Surprise Announcement

There was a surprise announcement in tonights federal leadership debate. Paul Martin said he would remove the notwithstanding clause from our constitution. Perhaps this is not all that surprising; after all they have what they want with regards to same sex marriage, so now is the time to remove an important check-and-balance in our constitution. It seems crazy to me to promise to modify the constitution just to score some points in a debate! Anyway, here is a little blurb from the Global and Mail:

When it was pointed out to [Paul Martin] after the debates that he had once said he would use the notwithstanding clause to protect churches' rights to refuse to perform same-sex marriages, Mr. Martin said his position had changed.