Tag: Administrative Law

Sotto Voce

The Supreme Court has an inexplicable habit, especially in administrative law.

Much has been written about the Court’s uneasy—to put it mildly—relationship with precedent. Especially after Bedford/Carter, which expanded the grounds on which previous precedents can be discarded, stare decisis is less of a hard-and-fast rule and more of an option in hard cases. But official departures from stare decisis are not the only means by which courts can question precedents. Lower courts can sometimes overrule from below—arguably, this happened in the pre-Vavilov world, when the Federal Court of Appeal “tip-toed” around questionable Supreme Court cases: see Utah, at para 28.

There is another way. Recently, the Court has offered examples of “overruling” sotto voce—reaching holdings and engaging in reasoning that implicitly undermines previous cases without saying so. This habit is mildly annoying for those who try to offer clarity about the law, but it is also inconsistent with the Court’s own stated role; to clarify the law for lower courts and litigants.

This is not a new phenomenon. It was common in the pre-Vavilov world (anyone remember Association of Justice Counsel?) But recently it has picked up steam. Two examples. First, the Supreme Court’s decision in CSFTNO. This case holds that in the context of s.23 (minority language education rights), a Minister was required to consider Charter values underlying this provision, advanced by a non-rights holder. There is much to say about this, and I have already written about the theoretical and technical problems with this decision.  But there is one line of reasoning that, taken seriously, kicks the conceptual legs out from two recent cases in the law of interpretation: City of Toronto and Quebec Inc. Crudely summarizing, these cases basically held that the text of Charter is the object of interpretation, setting the outer bounds on the use of constitutional principles and purposes. These unwritten principles and purposes cannot overwhelm the text or supplant it.

But the Court in CSFTNO takes a rather different tack. It says that “[t]he choice made by the framers to entrench certain rights in the text of the supreme law of Canada means that the purpose of these rights is important for Canadian society as a whole and must be reflected in the decision‑making process of the various branches of government.” This appears to reason from the purpose of the purported right in question, using that purpose to impose a duty on the government where there is no claimed right. As the Court of Appeal in CSFTNO said, this turns orthodox constitutionalism on its head.  This is the sort of methodology that was supposedly put to rest in City of Toronto and Quebec Inc. True, CSFTNO was not a case of constitutional interpretation per se. But it was a case that raised the scope of Charter rights, and the relative roles of text and purpose.

Maybe this approach is justified by the peculiar nature of s.23—a collective right that can be pierced by admitting non-rights holders. But if this is the case, we should expect the Court to say so, and to explain how and why this approach sits with its previous cases.

Consider next the Supreme Court’s decision in Mason, which dealt with issues pertaining to the standard of review of administrative action and international law. The case involved the Immigration Appeal Division’s [IAD] interpretation of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, as it pertains to a finding of inadmissibility. It is a basic rule of administrative law that parties must put their best food forward—they must lead all of their arguments at first instance. Why? Because administrative decision-makers have been delegated power to make decisions on the merits. If litigants could bypass decision-makers and raise new arguments on judicial review, courts would be arrogating to themselves a merits-deciding function, which is not an accepted role for the courts on judicial review.  This rule and its justification are longstanding, but was given particular expression by Rothstein J in Alberta Teachers.

Mason, of course, does not overrule Alberta Teachers. But it does, sotto voce, put it in an odd place in the pattern of Canadian administrative law. For a majority, Jamal J faults the IAD for failing to address certain legal constraints imposed by international law, an issue the Federal Court of Appeal did not address because the argument had not been raised before the IAD [116]. The IRPA does quite expressly contemplate the Refugee Convention being a major part of the interpretive context [117]. Perhaps, as Paul Daly opines, the IRPA’s commitment to international law is a “uniquely powerful, textually explicit commitment to implementing Canada’s international law obligations in the IRPA, which is unlikely to have similar force in any other context (save, perhaps, citizenship).” But, typically, the importance of the issue or the strength of the statutory signal would not obviate the need for a litigant to lead trump or risk losing. Is this a new exception to the general presumption in Alberta Teachers?

Abstracting away from the substantive issues themselves, the Court’s choices in CSFTNO and Mason raise difficult questions about judicial craft. We know that on a multi-member court, internal politics can drive decision-making. Nonetheless, the Court should be more alive to the fact that when it does things without saying so, and without explaining itself, its decisions read more as legislative declarations than reasoned judicial acts. In normal administrative law cases, this is bad enough. In Charter cases—like CSFTNO—it’s especially bad. The Charter was a significant grant of authority to judges. That delegation of power must have been made on the basis that judges would act judicially. When the Court leaves breadcrumbs in its decisions that could lead reasonable observers to doubt the propriety of previous cases, it raises the prospect that its caseload is a wilderness of single instances.

The Metastasis of Charter Vibes…Again

**A version of this appeared in my newsletter, the Sunday Evening Administrative Review**

For the two years or so that I have been doing this newsletter, the story has been a good one. Vavilov settled the law of judicial review to such a considerable extent that I found myself optimistic about the state of things. However, this NWT case—and to a lesser extent, Mason v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 SCC 21—cause me worry about the future of Canadian administrative law (see Issue #108). I wrote about this NWT case as representing the “Metastasis of Charter Vibes”—the idea that a “Charter value” can impose a legal duty even where the Charter right does not. This creates a two-track Constitution, where the “true” Constitution of Values applies where the Charter of Rights—apparently only a pale reflection of these values— does not. This is not our constitutional settlement. This theoretical distortion leads to some practical issues, ones that suggest that we may be heading back into a world where the Supreme Court’s administrative law jurisprudence says one thing but does another, with methods “evolving” alongside the composition of the Court. It is unfortunate that this case provides us little justification for the newest “evolution.”

Problems in Principle

Let me start with the problems in principle with this case. The oddity is the particular context of s.23, which is unique in the Canadian constitutional landscape. Not only does s.23 impose positive obligations on the state to provide certain citizens with minority language education, but it is also a right that is collective in scope [1-3]. Despite these features, s.23 is also precisely defined in the text, as the NWTCA pointed out [NWTCA Decision, at para 57]. Section 23 “was carefully crafted to give a narrow bundle of rights to a defined sub-population of Canada” [NWTCA Decision, at para 57].

Not so, for the Supreme Court. Côté J ultimately concludes that, even though this case involves non rights-holders under s.23, there is still a positive obligation on a decision-maker to consider Charter values—this is so “not only where an administrative decision directly infringes Charter rights but also in cases where it simply engages a value underlying one or more Charter rights, without limiting these rights” [64]. Decision-makers must meaningfully grapple with relevant Charter values, reflected in the governing statutory scheme, the parties’ submissions, or “because of the link between the value and the matter under consideration” [66]. More on this in a minute. For now, one need not plead a Charter right, or demonstrate that a right has been infringed according to the typical tests that are associated with each Charter right—in this case, doing so would be no help, since the case involved non-rights holders. Instead, showing that a Charter value is engaged is enough to impose an obligation on decision-makers to consider the value.

What we have, then, is an actionable Charter value that transcends the Charter’s written (and as I will point out, purposively understood) limitations. True, it is not actionable in the sense that it requires a decision-maker to render a decision consistent with the true meaning of the Charter value. Rather, it is a procedural duty, one that imposes a requirement of consideration on the decision-maker.

Even so, this is a significant move, one that was not evident—except in passing remarks—in its previous cases. Saying, as the Court did in Loyola, that the Doré framework attaches to Charter rights and values tells us nothing about the relationship between the two, and certainly does not imply that a Charter value can impose obligations on the state when the Charter right does not.  This is especially so when, in the Supreme Court’s previous cases, Charter values and Charter rights seemed one in the same. In Trinity Western, for example, the majority (applying the Doré  framework) simply applies the traditional Charter test associated with s.2(a). But in this NWT case, the Charter value imposes an obligation where the Charter right does not.

Nor is it enough to equate this obligation with a purposive approach to constitutional interpretation. Côté J notes that, because “Charter values are inseparable from Charter rights” (a claim that this case actually undermines considerably) “[t]he choice made by the framers to entrench certain rights in the text of the supreme law of Canada means that the purpose of these rights is important for Canadian society as a whole and must be reflected in the decision-making process of the various branches of government” [75]. One can be mistaken for thinking, on this account, that Charter values are just an analogue to a purposive interpretation, especially where—as here—the Court seems to equate the purposes of s.23 with its values, which the Minister was obligated to consider.

But this is not purposive interpretation as we typically understand it. How does one square this case with the Court’s commitment to purposive interpretation as reflected in Quebec (Attorney General) v 9147-0732 Quebec Inc, 2020 SCC 32 and Toronto (City) v Ontario (Attorney General), 2021 SCC 34? Of course, the NWT case is not a case of Charter interpretation per se, but it does raise the prospect of what interests the Constitution prioritizes. In these cases, the Court wisely held that the text of the Charter contains the legal norm that courts must implement; purpose is an aid to interpretation: “A purposive interpretation of Charter rights must begin with, and be rooted in, the text” (City of Toronto, at para 14). The new, hopped-up version of Charter values endorsed in the NWT case implies instead that the value (or the purpose, or the “protection,” or…) is the legal norm that courts must implement, and the text is just a pale reflection of the true Constitution.

