It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, May 03, 2022
Workers take to streets of Peruvian capital to call for end to mine standoff
Author of the article:
Reuters
Publishing date:
May 03, 2022 •
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LIMA — Hundreds of workers from a massive copper mine took to the streets of Peru’s capital on Tuesday, waving flags and chanting slogans that demand the government find a solution to a grinding conflict that has temporarily shuttered the project.
The conflict over the Las Bambas mine, one of the world’s biggest sources of copper and a large contributor to government coffers, has spurred growing uncertainty over the South American country’s key mining sector.
The protesting workers snaked through Lima’s downtown as they approached the Congress, worried they might lose their jobs if the conflict is not resolved soon.
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“As workers, our fear is that (Las Bambas) contractors will start firing people,” said Erick Ramos, a union official who attended the march. “If we don’t work, they won’t pay us.”
The government declared a state of emergency in the area near the mine on April 27, about two weeks after anti-mine protesters from two local indigenous communities camped out on the property of the mine, which is owned by China’s MMG Ltd .
The protesters argue the mine has not fully honored its past commitments.
The emergency declaration suspended the right to assemble and protest, but government efforts to forcibly remove the protesters have proved unsuccessful. Meanwhile, leaders of the Fuerabamba and Huancuire communities have said they will not attend government-sponsored talks until the emergency order has been lifted.
Peru is the world’s second-largest copper producer and Las Bambas alone accounts for 2% of global supply of the red metal.
Some workers wearing mining uniforms directed their ire at President Pedro Castillo, shouting “Castillo, listen, resolve the conflicts!”
The unrest dates back to shortly after Las Bambas launched operations in 2016, with locals blocking key roads. But the conflict has escalated as the company was forced to shut down the lucrative asset late last month.
“This affects us economically,” said worker Jorge Montoya. (Reporting by Anthony Marina; Writing by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Marco Aquino and Alistair Bell)
UK immigration rules mean reforms to give domestic workers access to the minimum wage will be hard to enforce
Reforms to remove legal exemptions to give live-in domestic workers access to the minimum wage are an important step against the devaluation of this work but will be difficult to enforce because of Britain's immigration rules, a new study says.
People who live and work in private households have been excluded fromminimum wageregulations if they live in their employer's family home and are treated "as a member of the family," which is part of broader failings in the protection of domestic workers in labor law.
The government recently agreed to repeal the exemption, but an expert has warned domestic workers will continue to face difficulties in enforcing payment of the minimum wage if they lack permission to work. The research says this creates a "significant obstacle" if they want to bring to wage claims.
The study, by Dr. Natalie Sedacca from the University of Exeter Law School and published open access in the Industrial Law Journal, says the longer hours of domestic workers and complexities in determining which hours are counted as "work" leads to abusive employment relationships.
Dr. Sedacca said, "The 'family worker' exemption and its application to domestic workers devalues domestic labor as work that is performed in the home, primarily by women, and leads to it being viewed as unskilled work or even not work at all. Although not specifically intended by Parliament, in some cases courts and tribunals have sanctioned employers' use of the exemption to avoid the payment of minimum wage to domestic workers who are clearly not au pairs.
"It is very positive that the government finally agreed to repeal the 'family worker exemption' in March 2022. Yet there remains a pressing need for further reform to prevent the law reinforcing and reproducing the devaluation of domestic labor."
The study says the lack of secure immigration status will also prevent domestic workers from bringing wage claims. The Immigration Act 2016, s34 created an imprisonable offense of "illegal working" when a person works with knowledge or reasonable cause to believe that they do not have permission to work.
Dr. Sedacca said, "The current position makes claims by irregular migrants highly uncertain and difficult to bring. At the same time, domestic workers are particularly vulnerable to falling into irregular status because of the unfavorable visa, which is limited to a six-month non-renewable period based on the supposedly 'low-skilled' nature of domestic work and the reproductive needs of employers. The impact of the migration regime is to 'produce' workers with particular types of relations to employers and to labor markets. In the case of domestic work, this means producing workers who are systematically disadvantaged in enforcing their rights."Temp workers benefit from union-management tension, says research
More information:Natalie Sedacca, Domestic Workers, the 'Family Worker' Exemption from Minimum Wage, and Gendered Devaluation of Women's Work,Industrial Law Journal(2022).DOI: 10.1093/indlaw/dwac005
Rachel Notley and the Alberta NDP are having a moment.
The media spotlight is on Alberta Premier Jason Kenney as he battles outspoken dissidents in his own party in a desperate attempt to keep the leadership.
But as the United Conservative Party caucus, constituency associations and party officials fight among themselves the NDP is steaming right ahead as though an election could be called any day, even though the fixed election date is just over a year away.
It has already nominated the most candidates. In the past the NDP usually appointed many of its candidates in the waning days of a campaign. Now there are even nomination contests as more hopeful candidates step up to run.
The party is also attracting some heavyweight candidates: a former Calgary city councillor, a prominent law school professor, a leading medical researcher. Some of them are already campaigning at the doorstep.
The NDP can do all this early campaigning because it has thumped the UCP when it comes to fundraising. In 2021, the Alberta NDP raised $6.4 million compared to the UCP’s $3.7 million, all from individual donors. It has raised more than the UCP for six consecutive quarters.
