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Copyright © 2015 Emond Montgomery Publications Limited.

NOTICE & DISCLAIMER: All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any
form by any means without the written consent of Emond Montgomery Publications. Emond
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Printed in Canada.

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Managing editor, development: Kelly Dickson
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Proofreader: Rodney Rawlings
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Public law (Toronto, Ont.)

Public law : cases, commentary, and analysis / general editors, Craig Forcese, Faculty of Law,
University of Ottawa, Adam Dodek, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa ; contributing editors,
Philip Bryden, Faculty of Law, University of Alberta, Peter Carver, Faculty of Law, University of
Alberta, Richard Haigh, Faculty of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, Mary Liston, Faculty of Law,
University of British Columbia, Constance MacIntosh, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie
University. — Third edition.

ISBN 978-1-55239-664-3 (bound)

1. Public law—Canada—Textbooks. 2. Public law—Canada— Cases. I. Forcese, Craig

1969-, editor II. Dodek, Adam, editor III. Bryden, Philip, 1953-, editor IV. Title.

KE4120.P83 2015   342.71   C2015-902584-2
KF4482.P83 2015
 Acknowledgments

A book of this nature borrows heavily from other published material. We have attempted to
request permission from, and to acknowledge in the text, all sources of such material. We
wish to make specific references here to the authors, publishers, journals, and institutions
that have generously given permission to reproduce in this text works already in print. If we
have inadvertently overlooked an acknowledgment or failed to secure a permission, we offer
our sincere apologies and undertake to rectify the omission in the next edition.

Aboriginal and Northern Affairs Canada. Statement of Apology to Former Students of

Indian Residential Schools (11 June 2008). Reprinted with the permission of Aboriginal
Affairs and Northern Development Canada.
Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (1989), 10 CHRR
D/6094. Reprinted with the permission of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.
Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (1989), 10 CHRR
D/6097. Reprinted with the permission of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.
Canadian Judicial Council. Report of the Canadian Judicial Council to the Minister of Justice
Under Section 63 (1) of the Judges Act Concerning the Conduct of Mr Justice Bienvenue of the
Superior Court of Quebec in R v T Thereby (Ottawa: CJC, October 1996). Reprinted with the
permission of the Canadian Judicial Council.
Department of Justice Canada. Administrative Law, Independent Administrative Agencies,
Working Paper 25, Law Reform Commission of Canada, 1980. Reproduced with the
permission of the Department of Justice Canada, 2015.
Department of Justice Canada. “Canada’s Court System,” online: <http://www.justice
.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/ccs-acj/pdf/courten.pdf>, pages 3-14. Department of Justice Canada.
Reproduced with the permission of the Department of Justice Canada, 2015.
Department of Justice Canada. Crossing Borders: Law in a Globalized World, Law
Commission of Canada, 2006. Reproduced with the permission of the Department of Justice
Canada, 2015.
Elections Canada. The Electoral System of Canada, 3rd ed (Ottawa: Chief Electoral Officer
of Canada, 2012). This reproduction is a copy of the version available at <http://elections
.ca>. Reproduced with the permission of Elections Canada.

iii
iv Acknowledgments

House of Commons. Michel Bedard, Kristen Douglas & Elise-Hurtubise-Loranger, Conflict

of Interest at the Federal Level: Legislative Framework (Ottawa: House of Commons, Library of
Parliament, 24 November 2010). Reprinted with the permission of the House of Commons.
House of Commons. House of Commons Procedure and Practice, 2nd ed (Ottawa: House of
Commons, 2009). Reprinted with the permission of the House of Commons.
House of Commons. Special Committee on the Reform of the House of Commons (Ottawa:
Canadian Government Publishing Centre, Supply and Services Canada, 1985). Reprinted
with permission of the House of Commons.
Judicial Appointments Commission. “Selection Policy,” online: <http://jac.judiciary.gov.uk>.
Reprinted with permission.
LexisNexis Canada. Ruth Sullivan, Sullivan on the Construction of Statutes, 5th ed
(Markham, Ont: Butterworths, 2008). Reproduced with the permission of LexisNexis
Canada.
Ottawa Citizen. Cristin Schmitz, with files from Lisa Tuominen, Peter O’Neil & Graeme
Hamilton, “Federal Judges Often Liberal Donors, Survey Finds,” Ottawa Citizen (6 May 2005).
Material republished with the express permission of: Ottawa Citizen, a division of
Postmedia Network Inc.
Queen’s Law Journal. Ann McDonald, “In the Public Interest: Judicial Review of Local
Government” (1993) 9 Queen’s LJ 62. Reprinted with permission.
Supreme Court of Canada. Remarks of the Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, PC,
presented in Ottawa on 22 November 2004, Respecting Democratic Roles. Reproduced with
the permission of the Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, PC, 2015.
Supreme Court Law Review. Adam M Dodek, “Reforming the Supreme Court
Appointment Process, 2004-2014: A 10-Year Democratic Audit” (2014) 67 SCLR (2nd).
Reprinted with the permission of Adam M Dodek.
University of Toronto Press. Kent Roach, “Four Models of Police-Government
Relationships” in M Beare and T Murray, eds, Police and Government Relations: Who’s Calling
the Shots? (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007). Reprinted with permission of the
publisher.
 Preface to the Third Edition

Almost every law school in Canada, as part of its first-year curriculum, offers a course that
focuses on legal processes and legal institutions. Other programs, including those focusing
on government studies and public administration, also delve into the world of public law.
Common to these courses is the view that students beginning a career in law or govern-
ment administration need to understand how the law is made, as well as the nature of and
relationships among those institutions that create and apply legal rules and principles. Cer-
tainly, in law school, students and law professors might address many of these issues in the
conventional, substantive courses of the first-year curriculum; however, introductory public
law courses proceed from the premise that these issues are sufficiently foundational to merit
separate and in-depth examination. That said, it is also clear that law schools incorporate the
study of legal processes and institutions in a wide variety of ways. Some law schools focus on
the theoretical aspects of defining law and the law’s relationship to social ordering; others
may integrate this material more closely with constitutional or procedural questions. Like-
wise, other, non-law programs may approach public law in different ways, ranging from pure
law courses to seminars focusing more on the “machinery of government.”
With these observations in mind, our principal objective in assembling these materials
was to provide a volume covering essential issues common to the majority of courses ad-
dressing legal process and institutional issues. We hope that this book will form the core
materials of such courses. We decided that it was better to include less material (and allow
individual professors to supplement the volume to best fit their courses) than to risk includ-
ing material that might be superfluous to some course designs. For the same reason, we have
mostly opted not to include sets of notes and questions following sections of the text. In
other words, we have sought to prepare a volume that can be easily integrated into the vari-
able introductory public law courses offered across the country.
The third edition incorporates major changes in Canadian public law since the publication
of the second edition in 2011. The past several years have been an unusually fertile period for
Canadian public law. Cases like the Supreme Court Act Reference and the Senate Reform Refer-
ence have ignited public controversy and commentary and have affected our understanding
of many basic issues in public law. We have also amplified our discussion of ongoing policy
developments, such as the ever-changing Supreme Court of Canada judicial appointment
process.
Finally, we have taken the opportunity presented by this edition to restructure this vol-
ume to rationalize our changing chapters. In this last respect, over the editions, we have
added more and more original narrative content. Those who have used this book before will
welcome the new, bolstered introductory chapter (Chapter 1) and the new, separate chapter

