elections – Double Aspect

Correct, but Wrong

Thoughts on the Supreme Court’s dismissal of the challenge to Ontario’s interference in the Toronto municipal elections

Last week, the Supreme Court handed down its judgment in Toronto (City) v Ontario (Attorney General), 2021 SCC 34, upholding a provincial statute cutting the number of wards and councillors in Toronto in the middle of a municipal election campaign. The Court divided 5-4, with Chief Justice Wagner and Justice Brown writing for the majority (also Justices Moldaver, Côté, and Rowe) and Justice Abella for the dissent (also Justices Karakatsanis, Martin, and Kasirer).

The majority gets the outcome right. As both co-blogger Mark Mancini and I have written here in response to the Superior Court’s decision in this case, the province was well within its rights to enact what was, by all accounts, a disruptive law of questionable usefulness. But the majority’s reasoning is underwhelming. It’s not bad on the first issue: that of an alleged violation of the freedom of expression. But it is just rubbish on the second: that of the constitutional principle of democracy. The majority’s attempt to synthesize and cabin the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on unwritten principles is a complete failure.

The first issue is whether the reorganization of the Toronto city council after the beginning ― though well over two months before the end ― of the municipal election campaign was a limitation of the freedom of expression of the candidates who had started campaigning under the old system. The majority holds that it was not. As a result, it does not get to the question of whether a limitation would have been justified.

For the majority, the matter falls to be considered as a claim for the provision by the state of a particular platform for expression, rather than as a (more usual) claim that a person is being prevented from conveying their ideas to others. As the majority explains,

the City does not seek protection of electoral participants’ expression from restrictions tied to content or meaning … ; rather, it seeks a particular platform (being whatever council structure existed at the outset of the campaign) by which to channel, and around which to structure, that expression. [32]

In other words, this is a “positive” rather than a “negative” right claim. The majority reformulates the test for such a claim as whether it is

grounded in the fundamental Charter freedom of expression, such that, by denying access to a statutory platform or by otherwise failing to act, the government has either substantially interfered with freedom of expression, or had the purpose of interfering with freedom of expression? [25]

The majority adds that “substantial interference with freedom of expression requires “effective preclusion” of “meaningful expression”, which is “an exceedingly high bar that would be met only in extreme and rare cases”. [27]

The City has not cleared this bar. The majority states that “the candidates and their supporters had 69 days — longer than most federal and provincial election campaigns — to re‑orient their messages and freely express themselves according to the new ward structure”, with “no restrictions on the content or meaning of the messages that participants could convey”. [37] There was a meaningful election campaign, albeit a different one than had originally been planned.

The majority also rejects the City’s alternative argument on freedom of expression, to the effect that it implies a guarantee of “effective representation” which the Supreme Court originally articulated in the context of section 3 of the Charter. This provision protects the right to vote in federal and provincial ― not municipal ― elections. For the majority, “[e]ffective representation is not a principle of s. 2(b), nor can the concept be imported wholesale from a different Charter right”.

The dissent, for its part, begins by stressing the disruptiveness of the reform imposed by the province, and the lack of justification for it ― indeed, the new electoral structure had been considered by the City itself, and rejected. It goes on to argue that

When a democratic election takes place in Canada, including a municipal election, freedom of expression protects the rights of candidates and voters to meaningfully express their views and engage in reciprocal political discourse on the path to voting day. … When the state enacts legislation that has the effect of destabilizing the opportunity for meaningful reciprocal discourse, it is enacting legislation that interferes with the Constitution. [115]

This is what the province has done here, as the dissent emphasizes by quoting at great length the statements of candidates impacted by the disruption.

The dissent also argues strenuously that the majority is wrong to see the dispute as being about the positive provision of a platform for expression, and so to apply a higher threshold of seriousness to the question of whether the freedom of expression has been infringed. Indeed, in its view

There is no reason to superimpose onto our constitutional structure the additional hurdle of dividing rights into positive and negative ones for analytic purposes. Dividing the rights “baby” in half is not Solomonic wisdom, it is a jurisprudential sleight-of-hand that promotes confusion rather than rights protection. [155]

The province has also failed to advance a justification. This means that the impugned law contravenes the Charter.

As noted above, I think that the majority is basically right, notably in treating the claim advanced by the city as being for the provision or maintenance of a specific set of arrangements within which expression is to be channelled. The freedom of expression is the ability to say things one thinks, and not to say things one doesn’t. It’s not a guarantee that what one says will be interesting or relevant to anyone. If a province goes dry tomorrow, a great deal of alcohol advertising will have been rendered pointless, as will a great deal of campaigning for moderate drinking, research into the health benefits of red wine, and what not. But prohibition will not infringe the Charter. (It will be abominable, but constitutional.) It is the same when a province renders pointless a great deal of campaigning for a municipal election. Stupid, but constitutional, as Justice Scalia used to say.

The dissent’s response to this would be, I think, that the context of an election is different, but that really just proves the majority’s point. The claim at issue is about a specific platform for expression. The dissent’s analogy with Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority v Canadian Federation of Students — British Columbia Component, 2009 SCC 31, [2009] 2 SCR 295 also doesn’t work. That case was concerned with a ban on political advertisements on city buses, and the issue, as the majority explained, was not access to the platform in question ― that is, advertising on buses ― but a restriction on the content of what could be said on that platform. Here, the situation is exactly the opposite. The province hasn’t changed how it regulates the content of municipal election campaigns, but instead has shut down the old platform for expression and substituted for it a different one.

My objection to the Chief Justice’s and Justice Brown’s reasons has to do not with what they do, but with some of the things they say. They describe the threshold at which the “positive” freedom of expression is engaged as “an exceedingly high bar that would be met only in extreme and rare cases”. This may be tantamount to reading this aspect of the freedom out of the doctrine entirely ― but they also say that it has, in fact, some value. This language of “extreme and rare cases” isn’t necessary here, and I don’t think it provides useful guidance for the future; the words are too imprecise and subjective. The other troubling aspect of the majority’s reasons is its mention ― seemingly in passing, but I suspect that it is with at least a measure of approval ― of the fact that the Charter‘s guarantee of freedom of expression “has been interpreted so broadly that the framework has been criticized for setting too low a bar for establishing a … limitation”. [16] This has nothing to with this case, since that broad framework traditionally traced to Irwin Toy Ltd v Quebec (Attorney General), [1989] 1 SCR 927, doesn’t apply. The Supreme Court is already far too accepting of limitations on the freedom of expression, and its possible willingness to restrict the freedom’s scope bodes ill.

I turn now to the second issue, that of whether interference with an ongoing municipal election is an unconstitutional violation of the democratic principle. This principle, which the City suggested required the provision of “effective representation” in the municipal context, as well as in the cases governed by section 3 of the Charter, would serve as a limit on the legislature’s ability to enact laws in relation to “Municipal Institutions in the Province” pursuant to section 92(8) of the Constitution Act, 1867.

The majority is unimpressed. It says that unwritten principles such as democracy “are … part of the law of our Constitution, in the sense that they form part of the context and backdrop to the Constitution’s written terms”. [50] However,

because they are unwritten, their “full legal force” is realized not in supplementing the written text of our Constitution as “provisions of the Constitution” with which no law may be inconsistent and remain of “force or effect” under s. 52(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982. Unwritten constitutional principles are not “provisions of the Constitution”. [54]

They can serve two functions: on the one hand, they can be used as aids in interpreting constitutional text; on the other, they can fill textual gaps. What they cannot do, the majority says, is directly invalidate legislation. To hold otherwise would be to “trespass into legislative authority to amend the Constitution”, [58] and to make an end-run around section 1 and 33 of the Charter, which allow, respectively, reasonable limitation of rights and legislative override of some of them, including, relevantly for this case, the freedom of expression.

To support its claim that principles have only interpretive and suppletive effects, the majority reviews various cases that might suggest otherwise. Notably, it dismisses the dissent on the legal question in the Patriation Reference, Re: Resolution to amend the Constitution, [1981] 1 SCR 753, which the Supreme Court later unanimously endorsed in Reference re Secession of Quebec, [1998] 2 SCR 217, on the basis that “while the specific aspects of federalism at issue there may not have been found in the express terms of the Constitution, federalism is“. [52] As for the Provincial Judges Reference, Reference re Remuneration of Judges of the Provincial Court (PEI), [1997] 3 SCR 3, it stands, the majority says, for the proposition that “where the constitutional text is not itself sufficiently definitive or comprehensive to furnish the answer to a constitutional question, a court may use unwritten constitutional principles as interpretive aids” [65] and “to fill a gap where provincial courts dealing with non‑criminal matters were concerned”. [66]

In this case, “the unwritten constitutional principle of democracy cannot be used to narrow legislative competence” over municipalities, which is “plenary” and “unrestricted by any constitutional principle”. [80] Moreover,

The constitutional status of municipalities, and whether they ought to enjoy greater independence from the provinces, was a topic of debate during patriation … In the end, municipalities were not constitutionalized, either in amendments to the Constitution Act, 1867 or by reference in the democratic rights enshrined in the Charter. … Were the unwritten democratic principle applied to require all elections to conform to the requirements of s. 3 (including municipal elections, and not just elections to the House of Commons or provincial legislatures), the text of s. 3 would be rendered substantially irrelevant and redundant. [81]