Most recent public opinion polls clearly favour Notley and the NDP. A ThinkHQ poll conducted during the last week of March found that Kenney’s approval ratings remained flat at 29 per cent compared to 69 per cent who disapproved of his performance. Not much had changed since Kenney’s performance rating in February even though the Alberta treasury is raking in royalty money due to the high price of oil and Kenney has cut the gasoline tax.
The ThinkHQ poll also found that if a provincial election were held tomorrow, the NDP would win decisively. It was up 30 points in Edmonton and 14 points in Calgary.
Right now Kenney’s fate is being decided by a mail-in vote of party members, which will conclude May 12. Results will be revealed May 18.
But even if Kenney wins enough support (he has said 51 per cent is all he needs) to stay on as party leader and premier his troubles will not be over. His caucus is badly split. A significant number of UCP MLAs have publicly criticized him. One of them, Brian Jean, former leader of the Wildrose Party, was elected recently in Fort McMurray on a promise to dethrone Kenney as party leader.
The two politicians are bitter rivals since they both ran for the leadership of the UCP after the Wildrose Party and the Alberta Progressive Conservatives united to form the United Conservative Party. If Kenney remains as leader will Jean continue to criticize Kenney from the back benches? Or will he leave the UCP, take half the caucus with him, and form a new party?
If Kenney doesn’t get enough support a leadership race will be called, which will no doubt keep Alberta conservatives arguing until the fall. Jean has already said he will run for the leadership, which is likely to further accentuate the divide among UCP members.
There is also a new right-wing party, the Wildrose Independence Party, which is garnering over 20 per cent support in some parts of the province.
All these options could eventually split the conservative vote and allow the NDP to cruise up the middle. That’s what happened in the 2015 election when the NDP took over the reins of government for the first time in Alberta history.
Kenney is acutely aware of this scenario. At a UCP rally (invited guests only) to kick off the vote on his future he warned that if he was voted out a leadership contest would further divide the party: “It will drive a wedge right down the middle of our party and there’s only one person who wins from that — and her name is Rachel Notley.”
Meanwhile, Notley is busy campaigning, her team seemingly quite united and at this point way out in front.
Gillian Steward is a Calgary-based writer and freelance contributing columnist for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @GillianSteward
Quebec pension fund pulls out of Montreal rapid transit project, province takes over
By Jacob Serebrin The Canadian Press Posted May 2, 2022 11:40 am
The Quebec government and the City of Montreal are taking over a light rail system proposed for the east end of the province’s biggest city, sending another major infrastructure project back to the drawing board.
Quebec Premier François Legault said Monday that the province’s pension fund manager, which had initially proposed the light rail line serving eastern Montreal, has pulled out of the project, known as the Réseau express métropolitain de l’Est, or REM de l’Est.
The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec pulled out after the provincial government asked it to change its plans to install an elevated rail line through downtown Montreal, Legault said. Without that leg of the line, the pension fund didn’t think it could make a profit on the project, he added.
“There is no social acceptability” for the elevated section, Legault told reporters. “There are concerns about the impact it would have, among other things, on the beauty of the city.”
Christian Savard, the executive director of Vivre en ville, a Quebec City-based think tank that focuses on urban issues, said he worries that with the project headed back to the planning phase, it will never come to fruition.
“Public transit infrastructure always has difficulty moving forward in Quebec,” he said in an interview Monday.
In Montreal, plans to extend the metro system’s Blue Line have been announced five times over the past 33 years _ most recently in March _ while a rapid bus line on Montreal’s Pie-IX Boulevard is scheduled to open at the end of the year after more than a decade of planning.
In Quebec City, a tramway project had been in the planning phases for more than 20 years before receiving approval from the provincial government in early April. That project was sent back to the drawing board in 2020, after a report from the province’s environmental consultation bureau said it would only offer minimal improvements over existing services.
Also in Quebec City, a “third link” between the city’s downtown and its suburbs across the St. Lawrence River has been discussed since the 1960s. The provincial government recently proposed two tunnels _ at an estimated cost of $6.5 billion. A previous plan for a single $10-billion tunnel underwent major revisions in October over concerns it would lead to increased downtown traffic.
“The projects are always approached piecemeal and without coherent planning,” Savard said. Some projects have stalled as successive governments, drawing support from different areas, have taken power in Quebec City.
Legault said he’s committed to making the REM de l’Est happen.
“I want to be very clear: in the past, there have been all kinds of excuses that have been used to delay projects,” he said Monday. “People who know me know that I don’t have a lot of patience and I want this project to be completed as quickly as possible. It’s crucial for the development of eastern Montreal.”
The cost of the REM de l’Est had been projected at $10 billion, but Legault said it’s too early to estimate the new price tag. The exact route of the light rail line will now be decided by a committee made up of representatives from the regional transit planning agency, the City of Montreal, the provincial government and the Montreal transit corporation.
The proposed rail line would be an extension of a larger automated light rail project serving western Montreal and several suburbs. The original REM was conceived and is operated by the pension fund, and the project’s first section — connecting Montreal’s south shore to the city’s downtown — is scheduled to open this fall.