v
vi Preface to the Third Edition

on Indigenous peoples and the law (Chapter 3). They will also note that we have reorganized
the material on legal theory and sources of Canadian law into two distinct chapters (Chapters
2 and 4). The original chapter on Parliament has been subdivided into two separate chapters:
Chapter 6 on the composition of Parliament and Chapter 7 on Parliament’s functions. The
chapter on the executive has been recrafted, so that Chapter 8 now deals with the executive
and its functions. Materials dealing with review of the executive have been relocated to
Chapter 11, dealing with constraints on legislative and executive action. Finally, readers will
find a thoroughly revised Chapter 10 on statutory interpretation, in which we attempt to lay
out this complicated area in a practical manner.
Since the second edition, Professors Adam Dodek, Mary Liston, and Constance MacIntosh
have joined this project. Professors Neil Craik, Ed Ratushny, and Ruth Sullivan have retired as
contributors. The influence of these three colleagues remains, however, and our existing
chapters have built on their original work, particularly in the discussions of the executive
branch, courts, and the judiciary and statutory interpretation.
In revising the chapters for the third edition, we have been very fortunate to receive com-
ments from colleagues who used the first and second editions, which were very helpful in
our preparations, and for which we are extremely grateful. We continue to welcome feed-
back. We have also made plans to bolster the online presence for this book through a website
that we shall design at <http://www.emond.ca/publiclaw>.
Our contributors have benefited from the assistance of many people in finalizing this
volume. All of us extend our thanks to our public law students who, over the years, have
taught us even as we have taught them. Their insights have helped us improve this work.
Professor Liston would like to thank Spencer Keys and Nevin Massing for providing excellent
research assistance and for giving her the students’ perspective on the materials, and also
Robin Elliot for valuable editorial suggestions and improvements. She also extends thanks to
colleagues Cristie Ford and David Duff for their input on public law and statutory
interpretation.
Finally, all of us among the contributors would be remiss if we did not thank the diligent
editorial team at Emond Publishing for coordinating our efforts and for their editorial and
production support.
We hope you enjoy the product of all our labours.

Craig Forcese
Adam Dodek
February 2015
 Summary Table of Contents

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
Preface to the Third Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Detailed Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Table of Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii

Chapter One Public Law in Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

I. Basic Building Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
II. Drilling Down: The Workings of Public Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
III. Two Modes of Accountability in the Exercise of Public Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
IV. From Parliamentary to Constitutional Supremacy and Back? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Part I Setting the Stage

Chapter Two Legal Theory in Relation to Public Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
II. Positivism and Natural Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
III. Feminist Perspectives on Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
IV. Critical Legal Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
V. Law and Economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Chapter Three Indigenous Peoples and the Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
II. Indigenous Peoples and the Canadian State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
III. Indigenous–State Relations Prior to 1982 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
IV. Section 35 of the Constitution Act and the Doctrine of Reconciliation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
V. Modern Treaties and Land Claims Agreements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Chapter Four Sources of Canadian Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

I. The Common and Civil Law Traditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
II. Statutory Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
III. International Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Chapter Five Recurring Constitutional Principles in Canadian Public Law . . . . . . 113

I. The Constitution of Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
II. Six Principles Underpinning Public Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
III. Constitutional Amendment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

vii
viii Summary Table of Contents

Part II The Key Actors in Public Law

Chapter Six Parliament and Its Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
I. The Monarch and Governor General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
II. Senate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
III. House of Commons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

Chapter Seven The Functions of Parliament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

I. Bringing the Constituent Elements of Parliament Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
II. Key Actors in Parliament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
III. Parliamentary Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
IV. Parliamentary Law-Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

Chapter Eight The Executive and Its Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

I.Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
II.Functions Performed by Executive Institutions in Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
III.The Rise of the Administrative State in Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
IV. Sources of Executive Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
V. Constitutional Constraints on the Delegation of Statutory Power
to the Executive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
VI. Executive Institutions and Their Relationship to the Political Executive . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322

Chapter Nine The Courts and the Judiciary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

I. Structure of the Canadian Court System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
II. Judicial Appointments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
III. Judicial Independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386

Part III Interplay Between the Courts and the

Political Branches of Government
Chapter Ten Statutory Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425
I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426
II. Approaches to Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
III. An Overview of the Modern Approach to Statutory Interpretation:
Its Components and Its Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
IV. The Modern Approach in Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450
V. Interpretation and Criticism of the Modern Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 518
Cheat Sheet for the Modern Approach to Statutory Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523

Chapter Eleven Constraints on Legislative and Administrative Action . . . . . . . . . . 527

I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527
II. The Role of Constitutional Judicial Review in a Democratic Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 528
III. Judicial Review of Administrative Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564
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 Detailed Table of Contents

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
Preface to the Third Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Summary Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Table of Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii

Chapter One Public Law in Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

I. Basic Building Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
A. Sources of Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
B. Origins of Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
C. What Is Private Law? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
D. What Is Public Law? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
II. Drilling Down: The Workings of Public Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
A. Pluralism in Public Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
B. Branches of the State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
C. Legal Basis for the State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
D. The Rule of Law, Validity, and Legal Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
E. Democracy and Popular Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
III. Two Modes of Accountability in the Exercise of Public Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
A. Political Accountability Versus Legal Accountability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1. Political Accountability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2. Legal Accountability and the Constitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
B. Other Forms of Legal Accountability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1. Judicial Interpretation of Statutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2. Judicial Oversight of Executive Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
IV. From Parliamentary to Constitutional Supremacy and Back? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Part I Setting the Stage

Chapter Two Legal Theory in Relation to Public Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
II. Positivism and Natural Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Re Drummond Wren . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Re Noble and Wolf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

ix
x Detailed Table of Contents

III. Feminist Perspectives on Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

A. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
B. Early Formalist Feminism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Edwards v AG Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
C. Contemporary Feminism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
R v Morgentaler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
IV. Critical Legal Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
A. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
B. Judging with CLS: A Case Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
R v S(RD) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
V. Law and Economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
A. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
B. Public Law and Economic Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
1. Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
2. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Bank of America Canada v Mutual Trust Co . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Chapter Three Indigenous Peoples and the Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
II. Indigenous Peoples and the Canadian State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
A. Three Views on the Constitutional Relationship Between Indigenous and
Non-Indigenous Peoples in Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
III. Indigenous–State Relations Prior to 1982 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
A. Indigenous Governance and the Early Canadian State:
Nation-to-Nation Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
B. The Suppression of Indigenous Governance Authority and Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Aboriginal and Northern Affairs Canada, Statement of Apology:
to Former Students of Indian Residential Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
C. The Turn to Affirming and Acknowledging the Persistence of Indigenous
Legal Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
IV. Section 35 of the Constitution Act and the Doctrine of Reconciliation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
A. The Constitutionalization of Aboriginal and Treaty Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
R v Sparrow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
B. Aboriginal Rights and Restraints on State Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
R v Sparrow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
C. The Van der Peet Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
R v Sappier; R v Gray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
D. Section 35 and Indigenous Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
E. Section 35 and Métis Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
F. Treaty Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
G. The Honour of the Crown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Manitoba Metis Federation Inc v Canada (Attorney General) . . . . . . . . . . . 69
H. Aboriginal Title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Tsilhqot’in Nation v British Columbia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
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V. Modern Treaties and Land Claims Agreements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