The dissent, again, sees matters differently. It points out that unwritten principles have been recognized as binding both in Canada and in other “Parliamentary” [166] constitutional systems. (The dissent thus does not mention the United States.) It insists that

unwritten principles are our Constitution’s most basic normative commitments from which specific textual provisions derive. … Constitutional text emanates from underlying principles, but it will not always be exhaustive of those principles. In other words, the text is not exhaustive of our Constitution. [168]

The dissent rejects the majority’s insistence on the primacy of the text. Unwritten principles are just as important. It is they that “assist in developing an evolutionary understanding of the rights and freedoms guaranteed in our Constitution” ― that is, they “make[]” the constitutional living “tree grow”. [179] As for the majority’s argument based on section 52 of the Constitution Act, 1982, it “is a highly technical exegetical exercise designed to overturn our binding authority establishing that unwritten constitutional principles are a full constitutional partner with the text”. [183]

For the dissent, in “rare” cases “unwritten principles may be used to invalidate legislation” that “elides the reach of any express constitutional provision but is fundamentally at odds with our Constitution’s ‘internal architecture’ or ‘basic constitutional structure'”. [170] As the dissent sees things, this is what happened in the Provincial Judges Reference, as well as in Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia v British Columbia (Attorney General), 2014 SCC 59, [2014] 3 SCR 31. That said, the dissent does not say anything about the application of the democratic principle in this case, which it has already resolved on the Charter argument.

By my lights, this is the judicial equivalent of a Leafs-Bruins game, which both ought to lose, but one has to win, just because. Now, I think that the majority’s conclusion is correct as a matter of both precedent and principle. As the Supreme Court held in British Columbia v Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd, 2005 SCC 49, [2005] 2 SCR 473, it would be wrong to apply an unwritten principle so as to expand the scope of a Charter right so as to directly contradict clear text. Imperial Tobacco concerned the protection against retroactive legislation, which the Charter reserved to criminal law. Here we are dealing with the right to vote, and its love child “effective representation”, which the Charter reserves to federal and provincial, not municipal, elections. So far, so good. But only so far.

The rest of the majority’s analysis ― which, of course, is quite unnecessary, because the passage from paragraph 81 quoted above is enough to dispose of this issue ― rests on wholly untenable distinctions. The majority says that federalism is unlike the other constitutional principles ― indeed, that it is not a constitutional principle but part of the constitution’s “structure” ― because “federalism is” “found in the express terms of the Constitution”, notably the division of powers between the Dominion and the provinces. But the same is true of democracy and of the rule of law. We can point to some provisions, such as sections 1 and 3-5 of the Charter for democracy (as well, of course, as all the provisions having to do with the House of Commons in the Constitution Act, 1867), and sections 9-11 of the Charter and 133 of the Constitution Act, 1867 (again, this is not an exhaustive list) to say that these principles too are found in the express terms of the Constitution, and hence their other “specific aspects .. not found” in those express terms can nonetheless be judicially enforced.

Similarly, the majority’s distinction between alleged “gap-filling” in the Provincial Judges Reference “where provincial courts dealing with non‑criminal matters were concerned” and invalidating laws on the basis of unwritten principles is humbug. So far as these courts were concerned, the only reason the laws reducing their judges’ salaries were invalid was unwritten principle.

Last but not least, as Mark has noted, the majority doesn’t even begin to address Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65, with its clear statement that

Where a court reviews the merits of an administrative decision … the standard of review it applies must reflect the legislature’s intent with respect to the role of the reviewing court, except where giving effect to that intent is precluded by the rule of law. [23; emphasis added]

In other words, Vavilov says that the Rule of Law principle does invalidate legislation to the extent that (though only to the extent that) it would require an incompatible standard of review.

The majority also says that “The unwritten constitutional principle of the honour of the Crown is sui generis” because, it seems, it “arises from the assertion of Crown sovereignty over pre‑existing Aboriginal societies … and from the unique relationship between the Crown and Indigenous peoples”. [62] But the other principles, such as federalism (a sine qua non for Canada’s existence) and democracy and the Rule of Law (1688 and all that), can also boast “unique” historical pedigrees.

The majority’s other arguments fare just as badly as its attempts at splitting hairs with a blunt axe. Applying principles to invalidate laws does not trespass into constitutional amendment if principles were already part of the constitution as enacted, in 1867 and in 1982. While some applications may inappropriately compromise section 33 of the Charter ― which is arguably one reason why Imperial Tobacco approach to cases to which the Charter already speaks is correct ― others will not. Principles are not reducible to expanded forms of Charter rights. Federalism is of course the obvious case in point. As for section 1 of the Charter, foreign precedents, such as the Australian jurisprudence on the implied freedom of political communication, suggest that something like a proportionality analysis can be combined with unwritten principles. Again, though, principles are not just a beefed-up Charter. Perhaps the best argument the majority advances is the one based on the word “provisions” in section 52(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982, but ― without endorsing the dissent’s rant about “technical exegetical exercises” ― I think that it is undermined by section 52(2)’s suggestion that “the Constitution of Canada” is not limited to textual sources, to say nothing of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence to this effect.

A word, finally, on the dissent. It advocates not only for living constitutionalism, which as readers will know I think is a misbegotten interpretive approach, but also, more precisely, for what I have described as “constitutionalism from the cave“. This is the view that the constitution’s text is just a pale shadow of the true constitution, which judges alone can, over time, discover and impose. As much as I think the majority’s attempt to swat constitutional principles away is unsound as a matter of both doctrine and, sorry, principle, this is not a tenable alternative.

Here we are, then, at the last chapter of this unfortunate saga. It began with institutional vandalism by the Ontario legislature, and concludes with a Supreme Court decision that, despite narrowly reaching the right outcome, may yet do considerable damage of its own. The majority’s statements on freedom of expression are worrying, and its discussion of constitutional principles ― admittedly, a difficult subject (I have had more to say on it here) ― is almost entirely wrong-headed. The dissent, meanwhile, is largely unmoored from the law throughout. The judicial end is not better than the legislative beginning.

Telling People Whom to Vote for

An illiberal community seeks to dictate its members’ votes. How can, and should, the law respond ― and quite how different are liberal democracies anyway?

When it comes to election campaigns, where does permissible ― and perhaps even laudable ― persuasion end, and deplorable ― perhaps even illegal ― manipulation or indeed coercion begin? This is a fraught question, as a recent story by Sally Murphy for Radio New Zealand illustrates.

The story concerns what seems to be an totalitarian and abusive fundamentalist religious community, whose leaders seek to dictate not only how members will live, but also how they will vote:

Former members of Gloriavale Christian Community say people still there do not have the freedom to vote for who they want in the general election. … [T]hose inside don’t have free access to the internet or news sources and are told as a collective who to vote for. … One former member … told RNZ Gloriavale leaders would choose which politicians would come and talk to the community before an election.

“They would talk about their policies and what they would do for us then when they left there would be a discussion, but it was usually only a couple of the leaders who would talk,” she said. “They would say we like this party because of this policy and that we should all vote for them because it’s best if we vote as a collective.”

It seems fair to infer that current members are likely not to feel free to cast a vote at odds with the preferences of their leaders. But does that mean that something untoward or illegal is going on, and further, that something can, or should, be done?

Consider, first, existing election law. (I am leaving out the charities law aspect of this issue, mostly because it’s not my area of expertise. For a discussion of the restrictions on charties’ ability to engage in politics in the Canadian context, see this guest post by Benjamin Oliphant; and for a broader discussion of the tensions at work in the regulation of charities, this guest post by Kathryn Chan.) Section 218 of the Electoral Act 1993 makes it an offence and a “corrupt practice” to

make[] use of or threaten[] to make use of any force, violence, or restraint, or inflict[] or threaten[] to inflict … any temporal or spiritual injury, damage, harm, or loss upon or against any person, in order to induce or compel that person to vote for or against a particular candidate or party … or on account of that person having voted for or against a particular candidate

But ― going by the statements quoted in Ms. Murphy’s story ― no threats are being made in relation to voting specifically. Gloriavale members are told to vote a certain way, but not actually threatened with reprisals if they do not. Besides, as the Electoral Commission points out, the secrecy of the ballot ought to mean that all voters, including Gloriavale members, can “express their preferences free of outside influence or coercion”.

Beyond threats, the regulation of the persuasion of voters focuses (in various ways) mainly on spending and to some extent on the use of mass media, especially broadcast media. Private, face-to-face exhortation is not targeted, and it would be absurd if it were. Would we want political conversations within families or among friends and co-workers to be subject to regulation? I should think not, even though some of these conversations may be emotionally charged, and people may be uncomfortable, or even distressed, at the idea of going against the wishes or preferences of those close to them. Again, the primary remedy for such situations is ballot secrecy, with section 218 outlawing outright threats.