Jean-Philippe Meloche, an urban studies professor at Université de Montréal, said he believes the REM de l’Est could be improved and be cheaper to build. He said the deal with the pension fund made the transit system more expensive than if the government borrowed money on its own to build a similar project, because the profit margin guaranteed to the fund is higher than the interest the government would pay.
“It might be a good train, it might be a good service, but it’s not a good deal,” he said.
WATCH: Quebec's provincial government and the City of Montreal are taking over a controversial rapid transit project from Quebec's pension fund manager, CDPQ Infra. This after widespread backlash surfaced over the proposed elevated railway tracks in downtown Montreal for the REM de l’Est. Global’s Tim Sargeant reports on what this will mean for commuters.
Quebec takes over REM de l'Est project after CDPQ Infra backs out
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Montreal mayor calls original plan with elevated tracks 'a historic mistake'
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Premier François Legault, left, and Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante, say the Quebec government will take over the REM de l'Est project and make major changes to it. (Ivanoh Demers/Radio-Canada)
After butting heads with the creators of the REM de l'Est over a plan to install elevated tracks in Montreal's downtown core, Premier François Legault announced that the Quebec government will be taking over the massive public transit project and scrapping its downtown portion.
The original developer, CDPQ Infra — a subsidiary of Quebec's pension fund manager, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec — is now out. Legault and Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante made the announcement on Monday at a news conference.
Legault said the plan to have elevated tracks did not gain "social acceptability." The province will also explore other major changes as well.
Without the elevated platforms, the project, which came with an initial price tag of $10 billion, is no longer viable for CDPQ Infra, the premier said. He also added that he understands why the developer would no longer want to proceed.
It's not yet clear how these major changes will affect the project's price tag and timeline. The REM de l'Est was first supposed to be completed in 2029.
"People that know me know that I don't have a lot of patience and I want this project to be completed as quickly as possible," Legault said.
"It is crucial for the development of the east end of Montreal."
WATCH | Quebec premier explains why province is stepping in:
Quebec's premier says he's confident his government and the city of Montreal can produce a viable version of the project after CDPQ Infra backed out. 0:57
On Monday, Plante described the initial plan to have elevated tracks in the eastern part of downtown as a "historic mistake that absolutely had to be avoided."
Plante's concerns were echoed by a report from an expert advisory committee, which said the elevated platforms would be an eyesore and would "fracture" the urban landscape. There were also concerns it would erode the quality of life in nearby neighbourhoods, including the city's historic Chinatown.
Experts and officials had raised concerns that the proposed design of the REM de l'Est, with its elevated platforms, would divide neighbourhoods and make some areas less accessible to pedestrians and cyclists. (CDPQ Infra)
Montreal's mayor has long been pushing for the city to have a heavier hand in shaping the public transit project.
Moving forward, the major partners working with the province will be the regional transit planning agency for the greater Montreal area (ARTM), the Société de transport de Montréal (STM), the City of Montreal and the province's Transport Ministry.
In a statement, a Québec Solidaire MNA accused the Legault government of being incompetent in matters of public transit.
"The government will finish its mandate with a mess and by not delivering anything concrete to the east end of Montreal in matters of transit," said Alexandre Leduc, who represents the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve riding.
The REM de l'Est was originally set to include 23 stations along 32 kilometres of track, stretching from downtown to the eastern neighbourhoods of Pointe-aux-Trembles and Montréal-Nord, which have long been underserved by public transit, through a mix of underground tunnels and elevated tracks.
'Connection to downtown is key'
The premier outlined four potential changes he wants partners to explore:
Better integration of the REM de l'Est with the metro Green Line.
Extending the project to serve municipalities in the Lanaudière region.
Studying the possibility of building stations in the eastern part of Laval.
Ensuring the project's "harmonious integration" into the Mercier-Est neighbourhood, where the Souligny station would be built.
The plan to integrate the REM de l'Est with the Green Line raises concerns regarding how easily east-end residents will be able to get downtown.
When asked if Monday's announcement meant there would be no direct link from the east end to the downtown core, Plante said she would defer to the new team of experts who will come up with a new design.
The REM de l'Est was the Caisse's second major public transit project. Its first REM project — which is expected to gradually begin operating between this year and 2024 — will connect the Trudeau International Airport and the West Island with downtown Montreal and the South Shore.
According to Québec Solidaire MNA Alexandre Leduc, the Legault government is incompetent when it comes to public transit. (Ivanoh Demers/Radio-Canada)
"It's hard to believe that the South Shore and the West Island will be directly connected to downtown and that the east of Montreal will not," said Jean-Denis Charest, the CEO of the Chamber of Commerce for the city's east end.
"If we really want the east, in 25, 35, 50 years, to be the region that we believe it can be, I do think that a connection downtown is key."
Charest said he understands the need for change in governance with the REM de l'Est, but he stressed that the province should find a way to get the public transit system up and running within ten years.
TORONTO
Thousands of construction workers on strike, shutting down high rise sites
High winds caused debris from a downtown construction site to fall onto the road on Sunday. (Ryan Belgrave/CityNews Toronto)
By News Staff
Posted May 2, 2022
Thousands of construction workers are off the job and it could have a ripple effect on projects underway across the GTA.
Around 15,000 house framers, high rise forming workers, tile installers, carpet and hardwood installers, who are members of LiUNA! Local 183, are all on strike.