This was not written in the stars. Vavilov could have been integrated differently. We could have started with the basic proposition, accepted by Rowe J (who did not sit in the NWT case), McLachlin CJC, and Brown and Côté JJ in Trinity Western: “[w]hen courts review administrative decisions for compliance with the Charter, Charter rights must be the focus of the inquiry—not Charter values” (TWU, at para 166, per Rowe J). Like purposes, this account allows Charter values to play a “supporting role in the adjudication of Charter claims” (TWU, at para 170)  but “[a]n analysis based on Charter values should not eclipse or supplant the analysis of whether Charter rights have been infringed” (TWU, at para 175). As I have previously written, using this orthodox starting point still allows us to integrate Vavilov, particularly the focus on more robust reasonableness review, but it does so on the starting point of well-defined Charter rights. Unfortunately, Côté J does not refer to any of the contrary views in Trinity Western, nor the critics of Charter values in the lower courts, nor virtually any counter-arguments of any kind.

That makes this decision all the more difficult to understand. It might be said that the holding in this case is minimalistic, only imposing a duty of consideration. But this does not change the fact that this duty is being imposed where the Charter right imposes no such duty. The coming-apart of “values” and “rights” is a significant move, one for which we are owed a better account.

Practical Problems

I want to point out two practical problems that this decision creates. The first is an ill-defined “relevancy” requirement for the consideration of Charter values and the parties’ arguments. The second is reweighing.

Readers who have looked at the case will note that—maybe—the problems in principle can be remedied by the Court’s apparent integration of Vavilov into the world of Doré . Paul Daly outlines what this framework looks like here, but for our purposes, what is required is the following (1) A demonstration that a decision-maker considered a relevant Charter value [66]; (2) once engaged, a proportionality analysis nourished by Vavilov, in which the decision must show that the decision-maker adequately considered the Charter values with reference to then impact on the individual [68]. Notably, however, there are two important deviations from Vavilov’s reasonableness standard. First, and remarkably, it may be a requirement for decision-makers to consider Charter values even where not argued [66, for example in cases where there is a “link between the value and the matter under consideration].” Second, unlike under Vavilov, courts are entitled to reweigh the weight put on Charter values by decision-makers, which Côté J suggests is “a necessary consequence of the robust analysis required by Doré ” [72].

I cannot help but comment on the oddity of seeing Côté J reinforce the robustness of Doré when in Trinity Western she, along with Brown J, refuted the majority’s same claim with the pithy “[b]ut saying so does not make it so” (TWU, at para 304). And, of course, one might think it is good to see more robust reasonableness review in this context—this is a possibility that I explored, happily, in early work after Vavilov. But as I pointed out above, the way this review has been specified leaves much to be desired.

Consider first the “relevancy” requirement. Côté J calls on Vavilov to outline the three situations in which a Charter value will be relevant, imposing a requirement on a decision-maker. It is to the benefit of enterprising parties—especially under the “link between the value and the matter” branch—to claim broad Charter values (which may or may not be rooted in the purposes of a provision) to impose a requirement on decision-makers where the Charter right otherwise does not apply, under the typical Charter infringement tests. In this case the “link” appeared clear, but it isn’t necessarily so, and I suspect that parties will make much of this. In other words, I do not believe this is something that will be obvious to decision-makers, courts, and parties.

Relatedly, when listing the situations in which a Charter value will be “relevant,” only one of those situations involve cases where the parties’ raised Charter values in their submissions. By implication, this means that there may be an obligation to consider Charter values when a claimant (a) does not have the benefit of the right; and (b) the claimant does not argue a Charter value. This leads to several problems. First, it means that a decision-maker will need to, of her own volition, identify whether a Charter value is present (linked) to the matter, and assign it the appropriate weight, even if not argued. While decision-makers should be held to the letter of the Constitution, it is another thing to assign them a responsibility that is not easily identifiable. Second, this “robustness” seems in tension with other basic requirements of the law of judicial review. The courts have always insisted that, even in administrative contexts, Charter arguments should generally be raised at first instance to permit the development of an adequate record: see Forest Ethics Advocacy Association v Canada (National Energy Board), 2014 FCA 245 at paras 44-45; Mackay v Manitoba, [1989] 2 SCR 357. This case suggests that this longstanding requirement does not apply to discretionary decisions, which leads to another problem: it appears that parties will be able to raise Charter values on judicial review, even if not argued at first instance—or at least that such a practice is now not viewed with inherent suspicion. Considering the difficulties lower courts have already had with this issue, I suspect things will now become more complex (see e.g. McCarthy v Whitefish Lake First Nation #128, 2023 FC 220, Issue #78).

Oddly, this is the exact same scenario the Supreme Court invited in its recent Mason case. As I pointed out, there, an international law issue was not argued at first instance, but the decision-maker’s failure to consider it made the decision unreasonable. Now, we have the same issue with Charter values. The Supreme Court in Vavilov settled on reasonableness as the presumptive standard of review, but in both Mason and this case it eats away at the operation of that standard. Courts shouldn’t conduct de novo review just because the court believes the issue is important enough. I can only quote Côté J at para 172 in Mason: “My colleague views the IAD’s “fail[ure] to address the legal constraints imposed by international law” as unreasonable…With respect, I would have concerns, given the emphasis in Vavilov on a “reasons first” approach, with finding a decision to be “unreasonable” based on arguments that were not put before the administrative decision maker and that do not apply to the individuals actually before that decision maker.”

Finally, consider the problem of reweighing. Courts will be invited to reweigh the weight put on a Charter value where a decision-maker considers it at first instance. This isn’t much in terms of reasonableness review. This creates a new distinction between reasonableness in constitutional cases and reasonableness in all other cases.

Conclusion

What are we left with? Many of us saw Doré  as both principally and practically flawed. This case suggests that these flaws are here to stay. But perhaps we are even worse off. We now have a legally-enforceable Charter values framework that applies where the Charter right does not, and where a party does not argue it. If this is a function of s.23’s unique status in the constitutional framework, that is one thing, but I will be surprised if the problems are kept to this world. There are quite likely knock-on practical effects that courts may have to work through. The metastasis continues unabated.

Simplicity in the Law of Judicial Review of Regulations: Auer and TransAlta

This post is derived from this week’s edition of my newsletter, the Sunday Evening Administrative Review.

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Auer v Auer, 2022 ABCA 375 (November 22, 2022); TransAlta Generation Partnership v Alberta (Minister of Municipal Affairs), 2022 ABCA 381 (November 23, 2022)

Context and Holding: In these decisions, the ABCA deals with the question of how courts review regulations for compliance with primary law. The cases hold that the framework set out in Katz Group Canada Inc v Ontario (Health and Long-Term Care), 2013 SCC 64 applies, rather than the revised judicial review framework in Vavilov. In so doing, the ABCA sets itself up directly opposite from the Federal Court of Appeal, which has endorsed Vavilov as the starting point for the review of regulations: Portnov v Canada (Attorney General), 2021 FCA 171 (Issue #7). It is also set up opposite the BCSC/ BCCA: see e.g. Pacific Wild Alliance v British Columbia (Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development), 2022 BCSC 904 at paras 68-75; Whistler (Resort Municipality), 2020 BCCA 101.

Analysis: As readers of this newsletter will know, I strongly disagree with the ABCA’s conclusion, and the reasons underlying it. Reading Auer and TransAlta together, the ABCA advances several reasons for preferring the “hyper-deferential” Katz framework for the review of regulations over Vavilov:

  1. Vavilovian reasonableness impermissibly invades the exercise of legislative powers, violating a core tenet of the separation of powers. Katz “maintains the integrity of the separation of powers and the role of the legislative branch of government. It ensures that courts do not enter the legislative field by weighing in on matters that properly fall within the sphere of the legislature and the executive” (Auer, at para 58; see also para 83). Or as put in TransAlta, at para 50: “[t]o decide whether a valid regulation is, in outcome ‘reasonable’ is to judge the merits of the path chosen by the delegated lawmaker to achieve the objectives of the enabling statute.”
  2. Vavilov cannot be taken to implicitly overturn Katz: it makes only one passing reference to Katz (see Auer, at para 42; TransAlta, at para 47).
  3. There are practical problems with applying Vavilovian reasonableness review to regulations. As Auer notes, “…[m]any of the contextual factors highlighted in Vavilov simply have no application to a vires review” (Auer, at para 77).

I will respond to these three concerns, but I first want to highlight a core feature of my response. There have long been debates in the law of judicial review over the need to “limit and simplify” versus the need to “tailor deference to variety” (US v Mead Corp, 533 U.S. 218 at 236). Of course, this is rarely a binary, and because of the subject matter, some consideration of variety will be necessary (as Vavilov‘s acceptance of context demonstrates). This is inevitable. Nevertheless, I am on the side of limitation and simplification to the extent possible. The fact that administrative decision-makers come in all shapes and sizes does not mean we require legal rules that track every individual type of decision-maker or decision, absent any fundamental reason. To my mind, all that is required is: (1) the recognition of fundamental principles that guide the doctrine (in Vavilov’s case, legislative intent and the rule of law); (2) the creation of general, all-purpose doctrinal rules plausibly connected to these principles; (3) guidance on how to apply the doctrine.