A. The Era of Modern Treaties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
B. Modern Treaties as a “Third Order of Government” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Campbell et al v AG BC/AG Cda & Nisga’a Nation et al . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
C. Modern Treaties and Indigenous Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
D. Modern Treaties and the Constitutional Relationship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Chapter Four Sources of Canadian Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

I. The Common and Civil Law Traditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
A. Reception of European Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Cooper v Stuart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
B. Nature of the Common and Civil Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
C. The Operation of Common Law and Precedent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Canada Trust Co v Ontario Human Rights Commission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
D. Common Law and Equity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
DeLaurier v Jackson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Guerin v The Queen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
KLB v British Columbia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Manitoba Metis Federation Inc v Canada (Attorney General) . . . . . . . . . . . 100
II. Statutory Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
A. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
B. Statutes and the Common Law: A Complex Mix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Halpern v Canada (Attorney General) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
III. International Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Law Commission of Canada, Crossing Borders: Law in a
Globalized World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Chapter Five Recurring Constitutional Principles in Canadian Public Law . . . . . . 113

I. The Constitution of Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
A. Text of the Constitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
B. Conventions of the Constitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Re: Resolution to Amend the Constitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
C. Unwritten Principles of the Constitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Reference re Secession of Quebec . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
II. Six Principles Underpinning Public Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
A. The Principle of the Rule of Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
1. Substantive Limits on Legislation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
British Columbia v Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia v British Columbia
(Attorney General) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
2. Arbitrary Exercises of Statutory Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Roncarelli v Duplessis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
B. The Principle of Constitutional Supremacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
1. A Hierarchy in Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
2. The Need for Constitutional Adjudication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
xii Detailed Table of Contents

3. A Counter-Majoritarian Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

4. Constitutional Amendment Requires a Super-Majority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
C. The Principle of Parliamentary Supremacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Babcock v Canada (Attorney General) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
D. The Principle of Federalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
E. The Principle of the Separation of Powers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
1. Functional Role of the Separation of Powers: The Relationships Among
the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches of the Canadian State . . . . . . 160
2. Normative Role of the Separation of Powers: Preventing Overstepping of
Institutional Roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Ontario v Criminal Lawyers’ Association of Ontario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Canada (Prime Minister) v Khadr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
F. The Principle of Judicial Independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
III. Constitutional Amendment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
A. The Amending Formula in Part V of the Constitution Act, 1982 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
1. Amendment of the Supreme Court of Canada:
The Supreme Court Act Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
2. Amendment and the Senate of Canada: The Senate Reform Reference . . . . . . . . 171
B. Judicial Interpretation and the “Living Tree” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
C. Unwritten Principles of the Constitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

Part II The Key Actors in Public Law

Chapter Six Parliament and Its Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
I. The Monarch and Governor General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
A. Selecting the Monarch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
O’Donohue v Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
McAteer v Canada (Attorney General) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
B. Selecting the Governor General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
II. Senate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Reference re Senate Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
III. House of Commons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Elections Canada, The Electoral System of Canada, 3rd ed . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Reference re Prov Electoral Boundaries (Sask) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Elections Canada, The Electoral System of Canada, 3rd ed . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Figueroa v Canada (Attorney General) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Opitz v Wrzesnewskyj . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
McEwing v Canada (Attorney General) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

Chapter Seven The Functions of Parliament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

I. Bringing the Constituent Elements of Parliament Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
A. Summoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
House of Commons, House of Commons Procedure and Practice . . . . . . 232
B. Prorogation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
House of Commons, House of Commons Procedure and Practice . . . . . . 234
Detailed Table of Contents xiii

C. Dissolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Special Committee on the Reform of the House of
Commons, Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
II. Key Actors in Parliament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
A. Political Parties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
B. The Speaker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
House of Commons, House of Commons Procedure and Practice . . . . . . 242
C. Parliamentary Committees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
House of Commons, House of Commons Procedure and Practice . . . . . . 244
III. Parliamentary Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
A. Constitutional and Legislative Basis: Parliamentary Privilege . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
Canada (House of Commons) v Vaid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
B. Standing Orders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
IV. Parliamentary Law-Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
A. The Scope of Parliament’s Law-Making Jurisdiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
1. The Power to Pass Bad Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Bacon v Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Turner v Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
Wells v Newfoundland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
2. The Power to Follow Unfair Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
Authorson v Canada (Attorney General) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
3. Ethics in Law-Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Michel Bédard, Kristen Douglas & Élise Hurtubise-Loranger,
Conflict of Interest at the Federal Level: Legislative Framework . . . . . . . 267
B. Parliament’s Law-Making Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
House of Commons, House of Commons Procedure and Practice . . . . . . 274

Chapter Eight The Executive and Its Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
II. Functions Performed by Executive Institutions in Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
A. Rule-Making (Delegated Legislation) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
B. Dispute Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
C. Benefit or Obligation Determination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
D. Enforcement Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
E. Overlapping Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
F. Provision of Services, Goods, and Facilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
III. The Rise of the Administrative State in Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
Law Reform Commission of Canada, “Independent
Administrative Agencies” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
IV. Sources of Executive Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
A. Prerogative Powers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Black v Canada (Prime Minister) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
B. Statutory Powers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
xiv Detailed Table of Contents

V. Constitutional Constraints on the Delegation of Statutory Power to the Executive . . . 317

In Re George Edwin Gray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Attorney General of Nova Scotia v Attorney General of Canada . . . . . . . . . 319
VI. Executive Institutions and Their Relationship to the Political Executive . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
A. The Crown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
B. The Prime Minister and Cabinet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Guergis v Novak et al . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
C. The Public Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
Fraser v PSSRB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
D. Independent Administrative Agencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
Canadian Human Rights Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
Ocean Port Hotel Ltd v British Columbia (General Manager,
Liquor Control and Licensing Branch) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
Saskatchewan Federation of Labour v Government of
Saskatchewan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
E. Crown Corporations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
F. Enforcement Bodies: Police and Prosecutors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
R v Campbell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
Krieger v Law Society of Alberta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
G. Municipalities and Other Elected Subordinate Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
Shell Canada Products Ltd v Vancouver (City) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353

Chapter Nine The Courts and the Judiciary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

I. Structure of the Canadian Court System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
A. Overview of the Current Canadian Court System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
Department of Justice Canada, Canada’s Court System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Additional Resources on the Courts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
B. Constitutional Framework of the Judiciary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
II. Judicial Appointments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
A. Federal Judicial Appointment Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
1. Non – Supreme Court of Canada Appointments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
a. Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
b. Criticisms of the Non – Supreme Court Federal Appointment
Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
2. Supreme Court Appointments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
a. Overview of the Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
b. A Short History of the Supreme Court Appointment Process,
2004-2014 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
Adam M Dodek, “Reforming the Supreme Court Appointment
Process, 2004-2014: A 10-Year Democratic Audit” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
B. Provincial Judicial Appointment Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
C. A Range of Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
US Department of Justice, State Court Organization 1998 . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
Detailed Table of Contents xv

