes should be part of as a complement to Canada's parliamentary system.

And also, we believe the barriers to voters initiating a referendum should not be excessively high.

Uh, one of those groups is, uh, where we find our next guest.

It's Democracy Watch, and Duff Conacher joins us, co-founder of Democracy Watch.

Good morning, Duff Conacher.

Good morning.

Um, if a duly elected government that has, uh, certain governmental powers decides to go ahead with a major project, why is it in the public interest to be able to contest that?

Well, what the government did was they passed a, a law, Rebuilding Ontario Place Act, that effectively said, uh, every other law in Ontario does not apply to what we're doing at Ontario Place.

And the question is, can you just override every other law with, with one new act and not allow assessments on the environmental impact, the heritage, uh, protection impact of, of, uh, what, uh, uh, the government does with, uh, a piece of land or anything? And so, um, we won a case, Democracy Watch did in, uh, July, uh, of, uh, 2026.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously that governments can't shield administrative tribunals, agencies, boards, commissions from review by the courts.

Yeah.

And so an interesting case, again, admin law, but it builds on the court's recent decision in Democracy Watch, where you'll remember, Alison, that there the court found that the Constitution guarantees legality review of all aspect of administrative decision, and that privative clause that purport to oust the court's jurisdiction to conduct judicial review are unconstitutional.

So this is really kind of the next step.

Uh, in this case, the court is also gonna have to look at the interaction between the court's decision in Strickland that deals with these adequate alternative remedy with this concept of the constitutional guarantee to legality review.

And in particular, what they argued is that the pr- provision in the act, which granted broad immunity to the Crown, they said was unconstitutional because it undermined the core jurisdiction of the courts, uh, when it comes to supervision role, and it also violated this unrecognized yet, uh, public trust doctrine.

So a very interesting case that deals with v- much broader constitutional principle.

The court doesn't always deal with Section 96, uh, although we saw it touch upon it in Democracy Watch.

So the court really will have to clarify how far legislators can go in using the statutory immunity.

So that's what's coming up here on News Talk 1010.

So Democracy Watch is an online site, democracywatch.ca, and here's how they describe themselves.

Cleaning up and making governments and corporations more accountable to you, and making Canada the world's leading democracy.

That's an ambitious and laudable goal that they have, and they say media and voters should ask all candidates key questions re- disclosure of donors, fundraisers, campaigners, and whether they support key democratic fair election reforms.

Well, democratic fair election reforms is going to be subjective, I would say.

But the person behind Democracy Watch is Duff Conacher, and he gave an explanation to John Moore this morning.

Well, the concern is that municipal elections across Ontario are undemocratic and unfair in a few key ways.

Candidates are allowed to mislead voters with false election promises and statements and third party interest lobby groups trying to influence.