Vavilov and its progeny accomplish this. While Vavilov is, admittedly, contextual, it simplifies judicial review because it provides (1) a set of standard of review categories that plausibly map to legislative intent and the rule of law (though imperfectly); (2) on the reasonableness standard, it provides guidance about the contextual constraints that are relevant in a given case–this guidance limits these constraints so courts and litigants know when they will be relevant. Most importantly, when I speak of simplicity, I think of the fact that Vavilov provides an agreed-upon starting point, connected to fundamental principles, for all review of action of all kinds taken under delegated power. In this sense, Vavilov is a hard-won template. As we will see, the recent case of Law Society of Saskatchewan v Abrametz, 2022 SCC 29 (see Issue #48), inexplicably unmentioned by the ABCA, endorses the “start with Vavilov” idea on a question outside Vavilov’s contemplation: procedural fairness. This shows Vavilov’s utility as a general framework.

Starting with the same well of conceptual resources for all sorts of decisions simplifies the law of judicial review, and is no small thing. Simplification isn’t just aesthetic. Lawyers—to their detriment—sometimes overcomplicate matters beyond what is necessary, perhaps out of academic self-satisfaction. But the reality is this: the law of judicial review must be workable. It must connect to fundamental principles but at the same time be applicable by judges and understood by parties who bear the brunt of state action. This is the gargantuan challenge of administrative law. In this sense, Vavilov has done an extraordinary thing by largely accomplishing this goal. Parties now tend to argue about the merits of their cases rather than the standard of review. The ABCA’s discursus on Katz, unfortunately, is a step back to the old days of distinctions between legislative/quasi-legislative/adjudicative functions, where there are islands of government power uninhibited by the regular law of judicial review. If there was a compelling reason in principle for this, that is one thing. In this case, the Court’s decision endorses Katz because of its own erroneous perception of what the separation of powers, Vavilov, and general principles of administrative law require.

On to some specific points of contention:

  1. The ABCA’s separation of powers argument does not get off the ground because of (1) a fundamental (though understandable) confusion about the word “merits” in Vavilov; and (2) a confusion about the role of secondary legislation. As Paul Daly argues, (1) leads the ABCA astray. Auer says that “[a] true Vavilov approach can only be accomplished by the reviewing court descending into a consideration of the merits of the policy decisions underlying the regulations and formulating its own reasons why the regulation was a reasonable policy choice” (Auer, at para 75). As Daly says, it is true that Vavilov speaks of its framework applying to the “merits” of administrative decisions (e.g. Vavilov at paras 2, 10, 16). But this does not mean that Vavilov endorses a judicial questioning of the policy wisdom of an administrative decision. This simply cannot be the case as a matter of fundamental principle. Vavilov’s reference to merits, instead, refers to the substance of administrative decisions as opposed to procedural concerns. As is well-known, judicial review polices the boundaries of the administrative state according to the concepts of legality, reasonableness, and fairness. This is different than questioning the policy merits of an administrative decision in the abstract. Judicial review—and Vavilov reasonableness—does not mean that courts arrogate to themselves the right to make certain policy choices. A few specific examples are relevant to show how this works throughout the law of judicial review:
  • In Alberta Teachers’ Association, 2011 SCC 61, the Supreme Court addressed the situations in which it would be appropriate for litigants to make new arguments on judicial review. Generally, the presumptive rule is that new arguments cannot be made on judicial review, because “the legislature has entrusted the determination of the issue to the administrative tribunal” (Alberta Teachers, at para 24). This is a recognition that judicial review cannot proceed as a trial de novo, a recognition of the space left to the decision-maker to flesh out the law in its field so long as the decision fits within the purview of the statute.
  • As the Federal Court of Appeal has stated with reference to new evidence on judicial review, the same rule applies because the legislature delegated the power to the administrator to “determine certain matters on the merits”; permitting new evidence routinely would undermine the demarcation between legislative and judicial roles, and so “[t]his Court can only review the overall legality of what the Board has done, not delve into or re-decide the merits of what the Board has done” (Association of Colleges, 2012 FCA 22 at paras 17-18).

Deference under Vavilov takes on a similar hue. Courts do not reweigh the evidence on judicial review (Vavilov, at para 125); deference necessarily involves a restriction on the court in intervening with an administrative decision-maker because that decision-maker has been delegated the power to make decisions (Vavilov, at para 13). These decisions may have policy consequences, but courts do not second-guess those consequences; they only ensure that a particular decision fits within the purview of the statute, and meets the basic requirements of rationality. This is even so where regulations are made after submissions in a legally-defined process: in such a case, the submissions form part of the record that courts use to assess whether the secondary legislation is justified by the law and the facts to which it applies. None of this involves, properly applied, an impermissible intrusion into the realm of lawmaking because the court is not formulating policy alternatives nor weighing in on which alternatives are best. It is only asking whether the action fits the bounds of the law and the evidence, like it does for all executive action. Indeed, this is the same rule we apply to all acts taken by the executive under statutory authority, including municipalities and other bylaw-creating bodies. As I will point out, the sweep of Auer/TransAlta is unknown, and presumably it should capture these bodies as well.

This is related to the second problem. The ABCA skirts over what I consider to be the real issue: the subordinate nature of what we call “executive legislation.” The ABCA’s entire point apparently seems to rest on the assertion that regulations are part of the primary legislative process—that, legally, the exercise of legislative powers by the Governor in Council is subject to the same rules that apply when Parliament enacts laws as an exercise of primary legislative authority (Auer, at para 53, citing Mikisew Cree First Nation v Canada, 2018 SCC 40 at para 32). Primary legislative authority is the authority to “enact, amend, and repeal statutes” (Pan-Canadian Securities Reference, 2018 SCC 48 at para 76). These statutes cannot be reviewed except for constitutionality, and this was the context of Mikisew Cree (notably not executive legislation). But this ignores a fundamental distinction between primary and secondary legislation. Inexplicably, the ABCA recognizes that regulation-making is “an act incidental to the legislative process” (Auer, at para 56), but does not take this to the logical conclusion. Secondary legislation (regulations) is subordinate legislation, which must fit the terms of the primary legislation. But regulations can be reviewed in order to determine whether they fit the scope of their enabling statute. Read literally, Auer seems to prove too much: if one simply transposes, as Auer does, the primacy of primary legislative authority to secondary legislation, one is endorsing a “hands-off” approach in judicial review altogether when it comes to executive legislation. But as we know, even if we follow Katz, secondary legislation can be reviewed to determine its fit with the governing statute, and so the analogy Auer draws to the primary legislative process is inapposite.

The point here is that secondary legislation is still executive action, amenable to review like all executive action–with the caveat that because of the legislative form of the action, it will be reviewed under Vavilov in a certain way (see point #3 below).

  1. The “Vavilov does not mention Katz” argument has been made before: see e.g. Ecology Action Centre v Canada (Environment and Climate Change), 2021 FC 1367, and this post from Martin Olszynski and I. We were not impressed with this argument at the time, and I remain unimpressed, for two reasons. First, the “Vavilov does not mention x” argument has lost a lot of steam after Abrametz. Again, Abrametz held that questions of procedural fairness that arise under a statutory right of appeal are reviewed under the appellate standards. These questions were not mentioned in Vavilov. Following Abrametz leaves the ABCA on shaky territory. Second, as Prof. Olszynski and I wrote, the question is not whether this or that case was mentioned. Vavilov tells us where (as with Katz) there is a question as to the appropriate standard of review, a court “should look to these reasons first in order to determine how this general framework applies to that case” (Vavilov, at para 143). The ABCA in Auer and TransAlta do not even attempt to do this. This is despite the fact that Vavilov is a “holistic” framework (Vavilov, at para 143), one that is “sweeping and comprehensive” (Portnov, at para 25). Auer and TransAlta suggest that courts use a magnifying glass to see if particular examples of executive action are mentioned within Vavilov. This is unnecessary. They simply need to follow Vavilov’s general principles, as outlined in Vavilov, at paras 143-144.
  1. The practical problems of applying Vavilov to regulations, with respect, do not exist. When Auer maintains that some of the legal and factual constraints listed in Vavilov do not apply in cases of regulation, the Court appears to misunderstand how Vavilov works. Not all of the constraints have to apply in a given case for Vavilov to be relevant. In some visa decisions, for example, statutory interpretation will not be the forefront consideration—these cases generally turn on evidence and findings of fact. With regulations, the dominant constraints will be the legal ones mentioned in Vavilov, and in many cases, deference will be expansive. This is not a surprise, though perhaps it is to the ABCA, which erroneously sees Vavilov as a more intrusive standard, always and everywhere (Auer, at para 61).

