body: I was thinking about the notwithstanding clause of the *Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms* and it seems that it has the disturbing implication that allows arbitrarily bad abuses of government power, up to and including the scale of the Holocaust.
  
  
  If Parliament passed some legislation stating that all Jews shall be imprisoned and executed, *notwithstanding* sections [2](http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-15.html#s-2.), [7](http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-15.html#s-7.), [9](http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-15.html#s-9.), [10](http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-15.html#s-10.), [12](http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-15.html#s-12.), and [15](http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-15.html#s-15.) of the *Charter*, would it be legal for the government to round up all the Jews, send them to concentration camps, and gas them as in the Holocaust?
  
  
  Short of revolution, is there any mechanism to prevent this? As far as I know (but I'm not certain at all) the *Charter* is the only portion of the Canadian constitution that deals with human rights, and if the notwithstanding clause is invoked, such legislation would be constitutional and could not be struck down by the courts. Furthermore, as far as I know, Canadians cannot recall their MPs, so it would not be possible to remove the MPs who support such legislation until the next election, which could be up to 4 years away.
  
  
  
title: Could the Holocaust legally happen in modern day Canada?