III. Judicial Independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386

A. Sources and Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
Ref re Remuneration of Judges of the Prov Court of PEI; Ref re
Independence and Impartiality of Judges of the Prov Court of PEI . . . . 388
B. Assessing Independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
C. Dimensions and Core Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
1. Security of Tenure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
Report of the Canadian Judicial Council to the Minister of
Justice Under Section 63(1) of the Judges Act Concerning
the Conduct of Mr. Justice Jean Bienvenue of the Superior
Court of Quebec in R v T Théberge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
2. Financial Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
Ref re Remuneration of Judges of the Prov Court of PEI; Ref re
Independence and Impartiality of Judges of the Prov Court of PEI . . . . 413
Provincial Court Judges’ Assn of New Brunswick v New Brunswick
(Minister of Justice); Ontario Judges’ Assn v Ontario (Management
Board); Bodner v Alberta; Conférence des juges du Québec v
Quebec (Attorney General); Minc v Quebec (Attorney General) . . . . . . . 418
3. Administrative Independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Tobiass . . . . . . . . . . . 419

Part III Interplay Between the Courts and the

Political Branches of Government
Chapter Ten Statutory Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425
I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426
II. Approaches to Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
A. Why Interpretation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
1. Interpretation as an Everyday Activity: A Short Exercise About Ambiguity . . . . 428
B. The Two Interpretive Approaches Shared by the Constitution, the Common
Law, and Statutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429
1. Static Approaches to Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430
2. Dynamic Approaches to Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431
III. An Overview of the Modern Approach to Statutory Interpretation:
Its Components and Its Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
A. The Ubiquity of Statutes and the Need for Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
B. The Modern Approach to Statutory Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
Ruth Sullivan, Sullivan on the Construction of Statutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434
C. The Range of Issues That Can Arise in Modern Statutory Interpretation . . . . . . . . . 435
D. Guides for the Task of Interpretation Under the Modern Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435
1. Legal Sources of Interpretation Law That Assist with the Modern
Approach to Statutory Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435
2. Common Law Presumptions Used to Determine Legislative Intent
Under the Modern Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440
3. General Common Law Presumptions About Specific Meaning in the Text . . . . 441
xvi Detailed Table of Contents

IV. The Modern Approach in Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450

A. The Original Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451
Re Rizzo and Rizzo Shoes Ltd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451
B. Dynamic and Static Approaches in the Supreme Court Act Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459
Reference re Supreme Court Act, ss 5 and 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460
Reference re Supreme Court Act, ss 5 and 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469
C. The Presumption Against Absurdity: Conacher v Canada (Prime Minister) . . . . . . . . 480
Conacher v Canada (Prime Minister) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481
D. How a Common Law Presumption Is Incorporated Under and Used in
the Modern Approach: Opitz v Wrzesnewskyj . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486
Opitz v Wrzesnewskyj . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487
E. The Contextual and Purposive Approach Within the Modern Approach . . . . . . . . . 490
Canada (Attorney General) v Mossop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490
F. The Modern Approach in the Midst of a Sea Change in Meaning? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506
Agraira v Canada (Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness) . . . . . . . . 506
V. Interpretation and Criticism of the Modern Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 518
A. A Brief Review of Older Approaches to Statutory Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 518
B. Reconsidering the Modern Approach to Statutory Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520
Cheat Sheet for the Modern Approach to Statutory Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523

Chapter Eleven Constraints on Legislative and Administrative Action . . . . . . . . . . 527

I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527
II. The Role of Constitutional Judicial Review in a Democratic Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 528
A. The Justification for Constitutional Judicial Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 528
Marbury v Madison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 528
B. The Limitations of Judicial Review Using the Constitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531
1. The Issue of Justiciability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531
Operation Dismantle v The Queen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531
2. The Issue of Enforcement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538
Doucet-Boudreau v Nova Scotia (Minister of Education) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 539
Re Manitoba Language Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 546
3. The Issue of Legitimacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 551
Vriend v Alberta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 553
Remarks of the Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, PC,
Respecting Democratic Roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 557
Ref re Remuneration of Judges of the Prov Court of PEI; Ref re
Independence and Impartiality of Judges of the Prov Court of PEI . . . . 561
III. Judicial Review of Administrative Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564
A. Limits on the Exercise of Delegated Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564
B. Controlling Procedures: The Duty to Be Fair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566
Baker v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567
C. Substantive Judicial Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 576
Dunsmuir v New Brunswick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577
Agraira v Canada (Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness) . . . . . . . . 587
 Table of Cases

A page number in boldface type indicates that the text of the case or a portion thereof is
reproduced. A page number in lightface type indicates that the case is quoted briefly or
discussed by the author. Cases mentioned within excerpts are not listed.

114957 Canada Ltée (Spraytech, Société d’arrosage) v Hudson (Town) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300, 356-57

Agraira v Canada (Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506, 518, 587
Agricultural Products Marketing, Reference re . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Alberta (Information and Privacy Commissioner) v Alberta Teachers’ Association . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 586
Attorney General of Nova Scotia v Attorney General of Canada
[Nova Scotia Inter-Delegation case] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319, 321
Authorson v Canada (Attorney General) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101, 264, 265, 266

Babcock v Canada (Attorney General) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156, 257

Bacon v Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Badger, R v . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Baker v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567, 575, 586-87
Bank of America Canada v Mutual Trust Co . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Beattie v National Frontier Insurance Co . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437
Beauregard, The Queen v . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Beckman v Little Salmon/Carmacks First Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78-79
Beer, R v . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Bell Canada v Canadian Telephone Employees Association . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300, 339-41
Beson v Director of Child Welfare (Nfld) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
Black v Canada (Prime Minister) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311, 312, 316
Brown v Alberta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Burns, United States v . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538

Calder et al v Attorney-General of British Columbia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Campbell, R v . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347, 352
Campbell et al v AG BC/AG Cda & Nisga’a Nation et al . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Canada (Canadian Human Rights Commission) v Canada (Attorney General) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 586
Canada (House of Commons) v Vaid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250, 256
Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Tobiass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394-95, 419
Canada (Prime Minister) v Khadr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164, 165, 316, 538-39

xvii
xviii Table of Cases

Canada Trust Co v Ontario Human Rights Commission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89, 90

Carter v Alberta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Catholic Civil Rights League v Hendricks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Christie, British Columbia (Attorney General) v . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Citizens’ Legal Challenge Inc v Ontario (Attorney General of ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
Cloverdale Shopping Centre Ltd v Township of Etobicoke et al, Re . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302-3
Conacher v Canada (Prime Minister) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236, 481, 485
Connolly v Woolrich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57, 58
Conway, R v . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Cooper v Stuart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Crevier v AG (Québec) et al . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

DeLaurier v Jackson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
District of Columbia v Heller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430
Doucet-Boudreau v Nova Scotia (Minister of Education) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162-63, 539
Drummond Wren, Re . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21, 38, 39
Dunsmuir v New Brunswick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 576, 577, 586, 587

Edwards v AG Canada [“Persons” case] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29, 173-74, 186, 432

EGALE Canada Inc v Canada (Attorney General of ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Egan v Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Ell v Alberta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168, 393-94, 397