But the Court is also is too quick to discard the other constraints because it focuses on only one type of regulation-making: secondary legislation of general application. But as Portnov shows, this is not all there is. Portnov concerned the Governor in Council’s ability to “issue an order or regulation restricting or prohibiting any dealings with certain property held by designated individuals,” eighteen in total (Portnov, at paras 3,5). In such a case, the mere fact that the Governor in Council proceeded by secondary legislation does not immunize it from review on Vavilov grounds. In such a case, the statutory prequisites to the exercise of the power will be central. But because the court must also discern how the Governor in Council understood the authority granted to it under the primary statute (ie) to apply a regulation in these limited circumstances, the record must disclose the Governor in Council’s basis for its legal conclusion as applied to these individuals. In other regulatory cases, determining whether the regulation is justified by the primary law will depend on what explanations find their way into the record. This is the nature of Vavilov review, which is not always and everywhere more aggressive than Katz. Indeed, when we apply this review in cases of other “legislative” bodies including law societies and municipalities, the review looks fairly deferential, respecting the legislative posture of these bodies. While the Court calls this state of affairs “confusing,” (TransAlta, at para 49), I beg to differ: the same contextual constraints from Vavilov apply, with different force depending on the decision at issue. Regulations, if they are not primary legislation, are similarly nothing special as executive action.

I could say more—I hope to in longer form soon. But I end where I began. The ABCA’s approach will complicate the law of judicial review, not just because of its endorsement of a carveout for Governor in Council regulations. We do not know how far this could go. Are regulations made by agencies with a responsible Minister also captured by this rule? The logic should follow—and yet it would be a stretch to say that agency law-making is the same as primary law-making, especially given the deficiencies in the scrutiny of regulations process. What about rules of binding “legislative” effect created by agencies? These are unanswered questions left open by these decisions. The bottom line: when in doubt, start with Vavilov.

Paul Daly
John Mark Keyes

The Post-Vavilov Supreme Court and Administrative Law

Reason for optimism?

After the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Abrametz and ESA (both of which are summarized and analyzed in my newsletter here and here, respectively), there is much to say.  But I just want to quickly identify one emerging trend: the centrifugal force of the principles in Vavilov in areas of administrative law not immediately in its contemplation. For reasons I hope to outline in future work, I think this trend is positive, because the sweeping and comprehensive approach in Vavilov provides a set of plausibly, administrable rules that reduces the amount of time spent on finding the standard of review, among other things. This is a good thing because the law of judicial review shouldn’t be overly complex. It is designed to be quick, on the record, and facilitative for individuals challenging government action. Labyrinthine doctrine stifles that purpose.

 For now, though, I only write to highlight a few examples of this trend I identify:

  • In Abrametz, the question of the standard of review for procedural fairness issues arising in a statutory right of appeal was at issue. For a majority of eight, Rowe J applied Vavilov’s holding on rights of appeal (the appellate, not judicial, standards apply) to the issue of delay (Abrametz, at para 27). This was despite the majority’s acknowledgement that this “proposition was stated in the context of substantive review.” This was also despite the fact that the orthodox view is that correctness applies to issues of procedural fairness (set out in cases like Khela). As I outlined in my newsletter, I think this move is justifiable, and it may raise questions about assimilating all issues of procedural fairness to Vavilov’s rules and standards. This is not an argument I can explore here, but it has been mooted in the courts (e.g. Maritime Broadcasting, at para 50). That said, one will likely find a resolute voice in favour of hard-line correctness review on all issues of procedural fairness: see Côté J’s dissent in Abrametz. And the move made in Abrametz regarding rights of appeal is a much easier hill to climb than a full-on application of Vavilov to issues of procedural fairness.

  • In ESA, the question was whether the laws like the Copyright Act that confer jurisdiction over the same questions to courts and the Copyright Board invite the correctness standard. In Rogers, a previous Supreme Court case, the Court recognized this as an appropriate circumstance to deviate from a reasonableness standard. For a seven judge majority, Rowe J again approached the problem by asking how Vavilov altered the Rogers standard (ESA, at paras 24-25). This was because—as I argue—Vavilov “simplified the law” (ESA, at para 24) and “overtook the prior jurisprudence” (Vavilov, at para 14). Analyzing the problem from the perspective of Vavilov’s principles of legislative/institutional design and the rule of law, Rowe J recognized the Rogers exception as an additional category that would attract correctness review. It is “analogous” to a statutory right of appeal (ESA, at para 32) and inconsistencies could arise between judicial and administrative interpretation, undermining the consistency and systemic clarity required by Vavilov’s idea of the rule of law (and, I argue, the Supreme Court’s other precedents). Karakatsanis J and Martin J said the majority’s conclusion “undermines Vavilov’s promise of certainty and predictability” (ESA, at para 117) because despite the fact that Vavilov “obviously considered” cases like Rogers, it did not choose to recognize it as an example of a case requiring correctness review (ESA, at paras 117, 124). In fact, if anything, it implicitly (but not “inadvertently”) overruled it (ESA, at para 125). While I do not agree with the concurrence’s worry about the majority’s decision, I note that the concurrence, too, sees Vavilov as a simplifying, cohering mechanism—it just reads Vavilov differently (in my view, much too narrowly—see Vavilov at para 70, which focuses on the application of its principles in future cases).

These Supreme Court examples only serve to buttress trends in the lower courts. In Portnov, for example, Stratas JA in the Federal Court of Appeal held that the bespoke standard of review analysis for regulations set out in Katz should be foreclosed and assimilated to Vavilov’s reasonableness standard (Portnov, at paras 24-28). And even beyond the grounds of substantive or procedural review,  Boivin JA in Ermineskin Cree Nation merged considerations of judicial discretion and cost-expediency in the question of whether a case was moot; in so doing, it tied an important consideration underlying Vavilov’s discussion of remedies on judicial review to the preliminary issue of mootness (see Ermineskin Cree Nation, at para 41; Air Canada, at para 14). What’s more, there is debate in the lower courts, and even at the Supreme Court, about the standard of review on arbitral appeals: whether the standard is reasonableness or the appellate standards, as prescribed by Vavilov (see here).

In all of these examples, we see Vavilov potentially doing a lot of conceptual work.  Not only are its principles affecting substantive review (ESA), but also preliminary objections to judicial review (mootness), and further, even in domains not necessarily within the Vavilov Court’s express contemplation (Abrametz). Nonetheless, it appears as if a number of judges on the Court are viewing Vavilov not only as a good encapsulation of accepted administrative law values (primarily, institutional design and the rule of law, but also discretion and cost-effectiveness), but a plausible set of operational rules deduced from those values.

For my own reasons, I think the overall effort in Vavilov was sound. In theory, there are some imperfections in Vavilov. I’d much prefer, for my part, a Chevron-like approach to judicial review of administrative action, which doesn’t start from a presumption of deference, but which asks courts to interpret whether the statutory language can support “more than one answer” in the first place. Nonetheless, I can live with Vavilov because it is a clear rule with clear exceptions, and we get something like Chevron  on questions of law when we apply the reasonableness standard (though this does not solve the fundamental issue: see Leonid Sirota here). The presumption of reasonableness is rooted in a plausible, though imperfect, conception of legislative delegation (again, I have my own fundamental objections to it—delegation does not necessarily equal deference). But the “wrongness” of the presumption, in my view, is mitigated by sound exceptions to its application in cases where there is a clear contrary signal “subtracting” from the specific delegation (rights of appeal, concurrent jurisdiction); where the question at issue transcends the legislative delegation (constitutional questions, for example); or perhaps even when it is unclear the delegation extends to the decision-maker at all (see here). And as I say, even on questions where reasonableness applies, we get an approach that takes into account administrative legal errors, statutory language, and which forces more extensive justification to facilitate judicial review on the reasonableness standard.

We live in an imperfect world, and in my view, this old trope extends with even more force to the law of judicial review. So at the end of the day, imperfections in the theory and doctrine do not undermine the workability that Vavilov has achieved. Because selecting the standard of review is categorical, theoretical imperfections aside, the process is much simpler. As I say above, certainty and predictability in the law of judicial review should be built-in, so that citizens can understand how to challenge government action. What I think Vavilov has done is settle the fundamentals, allowing development around the edges, while providing a sound starting point for that development. For this reason, I agree with the overall trend: courts should look to Vavilov’s principles to infuse, to a greater or lesser degree, the doctrine of judicial review where relevant.

Immigration and Refugee Decision-Making: The Vavilov Effect?

It has been a while since I’ve blogged. The last few months have been—in a word—chaotic. I’m hoping to blog more regularly going forward now that some of these things have settled

One of the areas where administrative law really comes to life is in immigration decision-making, particularly front-line decision-making like visa decisions or humanitarian and compassionate decisions [H&C]. This is where the pressures, incentives, and moral worldview of “street-level bureaucrats” in particular contexts can tell us about how decisions affecting all-too-real rights and interests are made. The area, though, presents all sorts of challenges for those studying the law of judicial review.

First, immigration visa decision-making is also just one particular iteration of a broader reality: the inexplicable diversity of administrative decision-making. That diversity leaves monist accounts of the administrative state wanting. Expertise—advanced by the Progressive school as a core reason for delegation and deference—presents a different empirical reality in these contexts. In other words, this is not the labour board or the human rights tribunal where we might have more confidence in the “expert” nature of the decision-maker. In this context, not only is “expertise” not to be assumed, but what it means on the frontlines escapes easy definition.

Second, emerging democratic theories view the administrative state either as a place to facilitate and channel democratic deliberation or a place to encourage contestation (agonism). These theories are deeply insightful and may have resonance in other areas. But in some of these immigration and refugee cases, it is hard to say that there is anything substantively democratic happening. The only democratic argument is entirely formal: the delegation of power to officials to make decisions. This delegation of power must be respected, but the chances for contestation or facilitation seem far off.