If the Gloriavale leadership is not breaking election law, is it nevertheless acting immorally in seeking to influencing the members’ votes, and should the law be changed? Again, in relation to voting specifically, it’s not obvious to me that a wrong is being done. All sorts of people and entities tell us to vote one way or another. I don’t think that they necessarily wrong us just by doing so ― even if these people are close to us and may be reluctant to offend or contradict them. Just as it would be absurd to have legal rules regulating political discussions among friends, family members, or other close associates, I think a moral rule to this effect would be contrary to widely held views of both of a good life and of good democratic citizenship. The latter, in particular, surely permits people to urge others to vote in ways they consider to be better for the community.

What makes the Gloriavale situation disturbing is the broader atmosphere ― the habit of obedience and the limitation of alternative sources of information and opinion imposed on its members. People who tell us, even quite forcefully, that we should vote one way or another do not wrong us if the choice is ultimately ours. People who keep us from making an informed choice wrong us even if they do not impose their own preferences. Imagine, hypothetically, that the Gloriavale leadership did not tell the members how to vote. To the extent that they are simply denied information from the outside world, the members would have no idea, and would not be in a position to make a more meaningful choice than they are now, and those responsible for putting them in this position are to blame.

However, election law is not the remedy for such cases. The challenge of illiberal and authoritarian communities within their midst is not an easy one for liberal societies, but to the extent it can be solved at all, the solution has to be at a rather more fundamental level. Perhaps ironically, though, extreme examples like Gloriavale can help us reflect on the fact that liberal societies themselves are not entirely innocent of trying to restrict the information and choices available to their members.

Hard restrictions are, admittedly, rare. Yet not non-existent. In New Zealand, the Classification Office, headed by a Chief Censor, is empowered to ban publications in various media. While that outfit’s website’s proclaims that its enabling legislation “does not regulate political speech, the expression of opinions, or ‘hate speech'”, it has notoriously banned the Christchurch shooter’s “manifesto”, which is obviously an example of ― horrible ― political speech. As Ilya Somin has shown, reading it, in all its gruesomeness, is actually instructive. But New Zealanders are not permitted to do it, because the Chief Censor, on his own motion, decided that he knew better. In some other democratic countries, especially in Europe, political choices can be restricted by the authorities banning political parties deemed opposed to democracy or the existing constitutional order.

Of course, these are extreme examples. There is no equivalence between excluding some outlier political options while preserving a wide range of choice and excluding all options but one. Arguably that the most important thing about democracy is not the ability to vote for one’s preferred agenda ― which constitutional constraints or the vagaries of the electoral system, not to mention a shortage of people who agree with it and are willing to run for office ― might make impossible, but simply the ability to make some kind of choice, and so to throw the bums out from time to time. Still, the censorship impulse has a common foundation in both cases ― the distrust of people’s ability to make acceptable choices, and a confidence in one’s ability to choose on others’ behalf.

And softer, more insidious ways of shaping the range of choices available to voters are common. How do teachers are university professors speak about political views outside the mainstream ― or outside what they perceive as the mainstream? How, if at all, do the media cover unorthodox politicians, at least those who do not also happen to be celebrities? Are the above-mentioned regulations of spending on election campaigns structured so as to favour established parties ― as they are in New Zealand, for example, with the allowed spending on broadcast advertising dependent, in part, on a party’s share of the vote in the previous election? To ask these questions is not, by itself, to advocate for root-and-branch reform of the education system, the demise of the legacy media, and complete deregulation of electoral campaigns. But here again the effects of seemingly disparate and often well-intentioned policies and practices commonly followed in liberal democracies are a little less different from those of the practices of demonstrably illiberal communities than we might be quite comfortable with.

The difficulty of ensuring that all voters, including those who happen to belong to heterodox and illiberal communities, are able to take a meaningful part in an election if they wish to should not stop us from trying. Features of the electoral process that help facilitate meaningful participation and might strike us as obvious today, such as the secret ballot, did not always exist: they had to be invented, and the law had to be changed to implement them. One should of course be wary of unintended consequences, including those of well-meaning but excessive regulation. But perhaps there are ways to make things easier for members of Gloriavale and others caught in similar situations, without introducing unnecessarily intrusive laws. But as we look for such solutions, we should remember that existing laws and practices constrain the range of political choices available to all citizens, and that some of them have effects that differ in degree, but perhaps not in kind, from those of the impositions at Gloriavale and elsewhere. Not all authoritarians in our midst are content to run cults.

Keeping Faith

A master class in public meaning originalism, delivered by the US Supreme Court’s Justice Elena Kagan

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court of the United States delivered its decision in Chiafalo v Washington, upholding the constitutionality of a state statute imposing fines on “faithless” presidential electors ― those who do not vote for the candidate who won their state’s popular vote. The majority judgment, given by Justice Kagan for a seven-judge majority (and indeed unanimous on some key points), should be of some interest to Canadian readers for what it says about constitutional interpretation and, in particular, about the role of conventions and practice. As others, notably Josh Blackman over at the Volokh Conspiracy, have noted, Justice Kagan’s opinion is a thoroughly, and intelligently, originalist ― which should remind skeptics of originalism inclined to dismiss it as a partisan affectation that it is not.

As Justice Kagan explains,

Every four years, millions of Americans cast a ballot for a presidential candidate. Their votes, though, actually go toward selecting members of the Electoral College, whom each State appoints based on the popular returns. Those few “electors” then choose the President. (1)

But what is it that ensures that the vote of the Electors is aligned with that of the electorate? The text of the Constitution of the United States says little on this. Article II, §1, cl 2 provides that

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

Nothing here suggests that the Electors are bound to follow the popular vote; indeed, nothing here suggests that a popular vote need be held at all. At least some of the framers of the Constitution expected the Electors to exercise their personal discernment in choosing the President. Alexander Hamilton’s vision, in Federalist No. 68, is the best known. He hoped that the President would be chosen

by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.

But this is not how things worked out. As Justice Kagan puts it, “[a]lmost immediately, presidential electors became trusty transmitters of other people’s decisions”. (13) This was the result of the development of political parties, not anticipated ― indeed feared ― when the Constitution was being drafted. George Washington was elected without meaningful opposition. But, once he retired, presidential elections were contested by parties. As Justice Kagan explains, initially

state legislatures mostly picked the electors, with the majority party sending a delegation of its choice to the Electoral College. By 1832, though, all States but one had introduced popular presidential elections. … At first, citizens voted for a slate of electors put forward by a political party, expecting that the winning slate would vote for its party’s presidential (and vice presidential) nominee in the Electoral College. By the early 20th century, citizens in most States voted for the presidential candidate himself; ballots increasingly did not even list the electors.

The alignment between the popular and the electoral votes (within each State, of course, there being, as we know, no necessary alignment at the national level) was thus secured by a combination of State law and partisanship ― but also by what looks, to an observer based in a Westminster-type constitutional system, an awful lot like constitutional convention. Law allowed partisans to be appointed as electors, and partisanship motivated them to vote for their party’s candidate. But so too did a sense of propriety, of moral obligation. This moral obligation, explains why those electors who, from time to time, broke with their party were called “faithless”. There is normally nothing “faithless”, except to a rabid partisan, about putting country ahead of party. But something greater than partisanship is at stake in the presidential election ― nothing less, indeed, than democratic principle itself. And “convention” is what Westminster systems call the settled practice of constitutional actors rooted in constitutional principle.

Some States, though, felt that relying on convention was not enough, and legislated to back up the electors’ moral duty with a threat of punishment. According to Mr Chiafalo, they could not do so constitutionally. After all, the Constitution’s framers meant for them to exercise their own judgment, guided but not fettered by that of the voters. And the very vote “elector” connotes the exercise of a personal choice.

Not so, says Justice Kagan. For her, “the power to appoint an elector (in any manner) includes power to condition his appointment—that is, to say what the elector must do for the appointment to take effect”. (9) A “demand that the elector actually live up to his pledge, on pain of penalty” (10) is nothing more than a condition of appointment, which nothing in the Constitution’s text prohibits. Justice Thomas, concurring (with the agreement of Justice Gorsuch), disagrees with this approach. For him, imposing such conditions is not part of the original meaning of the power of choosing the “manner” of the electors’ appointment. Instead, the States’ ability to do so comes from the structure of the Constitution, which preserves their powers unless expressly limited, and from the Tenth Amendment, which codifies the same principle. Justice Thomas makes some compelling points, but this disagreement is not so important for Canadian readers ― or, for that matter, for practical purposes.

What matters most is Justice Kagan’s firm rejection of an appeal to the purported authority of the Framers’ supposed expectation that “the Electors’ votes [would] reflect their own judgments”. (12) This rejection is firmly rooted in original public meaning originalism:

even assuming other Framers shared that outlook, it would not be enough. Whether by choice or accident, the Framers did not reduce their thoughts about electors’ discretion to the printed page. All that they put down about the electors was what we have said: that the States would appoint them, and that they would meet and cast ballots to send to the Capitol. Those sparse instructions took no position on how independent from—or how faithful to—party and popular preferences the electors’ votes should be. (12-13)

This is a great passage. For one thing, it refers to an important reason for being suspicious about the intentions and expectations of constitutional framers: they might not all have agreed with those whose views are on the record. For another, there is an allusion, which I personally find delightful, to Hamilton’s rather hubristic suggestion, in the first paragraph of the Federalist No. 1 that the U.S. Constitution would

decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.

