Kenney addresses notwithstanding clause at Liberal-linked Canada 2020 conference

Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney delivered a talk on immigration at Canada 2020 this week, a progressive think-tank long associated with Liberal circles.

Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney delivered a talk on immigration at Canada 2020 this week, a progressive think-tank long associated with Liberal circles.

Canada 2020, founded in 2006, bills itself as a “progressive think-tank” focused on shaping public policy in Canada and has been billed as the organizing force behind former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s rise to power. The organization regularly hosts Liberal politicians, policy staffers, and academics.

In an interview with True North on Tuesday, Kenney criticized Prime Minister Mark Carney’s controversial decision to ask the Supreme Court of Canada to weigh in on the notwithstanding clause.

On domestic constitutional issues, Kenney denounced the federal government’s proposal to restrict the use of the Charter’s notwithstanding clause. He argued such a step would undermine national unity, particularly with the Bloc Québécois leading in Quebec polls and separatist rumblings growing in Alberta.

The former Alberta premier described the move as “strange and dangerous.”

“I think it’s a very strange and dangerous initiative on the part of the federal government. It’s divisive because the provinces only signed on to the repatriation of the Constitution, including the Charter of Rights back in 1982 because they included the Section 33 notwithstanding clause,” said Kenney.

“Carney has no democratic mandate to pursue it, and I think it’s going to be very divisive in the federation,” he continued.

Kenney told True North that organizers had invited him to speak on immigration, a file he once oversaw as Canada’s longest-serving immigration minister under former prime minister Stephen Harper.

This year’s conference featured a lineup of prominent figures from both Canada and abroad, including former U.S. transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, New Brunswick Liberal Premier Susan Holt, and Liberal Minister of Industry Melanie Joly.

While commending Canada 2020 for giving him a platform before a largely Liberal audience, Kenney accused the Trudeau government of having “lost control” of immigration and eroded the country’s long-standing consensus on welcoming newcomers.

“The Trudeau government essentially lost control, You know, they added like in a period of three years, 3.5 million people to a country that’s building like 200 housing units a year and where there’s inadequate infrastructure, schools, hospitals, and creating social division around all of that,” said Kenney.

“I think that perhaps the single biggest failing of the Trudeau government was undermining the broad public consensus in favour of properly controlled immigration.”

Turning to foreign policy, Kenney called Canada’s recognition of a Palestinian state “a huge mistake,” saying “there is no actual independent sovereign state… it’s recognizing a fiction.”

He warned the move “is rewarding Hamas… for the largest pogrom against Jews since the Second World War” and argued Carney was “sending exactly the wrong signal.”

“The Canadian position since 1947 has been in favour of a two-state solution, but a negotiated solution and Hamas does not want a two-state solution. Hamas wants one state which includes no Jews, and that is the fundamental reason for the conflict in the region. This does not resolve it,” said Kenney.