Other features of front-line immigration visa decision-making present problems from the perspective of the law of judicial review. Notwithstanding what I say below, it was typically the case that visa decisions did not—and still, do not—require extensive reasons: Persaud v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2021 FC 1252 at para 8. And in theory, this remains true post-Vavilov. What’s more, there was, and remains, a presumption that decision-makers considered all the evidence before her: Cepeda-Gutierrez v Canada, 1998 CanLII 8667. 

The combination of these rules, to my mind, creates an important tradeoff. On one hand, given the backlogs in this area of administrative decision-making, we may think that officers should not spend time writing extensive reasons. On the other hand, a paucity of reasons or an adequate record that “immunizes” decisions from effective review presents problems from the perspective of legality, but more directly, to the individuals who wish to seek judicial relief: see Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), v Canadian Council for Refugees, 2021 FCA 72 at para 102.

There should be some balance struck here. Post-Vavilov, courts in some cases are beginning to strike this balance. They have done so in favour of more substantive reasoning that addresses the legal and factual stakes to the party affected by a decision. In other words, in these cases, the courts are not abiding boilerplate and rote recitation of the facts. Nonetheless, they are not expecting long, involved reasons in every case, and they need not be perfect: the reasons can be short, but should be directed to the actual stakes facing the individual. In my view, this decisively moves the balance towards the ideal of legality, understood in this case as enhancing the role of the courts to ensure compliance with administrative law.

Here are some examples of what I am describing:

  1.  Singh v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2022 FC 692

Here, Justice Diner describes well the post-Vavilov position on reasons:

[22] Visa officers are certainly entitled to deference, but only where their findings have at least a modicum of justification. That was entirely absent here. In the age of Vavilov, the Court cannot defer to reasoning missing from the Decision, or fill in that reasoning for administrative decision-maker. Lacking justification, the matter will be returned for redetermination

2. Rijhwani v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2022 FC 549

This was a denial of a permanent residence application where the applicant plead H&C grounds. The applicant specifically pointed to establishment and hardship as supporting her application. The Officer did not address these factors in detail. The Court says, at para 17: “It is particularly important that when there are few factors raised—in this case only hardship and establishment—that the Officer addresses the rationale clearly for each.”

This did not occur here. Noting, at para 10,  that “brevity cannot excuse inadequacy” the Court takes issue with the “two significant errors…in under a page of reasons” that characterized this decision.

3. Gill v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2021 FC 1441

Gill was found inadmissible to Canada for five years by a visa officer because of misrepresentation; he failed to disclose an unsuccessful tourist visa application to the United States. Gill advanced the argument that his “misrepresentation” was actually an innocent mistake. He argued that the officer did not reasonably explain why he rejected the “innocent mistake” argument.

Specifically, the officer in this case apparently took—word-for-word—reasons that were given by a separate officer in another case that was reviewed in the Federal Court. Speaking of the Cepeda-Gutierrez presumption, the Court said, at para 34:

I note, however, that the use of identical template language to express not just the relevant legal test or framework, but the reasoning applicable to an applicant’s particular case undermines to at least some degree the presumption that the officer has considered and decided each individual case on its merits.

The Court did note, however, that templates can be useful tools in high volume-decision-making [33].

I do not present these cases to make an empirical claim about what any number of courts are doing post-Vavilov. This is impossible to do without closer study. But I can say that there are many more of these cases, and I recommend you consult my weekly newsletter if you are interested in reading more. In the meantime, I think we can draw some conclusions from these cases:

  1. There is something to be said for a signal sent by a judicial review court to administrators about what they should expect. Prior to Vavilov, decision-makers may have expected strong presumptions of deference and courts claiming that inadequate reasons did not provide a standalone basis for review. Now, decision-makers may expect a closer look if their decisions are reviewed, particularly in this front-line context. One hopes that this incentivizes structural solutions within administrative bodies. This should not be hard to expect from Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada, which houses Canada’s largest administrative decision-maker.
  2. No one should take this to mean that reasons need to be extensive in every case. But it should be taken to mean that boilerplate is presumptively problematic. This is because boilerplate, by its nature, does not respond to the individual stakes raised by many of the decisions in the immigration realm. This is, in part, the thinking behind the Vavilovian constraints. If the constraints bind differently in different cases—if Vavilov is truly contextual—then boilerplate is a non-starter because it will generally fail to account for the context of various decisions.
  3. Nor is this emerging line of cases overly onerous for administrative decision-makers or front-line officers. Again, the reasons need not be perfect, need not look like a judicial decision, and need not be extensive. But they must address the actual legal and factual issues at play. If a decision-maker cannot do this, then one should wonder why they were delegated power in the first place.

At any rate, this is an area that I hope receives more attention going forward.

Boilerplate in Decision-Making

Administrative boilerplate is probably legion in government, but of course, this is an empirical question. Nonetheless, I have read enough cases to know that individuals at the foot of administrative power—many times in front-line decision-making— are at least sometimes faced with deciphering reasons that purport to have “considered all the factors.”  Confronted, as well, with a strong presumption that decision-makers considered all of the evidence in the first place (Cepeda-Gutierrez), it is theoretically hard for applicants to move beyond boilerplate.

Besides internal administrative mechanisms that could—but may not—discourage this sort of behaviour, judicial review doctrine in Canada is starting to take notice of it. Here are a few recent cases:

Gill v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2021 FC 1441

In this case, a visa officer in New Delhi used almost identical language to reject Gill’s application as another visa officer used in another denial out of New Delhi. The Court said [34]: “I note, however, that the use of identical template language to express not just the relevant legal test or framework, but the reasoning applicable to an applicant’s particular case undermines to at least some degree the presumption that the officer has considered and decided each individual case on its merits.”

Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc v Canada (Attorney General), 2021 FCA 157

In this case, the Federal Court of Appeal chastised the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board for, among other things, “conclusory” analysis that purported to consider all the evidence [43]. This was important for the Court: “At best, on this point the Board obfuscated, making it impossible for a reviewing court to know whether the Board has helped itself to a power it does not lawfully have. By obfuscating, the Board has effectively put itself beyond review on this point, asking the Court to sign a blank cheque in its favour. But this Court does not sign blank cheques. Administrators cannot put themselves in a position where they are not accountable.”

Publicover v Canada (Attorney General), 2021 FC 1460

In this case, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans denied a request for a  lobster licence transfer. In her reasons, the Minister stated that she had considered “all the relevant circumstances” [16]. The Court was troubled by this boilerplate, because it did not show that the Minister connected her analysis to the actual law and policy governing the decision [62, 66].

These cases represent a decisive shift from pre-Vavilov caselaw. Gone is Newfoundland Nurses, which permitted courts to take these boilerplate statements and “supplement” them: Nfld Nurses, at para 12. Underlying this doctrinal innovation was an unqualified presumption about administrative decision-making: “To me, it represents a respectful appreciation that a wide range of specialized decision-makers routinely render decisions in their respective spheres of expertise, using concepts and language often unique to their areas and rendering decisions that are often counter-intuitive to a generalist” [13].

In the context of boilerplate, Nfld Nurses makes little sense. This is because boilerplate reasons do not do anything to show expertise or the use of specialized concepts or language. It is merely a “say-so” of the decision-maker. Even on the Dunsmuir standard, it was always hard to say–with a straight face– that this sort of reasoning is “justified, transparent, and intelligible.”

Second, Vavilov’s renewed focus on justification and a “reasons-first” approach will be, I think, a boon for those challenging front-line decision-making. There are necessary caveats: reasons are not always required, and in many administrative contexts (such as high-volume study permit decision-making), “extensive reasons are not required” (see Niyongabo v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2021 FC 1238 at para 12). But even in these areas, courts could be more willing to subject front-line decision-making to a slightly higher bar in terms of reasoning.

Third, I think this turn of events marks a tension between the Cepeda-Gutierrez presumption of consideration and the culture of justification endorsed in Vavilov. This tension was pointed out, as I noted above, in Gill. The presumption of consideration makes sense from an efficiency standpoint: after all, legislatures delegate to decision-makers for a reason, and when they do, courts should generally not go on a line-by-line treasure hunt for error. But at the same time, these efficiency concerns should take a decidedly second place: as noted in Alexion, judicial review becomes difficult when there is only boilerplate shedding light on an ultimate decision; this is to say nothing, of course, of the dignitarian reasons why reasoned decision-making is desirable (see, for a recent analysis of these issues, Janina Boughey).

This is all for the best. Boilerplate may work well in a “top-down” culture of decision-making in which those subject to administrative power and courts are in the thrall of purported administrative expertise. No need, on this account, for a decision-maker to show their work; the “just trust us” ethic is what governs. But Vavilov has arguably changed things: gone is the presumption of expertise, and gone should also be the presumptions about reasoning. If expertise exists, it can and should be demonstrated through persuasive and responsive reasons that allow a court to determine the legal basis of a decision.

What Does City of Toronto Mean For Administrative Law?