Justice Kagan understands, as Hamilton did not (or at least affected not to) that choice and accident are not so easily disentangled, even in constitutional reflection. Most importantly, though, Justice Kagan drives home the point that “thoughts” “not reduce[d] … to the printed page”― or, more precisely, the enacted page ― do not bind. Justice Thomas specifically concurs with the majority on this point, explaining that “the Framers’ expectations aid our interpretive inquiry only to the extent that they provide evidence of the original public meaning of the Constitution. They cannot be used to change that meaning.” For all its reputation of being incorrigibly politically divided the Supreme Court of the United States is unanimous on this.

Justice Kagan goes on to make another argument, which is less straightforwardly originalist. She appeals to what she regards as the settled practice ― and what I have suggested we may regard as the convention ― of electors casting their ballots only to ratify the voters’ choice, rather than to make their own. “From the first”, Justice Kagan points, “States sent them to the Electoral College … to vote for preselected candidates, rather than to use their own judgment. And electors (or at any rate, almost all of them) rapidly settled into that non-discretionary role.” (14)

It is not quite clear how much weight this should carry on a proper originalist interpretation. In a post at Volokh, Keith Whittington suggests (based on an article which Justice Kagan actually cited ― for another point) that

we should think of this tradition of pledged electors as a “constitutional construction” that is consistent with the constitutional text but not required by the constitutional text. … But that by itself does not tell us whether such constructions can be leveraged to empower state legislatures to punish or replace faithless electors or whether this longstanding norm has fixed the meaning of the text in a way that cannot be altered by future changes in our shared practices. How constitutional text and tradition interact is a difficult conceptual problem, and the Court’s opinion highlights that problem without doing very much to explain how it ought to be resolved.

Indeed, I’m not sure that the argument from practice or convention has a great deal of weight for Justice Kagan: she might only be making it to turn the tables on Mr. Chiafalo, who invoked the (quite exceptional, as Justice Kagan shows) example of past “faithless electors” to argue that it proves that the Constitution protected their autonomy.

But Justice Kagan does suggest what I think is a good reason why the argument should have weight in the particular circumstances of this case: the practice, and arguably even the convention, forms part of the context to a constitutional text ― namely, the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution. This amendment, “grew out of a pair of fiascos” (14) at the elections of 1796 and 1800. Prior to it, electors cast two votes; the candidate who received the most became president, and the next one, vice-president. In 1796 the top two candidates were “bitter rivals” (14) John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. In 1800, Jefferson, his party’s intended presidential candidate, was tied by its intended vice-president, Aaron Burr, as the electors who supported the one all supported the other. To prevent this reoccurring, the presidential and vice-presidential ballots were split. Justice Kagan points out that, in this way, “[t]he Twelfth Amendment embraced” party politics, “both acknowledging and facilitating the Electoral College’s emergence as a mechanism not for deliberation but for party-line voting”. (14)

The issue isn’t quite the same as the one that, as I argue in a recent article about which I blogged here, the Supreme Court of Canada faced in the Senate Reform Reference, 2014 SCC 32, [2014] 1 SCR 704. There, the original public meaning of Part V of the Constitution Act, 1982 had to be established by referring to conventions. In Chiafolo, conventions are not necessary to establish the original meaning of the Twelfth Amendment. But it is arguably fair to say that the Twelfth Amendment implicitly ratifies them, or takes them into account; while it might have been written as it was in the absence of conventions, the fact that is that it was written as it was because the conventions existed. As a result, Justice Kagan’s appeal to practice, or to convention, is, at least, less troubling here than it might have been in the absence of something like the Twelfth Amendment.

All in all, then, her opinion is an interesting demonstration of what good originalism looks like ― and also of the fact that it can be practiced by a judge who is nobody’s idea of a conservative or a libertarian, and with the agreement of her colleagues, including those whose ideological leanings are quite different from hers. Justice Kagan may or may not be correct: at the Originalism Blog, Michael Ramsay argues that she is not. But that does not matter so much to me. As Asher Honickman recently argued in response to another American decision, textualist ― and originalist ― interpretive methods do not promise complete legal certainty, but they are still valuable because (among other things) they narrow the scope of possible disagreements, and do provide more certainty than alternatives. Justice Kagan and her colleagues show us how to keep faith with a constitutional text. We should pay attention.

Anglin: Administrative Lawmaking

How administrators could make law in the dark of night.

In Anglin v Chief Electoral Officer, 2018 ABCA 296, the Alberta Court of Appeal dealt with a hidden issue in administrative law: to what extent are administrative decision-makers required to follow guidelines specifically contemplated by legislation?

In Anglin, the Chief Electoral Officer of Alberta imposed a $250 fine for breaching the Election Act. Anglin had typographical problems: “the sponsorship information on his election signs was printed in a font size smaller than that required by the Guidelines established under the Act, and was not sufficiently legible.” Anglin argued that the guidelines established by the Chief Electoral Officer do not constitute law and cannot form part of the governing statute, and as such a breach of the guidelines is not a contravention. To Anglin, there was no legal authority to impose an administrative penalty for breach of the Act [3].

The legislative context was dispositive to the Court. Under s.134 of the Election Act, candidates must ensure that ads comply with certain requirements “…in accordance with the guidelines of the Chief Electoral Officer” (s.134(2)). Under s. 134(3), the Chief Electoral Officer is required to “establish guidelines respecting the requirements referred to in (2)” which deals with sponsorship information. The specific guidelines adopted in this case prescribed a legibility requirement along with a minimum font size.

Based on this “clear” language [9], the Court concluded that the statute itself incorporates the Chief Electoral Officer’s guidelines, and that the legislature “has the power to delegate and the guidelines, like other forms of subordinate or delegated legislation are all forms of law.” This delegation, to the Court, “is incidental to legislative sovereignty.”

The Court’s reasoning raises significant problems from a democratic perspective, even though it is likely consistent with governing authority; my problem is with that governing authority itself. The making of guidelines and soft law, taken too far and unrestricted by legislatures or courts, can do an end-run around the democratic channels of adopting law, susceptible as those channels are to citizen input.

We have a few rules, insufficient as they are, to control this risk. For example, a decision-maker cannot bind herself to non-binding guidelines to the exclusion of governing law; this would be a “fettering of discretion” (see Thamotharem, at para 62). Despite express statutory authority to issue guidelines, those guidelines may not “have the same legal effects that statutory rules can have. In particular, guidelines cannot lay down a mandatory rule from which members have no meaningful degree of discretion to deviate, regardless of the facts of the particular case before them” (Thamotharem, at para 66). At the same time, for example, guidelines issued by the Human Rights Commission have been held to have the full force of law, even if they are formulated solely by the Commission (see Bell, at para 56).

The image of a spectrum is helpful here. As noted in Thamotharem, we could have guidelines that are issued without any statutory authority whatsoever—these guidelines are still, in the traditional account, useful for guiding the administrator’s decision and providing a foundation for reviewing its legality. At the other end, we could have guidelines that are adopted according to specific delegated authority, and which must be followed as if they were law; the Anglin case is a good example. In the middle, we could have a broad legislative authorization that allows an agency to simply issue guidelines without any indication as to whether they must be followed or not.

From a fundamental democratic perspective, all forms of guidelines issued in any of these ways are trouble for different reasons. If the guidelines in the first case are applied as if they were law, we have a classic fettering problem. If the guidelines in the third case are applied as if they were law, the people subject to the guidelines have no say over binding law to which they are subject. Perhaps one could argue that these democratic issues could be excused because (1) the legislature has the undisputed authority, short of constitutional constraints, to prescribe the level of procedure required for internal agency workings and (2) perhaps this is the price of a more efficient government. But the problem remains.

One might say that the Anglin case, from a democratic perspective, is not problematic at all; after all, here the legislature has said itself what is supposed to happen. But in reality, the situation is more serious. In every case, the legislature has approved the Chief Electoral Commissioner’s making of guidelines, and his power to apply them as if they were law formulated and adopted by the legislature. And from a public administration perspective, this is completely understandable. Why would the legislature want to expend the cost of conducting a deep dive into the font sizes required on a sign? This is, on the traditional account, clearly a matter for “expert” administrators.

But if we view the problem from first principles, the legislature has in effect delegated the actual power of making the law to the Chief Electoral Officer. And if we accept that such guidelines are “hard law,” then we must accept that the law could be passed in the dark of night, because administrative agencies control how and when these guidelines (read: laws) are adopted. The answer that the legislature authorized the delegation puts form before substance. The question is whether the legislature should be able to delegate the power to the Chief Electoral Officer in the first place, given that this law will not be adopted in the ordinary course of the normal legislative process.

The context of font sizes is a bad example for this argument because it is relatively unimportant. But if we allow this form of delegation writ large, extremely broad delegations of law-making authority would be permitted. A statute could simply have one line, saying “The Administrator of [whatever agency] is entitled to make Guidelines which have the force of law.” Because there is no restriction on the power to make laws in substance, these guidelines would bind as if they were law under the current authority.