Figueroa v Canada (Attorney General) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

Forget v Quebec (Attorney-General) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566
Fraser v PSSRB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

Gendron v Supply & Services Union of the Public Service Alliance of Canada,
Local 50057 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439
George Edwin Gray, In Re . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317, 319
Govedarov, Popovic and Askov, R v . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Grant v Torstar Corp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Guergis v Novak et al . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324, 327
Guerin v The Queen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95, 100

Haida Nation v British Columbia (Minister of Forests) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68-69

Halpern v Canada (Attorney General) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102, 107, 432
Harvard College v Canada (Commissioner of Patents) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
Heydon’s Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 519
Hodge v The Queen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159, 319
Homex Realty and Development v Wyoming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

Idziak v Canada (Minister of Justice) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327-28

Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd, British Columbia v . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135, 136, 142, 386, 432
Insurance Corporation of BC v Heerspink . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439
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Table of Cases xix

KLB v British Columbia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Krieger v Law Society of Alberta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347, 349, 352

M v H . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Mackin v New Brunswick (Minister of Finance); Rice v New Brunswick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167, 394, 397
MacMillan Bloedel Ltd v Simpson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162, 322, 369
Manitoba Language Rights, Re . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134, 539, 546, 551, 560
Manitoba Metis Federation Inc v Canada (Attorney General) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69, 100
Marbury v Madison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153, 528
Marshall, R v . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Martin v Ontario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
McAteer v Canada (Attorney General) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
McEvoy v Attorney General for New Brunswick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
McEwing v Canada (Attorney General) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224, 225
McIntosh, R v . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459, 519
McKenzie v Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General et al . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
Mitchell v MNR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65-66
Morgentaler, R v . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33, 34, 37
Morishita v Richmond (Township of ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
Mossop, Canada (Attorney General) v . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490, 504-6

New Brunswick Broadcasting Co v Nova Scotia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250

Nicholson v Haldimand-Norfolk Regional Police Commissioners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299, 567
Noble and Wolf, Re . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21, 24, 27, 38, 39
Noble et al v Alley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Nova Scotia (Workers’ Compensation Board) v Martin; Nova Scotia
(Workers’ Compensation Board) v Laseur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153, 322
Nova Scotia Inter-Delegation case, see Attorney General of Nova Scotia v
Attorney General of Canada

Oakes, R v . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 556
Ocean Port Hotel Ltd v British Columbia (General Manager, Liquor Control and
Licensing Branch) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335, 339, 341
O’Donohue v Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Ontario v Criminal Lawyers’ Association of Ontario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163, 164
Ontario (Attorney General) v OPSEU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
Ontario (Speaker of the Legislative Assembly) v Ontario (Human Rights Commission) . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Operation Dismantle v The Queen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530, 531
Opitz v Wrzesnewskyj . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216, 224, 486, 487
Osborne v Canada (Treasury Board) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331-32

Patriation Reference, see Re: Resolution to Amend the Constitution

Paul v The Queen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448
PEI Potato Marketing Board v Willis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Perrier Group of Canada Inc v Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
“Persons” case, see Edwards v AG Canada
xx Table of Cases

Pickin v British Railways Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264

Powley, R v . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66-67
Prov Electoral Boundaries (Sask), Reference re . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201, 432
Provincial Court Judges’ Assn of New Brunswick v New Brunswick (Minister of Justice);
Ontario Judges’ Assn v Ontario (Management Board); Bodner v Alberta; Conférence
des juges du Québec v Quebec (Attorney General); Minc v Quebec (Attorney General) . . . . . . . 418
Provincial Judges Reference, see Remuneration of Judges of the Prov Court of PEI, Ref re;
Ref re Independence and Impartiality of Judges of the Prov Court of PEI
PSAC v Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259-60

Quebec (Attorney General) v Moses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Quebec Session Reference, see Secession of Quebec, Reference re
Quebec Veto Reference, see Re: Objection by Quebec to a Resolution to Amend the Constitution

R v S(RD) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Re: Objection by Quebec to a Resolution to Amend the Constitution [Quebec Veto
Reference] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Re: Resolution to Amend the Constitution [Patriation Reference] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116, 117, 120, 169
Regulations in Relation to Chemicals, Reference re . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565-66
Remuneration of Judges of the Prov Court of PEI, Ref re; Ref re Independence
and Impartiality of Judges of the Prov Court of PEI [Provincial Judges
Reference] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168, 250, 369, 386, 387,
388, 396, 413, 419, 560, 561
Residential Tenancies Act, Re . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160, 322, 368-69
Rizzo and Rizzo Shoes Ltd, Re . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451, 459, 479, 523
Roncarelli v Duplessis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148, 149, 432, 519
RWDSU v Dolphin Delivery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
RWDSU, Local 558 v Pepsi-Cola Canada Beverages (West) Ltd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

Same-Sex Marriage, Reference re . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101, 107, 174

Samson v Canada (Attorney General) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Sappier, R v; R v Gray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63, 64, 68
Saskatchewan Federation of Labour v Government of Saskatchewan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
Secession of Quebec, Reference re [Quebec Secession Reference] . . . . 10, 114, 115, 120-21, 122, 135,
151, 154, 158-59, 174, 432, 560
Senate Reform, Reference re [Senate Reform Reference] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115, 120, 171, 172, 173, 187
Seneca College v Bhadauria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Shell Canada Products Ltd v Vancouver (City) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353, 356, 432, 565
Sobeys Stores Ltd v Yeomans and Labour Standards Tribunal (NS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
Sparrow, R v . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58, 61, 62, 68
Supreme Court Act, ss 5 and 6, Reference re [Supreme Court Act Reference] . . . 115, 120, 167, 170-71,
368, 379, 460, 468, 469
Suresh v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587
Syliboy, R v . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58, 67
Table of Cases xxi

Therrien, Re . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia v British Columbia (Attorney General) . . . . . . . . 142, 143
Tsilhqot’in Nation v British Columbia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70, 71
Turner v Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260

Vabalis, In Re . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
Valente v The Queen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
Van der Peet, R v . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Vriend v Alberta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552, 553, 555, 556, 560

Wells v Newfoundland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262, 264-65

White and Bob, R v . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Young Offenders Act (PEI), Reference re . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369

Young v Blaikie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
 C hapter O ne

Public Law in Canada

I. Basic Building Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

A. Sources of Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
B. Origins of Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
C. What Is Private Law? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
D. What Is Public Law? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
II. Drilling Down: The Workings of Public Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
A. Pluralism in Public Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
B. Branches of the State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
C. Legal Basis for the State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
D. The Rule of Law, Validity, and Legal Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
E. Democracy and Popular Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
III. Two Modes of Accountability in the Exercise of Public Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
A. Political Accountability Versus Legal Accountability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1. Political Accountability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2. Legal Accountability and the Constitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
B. Other Forms of Legal Accountability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1. Judicial Interpretation of Statutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2. Judicial Oversight of Executive Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
IV. From Parliamentary to Constitutional Supremacy and Back? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Public law is complex, fast-moving, politically charged, and utterly fascinating. It involves the
study of constitutional fundamentals, rights protection, and the rule of law. It also concerns
the separation and balancing of institutional powers, multi-level governance, and democratic
accountability. Through the study of legislation, public law introduces you to the importance
of statutes and regulations both as forms of law and as political responses to pressing prob-
lems in Canadian society. By studying prerogative powers and delegated statutory authority,
public law enables you to learn how the executive branch of government exercises its dis-
tinctive powers, and how those who exercise these powers may be held accountable to Can-
adians. And, in examining judicial decisions, you will see how the courts protect rights, but
also uphold valid statutes and administrative decisions that serve the public interest. An
introduction to the administrative state allows you a glimpse into the multi-faceted nature
of the executive branch that administers law and policy through its many actors—ministers,
bureaucratic officials, agencies, boards, commissions, and tribunals.
The image of law conveyed in this first paragraph may appear a bit overwhelming. This
chapter reduces public law to several building blocks. First, this chapter introduces you to the