The Supreme Court released its much-anticipated decision today in Toronto (City) v Ontario (Attorney General), 2021 SCC 34. While others will address the nuances of the case, the majority generally puts unwritten constitutional principles into a tiny, little box. It says that because “[u]nwritten principles are…part of the law of our Constitution…” [50], unwritten principles only have two practical functions: (1) they can be used in the interpretation of constitutional provisions [55]; (2) they can be used to “develop structural doctrines unstated in the written Constitution per se, but necessary to the coherence of, and flowing by implication from, its architecure” [56]. In this category, the Court uses the example of the doctrine of paramountcy, the doctrine of full faith and credit, and the remedy of suspended declarations of invalidity.

I applaud the majority opinion for clarifying the role of unwritten constitutional principles. For my part, I think the functions they have outlined for unwritten principles give those principles a meaningful role in the constitutional structure while giving priority to the text. The majority aptly underscores the worry with unwritten principles–they are so abstract and potentially endless–and negates that worry by ensuring the text as a control on the use of these principles. Even better, the majority closes the door on the rather pernicious attempt to read municipalities into s.3 of the Charter [5].

But that is not my concern for today. What does any of this have to do with administrative law?

Post-Vavilov, there was a good argument that unwritten principles–the Rule of Law specifically–could have independent force in limiting state action in some way on the standard of review–put more bluntly, that the Rule of Law could invalidate certain legislative rules governing standard of review. The Court says, for example, that “where the legislature has indicated the applicable standard of review, courts are bound to respect that designation, within the limits imposed by the rule of law” (Vavilov, at para 35). It goes on to outline categories of questions–like constitutional questions–that demand a correctness standard because of “respect for the rule of law” (Vavilov, at para 53). This raised the argument that if a legislature were to prescribe a standard of review of reasonableness on a constitutional question, such a standard would not be given effect to by a court because it transgresseses the “limits imposed by the rule of law.”

On first blush, City of Toronto tends to throw cold water on the argument. Its insistence that unwritten principles cannot invalidate legislation could mean that a court should give effect to a legislated standard of review on constitutional questions. And because there is no express constitutional provision insisting on a correctness standard on certain questions, on a strict reading of the City of Toronto majority opinion, there would be no power to invalidate that law.

This very well may be true, and yet I think there are a few ways to reconcile City of Toronto with Vavilov that leads to the same result that Vavilov seems to suggest–a court not applying (which is strictly, though perhaps not functionally, different from invalidation) a legislated standard of review of reasonableness on constitutional questions. Much of this argument hinges on s.96 of the Constitution Act, 1867.

First, it might be said that the Rule of Law as outlined in Vavilov is a necessary interpretive principle that should be used to understand s.96. That is, we cannot understand s.96–which contemplates federally-appointed superior courts–without understanding the traditional role of these courts to conduct judicial review of administrative action on a certain stringency on certain questions. In City of Toronto, the Court cites s.96-100 as an example of unwritten principles bolstering a constitutional principle, suggesting that “unwritten constitutional principles of judicial independence and the rule have law have aided in the interpretation of [ss.96-100], which have come to safeguard the core jurisdiction of the courts that fall within the scope of those provisions” [55].

I think to call any of the doctrinal innovations that have come to s.96 a result of “interpretation” stretches the term a bit far. On its face, s.96 is just an appointing provision. It may be one thing to interpret what the terms of that appointing provision are, but to construct doctrine on top of the provision–or to make it work in a constitutional structure–seems to be a different judicial function.

Secondly, and I think more persuasively, the Court notes that unwritten principles can develop structural doctrines that flow from constitutional architecture [56]. Again, the Court notes examples of this sort of doctrinal construction: full faith and credit, paramountcy, and even the legal result in the Quebec Secession Reference. As we see, some of these doctrines are quite particular to specific contexts–the Quebec Seccession Reference, for example. Others are more general. The doctrine of full faith and credit in the context of conflict of laws is a major doctrinal innovation that is not found anywhere in a specific constitutional provision. These doctrinal innovations can, in effect, change or invalidate legislation that conflict with them, though they are rooted in the text itself.

Vavilov‘s comments on standard of review best fall into this category. The standard of review framework flows from two unwritten principles themselves: legislative intent (perhaps partially reflected in the principle of “democracy”) and the Rule of Law. The Court conceives of the Rule of Law as generally the rule of courts, in that courts must retain a strong supervisory role over certain questions. It would upset the supervisory role of these courts to outlaw their ability to hold state actors to the strictest constitutional standard. This is but a logical extension of Crevier, which set the stage for an argument about the constitutionally-protected role of the superior courts.

An example and a caveat. First, the majority and dissent clash over MacMillan Bloedel. In that case, the Court arguably invalidated a legislative scheme that granted exclusion jurisdiction to a youth court. The City of Toronto majority says the holding in that case was based on the text of ss.96-101 and 129 of the Constitution Act, 1867 [50]. The dissent, on the other hand, cites para 41 of MacMillan Bloedel to suggest that the basis of the holding was the Rule of Law itself [176]. In my view, MacMillan Bloedel is a bit of both. The Court clearly bases its decision in s.96 (MacMillan Bloedel, at para 47). But it also says that the case is best understood “in a broader constitutional context, considering this jurisprudence along with the preamble to the Constitution Act, 1867, the principle of the rule of law, and the central place of superior courts in our system of governance” (MacMillan Bloedel, at para 2). To the extent these principles and s.96 were abridged, the impugned legislative provision was “read down” as “inoperative to deprive the superior court of its jurisdiction to convict the appellant of contempt in this case” (MacMillan Bloedel, at para 43). In MacMillan Bloedel, we have a constitutional text (s.96)–>supported by the Rule of Law (unwritten principle)–>a result that the core of superior court powers were protected in this case. Vavilov falls into this same category. We can see, then, that in some cases a legislative standard of review may be “read down” as a result of the standard of review doctrine spun out from the unwritten principles of legislative intent and the Rule of Law.

The caveat I wish to raise has to do with the Federal Courts. Section 96 does not speak to statutory courts, and in theory, the Federal Courts’ judicial review jurisdiction could be abolished tomorrow unlike the superior courts. All of this, then, would stop at the Federal Courts. But I do not think this is inevitable. Once a statutory court has been made under s.101 of the Constitution Act, 1867, one might make the argument that so long as such a court exists, its powers should be construed as broadly as the powers of a superior court under s.96. But I do not commit to this argument in full, except to say that it makes practical sense to me and would uphold a consistent judicial standard for administrative action across jurisdictions.

At any rate, I think City of Toronto–despite its strong language on unwritten principles–can be reconciled with Vavilov. And at the end of the day, the result may be the same: legislation that undermines an unwritten principle may not be “given effect” according to a doctrinal innovation, even if the legislation is not “invalidated” in a strict sense. This is the best way to undertstand Vavilov‘s standard of review framework.

“Administrative Sabotage” and the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal

Recently, Professor David Noll (Rutgers Law) posted a fascinating article called “Administrative Sabotage” on SSRN, forthcoming in the Michigan Law Review. You can view the article here, and Professor Noll wrote a fascinating thread outlining its main arguments. The abstract:

Government can sabotage itself. From the president’s choice of agency heads to agency budgets, regulations, and litigating positions, presidents and their appointees have undermined the very programs they administer. But why would an agency try to put itself out of business? And how can agencies that are subject to an array of political and legal checks succeed in sabotaging statutory programs?

This Article offers an account of the “what, why, and how” of administrative sabotage that answers those questions. It contends that sabotage reflects a distinct mode of agency action that is more permanent, more destructive, and more democratically illegitimate than other more-studied forms of maladministration. In contrast to an agency that shirks its statutory duties or drifts away from Congress’s policy goals, one engaged in sabotage aims deliberately to kill or nullify a program it administers. Agencies sabotage because presidents ask them to. Facing pressure to dismantle statutory programs in an environment where securing legislation from Congress is difficult and politically costly, presidents pursue retrenchment through the administrative state.

[…]

Professor Noll’s paper is a significant contribution, relevant outside of the United States. In fact, as I have written about previously (see Mark Mancini, “The Political Problem with the Administrative State” (2020) 2 Journal of Commonwealth Law 55) the Ford government’s treatment of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal (OHRT) is a classic example of a government legitimately delaying appointments to stymie the practice of the administrative justice system. Professor Noll has now provided the theoretical and linguistic tools for us to understand this phenomenon in administrative government, even for us in Canada.

***

Noll’s focus is “the sabotage of statutory programs by agencies that administer them” [7]. In this, Noll’s project fits in a rich tradition of public administration scholarship that has studied the various ways in which bureaucrats can undermine policy objectives set by their enabling statutes, through mal -administration, “shirking” or drifting, or sabotage. Sabotage can be defined as bureaucratic action that “deliberately undermines policy objectives of the superiors” (see John Brehm & Scott Gates, Working, Shirking and Sabotage: Bureaucratic Response to a Democratic Republic, at 21).  Sabotage “involves a specific stance on the part of the agency toward the program it administers” and the stance “seeks to eliminate a program [the agency] administers” [8]. Sabotage is thus different from other bureaucratic phenomena, in that it involves a deliberate and intentional sacking from within of the agency’s ability to fulfill its delegated mandate [7]. A classic basic example of sabotage that Noll points out—and that I address in my paper on the OHRT—is “non-appointments”—failing to appoint agency heads, or other important positions, as the case may have it [30].