The US has some experience with this phenomenon, with its nondelegation doctrine. In practice, United States courts rarely interfere with broad delegations. But at least they have a doctrine—that a delegation must be accompanied by an “intelligible principle” to guide agencies. Here, there is no such controlling doctrine.

A restriction on Anglin-type delegations would actually likely attack very few delegations and interfere minimally with good government. The delegation problem does not arise as strongly—(ie) as a strict form of delegation in substance—in a case where the legislature authorizes the agency to make guidelines to structure its discretion. Without knowing for sure, I’d imagine this is a more common form of delegation. But where the legislature simply allows an administrator to make law itself, this seems to be a bridge too far.

Constitutionalism from the Cave

The constitution is a binding law, not just an incomplete statement of political ideals

The imbroglio with the Ontario legislature’s enactment of Bill 5 to restructure the Toronto City Council a couple of months before an upcoming election, the Superior Court’s declaration of that legislation unconstitutional, the threatened invocation of the “notwithstanding clause” to override that declaration, and the Court of Appeal’s restoration of what little sanity could still be restored by reversing the Superior Court’s decision has generated a great deal of commentary. Some of this commentary has been very imaginative indeed in coming up with constitutional arguments that would have advanced the commentators’ preferred policy agendas and forestalled the seemingly obvious legal conclusions.

Of course, such a creative argument had prevailed at the Superior Court, which (as for example co-blogger Mark Mancini, as well as yours truly, explained) ignored clear constitutional language on its way to finding that Bill 5 violated the guarantee of freedom of expression in the Canadian Charter of Right and Freedoms. Even more unorthodox reasoning was unleashed in attempts to argue that the Ontario legislature couldn’t actually invoke the “notwithstanding clause”, the constitutional text once again be damned. Mark has written about open letter in which professors who wouldn’t dream of treating originalism as a serious interpretive methodology suddenly turned original-intentist ― but that, at least, was an explicitly political text. Other arguments along similar, or even more outlandish, lines purported to be legal ones.

This outburst of creativity is, of course directly related to a certain way of seeing the constitution that is prevalent in the Canadian legal community (including, but not only, in the academy). On this view, the Canadian constitution ― especially, though not only, the Charter ― is not so much a law that courts must apply as a sort of shadow in Plato’s cave, a vague reflection of true constitutional ideals that the judges must discover and explain to us cavemen. The constitution’s text is not in any meaningful way binding on the courts; it is only an inadequate approximation, one whose imperfections judges can and ought to circumvent in an unceasing quest to get a clearer view of the ideal constitution. And, of course, this ideal constitution, just so happens to enact the political preferences of the persons urging this view, and presumed (often not incorrectly) to be shared by the judiciary.

Perhaps the latest contribution to the post-Bill 5 constitutional free-for-all is illustrative. It is a post by Colin Feasby, over at ABlawg, arguing that section 3 of the Charter, though it ostensibly only guarantees the right of Canadian citizens “to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein”, really also applies to municipal and other elections, and to referenda. Now, I have learned a lot from Dr. Feasby’s law of democracy scholarship (which has also been cited and relied on by the Supreme Court!). But this post is nothing more than a call for the judiciary to wilfully re-write the constitution we have so as to bring it closer to an idealized view of what a good constitution ought to be according to Dr. Feasby (and many others).

Dr. Feasby argues that “the lack of constitutional protection for important democratic processes” ― such as municipal elections ― “is an unnecessary defect in our constitutional arrangement”. “Unnecessary” a word that I wouldn’t use, and as will presently be apparent, Dr. Feasby uses it advisedly. However, I agree with him to this extent ― the lack of constitutional protections for municipal institutions is indeed a shortcoming of our constitution, as I have suggested here.

Dr. Feasby, though, is not suggesting a constitutional amendment to remedy the defect he identifies. Rather, he “proposes a way that the Supreme Court of Canada can remedy this defect”. He argues that “courts have a role in ensuring that the democratic process functions so that the sovereign will of the electorate may be expressed without distortion”, which is true, if somewhat beside the point in matters where the will of the electorate is not, legally speaking, sovereign, including in municipal elections. The question, though, is how far the courts’ role extends. Dr. Feasby thinks it allows the courts to embrace what he describes as a “purposive and … generous approach to interpreting Charter rights”, and “impose a rule” according to which

Where a government, Federal or Provincial, delegates a legislative role to a democratically chosen body or where a government, Federal or Provincial, effectively delegates a decision to the electorate in a referendum, section 3 of the Charter applies.

In other words, “a body elected in processes governed by section 3 cannot delegate its power to an elected body chosen by electors with lesser constitutional protections”.

Dr. Feasby anticipates two objections to his proposal. First, he expects people to argue that it would get in the way of worthy reforms of municipal and other institutions. His response is that “so long as those changes are consistent with the principles that animate section 3 of the Charter“, nothing would get in their way. Fair enough, I suppose. The other objection Dr. Feasby foresees is based on the concern about section 3 claims being brought by people who are not in the intended electorate for a given election (say, the residents of a municipality). Such claims should simply be rejected ― as would that of “Canadian citizens resident in Alberta” demanding “the right to vote in Provincial elections in Quebec”. That too seems fair enough.

There are other, more serious, problems with Dr. Feasby’s argument, however. A practical one is that, even in the form given to it by Dr. Feasby, it reaches very far indeed. Municipalities, band councils, and school boards are not the only entities that might be described as “democratically chosen” entities to which governments delegate legislative powers. Various professional bodies (such as law societies) and agricultural marketing boards come to mind; so do, perhaps, universities, whose powers ― which include the ability to regulate large swathes of student and staff conduct ― are ultimately exercised by (partly) elected boards and senates. (Whether the universities are subject to the Charter in at least some areas is an open question, but there are good arguments for that view.) It’s not at all obvious to me that, “the principles that animate section 3 of the Charter” can be usefully applied to such bodies, even assuming that they can be to municipalities and school boards. And it’s not at all obvious that the argument for rejecting the claims of persons excluded from the relevant electorate ― say, the consumers of professional services or of agricultural products ― can be dismissed as easily as those of Albertans looking to vote in the Belle Province.

This problem becomes even more pressing if we take up Bruce Ryder’s suggestion “that a province that is bound by s.3 democratic norms shouldn’t be able to do an end run around them after creating subordinate governments” ― seemingly regardless of whether these “subordinate governments” are themselves meant to be democratically elected. If this principle were taken seriously, it would amount to a non-delegation doctrine on steroids, preventing the exercise of legislative power by undemocratic bodies ― which means pretty much all of the administrative state. Anti-administrativist though I am, even I don’t actually favour this approach. In truth, I don’t suppose that Professor Ryder favours it either. He simply makes an argument that furthers his preferences in a particular controversy, and doesn’t worry about its implications in future cases. I’m afraid this is symptomatic of the treatment of the constitution not as a law, but as a series of results-oriented propositions subject to permanent revision from one case to the next.

Equally symptomatic of this way of thinking is the fact that Dr. Feasby apparently does not see coming another objection, a principled rather than a practical one. This objection is, quite simply, that his proposal is a perversion of the constitutional text, a blatant attempt to expand it beyond what it was quite clearly designed to do, and what it not only originally meant but still means. Even if one believes that the constitutional text should be read according to the meaning of its terms today, “an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly” does not mean “an election of members of a municipal council”, or “an election of the benchers of a law society”. Dr. Feasby invokes the “living tree” view of the constitution, but he advocates something different than just reading the text in light of evolving social mores or trying to use “progressive interpretation” to “accommodate[] and address[] the realities of modern life”, as the Supreme Court put it in Reference re Same-Sex Marriage, 2004 SCC 79, [2004] 3 SCR 698, at [22]. It’s not as if municipal election were a new phenomenon unknown to the framers of the Charter. It’s just that Dr. Feasby thinks that the Charter is only an imperfect statement of an “aspiration … to be a truly free and democratic society”, which can be given whatever contents a court, under the guidance of progressive advocates, can come up with in a given case.

Needless to say, I do not share this view. It is contrary to the terms of the constitution itself (specifically, section 52 of the Constitution Act, 1982, which provides both that “[t]he Constitution of Canada is the supreme law of Canada” (emphasis mine) and that “[a]mendments to the Constitution of Canada shall be made only in accordance with the authority contained in the Constitution of Canada” ― which says nothing about the Supreme Court amending the constitution in the absence of the political consensus required to do so. It is destructive of the Rule of Law. And it is especially galling because many of the same people who advocate this view of the constitution not as binding law but as merely suggestive of (their) political ideals demand that political actors ― such as the present Ontario legislature ― that do not fully share these ideals comply with judicial decisions based on them. I think it’s right to demand that political actors comply with the law, including the law of the constitution. But why on earth should elected officials comply, not with the law, but with the philosophical preferences people who are not elected to anything? There can be no real constitutionalism in Plato’s cave. It’s time to climb out.