1
2 Chapter 1 Public Law in Canada

idea of public law and distinguishes it from private law. It then outlines the basic institutional
architecture of public law developed in more detail in subsequent chapters. Lastly, it familiar-
izes you with several of the basic, recurring tensions that animate this large body of law.
Many of your other courses are about the specific “trees” that comprise the legal “forest” in
law school. This text provides a bird’s-eye view of that “forest,” allowing you to comprehend
public law’s size, shape, scope, and contours. Here, we canvass the chief issues addressed in
greater detail in chapters to come.

I. Basic Building Blocks

What is public law? Before addressing this question, we must first understand the legal set-
ting in which Canada’s laws arise.

A. Sources of Law
In Part I of this volume, we address a number of preliminary issues, thereby setting the stage
for our detailed discussion of public law. We begin with a chapter on legal theory—a treat-
ment, in part, of the question “what is law?” In the balance of Part I, we then examine in detail
how the Canadian legal system reflects the input of many different systems and sources. In
this sense, the Canadian legal system is highly “pluralist” not only in terms of its basic struc-
ture, but also in its sources of law.
At the most general level, Canada’s legal system comprises: (1) a common law system
federally and in most provinces, derived from the English legal system; (2) a civil law system
that codifies private law in Quebec, influenced by the French Napoleonic code; (3) inter-
national law, to the extent it is “received” into Canadian law by statutes and (with customary
international law) as a source of common law; and (4) numerous Indigenous customary legal
systems.
Canada is a federation with two different levels of government—federal and provincial/
territorial. The Constitution creates a “division of powers” between the federal and provincial
levels. In so doing, it facilitates Canada’s legal pluralism by allowing the common law to ani-
mate the private law of the provinces and territories other than Quebec, and the civil law to
govern private relations in Quebec.
For its part, international law mostly stems from “conventions”—better known as treat­
ies (and not to confused with the “conventions” we mention in discussing “unwritten” con-
stitutional Canadian law). These are essentially law-making contracts agreed to by states in
the international community. It also comes in the form of “customary international law”—
basic­ally, law that is not codified but flows from sufficiently universal practices by states
under­taken with a sense of legal obligation. International law enters Canadian law through
a sometimes complex process known as “reception.”
We discuss common, civil, and international law in Chapter 4.
Finally, Canada is currently involved in an ongoing and complex process of recognizing
Indigenous and First Nations orders of government, which may take many shapes ranging
from the territorial (e.g., Nunavut, created in 1999), to the regional (e.g., Nunatsiavut in New-
foundland and Labrador), to the local (e.g., Tsawwassen First Nation in the lower mainland of
I. Basic Building Blocks 3

British Columbia). We include a comprehensive discussion of the relationship between

Indigen­ous peoples and the law in Chapter 3.

B. Origins of Law
Legal pluralism in the Canadian context means more than just law from many different his-
torical origins. It also means law stemming from different institutions.
Law must come from some authoritative source in order for legal subjects to recognize
the validity of the laws they are asked to obey. Without an authoritative source, a rule that
presents itself as a law will not be recognized as “law.” (See Raymond Wacks, Law: A Very Short
Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).) Canadians, for example, need not rec-
ognize or obey the laws issued by the Roman Catholic Church or any other religious order
(unless, of course, they voluntarily agree to do so, and even then the state will generally not
enforce these “laws”). The Canadian public law order is pluralist in its sources of law because
it recognizes both written and unwritten sources of law. These sources roughly align with
two institutions: legislatures that create written norms, and courts that are the source (or at
least the final arbit­er) for unwritten norms.

C. What Is Private Law?

Canadian law usually distinguishes between public law and private law. The first year of law
school embeds this distinction in its very structure. Courses such as contracts, torts, and
property make up private law. Courses such as constitutional, criminal, and public law/
legislation/government institutions make up public law. In the upper-year program, public
law includes administrative and human rights law, as well as courses involving complex stat-
utes such as tax, securities regulation, immigration, and environmental law. (See also Stephen
M Waddams, Introduction to the Study of Law, 7th ed (Toronto: Thomson Cars­well, 2010).)
Private law is about relationships between legal persons in society. The phrase “legal per-
sons” is used because it includes not just individuals—or “natural persons”—but also corpor-
ate bodies (or “artificial persons”). These legal relations establish the rights and duties that
exist between these persons in their relations with one another. If, for example, private law
establishes that people have a right to bodily integrity, you may owe them a duty of care to
ensure that your everyday behaviour does not create harmful risks for them. To take a com-
monplace example, after a heavy snowfall you may have an obligation (apart from municipal
bylaws) to shovel your sidewalk so as not to create risky conditions that may cause a person
to have an accidental and very harmful fall on the icy pavement. If you fail to observe that
duty, you may be legally required to compensate the injured person for any resulting losses
they faced because of the accident, such as lost wages from time off work.
Private law rights and obligations can arise from voluntary agreements in contract law,
from owning private property in property law, from principles of equity such as unjust en-
richment (also known as restitution), and from principles found in tort law, as considered in
the example above.
4 Chapter 1 Public Law in Canada

D. What Is Public Law?

Public law is different. It is not about the relationships between private persons. Instead,
public law structures the legal relationships between individuals and the state and between
different institutions within the state. Most students start law school with one particular
conception of public law in their minds. Usually, it is criminal law because this is the most
widespread depiction of the legal relationship between the individual and the state in
Anglo-American popular culture. Constitutional law would be a close second. But neither of
these areas exhausts the scope of public law. Public law also structures the legal relationships
among and between the three branches of government: the legislature, the judiciary, and
the executive. This relationship is captured in the public law doctrine of the separation of
powers. Public law also regulates the partitioning of power between the levels of govern-
ment in our federal system—a phenomenon known as the division of powers.
Generally speaking, in common law countries, we tend to classify constitutional, adminis-
trative, criminal, and other areas of regulatory law (such as environmental or tax law) as
public law because these areas of law contain rules that define the scope of governmental
authority and the ways it is exercised.
This is not to say that public law and private law are separate universes, completely sealed
off from one another. The distinction between public and private law is largely functional,
rather than factual. Classifying an area of law as either private or public usefully delineates the
activities, participants, and principal concerns that are subject to the rules of that particular
area. Certainly, public law is mostly about the state (or at least the state in its relationship with
persons). But it is important to recognize that the state can also have private law responsibil-
ities and roles. The world does not divide neatly into “law for the state” and “law for everyone
else.” For example, when the state breaches a contract or acts negligently, it may be required
to pay private law damages to the affected parties in contract or tort law. And in our system,
government officials are not generally immunized from criminal culpability if they commit a
crime in the course of their official duties.
Likewise, the state may also have a role in relation to the actual implementation of private
law relations existing between persons. Thus, statutes promulgated by legislatures may de-
fine the substantive rights and duties that individuals owe one another; courts will be re-
sponsible for determining those rights; and the executive branch may be called upon to
enforce private rights by coercive means.