Administrative sabotage, in either Canada or the United States, is a destructive practice that undermines the legislative choice to delegate to agencies. As Noll says: “Rather than use delegated authority to enforce and elaborate statutory policy, an agency uses that authority to undermine the program it administers. In structural terms, this use of delegated authority is at odds with the principle of legislative supremacy” [10]. Once a legislature has delegated power to an agency, it is a condition of the delegation that the power be exercised according to the enabling statute. Agencies and politicians that fail to live up to these delegated terms—and worse, agencies and politicians that actively undermine them—act inconsistently with the power they have been given. Moreover, they act undemocratically—they undermine the legislative plan & bargain containing the conditions governing the administrative action.

Complicating this conventional picture is the emergence of theories of executive control over the administrative state and the desirability of political control as a constitutional matter. The unitary executive theory in the US, for example, generally holds that all executive power is placed in a President, and it therefore follows that the “executive”—including executive administrative agencies—must be controlled by the President (see, for the nuances, Seila Law). In Canada, we have a parliamentary system, but the gist is similar in at least some respects. Legislatures provide powers to executives and administrative decision-makers to make decisions. Legislatures also structure the relationship between the executive and the administrative state, creating and controlling powers of appointment, for example (see the classic example in Saskatchewan Federation of Labour, 2013 SKCA 61). A strong executive power advocate may claim that that the executive can lawfully engage in sabotage by appointing people who wish to undermine the agency itself. It can do so because the executive is the representative of the people, and thus is the politically legitimate actor, in contradistinction to unaccountable administrators.

In the US, the Trump administration furnished many examples of administrative sabotage, and it mooted the defense of the practice. A prominent example included Mick Mulvaney and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (the CFPB). The CFPB is in charge of imposing a variety of consumer financial laws. Mick Mulvaney, appointed the head of the CFPB, had previously indicated that he supported abolishing the CFPB [3]. Of course, by itself this is neither here nor there. But once Mulvaney became the head of the agency, on the conventional picture, he had no discretion to undermine the legislative bargain simply because he disagreed with it in principled. Yet he did so: he “declined to request money to fund the Bureau’s operations; installed “Policy Associate Directors” to shadow bureau chiefs protected by the civil service laws; rescinded, stayed, or delayed major rules on payday lending, overdraft fees, and student loan servicing…” [3]. Mulvaney justified these practices by appealing to the adage of “elections have consequences” [11].

Noll’s paper also explores the various reforms that might be adopted to stop sabotage. Noll shows how courts and Congress have been largely unable to control sabotage. Presidents and courts that have a reflexively anti-administrativist agenda may, in fact, be incentivized to exacerbate and permit administrative sabotage. But as a practical matter, there is another issue: many instances of “administrative sabotage” are simply not amenable to judicial review: “it is simple to invent technocratic explanations for agency actions designed to undermine a statutory program…”, and as such, there are evidential hurdles [13-14]. Noll suggests that specific statutory reforms that might shed light on the question, the goal of these reforms being that the statutory schemes are designed to prevent sabotage—“policymakers should not assume that programs will be administered in good-faith” [50]. Noll suggests statutory appointment qualifications consistent with the Constitution; and, notably for our purposes, endorses the proposition that broad statutory delegations (the norm since the New Deal) encourage sabotage [54].

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There is much in Noll’s piece to recommend it to Canadians, but I want to focus on just two points: (1) Noll’s conclusions about delegated power; and (2) the case of the OHRT, arguably an example of Noll’s sabotage.

As noted above, and since the New Deal, scholars have argued—and sometimes assumed—that broad delegations of statutory power are desirable. So the old case goes, legislatures simply do not have the time and expertise to consider all the factors when legislating; and particularly in complex fields of regulation, it makes sense to delegate power to so-called expert agencies. As a descriptive matter, this is likely true, and for that reason, it makes sense for legislatures to “trade-off” political control for expertise (as Epstein & O’Halloran once put it).  But this does not speak to the degree to which this should happen. As I wrote in my article on the matter [94], and as Noll essentially argues:

The real problem with executive discretion, then, is not that it abridges independence; but that it has a potential of being misused to undermine the limitations on statutory power that arise in the context of a delegating statute. The goal should be to cabin executive discretion tightly so that it, necessarily, cannot undermine delegated legislative power. Broad delegations, on this understanding, should be avoided.

The point is that the solution to sabotage starts not with depending on the good-faith of administrators (as a previous generation of pro-administrativist scholars did), or depending on the political control exercised by an executive actor (who may have incentives to permit sabotage). Instead, it starts with the legislature slightly increasing the cost of legislating by keeping the possibility of sabotage in mind when legislating, and using its powers to put meaningful limits on delegated powers.

This raises an important point about independence. To simplify, in Canada, the independence of administrative decision-making is parasitic on the degree to which a statute permits that independence (famously, see Ocean Port). Statutes can either liberate or constrict executive control over the administrative state. One way for executives to control so-called “independent” tribunals is for the legislature to vest an appointment power in the executive. Assuming this power is exercised according to the terms of the statute, there is no constitutional objection; while independence of administrative decision-making may be a good in some cases, it is not self-evidently legally required (though see the reading of the caselaw suggested by Ron Ellis in his text, Unjust By Design). And political control by elected actors is desirable in a system of responsible government.

But again, this is only true to an extent. Sabotage is quite different from an executive exercising lawfully delegated powers of control; it is a situation where an executive or agency head may intentionally choose to exercise power it does not have to undermine the power it has been granted. The sin of omission here is not that the executive is simply choosing not to exercise delegated power; it is that the executive is actively using its position to undermine the entire statutory bargain setting up the agency.

And this is exactly what happened in the case of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal. As late as January 2021, observers argued that “…Ontario’s human rights enforcement system has become dysfunctional” in part because “The final resolution of a claim can now take years for individuals who have experienced discrimination.” The cause of this delay: few of the human rights adjudicators whose tenure is at-pleasure have been replaced. I previously studied this phenomenon as an example of a situation where an executive was failing to implement delegated statutory power. Indeed, the relevant legislation delegates power to the Cabinet, who “shall” make appointments to the tribunal [my paper, at 82]. By failing to do so, the government created grist for the mill of its critics, who asserted—not unreasonably—that the government was intentionally starving the tribunal and delaying the resolution of claims.

The failure here is traceable, ultimately, to the legislature—though the executive undermining of delegated power is the evil to which the legislature should have turned its mind. The legislature enacted the tribunal, and it can rescind its powers tomorrow. But executives do not have that authority, which is why sabotage is undesirable. So, in the OHRT case, by failing to impose timelimits for appointments and a minimum number of members, the legislation grants easily-abused delegated appointment power to the executive. So, as Noll suggests, it was the breadth of delegated power that created the conditions for sabotage.

Canadians should pay close attention to Noll’s article. While there are obvious differences between the Canadian and American administrative states, the phenomenon of sabotage is likely a common evil.

Bill C-10 and the CRTC Debacle

Does it get much worse?

Bill C-10 has passed the House of Commons. For those unaware, the bill nominally involves “compelling companies like Netflix Inc and TikTok Inc to finance and promote Canadian content.”  Experts, like the University of Ottawa’s Michael Geist, are concerned about the far-reaching impacts of this law. The concerns mostly revolve around the idea that the government’s law may reach content produced on user-driven sites, targeting individual content creators rather than the “tech giants” that are the nominal targets of the law.

I agree with Professor Geist. I share deep worries about the chilling effect this, and other measures the government is introducing, will have on free expression. But that isn’t my area of interest or expertise, for the purposes of today. Instead, whatever the content of the law, no one can gainsay Professor Geist’s conclusion, upon the tabling of the bill, that it “hands massive new powers to Canada’s telecom and broadcast regulator (the CRTC) to regulate online streaming services, opening the door to mandated Cancon payments, discoverability requirements, and confidential information disclosures, all backed by new fining powers.” The wide-reaching delegation of power will, as is common in administrative settings, be used by the CRTC to the hilt. We should expect nothing different, and we should therefore be disappointed that Canada’s government did all it can to prevent the legislature from taking a hard look at this bill.

In Canada, most of our discussions of administrative law are synonymous with discussions of judicial review. That is, we tend to view the law of judicial review as the same as administrative law. The focus of most Canadian administrative law academics (myself included) is on the stuff of judicial doctrine; standards of review, procedural fairness, etc etc. But, in other jurisdictions, like the United States, legislatures and courts have indicated an interest in controlling administrative power themselves. The United States’ Administrative Procedure Act, despite its flaws, is at least a legislative indication that the administrative state can and should be controlled by the legislative standards regarding adjudication and rule-making.

No such interest evidently exists in Canada, as the Bill C-10 debacle shows.  Put aside, for the moment, the rather emaciated Statutory Instruments Act (see Neudorf, here for problems with this statute at 562 et seq, and my paper, here, for more). The efforts by the government (and other abettors) to do anything—whatever the optics—to limit debate and amendment of the bill are unfortunate:

All bills, no matter their consequences, should be subject to robust debate, in both Parliament and the public forum more generally. But this law, in particular, is troubling from an administrative law perspective. Parliament’s inability to even fully debate—let alone control—the mass discretion passed to the CRTC should worry all Canadians.

