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(Still) a Convention?
At his History News blog, Christopher Moore is arguing that “responsible government is not a ‘convention’.” In his view, the “basis of responsible government in Canada” is right there in the constitutional text ― specifically, in the provisions of the Constitution Act, 1867 that deal with money votes. Dale Smith replies in a post at…
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A Voice of Moderation?
Thoughts on the Chief Justice’s Speech on “Democracy and the Judiciary” Her court might not be very busy ― it had decided only 19 cases this year through May 31, the lowest number this century ― but Chief Justice McLachlin certainly is. Another Friday, another speech. After the one she gave at the Université de Montréal‘s…
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Yes They Can II
Does existing legislation allow a referendum on electoral reform? The former Chief Electoral Officer, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, has caused some ongoing confusion on Twitter about whether a referendum on electoral reform would be legal. The source of this confusion is section 3 of the federal Referendum Act, which provides that Where the Governor in Council considers that…
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The Chief Justice and the Law
The CBA National Magazine’s blog has just published a blog post of mine that comments on the speech which Chief Justice McLachlin gave at the “Supreme Courts and the Common Law” symposium held at the Université de Montréal’s Faculty of Law last week. I argue that the Chief Justice misunderstands the history of the common…
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Pronoun Police?
Does human rights legislation let government police people’s use of pronouns? I have already written here about the way the federal government’ recently introduced Bill C-16 will restrict freedom of expression by adding “gender identity or expression” to the long and growing list of “identifiable grounds” of criminalized hate speech. In that post, I did…
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Constitutional Purposes vs. Constitutional Text: On R. v. Pino
In my previous guest post at Double Aspect, I asked an intractable question: what is it that we are doing when we are engaged in constitutional interpretation? Depending on how one answers this question, different sources of meaning will become more or less significant. However, one source must always be at least relevant: the Constitutional…
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Oliphant on R. v. Pino
Announcing a guest-post by Benjamin Oliphant Benjamin Oliphant, who recently published a guest-post on constitutional interpretation in the context of the debate about whether Parliament can require new Supreme Court judges to be bilingual, will be back with another post later today. He will be returning to the topic of constitutional interpretation, this time to…
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Churchill on Prison
Winston Churchill’s thoughts on his time as a prisoner (of war) I’m not sure, and am too lazy to verify, whether if Winston Churchill is the only head of a Commonwealth government to have been a prisoner; but there cannot have been many. (UPDATE: As my friend Malcolm Lavoie points out to me, Nelson Mandela…
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Permanent Censorship, Again
Ontario’s proposal for regulating pre-campaign political spending is wrong Earlier this week, The Globe and Mail reported that the Ontario government is proposing to introduce legislation that would limit the flow of private money into the political process (and introduce public subsidies to political parties). There is no bill yet, as the government is consulting…
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Bilingualism, the SCA Reference, and Buffet-Line Constitutional Interpretation
Professors Grammond and Glover, as well as my gracious host Léonid Sirota, have all addressed the constitutionality of requiring judges to be bilingual in order to be qualified for appointment to the Supreme Court. In my view, all are excellent efforts to come to grip with difficult constitutional problems, and taken alone, I find each of…
Double Aspect 