II. Drilling Down: The Workings of Public Law

A. Pluralism in Public Law

With that brief backdrop, we focus now in further detail on some of the ingredients of public
law. In this introduction, we begin by returning to the question of “where does law (and spe-
cifically public law) come from?” This is a matter dealt with at length in Chapter 5.
Another way of approaching this question is to ask: “which comes first: public law or the
state?” This is not an easy question to answer, at least in relation to Canada (and its UK inheri-
tance). It is very difficult to disaggregate the emergence of the modern institutions making
up the state and the core doctrines of public law that we discuss below. Suffice it to say that
public law is deeply organic—a product of history and capricious circumstances more than
II. Drilling Down: The Workings of Public Law 5

premeditated design. Put another way, public law is the product of political evolution, and
not always (or indeed often) the end product of a rational, master design process. (For an
examination of the evolution of public law in the United Kingdom, see Adam Tomkins, Public
Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).)

B. Branches of the State

In response to the chicken and egg quandary of “which came first, public law or the state,” we
will begin by describing the basic architecture of the state. In doing so, we anticipate the sub-
jects dealt with in Part II of this book. That section examines the key actors in public law: the
legislature (in Chapters 6 and 7); the executive (in Chapter 8); and the judiciary (in Chapter 9).
As the structure of our chapters suggests, the historical evolution of Canada, as in many
other “liberal democratic” states, produced a state that has three key “branches” (although as
we shall see, more nuance can be added to this statement). Thus, the state comprises a legis-
lative branch, an executive branch, and a judiciary. In a federalist state, such as Canada, this
tripartite distinction is supplemented (and to a degree replicated) at two “levels” of govern-
ment: federal and provincial/territorial.
As we explore in Chapter 8, the executive branch is the most complex branch of govern-
ment and is much bigger than simply the prime minister and Cabinet. In Canada, it also encom-
passes other actors such as the Crown (the Queen and the governor general), the civil service,
the military, the police, and many decision-makers in the administrative or regulatory state.
In some instances, the executive branch will also include municipal governments and aborig-
inal band councils. The executive branch in the modern Canadian state also engages in a
wide variety of regulatory functions. These regulatory powers are delegated, through statutes,
to thousands of administrative and regulatory tribunals at both the federal and provincial
levels of government. The state as a regulator affects more individuals and corporations than
the Constitution, and decisions made by administrative actors often have significant conse-
quences for affected persons. The removal of a taxi licence, the decision to put a prisoner in
segregation, the decision to approve a natural gas pipeline, or the cancellation of a municipal
rezoning application are examples of this breadth in administrative decision-making.
But while most of us think of the executive and its functions when we think of “government,”
it is important to recognize that legally speaking, the executive is a largely subordinate entity
in the Canadian state. In Canada, Parliament (and at the provincial level, the legislatures) is
“sovereign” or “supreme.” Except in the rarest of instances where the executive enjoys some
independent legal autonomy, these legislative bodies are the ultimate source of all constitu-
tionally permissible legal powers. While our legislatures may now appear politically weak in
connection with the executive and the judiciary, they are in fact legally supreme. We discuss the
structure and composition of the legislative branch in Chapter 6 and its functions in Chapter 7.
And, of course, we cannot forget the judiciary, the subject of Chapter 9. Indeed, it is fair to
say that first-year law largely focuses on courts and how judges reason. Right at the outset,
students of public law should appreciate that courts are unlike the other branches of the
state—they are staffed differently and with an eye to quite different considerations than exist
for the legislative and executive branches. And, they exercise a very different set of powers.
Speaking generally, courts do two things of importance for our purposes: they adjudicate
disputes under either private or public law rules, and they review the actions of the other
branches of government to make sure that those branches act lawfully. Along the way, they
Other documents randomly have
different content
tradition of the Church; and that, on the other hand, his enemies
have determined, cost what it may, to cut that ground from under
him; and, accordingly, that as the writings of the former afforded no
handle to the designs of the latter, they have been obliged, in order
to satiate their revenge, to seize on some proposition, it mattered
not what, and to condemn it without telling why or wherefore. Do
not you know how the Jansenists keep them in check, and annoy
them so desperately, that they cannot drop the slightest word
against the principles of the fathers without being incontinently
overwhelmed with whole volumes, under the pressure of which they
are forced to succumb? So that, after a great many proofs of their
weakness, they have judged it more to the purpose, and much less
troublesome, to censure than to reply—it being a much easier
matter with them to find monks than reasons.”[114]
“Why then,” said I, “if this be the case, their censure is not worth
a straw; for who will pay any regard to it, when they see it to be
without foundation, and refuted, as it no doubt will be, by the
answers given to it?”
“If you knew the temper of people,” replied my friend the doctor,
“you would talk in another sort of way. Their censure, censurable as
it is, will produce nearly all its designed effect for a time; and
although, by the force of demonstration, it is certain that, in course
of time, its invalidity will be made apparent, it is equally true that, at
first, it will tell as effectually on the minds of most people as if it had
been the most righteous sentence in the world. Let it only be cried
about the streets: ‘Here you have the censure of M. Arnauld!—here
you have the condemnation of the Jansenists!’ and the Jesuits will
find their account in it. How few will ever read it! How few of them
who do read, will understand it! How few will observe that it
answers no objections! How few will take the matter to heart, or
attempt to sift it to the bottom?—Mark then, how much advantage
this gives to the enemies of the Jansenists. They are sure to make a
triumph of it, though a vain one, as usual, for some months at least
—and that is a great matter for them—they will look out afterwards
for some new means of subsistence. They live from hand to mouth,
sir. It is in this way they have contrived to maintain themselves down
to the present day. Sometimes it is by a catechism in which a child is
made to condemn their opponents; then it is by a procession, in
which sufficient grace leads the efficacious in triumph; again it is by
a comedy, in which Jansenius is represented as carried off by devils;
at another time it is by an almanac; and now it is by this
censure.”[115]
“In good sooth,” said I, “I was on the point of finding fault with
the conduct of the Molinists; but after what you have told me, I
must say I admire their prudence and their policy. I see perfectly
well that they could not have followed a safer or more judicious
course.”
“You are right,” returned he; “their safest policy has always been
to keep silent; and this led a certain learned divine to remark, ‘that
the cleverest among them are those who intrigue much, speak little,
and write nothing.’
“It is on this principle that, from the commencement of the
meetings, they prudently ordained that, if M. Arnauld came into the
Sorbonne, it must be simply to explain what he believed, and not to
enter the lists of controversy with any one. The examiners having
ventured to depart a little from this prudent arrangement, suffered
for their temerity. They found themselves rather too vigorously[116]
refuted by his second apology.
“On the same principle, they had recourse to that rare and very
novel device of the half-hour and the sand-glass.[117] By this means
they rid themselves of the importunity of those troublesome doctors,
[118]
who might undertake to refute all their arguments, to produce
books which might convict them of forgery, to insist on a reply, and
reduce them to the predicament of having none to give.
“It is not that they were so blind as not to see that this
encroachment on liberty, which has induced so many doctors to
withdraw from the meetings, would do no good to their censure;
and that the protest of nullity, taken on this ground by M. Arnauld
before it was concluded, would be a bad preamble for securing it a
favorable reception. They know very well that unprejudiced persons
place fully as much weight on the judgment of seventy doctors, who
had nothing to gain by defending M. Arnauld, as on that of a
hundred others who had nothing to lose by condemning him. But,
upon the whole, they considered that it would be of vast importance
to have a censure, although it should be the act of a party only in
the Sorbonne, and not of the whole body; although it should be
carried with little or no freedom of debate, and obtained by a great
many small manœuvres not exactly according to order; although it
should give no explanation of the matter in dispute; although it
should not point out in what this heresy consists, and should say as
little as possible about it, for fear of committing a mistake. This very
silence is a mystery in the eyes of the simple; and the censure will
reap this singular advantage from it, that they may defy the most
critical and subtle theologians to find in it a single weak argument.
“Keep yourself easy, then, and do not be afraid of being set down
as a heretic, though you should make use of the condemned
proposition. It is bad, I assure you, only as occurring in the second
letter of M. Arnauld. If you will not believe this statement on my
word, I refer you to M. le Moine, the most zealous of the examiners,
who, in the course of conversation with a doctor of my acquaintance
this very morning, on being asked by him where lay the point of
difference in dispute, and if one would no longer be allowed to say
what the fathers had said before him, made the following exquisite
reply: ‘This proposition would be orthodox in the mouth of any other
—it is only as coming from M. Arnauld that the Sorbonne have
condemned it!’ You must now be prepared to admire the machinery
of Molinism, which can produce such prodigious overturnings in the
Church—that what is catholic in the fathers becomes heretical in M.
Arnauld—that what is heretical in the Semi-Pelagians becomes
orthodox in the writings of the Jesuits; the ancient doctrine of St.
Augustine becomes an intolerable innovation, and new inventions,
daily fabricated before our eyes, pass for the ancient faith of the
Church.” So saying, he took his leave of me.
 This information has satisfied my purpose. I gather from it that
this same heresy is one of an entirely new species. It is not the
sentiments of M. Arnauld that are heretical; it is only his person. This
is a personal heresy. He is not a heretic for anything he has said or
written, but simply because he is M. Arnauld. This is all they have to
say against him. Do what he may, unless he cease to be, he will
never be a good Catholic. The grace of St. Augustine will never be
the true grace, so long as he continues to defend it. It would
become so at once, were he to take it into his head to impugn it.
That would be a sure stroke, and almost the only plan for
establishing the truth and demolishing Molinism; such is the fatality
attending all the opinions which he embraces.
Let us leave them, then, to settle their own differences. These are
the disputes of theologians, not of theology. We, who are no
doctors, have nothing to do with their quarrels. Tell our friends the
news of the censure, and love me while I am, &c.[119]
 LETTER IV.