A union spokesman says all high-rise sites across the region are shut down.
Union spokesman Jason Ottey tells CityNews 680 the main issue in the dispute is wages and the rising cost of living.
“Inflation is at its all time high. We have a well documented accepted, and accepted, shortage of housing and a critical shortage of people with the necessary skills to build them,” he said, “quite frankly their offer was well short of what would have been acceptable to our members.”
Ottey says union members stepped up to help builders and developers at the start of the pandemic but are not getting anything in return.
He says the impact of the strike is already being felt, “pretty much all the way from Lakeridge Road to the edge of Burlington, and all the way up to Simcoe County, that is our jurisdictional area, so all of the high rise sites for the contractors that are bound to the work that we do, those sites will be shut down.”
The president of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario is hoping agreements can be reached with the union without significant delays to the projects.
Meanwhile Ottey says workers don’t want to be off the job.
15,000 residential construction workers go on strike over wages amid rising inflation
The strikes in six trades, called the biggest in 20 years, could affect the construction of highrise and low-rise homes in the GTA.
More than 15,000 residential construction workers are on strike over compensation and workers’ rights. It’s being called the biggest strike in the sector in 20 years, which could delay the construction of highrise and low-rise homes in the GTA.
On Sunday, workers in the Greater Toronto Area and other parts of Ontario covered by the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LiUNA) Local 183 went on strike. According to a press release from the local, workers in highrise forming, self-levelling flooring, house framing, tile installation, rail installation, and carpet and hardwood installation rejected their proposed settlements after asking for compensation increases to help offset the rising cost of living.
“LiUNA Local 183 members were deemed essential throughout the pandemic and continue to serve in one of the GTA’s fastest growing construction sectors,” said LiUNA 183 business manager Jack Oliveira in the press release. “Our members are at the frontlines of the region’s growth and deserve fair pay and benefits for their work and service to the community.”
This comes as Ontarians are grappling with continued high prices and tight supply in the residential real estate market, with the federal government promising billions to try to ease Canada’s housing crisis.
It’s the most significant strike the sector has seen in around two decades, said Richard Lyall, president of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON), which represents residential builders.
In the construction industry, unlike other industries, workers in specific skilled trades like framing or hardwood installation are covered by separate collective agreements with their respective contractors’ associations.
There are around 30 such agreements in the residential construction sector alone, said Lyall.
These agreements expire every three years at the same time, and it’s not uncommon for a few bargaining units to go on strike, he said.
He said rising inflation has led to increased pressure to raise wages in the construction industry. Between that and the other issues facing the industry, such as supply chain problems and the ongoing pandemic, Lyall said this has been a particularly difficult round of bargaining, but some units have already settled.
“The need for housing is there, and we’ve got some pretty big challenges ahead of us and quite a bit of uncertainty in the market, and we've had some real challenges during COVID.”
The strikes don’t mean every single residential site in the GTA has ground to a halt, according to RESCON. Any site at the forming or framing stage will be heavily affected because those workers are on strike, but construction sites in the later stages such as finishing will be significantly less impacted.
“If you think about what comes after framing, right, you’ve got electrical, plumbing, drywall, all these other things that stop because they can’t continue working if there's no frame,” said Lyall.
The union is calling on the contractors’ associations to return to bargaining with proposals that address the costs of inflation as well as the predicted demands on the sector in coming years.
“Employers in other construction sectors, and in other parts of the residential sector, offered employment terms and conditions which better reflected the current cost of living, and anticipated increases in inflationary pressures over the life of the collective agreement,” the press release states.
Lyall is hopeful that the striking units will have resolutions in the next few weeks.
The longer they strike, the more housing projects will be held up, he said. Because each step of the building process is performed by a different skilled worker, other workers who aren’t striking may be held up while waiting for the strikes to be resolved — for example, since the house framers are on strike, there are many tasks that can’t be completed until the framing of a house is complete.
“It’s really serious stuff,” said Lyall.
According to RESCON, another union local representing operating engineers has also rejected a new collective agreement, which could affect excavation and other activities in the residential sector.
Rosa Saba is a Toronto-based business reporter for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @rosajsaba
KINSELLA: Overturning Roe v. Wade will have big Canadian political consequences Do you think Trudeau will ever hesitate to use a divisive social issue to pulverize his Conservative opponents?
Author of the article: Warren Kinsella Publishing date: May 03, 2022 •
TORONTO SUN
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a press conference at the Stellantis Automotive Research and Development Centre in Windsor, Ont. on Monday, May 2, 2022.
PHOTO BY GEOFF ROBINS /THE CANADIAN PRESS Think the U.S. Supreme Court decision to outlaw abortion is irrelevant to Canada?
Think again.
Because Politico’s bombshell revelation Monday night — a leak of a draft opinion of America’s highest court on the seminal decision that legalized abortion in the United States, Roe v. Wade — is going to have profound consequences for many politicians. On both sides of the border.
In the U.S., overturning Roe v. Wade isn’t a political earthquake — it is bigger than that. It’s something beyond description. It’s akin to the shifting of political tectonic plates.