Deuxième Moisson

Tout comme il y a quatre ans, le DGE essaie de censurer une intervention de la société civile dans la campagne électorale québécoise

Les campagnes électorales ont leurs habitudes, leurs rituels. Les autobus, les slogans, les débats des chefs. Certaines de ces traditions sont communes à bien des sociétés démocratiques, d’autres sont plus locales. Une qui est particulièrement québécoise ― mais ne devrait pas pour autant être source de fierté ― c’est la lettre du Directeur général des élections (DGE) sommant un représentant de la société civile qui tente de se prononcer sur les enjeux de l’heure de se la fermer. Le rituel vient d’être renouvelé, comme le rapporte La Presse, avec cette fois Équiterre, dans le collimateur du DGE pour avoir diffusé les résultats d’un questionnaire remis aux principaux partis politiques et portant sur leurs politiques en matière d’environnement.

Je racontais un tel épisode, impliquant les producteurs d’un court documentaire critique du Parti québécois et de sa « Charte des valeurs », alias la Charte de la honte, lors de la campagne électorale de 2014. J’ai dit, à l’époque, que les penseurs et juristes « progressistes » qui ont cherché à limiter le rôle de l’argent en politique en limitant sévèrement les dépenses autorisées en période électorale récoltaient là ce qu’ils avaient semé. Ils s’imaginaient que les limites de dépenses feraient taire les riches, mais en réalité, elles s’appliquent d’abord à avant tout aux étudiants, aux syndicats ou aux individus impopulaires. En 2014, on a visé les défenseurs du pluralisme. En 2018, on vise les environnementalistes. La tendance, encore une fois, se maintient.

Il faut souligner qu’il y a quatre ans, le DGE avait alors fini par faire marche arrière ― au bénéfice de la liberté d’expression, mais au mépris de la Loi électorale. En tordant le sens des définitions pourtant claires de ce qui est et n’est pas une « dépense électorale » (prévues aux articles 402 et 404 de la Loi), le DGE a réussi à éviter l’opprobre médiatique qu’allait provoquer un épisode de censure. Mais la Loi électorale, elle, n’as pas été changée pour permettre à la société civile d’intervenir dans les campagnes électorales. Il n’est pas impossible, je suppose, que le DGE se démène encore pour ne pas censurer Équiterre, même si ce sera, comme je l’expliquerai à l’instant, très, très difficile. Cependant, même si la manoeuvre réussit, la censure ne sera que partie remise jusqu’à la prochaine campagne électorale. C’est à la Loi électorale, et non à son application par le DGE, qu’il faut s’attaquer pour régler le problème une fois pour toutes.

L’article 402 de la Loi électorale définit comme « dépense électorale »

le coût de tout bien ou service utilisé pendant la période électorale pour:

1° favoriser ou défavoriser, directement ou indirectement, l’élection d’un candidat ou celle des candidats d’un parti;
2° diffuser ou combattre le programme ou la politique d’un candidat ou d’un parti;
3° approuver ou désapprouver des mesures préconisées ou combattues par un candidat ou un parti;
4° approuver ou désapprouver des actes accomplis ou proposés par un parti, un candidat ou leurs partisans.

Cette définition s’applique aux dépenses des candidats et des partis aussi bien qu’à celles de la société civile, et il n’est pas surprenant qu’elle ratisse large. La production et diffusion du questionnaire d’Équiterre tombe sous le coup de cette définition, puisque celui-ci vise à diffuser certains aspect des programmes des différents partis et aussi, par l’usage de symboles visuels (coche verte, crois rouge) à approuver ou désapprouver les mesures préconisées par ceux-ci.

Deux problèmes se posent cependant. D’une part, il y a à la fois l’insuffisance et la vétusté des exemptions prévues à l’article 404. Contrairement à la disposition équivalente de Loi électorale du Canada, celui-ci n’exempte pas les communications d’un groupe (par exemple, un syndicat) à ses membres et n’est pas technologiquement neutre, exemptant la diffusion de nouvelles ou éditoriaux « dans un journal ou autre périodique » ou encore « par un poste de radio ou de télévision », mais pas par de nouveaux médias opérant sur internet. En 2014, le DGE a fini par décrire le documentaire en cause comme étant un « média citoyen » pour l’exempter de l’application de l’article 402. C’était, selon moi, à tort, puisque la Loi électorale n’exempte que certains médias, et n’autorise pas le DGE à en inventer de nouvelles catégories exemptées. Quoi qu’il en soit, je ne vois pas comment on pourrait user du même procédé pour aider Équiterre.

D’autre part, la Loi électorale limite excessivement les dépenses électorales des membres de la société civile. En fait, elle les interdit presqu’entièrement, ne faisant qu’une exception minimaliste à l’alinéa 13 de l’article 404, qui permet à un individu (ou un groupe de personnes ne possédant pas la personnalité morale) de s’enregistrer pour, ensuite, engager des dépenses d’au plus 300$ ― mais sans pourtant « favoriser ni défavoriser directement un candidat ou un parti ». Équiterre, si je comprends bien, est une personne morale, et ne pourrait se prévaloir de l’exemption, même si sa part du coût de la production du questionnaire dont on lui reproche la diffusion s’élevait à moins de 300$. De plus, il me semble clair que le questionnaire, même s’il se veut non-partisan, vise à favoriser l’élection de partis ayant des politiques environnementales qui reçoivent l’approbation d’Équiterre et à défavoriser l’élection des autres.

Ces restrictions sont draconiennes. Il est ridicule d’interdire aux acteurs de la société civile de prendre part au débat pré-électoral pour peu qu’ils choisissent d’obtenir la personnalité morale. Il est ridicule d’avoir un plafond de dépenses ― non-indexé, contrairement à celui des partis et candidats! ― de 300$. Il est ridicule d’exiger qu’une personne voulant engager des dépenses tout à fait minimes doive préalablement s’enregistrer auprès du DGE. Il est ridicule d’interdire les interventions qui favorisent ou défavorise l’élection de partis nommés. Même si l’on accepte le principe général de la limitation de dépenses et celui de la primauté des candidats et des partis en période électorale, les restrictions imposées par le législateur québécois sont ahurissantes. Elles ne sont pas justifiées. Elles sont, selon moi, inconstitutionnelles, même si la Cour d’appel du Québec en a déjà décidé autrement.

Ainsi, je pense que le DGE fait son travail en s’en prenant à Équiterre. Il applique la Loi électorale. Cependant, les dispositions en cause n’ont pas lieu d’être. Le législateur québécois devrait s’empresser de les revoir de fond en comble, sinon de les abroger. À défaut, ou d’ici là, c’est malheureusement à Équiterre d’en contester la constitutionnalité. Cette contestation ne sera pas facile, mais, selon moi, elle aura des chances réelles de succès. La Cour suprême a certes avalisé les dispositions de la Loi électorale du Canada limitant la participation de « tiers » aux campagnes électorales, mais, comme je l’ai déjà souligné, celles-ci sont bien plus permissives que celles de la loi québécoise. En attendant, le décret ordonnant la tenue d’élections générales demeure un bâillon.

Not That Kind of Voting

What New Zealand’s Electoral Commission’s attempt to boost turnout gets wrong about voting, and what we can learn from it

There will be a general election in New Zealand this Saturday. As is customary in such circumstances, there is some hand-wringing going on about what turnout is going to be like ― it was almost 78% in 2014, which in Canada, never mind the United States, would be considered sky-high, but is regarded as worryingly low in New Zealand. And the Electoral Commission is doing its part in trying to encourage people to vote, among other things by publishing this sleek video that recently showed up in my Facebook feed (and by using other ads based on the same theme):

The trouble, as I see it ― though I will not claim to speak for Kiwi abstainers ― is that, if you think about it for a second, this video’s true message about voting is precisely the opposite of the one it is intended to convey.

We “vote every day”, we are told: for snoozing or getting up; for dirty or clean underwear (that one, I suppose, is of particular relevance to politics); for whether to be a nice person or a not-so-nice one; and for a whole lot of other things. And it follows, apparently, that we should also vote in the election (or those entitled to do so should, anyway ― I am not, since I’m not yet a permanent resident). In other words, according to Elections New Zealand, voting for a party and a candidate to represent you in Parliament is just like making one of those everyday decisions that you are used to making, well, every day. Except, of course, that it isn’t, and in a number of ways.

Perhaps most obviously, if done with a modicum of seriousness, voting in a election is a good deal harder than deciding whether to hit the snooze button or to get up already. (I’ll call that sort of decision-making “voting”, as opposed to voting.) Voting requires one to acquire substantial amounts of information about the candidates and their platforms, about the world and the ways in which the candidates’ proposals fit or do not fit with what we know about it, and ideally also about how the electoral process itself works. (Another video from the Electoral Commission cheerfully showcases the voters’ utter ignorance about the latter point, as if equanimity were the appropriate response to it.) Relatively few people are well informed voters, and even some, perhaps quite a few, of those who are not at least realize that they have work to do in order to become at least somewhat knowledgeable ― though many will never do that work, for reasons to which I’ll presently return. And quite apart from informational difficulties, voting requires one to ponder incommensurable values (do vote, say, for the candidate with the better tax policy or the one more likely to respect the constitution?). By contrast, one doesn’t need to work very hard to “vote”. “Voters” typically have all the information they need from personal experience, and the values at stake are also less abstract and easier to sort out.