I accept the legitimacy of the administrative state, parasitic as it is on delegated power. But that’s the rub—the power is delegated, and amenable to control by the delegator. The legitimacy question is quite aside from the need for the formal, constitutional actors in our system (the legislatures, specifically) to fully and frankly debate the policy and legal implications of broad delegated power. In fact, legislatures may be the only ones with the power to do this in our constitutional order. Despite strong arguments to the contrary (see Justice Côté’s opinion in the GHG Reference and Alyn Johnson’s excellent paper here), I am not convinced that courts can pass on the constitutionality (let alone the policy implications) of the scope of broad delegated power. While courts are the only “independent” guardians of the Constitution (see Ell, at paras 3, 23), that does not mean that legislatures should bar themselves from considering the legalities and policy implications of their delegations.

It gives me no comfort that judges of the Supreme Court and commentators has referred to the CRTC as the “archetype” of an expert tribunal (see the opinion of Abella and Karakatsanis JJ in Bell Canada, at para 64; see also B. Kain, “Developments in Communications Law: The 2012-2013 Term—The Broadcasting Reference, the Supreme Court and the Limits of the CRTC” (2014) 64 SCLR (2d) 63). While it is certainly true that “we simply do not know what the typical bureaucratic objective function looks like” (see Gersen, here, at 335), there is clearly a risk that “[d]elegation can create iron triangles of policymakers insulated from public control…” (Gersen, at 345). This is even more apposite where the mandates that are implemented by administrative actors are vague and general, as they often are. While expertise may be a valid reason for delegation, there is an inevitable trade-off involved in delegating power to experts—there is always a risk of bureaucratic drift, or expansion of delegated mandates. The worry is multiplied when the legislature indicates little interest in debating the merits of delegated power. Indeed, perhaps the legislature has no incentive to control delegated power, except for the incentives provided by constitutional principles.

 And here, the CRTC has been given delegated power a country mile wide. As Geist noted on the tabling of the bill, many of the specifics of the bill’s new concept of “online undertakings” will be left to the regulator. For example, the third reading of the bill does not unambiguously say that it does not apply to users.  Much will be left in the hands of the CRTC through its regulation-making powers. We will not know the extent to which the market and users will be affected until the CRTC begins using its new-found powers.

Now, because of the parliamentary calendar, it does not appear  that the Senate will be able to pass the bill in time. This is good news, but it seems more fortuitous than anything. More of this vast delegated power appears on the horizon for other agencies, like the Canadian Human Rights Commission. A rigorous public will need to step in where the government has made it impossible for the legislature to fully examine the proposed law.

For What It’s Worth

University of Toronto professor Richard Stacey recently released an article in the University of Toronto Law Journal (paywalled, which is truly unfortunate), arguing that (among other things) the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in  Vavilov “affirm[s]” the Supreme Court’s controversial decision in Doré  (340; see also 351). To be specific, Stacey says (340-341):

Read together, and building on a rich body of Canadian case law that came before,  Vavilov and Doré  definitively mark a culture shift way from an outcomes-oriented conception of judicial review toward one that engenders a culture of justification…

…in a culture of justification built on a robust conception of reasonableness, constitutional law and administrative law come together in a unified system of public law.

Stacey also makes a number of other arguments, including: (1) the culture of justification apparently endorsed in the same way in  Vavilov and Doré necessarily and logically excludes correctness review (see pg 349) and (2) so-called “Charter values” act as “justificatory resources” that together bind a unified system of public law, bringing  Vavilov and Doré  together (357 et seq). That is the core of Stacey’s argument: the so-called “unity of public law” thesis draws together a requirement that administrative decisions be justified.

Stacey’s argument is interesting, but ultimately unpersuasive. For one, it treads well-worn territory of “administrative constitutionalism” and “the unity of public law,” theories that—as I will argue—are actually undermined by  Vavilov’s formalism. While  Vavilov does put a focus on justification, Stacey’s article does not deal with the parts of  Vavilov that clearly work against his thesis: the dispatch of expertise as a factor governing the standard of review; and the retention of correctness review based on Rule of Law considerations, among other things. Secondly, Stacey’s article does not engage with key scholarship on this issue post- Vavilov that could both strengthen and undermine his case. Finally, Stacey attaches too much determinacy to Charter values, ethereal things that even their most ardent supporters must agree are relatively indeterminate: perhaps not of this world.

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Stacey sets out his argument on the first issue (the marriage between Doré  and  Vavilov) boldly: “The foundation of both cases is the same, and both judgments ultimately embrace the same conception of reasonableness” [351]. Stacey cites the Alsaloussi case out of the Federal Court, where the Court relied on  Vavilov in a Doré -type case to give guidance “on what a reasonable decision looks like” [351]. To Stacey, this case—and the theory—reinforces “how the two judgments help to draw administrative and constitutional law together in a single, unified system of law” [352].

As I have outlined previously, I do not see how this is the case, even on the terms of the reasonableness standard. Doré  was positively unclear about what administrators should do when faced with a Charter claim, beyond saying that an administrative decision-maker “balances the Charter values with the statutory objectives” (Doré , at para 55 et seq). The only question for a judicial review court is whether “in assessing the impact of the relevant Charter protection and given the nature of the decision and the statutory and factual contexts, the decision reflects a proportionate balancing of the Charter protections at play” (Doré , at para 57). But, unlike the Oakes test, and unlike  Vavilov’s list of constraints, the Doré -line of cases do not provide any guidance on how courts should conduct the proportionality analysis.  Vavilov provides a far more robust and detailed schema of reasonableness than Doré  does, and so to equate these cases on this front is ultimately unpersuasive. The similarity on the reasonableness front—if it exists—is cosmetic at best.

Stacey also does not address why  Vavilov’s comments on constitutional issues do not demand a correctness standard in the Doré  context. As a reminder, the Court in  Vavilov—while expressly excepting Doré  from the scope of the comments for now (see para 55)—said that “[t]he constitutional authority to act must have determinate, defined and consistent limits, which necessitates the application of the correctness standard” ( Vavilov, at para 56).  As I have said before, this should logically include Charter issues. But Stacey does not address this point, nor does he address important literature attacking administrative constitutionalism as a general theory (see Leonid Sirota’s paper here).

Moreover, Stacey does not address other post- Vavilov commentary that could actually strengthen his point. For example, Paul Daly argues that all issues going to the merits in  Vavilov are, on its own terms, subject to the reasonableness standard. I have my issues with this argument, but I think it is far more persuasive in support of Stacey’s argument than the evidence Stacey actually offers–in part because it takes Vavilov on it’s own terms.

Relatedly, Stacey argues that a joint-reading of  Vavilov and Doré  renders the correctness standard irrelevant (349). Yet this is not convincing to me. As I have argued, and as Professor Daly argues to a similar extent,  Vavilov is not just one thing, easily explained with reference to a catchphrase like “culture of justification.” There are various currents of administrative law thought coursing through the decision.  Vavilov’s comments on the Rule of Law, for example, are relatively formalistic, focusing on the role of the courts as the guardian of the Constitution. On the other hand, other parts of  Vavilov clearly draw from the justificatory school of administrative law thought, championed by scholars like David Dyzenhaus. As I have argued in previous work, these schools of thought can be complementary, but  Vavilov is clearly a product of pragmatic agreement, even if guided by principle to some extent. Professor Stacey does not address this reality when he excludes correctness from the standard of review equation, without as much as addressing the counter-arguments clearly presented in Vavilov. Indeed, if one follows  Vavilov’s formalistic side, correctness review still has a valuable—and formally required—role in Canadian administrative law.

Finally, I should draw attention to Stacey’s argument on Charter values. Much has been written on Charter values, and I need not reprise that literature to make my objection: Stacey’s focus on Charter values as justificatory resources is only useful if the set of justificatory resources is relatively bounded and determinate. While we cannot expect perfect or near-perfect determinacy in law, and moral reasoning with regards to rights-claims is inevitable, this does not logically entail an embrace of Charter values. The problem is that Charter values are endlessly indeterminate—they are not necessarily bounded by the text of the guarantees they are supposed to represent, and some Charter values could conceivably not be found in the text. Enterprising courts and litigants could pitch a value at high level of generality, leading to needlessly subjective moralizing about rights in a way untethered to the doctrine of various constitutional guarantees. Since there is no clear agreement on (1) how to determine what Charter values are relevant; (2) how Charter values are different than Charter rights; and (3) on how administrators are supposed to understand Charter values as distinct from Charter rights, this set of justificatory resources is not at all helpful to courts or litigants.

Tying together Stacey’s article is a common claim: “…I see no distinction between administrative and constitutional law in the first place” (357). Of course, this is a common (one might say orthodox) position. And yet it ignores an important function of constitutional law in relation to the administrative state—the Constitution (written and unwritten) is a limitation or constraint on government action (see  Vavilov, at 56). The hierarchy of laws exists for a reason, and under that hierarchy administrative discretion is parasitic on a statutory grant, which itself is subject to Charter scrutiny. There is no real, formal equality between administrative law and constitutional law: the Constitution is supreme, and it shapes and constrains government power. It does not liberate administrative discretion.

All told, Professor Stacey’s article contributes to the growing post- Vavilov literature. Unfortunately, I do not find it convincing.  Nonetheless, the Supreme Court will eventually deal with Doré  post- Vavilov. And until then, my opinion is worth as much as the page it’s written on, for what it’s worth.