Among other things, it will lead to many Democratic Party victories in the coming mid-terms. That’s important, because Joe Biden was heading to an electoral pounding in November. No longer: He now has a wedge that will hasten the end of Republican careers.
It’ll lead to demands — which Biden may grant, after the mid-terms — to enlarge the high court and load it up with progressive jurists. That’s a given.
And how Politico got their hands on a draft Supreme Court opinion? That’s big, too. The resulting inquiries will certainly preoccupy lawyers and politicos (and maybe detectives) for years to come. Why? Because such a leak is something that has never, ever happened before. It means the Supreme Court justices are at war with each other, basically.
But overturning Roe v. Wade won’t just shake up American politics. It is going to have big political consequences up here, too.
Because if you think Justin Trudeau will hesitate to use abortion against his conservative opponents, you are dreaming in Technicolor. Abortion is the ultimate political wedge — one that mobilizes most Canadian women, of all stripes, to vote to maintain control over their bodies.
For Pierre Poilievre, the frontrunner in the Conservative Party leadership race, the return of the abortion debate is very, very unhelpful. For years, the Ottawa-area MP has enjoyed the support of the Campaign Life Coalition, the powerful lobby group that wants to outlaw abortion, gay marriage and euthanasia.
Federal Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre holds a campaign rally in Toronto, Saturday, April 30, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
On its web site, the Campaign Life Coalition gave approving green check marks to Poilievre for voting for bills that would make it an offence to “kill or injure a pre-born child” — and to “protect women from coercion to abort.” For most of his political career, Poilievre has opposed abortion, full stop.
Only very recently — as the prospect of seizing the Conservative leadership grew larger — did Poilievre abandon his previous positions on abortion and gay marriage, thereby angering the Campaign Life Coalition. But, under his leadership, he still admits he would permit MPs to bring forward laws to criminalize abortion.
That matters. Because, even if Poilievre has magically experienced a whiplash-inducing reversal on abortion, the likes of MP Leslyn Lewis have not. Lewis is a social conservative extremist — and her presence in the upper ranks of the leadership contenders can’t be dismissed. Lewis doesn’t hide her opposition to abortion, saying: (There’s) nothing hidden about it.”
Exasperated conservatives will point out, correctly, that conservative jurists do not presently dominate on the Canadian Supreme Court. They will say, correctly, that neither Stephen Harper nor Brian Mulroney rigged our highest court with social conservatives.
But do you think Trudeau will ever hesitate to use a divisive social issue to pulverize his Conservative opponents? In 2015, 2019 and 2021, did the Liberal leader ever seem reluctant to beat Tories with whatever club was laying nearby, however cynical that may be?
No and no. Trudeau has used abortion to hobble Conservatives before, and he’ll do so again. The reversal of Roe v. Wade guarantees it.
On Monday night, you could almost hear the corks being popped on the Veuve Clicquot at the Office of the Prime Minister.
Because abortion is back.
And abortion kills — Tory political careers.
KINSELLA IS A FORMER LIBERAL PARTY STRATEGIST AND CONSULTANT
Conservatives MPs told to stay silent about draft suggesting Roe vs. Wade could be overturned
It’s also not unusual for MPs to be instructed not to comment on international issues that have no immediate implications for Canada.
OTTAWA—Conservatives MPs are being told to stay silent about a leaked draft of a U.S. Supreme Court decision suggesting that nation’s top court is poised to overturn the landmark abortion rights case Roe vs. Wade.
A “note to caucus” was sent from interim Opposition Leader Candice Bergen’s communications staff early Tuesday morning, as the world was abuzz with news of both the contents of the draft ruling and the unprecedented leak itself.
“Good morning,” reads the memo, a copy of which was obtained by the Star.
“Conservatives will not be commenting on draft rulings leaked from the Supreme Court of the United States.”
Such notes to any party’s caucus are not uncommon, as MPs are often provided talking points or lines to give in response to issues of the day.
It’s also not unusual for MPs to be instructed not to comment on international issues that have no immediate implications for Canada.
But the debate over how far the state ought to go to regulate access to abortion is an active one within Canadian Conservative circles.
Conservative MPs routinely introduce private members’ bills that seek to regulate or restrict abortion.
In the last session of Parliament, Saskatchewan MP Cathay Wagantall introduced one to make it a crime to deliberately end a pregnancy due to the sex of the fetus, a practice known as sex-selective abortion.
Eighty of her fellow Conservatives MPs voted in favour of the bill, 38 against. The Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois were all against it, and it failed to move ahead in the legislative process.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives are in the midst of a leadership race where just Monday, two candidates being supported by the anti-abortion group Campaign Life Coalition were told they were not eligible to run, a decision the CLC linked directly to their politics.
The party disputes that allegation.
“Final verification was based on the requirements set out under the rules, not any prospective candidate’s political beliefs,” the party’s executive director Wayne Benson said in a statement late Monday.
Of the six candidates officially in the running for leadership, only one, Leslyn Lewis, has introduced policy promises to restrict access to abortion in Canada.
If she became prime minister, she is promising to ban abortions based on gender, criminalize what she calls coerced abortions, end funding for overseas abortion programs and increase funding for pregnancy centres.
Lewis is also the MP for the riding of Haldimand-Norfolk, a riding she won last year following her effort to become leader of the Conservative party in 2020.