The second crucial difference between voting and “voting” is that the “voters” are the ones who live with the consequences of their decisions, whereas voters are not. If you keep on dirty underwear, you are the one who stinks. If you haven’t had occasion to learn that in the past, there’s a reasonable chance that you will learn now. By contrast, if you vote to keep a lousy politician in office, most (and perhaps all) of the cost of that vote (however small a fraction of the total cost is attributable to an individual vote) is absorbed by others. You may even profit from your bad decision, either because the politician rewards his or her supporters at the expense of the community as a whole, or simply because voting in that way gave you a satisfaction that is greater than the costs that vote imposes on you ― though again the costs to the community as a whole are substantial. Moreover, it is often difficult to trace bad outcomes to bad votes, or good outcomes to good ones. The difficulty is sometimes subjective ― a voter who doesn’t understand a modicum of economics will not be able to tell that relative impoverishment resulted from the protectionist policies he or she supported. But it is often objective. Policy is complex, and it is difficult even for knowledgeable people to link causes with effects with much certainty. As a result, voters do not learn from the consequences of their decisions in the way “voters” do.

In short, voting and “voting” are rather different activities, and just because we do a lot of the latter, and do it reasonably well, it doesn’t follow that we should do the former, or that we can do it with any competence. We “vote” well enough because each “vote” is (usually) a relatively straightforward decision and, even when it is not, we have strong incentives to learn enough, and to be objective enough, to decide well, because we are the one living with the consequences of the decision. These reasons don’t apply to voting, which involves complex decisions and trade-offs, which are difficult enough to manage even for unbiased and well-informed decision-makers ― but we lack the incentives to be either of these two things because we do not in a meaningful way bear the consequences of our votes.

Of course, I have no idea whether the Electoral Commission will be successful at persuading people to go to the polls despite the faulty premises underlying its ad campaign. But if it does, this will, I am afraid, be an additional reason to distrust voters, who let themselves be fooled by what is really a well put-together effort at misdirection. Rather, the message we should take from the ad is the one that Ilya Somin delivers in his book Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government Is Smarter: the more decisions we can make by “voting” rather than voting, the better off we will be. Whoever wins this week’s election should really think about that, rather than fret about turnout rates. Don’t worry though: I won’t be holding my breath.

The Law of Permanent Campaigning

Election law might have help create permanent campaigns. Can it be used to solve their problems?

The regulation of “money in politics” in Canada follows a bifurcated approach. Fundraising by political parties is subject to strict regulations that apply evenly throughout the electoral cycle. (There are special rules for candidates in elections and party leadership races.) By contrast, the expenditure of money by parties, as well as candidates, and so-called “third parties” ― which is to say, everyone else ― is only regulated, and very tightly regulated at that, during election campaigns, but not at other moments. Indeed, I once wrote that

the free discussion so essential to the existence of democracy and of parliamentary institutions is at no point so constrained as during electoral campaigns. No debate in Canadian society is so regulated as the one at the heart of our parliamentary democracy and thus of the protection of the freedom of expression.

This regulatory approach was developed at a time when election campaigns were mercifully short, and not much electioneering took place outside of the immediate pre-election “writ period”. But what happens if this is no longer so? What if the campaigning becomes “permanent”, to use a word that has been popular for a while now? The Conservative Party of Canada, under Stephen Harper’s leadership, is sometimes said to have brought the permanent campaign to Canada, but everybody’s doing it now, as Anna Lennox Esselment points out in a Policy Options post. The post is only an overview of a book that prof. Esselment has co-edited with Thierry Giasson and Alex Marland. I have not read it yet ― I will eventually ― so for now I can only venture a couple of comments about prof. Esselment’s post.

One point worth making is the links prof. Esselment makes between “permanent campaigning” and the way in which party leaders are being put at the centre of politics. That political parties have become primarily tools for the promotion of individual leaders is a point made by Bernard Manin in his book on The Principles of Representative Government; I have, I think, shown that it applies with full force to Canada in my article on “‘Third Parties’ and Democracy 2.0”, where I looked at the 2011 election campaign. (I summarized that part of the article here.) The development of the “permanent campaign” exacerbates this trend, though it did not create it; the days when parties could be seen as the “supermarkets of ideas” that Pierre Trudeau once thought they ought to be are long gone. As I argued in my article, we should not pretend otherwise, and take that into account in revising the ways in which we regulate the democratic process.

Regulation is the subject of another of prof. Esselment’s observations. She points out that “the rules regulating party financing” are among the “factors … contributing to the permanent campaign”. Once rules were in place to prevent “corporations, unions and wealthy individuals” from financing political parties,

the need to fundraise directly from [large numbers of] individual Canadians became a driving force in party operations. Knowing who might donate, how much and when is now crucial.

This in turn fuels the parties’ need for data about voters and potential donors (as well as people who might provide other forms of support). Prof. Esselment notes that this data gathering creates concerns about privacy, and she is right, of course. But another point worth emphasizing is that the story she tells illustrates the inevitability of unintended consequences. The permanent data-hungry campaign was not what those who clamoured for restrictions on party financing were looking to get, but they got it anyway. Their attempts to solve one (perceived) problem, though they may have been successful, also helped create a different one. A whole set of problems, actually, as prof. Esselment explains, having to do not only with the behaviour of parties as organizations, but also with what they do in, and to, Parliament.

This leads me to the final issue I will raise here. Prof. Esselment suggests that more fiddling with the regulation of political fundraising and expenditures is one “way out” of these problems. We might want

to regulate political party financing outside of the writ period and impose annual spending limits. This could limit a party’s ability to launch attack ads against their opponents between elections. … Reintroducing public subsidies for political parties might also reduce their ferocious appetite for information about Canadians, a key part of fundraising efforts.

The suggestion to “regulate party financing outside of the writ period” is a bit vague ― party financing is already regulated at all times, after all, though as I noted above, the regulations tend to apply evenly throughout the electoral cycle. But spending limits outside the writ period, and public financing, would have predictable, if unintended, negative consequences.

Permanent spending limits are, of course, permanent restrictions on the parties’ (and their supporters’) freedom of expression. We might not care too much about that, seeing how parties are vehicles for the aggrandizement of leaders and not contributors to an ideas-based political discourse, though I think that the freedom of expression even of relatively unsavoury actors has a value. But if parties subject themselves to permanent spending limits, they will not leave the rest of civil society alone. They will introduce stringent limits on the ability of “third parties” ― the disparaging name under which every speaker who is not a party or a candidate is known in election law ― to spend and express themselves as well. This is already what happens federally and in some provinces during election campaigns, and the Supreme Court has approved ― in the name of fairness ― the principle of radically lower spending limits for “third parties” than for political parties. Ontario has now gone further and introduced spending limits for “third parties” that apply six months ahead of an election. Permanent limits on party spending will create a strong pressure for what I have called, here and elsewhere, permanent censorship:

[A]n attempt to control “third party” spending between elections … It would extend to all advertising related to political parties or their candidates, including by taking position on issues “associated” with the party or the candidate. Moreover, in addition to dollar limits, the spending control regime includes onerous registration and disclosure requirements. Any individual, group, or organization that wanted to engage in political discourse would have to register with Elections Canada and keep it informed about its income and expenses. In effect, an extension of the rules on “third party” spending between elections would be a step towards the imposition of a regime of wholesale political censorship in Canada.

As I explain in detail in the posts linked to above, the courts may well find that such a regime is an unjustified violation of the protection of the freedom of expression in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But then again, they may not. But it would be no less terrifying even if the courts were in fact prepared to uphold it.

As for public financing for political parties, it is not obvious that it would reduce their hunger for data about us ― if not as potential donors, then as prospective voters (or indeed opponents who might be dissuaded from voting with targeted negative advertising). It would, however, reinforce the dominant position of large parties ― especially, of course, of the winners of the last election ― and prevent smaller, and above all new, parties from competing with more established ones on anything like equal terms. Perhaps these distorting effects are worth it for other reasons (though I’m skeptical), but I don’t think that the uncertain prospect of reduced data collection could justify them.

Permanent campaigns are, obviously, an important political development, and the law must take them into account. I am looking forward to reading the book on which prof. Esselment’s post is based, and perhaps I will have more to say about the subject as a result. But we must be very careful to avoid creating more problems as we try to solve those we have already identified. Indeed, we ought to keep in mind that if these problems arise from previous attempts at regulation, the solution might not be a fuite par en avant, but a retreat.

Selfie Slow-Down

I have already blogged about one American judicial decision on the constitutionality of a “ballot selfie” ban, which has since been upheld on appeal by the Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit. And I have also written about the history of the secret ballot, which in my view explains why measures to protect ballot secrecy ― including bans on something that might at first glance appear quite innocuous, like a selfie showing for whom a person has voted ― are actually more important than they seem. Another American decision issued last week, this one by the Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, provides some additional food for thought on this issue.

Much of the discussion in Judge Sutton’s majority opinion in Crookston v Johnson is procedural. The case came up as an application for a preliminary injunction preventing the enforcement of Michigan’s prohibition on “exposing marked ballots to others”, (1) and Judge Sutton concludes that it is simply too late to grant one now in anticipation of the elections to be held on November 8. The people who will be running the election have already been trained and have received specific guidance on photography at the polling stations. Changing the rules at this point would create unnecessary confusion. So Judge Sutton does not rule on the merits of the case, which will be assessed later, assuming the applicant still cares. (This situation is reminiscent of the Canadian cases about election debates, which are invariably brought on an emergency basis when the debates are set up, and invariably abandoned before a full merits hearing once the election has taken place.)