The draft Supreme Court decision in a Mississippi abortion case was reported by Politico late Monday.
In effect, it states there is no constitutional right to abortion services and would allow individual states to more heavily regulate or outright ban the procedure.
It’s unclear if the draft represents the court’s final word on the matter — opinions often change in ways big and small in the drafting process.
POLITICO EXCLUSIVE Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion shows
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Justice Alito writes in an initial majority draft circulated inside the court.
Abortion rights supporters and anti-abortion demonstrators rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 1, 2021. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images
The Supreme Court has voted to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, according to an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito circulated inside the court and obtained by POLITICO.
The draft opinion is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights and a subsequent 1992 decision – Planned Parenthood v. Casey – that largely maintained the right. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes.
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” he writes in the document, labeled as the “Opinion of the Court.” “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
Deliberations on controversial cases have in the past been fluid. Justices can and sometimes do change their votes as draft opinions circulate and major decisions can be subject to multiple drafts and vote-trading, sometimes until just days before a decision is unveiled. The court’s holding will not be final until it is published, likely in the next two months.
The immediate impact of the ruling as drafted in February would be to end a half-century guarantee of federal constitutional protection of abortion rights and allow each state to decide whether to restrict or ban abortion. It’s unclear if there have been subsequent changes to the draft.
No draft decision in the modern history of the court has been disclosed publicly while a case was still pending. The unprecedented revelation is bound to intensify the debate over what was already the most controversial case on the docket this term.
The draft opinion offers an extraordinary window into the justices’ deliberations in one of the most consequential cases before the court in the last five decades. Some court-watchers predicted that the conservative majority would slice away at abortion rights without flatly overturning a 49-year-old precedent. The draft shows that the court is looking to reject Roe’s logic and legal protections.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.”
Justice Samuel Alito in an initial draft majority opinion
A person familiar with the court’s deliberations said that four of the other Republican-appointed justices – Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – had voted with Alito in the conference held among the justices after hearing oral arguments in December, and that line-up remains unchanged as of this week.
The three Democratic-appointed justices – Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan – are working on one or more dissents, according to the person. How Chief Justice John Roberts will ultimately vote, and whether he will join an already written opinion or draft his own, is unclear.
The document, labeled as a first draft of the majority opinion, includes a notation that it was circulated among the justices on Feb. 10. If the Alito draft is adopted, it would rule in favor of Mississippi in the closely watched case over that state’s attempt to ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
A Supreme Court spokesperson declined to comment or make another representative of the court available to answer questions about the draft document.
POLITICO received a copy of the draft opinion from a person familiar with the court’s proceedings in the Mississippi case along with other details supporting the authenticity of the document. The draft opinion runs 98 pages, including a 31-page appendix of historical state abortion laws. The document is replete with citations to previous court decisions, books and other authorities, and includes 118 footnotes. The appearances and timing of this draft are consistent with court practice.
The disclosure of Alito’s draft majority opinion – a rare breach of Supreme Court secrecy and tradition around its deliberations – comes as all sides in the abortion debate are girding for the ruling. Speculation about the looming decision has been intense since the December oral arguments indicated a majority was inclined to support the Mississippi law.
Under longstanding court procedures, justices hold preliminary votes on cases shortly after argument and assign a member of the majority to write a draft of the court’s opinion. The draft is often amended in consultation with other justices, and in some cases the justices change their votes altogether, creating the possibility that the current alignment on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization could change.
The chief justice typically assigns majority opinions when he is in the majority. When he is not, that decision is typically made by the most senior justice in the majority. ‘Exceptionally weak’
A George W. Bush appointee who joined the court in 2006, Alito argues that the 1973 abortion rights ruling was an ill-conceived and deeply flawed decision that invented a right mentioned nowhere in the Constitution and unwisely sought to wrench the contentious issue away from the political branches of government.
Alito’s draft ruling would overturn a decision by the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that found the Mississippi law ran afoul of Supreme Court precedent by seeking to effectively ban abortions before viability.
Roe’s “survey of history ranged from the constitutionally irrelevant to the plainly incorrect,” Alito continues, adding that its reasoning was “exceptionally weak,” and that the original decision has had “damaging consequences.”
“The inescapable conclusion is that a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions,” Alito writes.
Alito approvingly quotes a broad range of critics of the Roe decision. He also points to liberal icons such as the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe, who at certain points in their careers took issue with the reasoning in Roe or its impact on the political process.
Alito’s skewering of Roe and the endorsement of at least four other justices for that unsparing critique is also a measure of the court’s rightward turn in recent decades. Roe was decided 7-2 in 1973, with five Republican appointees joining two justices nominated by Democratic presidents.
The overturning of Roe would almost immediately lead to stricter limits on abortion access in large swaths of the South and Midwest, with about half of the states set to immediately impose broad abortion bans. Any state could still legally allow the procedure.
“The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion,” the draft concludes. “Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.”
The draft contains the type of caustic rhetorical flourishes Alito is known for and that has caused Roberts, his fellow Bush appointee, some discomfort in the past.
At times, Alito’s draft opinion takes an almost mocking tone as it skewers the majority opinion in Roe, written by Justice Harry Blackmun, a Richard Nixon appointee who died in 1999.
“Roe expressed the ‘feel[ing]’ that the Fourteenth Amendment was the provision that did the work, but its message seemed to be that the abortion right could be found somewhere in the Constitution and that specifying its exact location was not of paramount importance,” Alito writes.
Alito declares that one of the central tenets of Roe, the “viability” distinction between fetuses not capable of living outside the womb and those which can, “makes no sense.”
In several passages, he describes doctors and nurses who terminate pregnancies as “abortionists.”
When Roberts voted with liberal jurists in 2020 to block a Louisiana law imposing heavier regulations on abortion clinics, his solo concurrence used the more neutral term “abortion providers.” In contrast, Justice Clarence Thomas used the word “abortionist” 25 times in a solo dissent in the same case.
Alito’s use of the phrase “egregiously wrong” to describe Roe echoes language Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart used in December in defending his state’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The phrase was also contained in an opinion Kavanaugh wrote as part of a 2020 ruling that jury convictions in criminal cases must be unanimous.
In that opinion, Kavanaugh labeled two well-known Supreme Court decisions “egregiously wrong when decided”: the 1944 ruling upholding the detention of Japanese Americans during World War II, Korematsu v. United States, and the 1896 decision that blessed racial segregation under the rubric of “separate but equal,” Plessy v. Ferguson.
The high court has never formally overturned Korematsu, but did repudiate the decision in a 2018 ruling by Roberts that upheld then-President Donald Trump’s travel ban policy. The legacy of Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy remained the law of the land for nearly six decades until the court overturned it with the Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation ruling in 1954.
Quoting Kavanaugh, Alito writes of Plessy: “It was ‘egregiously wrong,’ on the day it was decided.”
Alito’s draft opinion includes, in small type, a list of about two pages’ worth of decisions in which the justices overruled prior precedents – in many instances reaching results praised by liberals.
The implication that allowing states to outlaw abortion is on par with ending legal racial segregation has been hotly disputed. But the comparison underscores the conservative justices’ belief that Roe is so flawed that the justices should disregard their usual hesitations about overturning precedent and wholeheartedly renounce it.
Alito’s draft opinion ventures even further into this racially sensitive territory by observing in a footnote that some early proponents of abortion rights also had unsavory views in favor of eugenics.
“Some such supporters have been motivated by a desire to suppress the size of the African American population,” Alito writes. “It is beyond dispute that Roe has had that demographic effect. A highly disproportionate percentage of aborted fetuses are black.”
Alito writes that by raising the point he isn’t casting aspersions on anyone. “For our part, we do not question the motives of either those who have supported and those who have opposed laws restricting abortion,” he writes.
Alito also addresses concern about the impact the decision could have on public discourse. “We cannot allow our decisions to be affected by any extraneous influences such as concern about the public’s reaction to our work,” Alito writes. “We do not pretend to know how our political system or society will respond to today’s decision overruling Roe and Casey. And even if we could foresee what will happen, we would have no authority to let that knowledge influence our decision.”
In the main opinion in the 1992 Casey decision, Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy and Davis Souter warned that the court would pay a “terrible price” for overruling Roe, despite criticism of the decision from some in the public and the legal community.
“While it has engendered disapproval, it has not been unworkable,” the three justices wrote then. “An entire generation has come of age free to assume Roe‘s concept of liberty in defining the capacity of women to act in society, and to make reproductive decisions; no erosion of principle going to liberty or personal autonomy has left Roe‘s central holding a doctrinal remnant.”
When Dobbs was argued in December, Roberts seemed out of sync with the other conservative justices, as he has been in a number of cases including one challenging the Affordable Care Act.
At the argument session last fall, Roberts seemed to be searching for a way to uphold Mississippi’s 15-week ban without completely abandoning the Roe framework.
“Viability, it seems to me, doesn’t have anything to do with choice. But, if it really is an issue about choice, why is 15 weeks not enough time?” Roberts asked during the arguments. “The thing that is at issue before us today is 15 weeks.”
Nods to conservative colleagues
While Alito’s draft opinion doesn’t cater much to Roberts’ views, portions of it seem intended to address the specific interests of other justices. One passage argues that social attitudes toward out-of-wedlock pregnancies “have changed drastically” since the 1970s and that increased demand for adoption makes abortion less necessary.
Those points dovetail with issues that Barrett – a Trump appointee and the court’s newest member – raised at the December arguments. She suggested laws allowing people to surrender newborn babies on a no-questions-asked basis mean carrying a pregnancy to term doesn’t oblige one to engage in child rearing.
“Why don’t the safe haven laws take care of that problem?” asked Barrett, who adopted two of her seven children.
Much of Alito’s draft is devoted to arguing that widespread criminalization of abortion during the 19th and early 20th century belies the notion that a right to abortion is implied in the Constitution.
The conservative justice attached to his draft a 31-page appendix listing laws passed to criminalize abortion during that period. Alito claims “an unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishment…from the earliest days of the common law until 1973.”
“Until the latter part of the 20th century, there was no support in American law for a constitutional right to obtain an abortion. Zero. None. No state constitutional provision had recognized such a right,” Alito adds.
Alito’s draft argues that rights protected by the Constitution but not explicitly mentioned in it – so-called unenumerated rights – must be strongly rooted in U.S. history and tradition. That form of analysis seems at odds with several of the court’s recent decisions, including many of its rulings backing gay rights.