But Judge Sutton does make some comments that bear on the merits of the dispute, and, although preliminary, these comments strike me as quite sensible and interesting. One observation is that

many Michigan voting stalls … are simply tall desks, placed next to each other, with three short dividers shielding the writing surface from view. In this setting, posing for a ballot selfie could compromise the secrecy of another’s ballot, distract other voters, and force a poll worker to intervene. (4)

My memory of Canadian voting stalls is a bit hazy ― I skipped the last election because I couldn’t tell which of the parties was worst ― but something like that might be true of them too. And indeed, even if it is not in any given case, it is worth thinking about whether our voting arrangements must actually be planned so as to cater to the “needs” of people wishing to snap a selfie.

Another practical point is that allowing ballot selfies could create a “risk of delay” at the polling stations, “as ballot-selfie takers try to capture the marked ballot and face in one frame—all while trying to catch the perfect smile”. (5) In a brief concurrence focusing entirely on the issue of delay, Judge Guy makes the additional point that “with digital photography, if you don’t like the way you look in the first one, you take another and so on ad infinitum.” (7) He wonders, too, whether “the allowance of taking a selfie also include use of the ubiquitous selfie stick”. (7)

And then, there are the issues that I have already discussed here ― whether the absence of evidence of ballot selfies’ harm shows that there is no reason for banning them or, on the contrary, demonstrates the effectiveness of the bans as a prophylactic measure. Judge Sutton clearly thinks that the latter is the case. Moreover, “[t]he links between [voter corruption and intimidation] and the prohibition on ballot exposure are not some historical accident; they are ‘common sense'”. (5, quoting US Supreme Court precedent.) Chief Judge Cole, dissenting, takes the contrary view, as have other American courts that have addressed selfie bans.

For own part, without expressing an opinion as to which of these views is correct as a matter of U.S. law, I have more sympathy for Judge Sutton’s. While I have been dwelling on the importance of evidence in constitutional adjudication for some time now, and critical of restricting rights on the basis of assumptions no later than yesterday, the evidence is actually there, albeit that it is mostly historical. Moreover, a court should be able to pronounce on the issue of delay without waiting for an “experiment” to take place. Common sense can be an unreliable guide to adjudication, but ― absent evidence to the contrary ― courts should be able to rely on it sometimes.

Prohibitions of ballot selfies might seem counter-intuitive or even quaint. In the United States, they run counter to the very strong tradition of virtually untrammelled freedom of expression. While I sometimes wish that Canadians took more inspiration from that tradition than they do (for example when it comes to the criminalization of “hate speech”), this is one instance where a more even-handed weighing of competing interests might be in order. Judges Sutton and Guy provide a useful reminder of what some of these interests are.

Permanent Censorship, Again

Ontario’s proposal for regulating pre-campaign political spending is wrong

Earlier this week, The Globe and Mail reported that the Ontario government is proposing to introduce legislation that would limit the flow of private money into the political process (and introduce public subsidies to political parties). There is no bill yet, as the government is consulting with (some of) the opposition, but there is a very handy table that sets out the details of the government’s proposal and compares them to the rules in other Canadian jurisdictions. In this post, I want to discuss one aspect of the proposed changes: the limitation of “third-party” spending during the six months prior to a scheduled general election to 600,000$ (see the table at p. 4). This proposal is, in my view, unconstitutional, and it is quite possible, although not certain, that the courts, which are likely to be asked to rule on the issue, will agree.

As is clear from the table, a number of Canadian jurisdictions limit the expenses that citizens, unions, corporations, and social movements who want to make their views on political issues known, collectively known to election law under the derisive name of “third parties,” can incur during an election campaign. The Supreme Court upheld the principle of such limitations in Libman v. Quebec (Attorney General), [1997] 3 S.C.R. 569, and it upheld the federal limits in Harper v. Canada (Attorney General), 2004 SCC 33, [2004] 1 S.C.R. 827. No Canadian jurisdiction, however, currently limits third party expenses incurred prior to the official election campaign period.

What the table doesn’t say though is that British Columbia has tried to do so, only for its attempts to be twice found unconstitutional by the province’s Court of Appeal. In British Columbia Teachers’ Federation v. British Columbia (Attorney General), 2011 BCCA 408, the Court struck down limits imposed during a sixty-day pre-campaign period. Then, in Reference Re Election Act (BC), 2012 BCCA 394, the Court took the view that limiting third-party expenses during a period that could, depending on the dates of legislative sittings, vary from 0 to 40 days would also be unconstitutional. The province did not appeal on either occasion, so that the Supreme Court has not had an occasion to pass on the issue.

In commenting on the latter decision, I wrote that I wasn’t sure that Court was correct to conclude that Harper did not apply to the pre-campaign limitations of third party spending. Its rationale ― that the civil society needs to be silenced in order to make election campaigning a “level playing field” on which political parties can frolic unimpeded ― could be applied to the period preceding the official campaign, especially if the spending of political parties is also limited during that period, as it would be under the Ontario government’s proposal (see the table at 3). But, as I noted when discussing musings in Québec and within the federal government about limiting third party spending prior to or between election campaigns, Harper can indeed plausibly be read as precluding the extension of spending limits beyond the bounds of the election campaign.

In response to the dissent’s (cogent, in my view) observation that the spending limits imposed on third parties prevented them from communicating effectively, the Harper majority observed

that third party advertising is not restricted prior to the commencement of the election period. Outside this time, the limits on third party intervention in political life do not exist. Any group or individual may freely spend money or advertise to make its views known or to persuade others. [112]

This was an important part of the majority’s reasoning on the way to its conclusion that the spending limits were “minimally impairing” of the freedom of expression, and thus justified under section 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Beyond predicting of what the Supreme Court would or would not do if confronted with pre-campaign spending limits, it is, however, important not to lose sight of the principles at stake. As I wrote in my post on the possible introduction of limits on third party spending between federal election campaigns,

It is important to appreciate just how far-reaching an attempt to control “third party” spending between elections would be. It would extend to all advertising related to political parties or their candidates, including by taking position on issues “associated” with the party or the candidate. Moreover, in addition to dollar limits, the spending control regime includes onerous registration and disclosure requirements. Any individual, group, or organization that wanted to engage in political discourse would have to register with Elections Canada and keep it informed about its income and expenses. In effect, an extension of the rules on “third party” spending between elections would be a step towards the imposition of a regime of wholesale political censorship in Canada.

There are a couple of additional issues with the Ontario government’s proposal worth highlighting too. One concerns federalism. While provincial and federal electoral processes are separate, the issues and, to some extent anyway, the parties involved in them are not quite distinct. A limit on the ability of a civil society group to speak out about an issue relevant to a provincial election can also be a limit on that group’s ability to speak out on an issue ― that same issue ― relevant to federal politics. If these limits are imposed for a short time, it might be argued ― though perhaps not very convincingly ― that the interference with the other government’s sphere is incidental. But the longer the limits, the more tenuous that case is. There is good reason why Justice Rand wrote, in Switzman v. Elbling, [1957] SCR 285, that “[u]nder [Parliamentary] government, the freedom of discussion in Canada, as a subject-matter of legislation, has a unity of interest and significance extending equally to every part of the Dominion,” (306) and is therefore a federal, not a local concern. We have not given much thought to the relevance of this point to provincial electoral regulations, but we ought to before expanding them as much as Ontario seeks to do.

The other point concerns the proposed definition of “political advertising” (at p.5 in the table). It is modelled on the one in section 319 of the Canada Elections Act, and while not nearly as objectionable as the one used by Québec in section 404 of its Election Act (whose defects I discussed here), it is still problematic in that it is not fully technologically neutral. As I explained here (and in my article on the regulation of third parties and their role in contemporary Canadian politics),

the Canada Elections Act, for a reason that I do not understand, treats online communications differently from more traditional ones, in that it only only exempts online communications by individuals, and not those of organizations (whether corporations, trade unions, etc.) from its definition of electoral expenses. By contrast, for other forms of communications, notably those published in the traditional media, whether exempt from or included in the definition of (restricted) electoral expenses, the messaging of individuals and that of entities are treated in the exact same way. The singling out of online communications for a more stringent rule should be repealed.

Regardless of the views its government and, eventually, the courts take on the other issues I have raised here, it would be unfortunate if, legislating in 2016, Ontario were to repeat a mistake made by Parliament in 2000.

As I also explained in my article, “third parties” play an increasingly important role in contemporary politics, injecting ideas into the political debate which political parties prefer to focus largely on the personalities of their leaders and a select few wedge issues. I am therefore skeptical about the wisdom of regulating them at all. However, even if a case for limited regulation during the relatively short duration of an election campaign can be made out, there is no justification for extending regulation to long periods of time outside the campaign period. Ontario’s plans in this regard would quite possibly be found unconstitutional by courts, and in any event would be a most unfortunate move in the direction of political censorship. They should be scrapped.