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision....”
Justice Samuel Alito in an initial draft majority opinion
Liberal justices seem likely to take issue with Alito’s assertion in the draft opinion that overturning Roe would not jeopardize other rights the courts have grounded in privacy, such as the right to contraception, to engage in private consensual sexual activity and to marry someone of the same sex.
“We emphasize that our decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right,” Alito writes. “Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”
Alito’s draft opinion rejects the idea that abortion bans reflect the subjugation of women in American society. “Women are not without electoral or political power,” he writes. “The percentage of women who register to vote and cast ballots is consistently higher than the percentage of men who do so.”
The Supreme Court remains one of Washington’s most secretive institutions, priding itself on protecting the confidentiality of its internal deliberations.
“At the Supreme Court, those who know don’t talk, and those who talk don’t know,” Ginsburg was fond of saying.
That tight-lipped reputation has eroded somewhat in recent decades due to a series of books by law clerks, law professors and investigative journalists. Some of these authors clearly had access to draft opinions such as the one obtained by POLITICO, but their books emerged well after the cases in question were resolved.
The justices held their final arguments of the current term on Wednesday. The court has set a series of sessions over the next two months to release rulings in its still-unresolved cases, including the Mississippi abortion case.
The original Roe v. Wade decision also was leaked to the press
By James D. Robenalt
Members of the U.S. Supreme Court on April 20, 1972. Front row, from left: Justices Potter Stewart and William O. Douglas; Chief Justice Warren E. Burger; Justices William J. Brennan Jr. and Byron R. White. Back row, from left: Justices Lewis F. Powell Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Harry A. Blackmun and William H. Rehnquist. (John Rous/AP)
The apparent leak to Politico of an initial draft of a Supreme Court opinion overruling Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey has been greeted with astonishment about not only the sweep of the ruling but also the fact that a draft opinion was leaked at all. Some commentators claimed that this was unprecedented in the history of the Supreme Court.
Neal Katyal, the former acting solicitor general, tweeted that if the Politico story is true, this is “the first major leak from the Supreme Court ever.” He called it the equivalent of the Pentagon Papers.
While it may be the case, as Politico states, that “no draft decision in the modern history of the court has been disclosed publicly while a case was still pending,” it is not true that rulings have never been given to journalists before the announcement of the decision by the court. In fact, the result in Roe v. Wade itself was leaked by a Supreme Court clerk to a Time magazine reporter in January 1973. The issue of Time, with an article titled “The Sexes: Abortion on Demand,” appeared on newsstands hours before the decision was announced by Justice Harry Blackmun.
Hammond clerked for Justice Lewis Powell and played an important role in convincing Powell that the “viability” standard (when a fetus could live outside the womb) was the most supportable line to draw in determining when a state may not regulate a woman’s right to an abortion. Powell privately convinced Justice Harry A. Blackmun and ultimately a 7-to-2 majority to adopt the viability standard, and that has been at the heart of Roe and later Casey, which now appear to be on the verge of being reversed.
Hammond confided in an acquaintance he knew from the University of Texas School of Law that the Roe ruling was forthcoming. The acquaintance, a Time staff reporter named David Beckwith, was given the information “on background” and was supposed to write about it only once the opinion came down from the court. A slight delay in the ruling, however, resulted in an article that appeared in the issue of the magazine that hit newsstands a few hours before the opinion was read on Jan. 22, 1973.
Chief Justice Warren Burger was livid. The Supreme Court has always jealously guarded its opinions, and secrecy is critical to maintaining an evenhanded approach to dispensing justice. There are obvious and profound consequences if litigants and the public are tipped off to the result in a case before it has been formally announced and adopted.
Burger sent a frantic “eyes only” letter to all the justices demanding that the leaker be identified and punished. Burger even threatened to subject law clerks to lie-detector tests if no one was forthcoming.
Hammond opened Burger’s letter, as was his custom when Powell was out of town. (The justice was visiting a friend in Florida.) He immediately undertook to find Powell and tell him what happened and to offer his resignation. Powell would not hear of it and called Burger to tell him that Hammond had been double-crossed. A few minutes later, Hammond received a call from Burger’s secretary asking him to come to the chief’s chambers.
Burger had reason to be especially angry about the leak. He had reluctantly supported the decision in Roe, but he went to pains to write that the decision was not going to result in “abortion on demand” — which had been the headline of Beckwith’s story.
Despite this, Burger showed mercy to Hammond and gracefully accepted his apology, though he continued to fulminate about Beckwith and the Time story. Hammond survived as Powell’s clerk and even served an additional term for the justice before leaving the court to join the Watergate Special Prosecution Force.
The story of Hammond’s close call became legend to other clerks on the court at the time and has been passed down as a cautionary tale over time.
There is great danger in case results being leaked — all the more so when a full-blown draft is handed over to journalists, seemingly before the opinions, concurring and dissenting, have been finalized. The apparent majority opinion by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. in the Mississippi abortion case always held within it the makings of political dynamite — but now the premature announcement could even further the confusion and blowback that will surround any final opinions. It may prove to be a major blow to the court’s legitimacy and reputation.