ON ACTUAL GRACE AND SINS OF IGNORANCE.

Paris, February 25, 1656.

Sir,—Nothing can come up to the Jesuits. I have seen Jacobins,
doctors, and all sorts of people in my day, but such an interview as I
have just had was wanting to complete my knowledge of mankind.
Other men are merely copies of them. As things are always found
best at the fountainhead, I paid a visit to one of the ablest among
them, in company with my trusty Jansenist—the same who
accompanied me to the Dominicans. Being particularly anxious to
learn something of a dispute which they have with the Jansenists
about what they call actual grace, I said to the worthy father that I
would be much obliged to him if he would instruct me on this point
—that I did not even know what the term meant, and would thank
him to explain it. “With all my heart,” the Jesuit replied; “for I dearly
love inquisitive people. Actual grace, according to our definition, ‘is
an inspiration of God, whereby he makes us to know his will, and
excites within us a desire to perform it.’”
“And where,” said I, “lies your difference with the Jansenists on
this subject?”
“The difference lies here,” he replied; “we hold that God bestows
actual grace on all men in every case of temptation; for we maintain,
that unless a person have, whenever tempted, actual grace to keep
him from sinning, his sin, whatever it may be, can never be imputed
to him. The Jansenists, on the other hand, affirm that sins, though
committed without actual grace, are, nevertheless, imputed; but
they are a pack of fools.” I got a glimpse of his meaning; but, to
obtain from him a fuller explanation, I observed: “My dear father, it
is that phrase actual grace that puzzles me; I am quite a stranger to
it, and if you would have the goodness to tell me the same thing
over again, without employing that term, you would infinitely oblige
me.”
“Very good,” returned the father; “that is to say, you want me to
substitute the definition in place of the thing defined; that makes no
alteration on the sense; I have no objections. We maintain it, then,
as an undeniable principle, that an action cannot be imputed as a
sin, unless God bestow on us, before committing it, the knowledge
of the evil that is in the action, and an inspiration inciting us to avoid
it. Do you understand me now?”
Astonished at such a declaration, according to which, no sins of
surprise, nor any of those committed in entire forgetfulness of God,
could be imputed, I turned round to my friend the Jansenist, and
easily discovered from his looks that he was of a different way of
thinking. But as he did not utter a word, I said to the monk, “I would
fain wish, my dear father, to think that what you have now said is
true, and that you have good proofs for it.”
“Proofs, say you!” he instantly exclaimed: “I shall furnish you with
these very soon, and the very best sort too; let me alone for that.”
So saying, he went in search of his books, and I took this
opportunity of asking my friend if there was any other person who
talked in this manner? “Is this so strange to you?” he replied. “You
may depend upon it that neither the fathers, nor the popes, nor
councils, nor Scripture, nor any book of devotion, employ such
language; but if you wish casuists and modern schoolmen, he will
bring you a goodly number of them on his side.” “O! but I care not a
fig about these authors, if they are contrary to tradition,” I said. “You
are right,” he replied.
As he spoke, the good father entered the room, laden with books;
and presenting to me the first that came to hand, “Read that,” he
said; “this is ‘The Summary of Sins,’ by Father Bauny[120]—the fifth
edition too, you see, which shows that it is a good book.”
“It is a pity, however,” whispered the Jansenist in my ear, “that this
same book has been condemned at Rome, and by the bishops of
France.”
“Look at page 906,” said the father. I did so, and read as follows:
“In order to sin and become culpable in the sight of God, it is
necessary to know that the thing we wish to do is not good, or at
least to doubt that it is—to fear or to judge that God takes no
pleasure in the action which we contemplate, but forbids it; and in
spite of this, to commit the deed, leap the fence, and transgress.”
“This is a good commencement,” I remarked. “And yet,” said he,
“mark how far envy will carry some people. It was on that very
passage that M. Hallier, before he became one of our friends,
bantered Father Bauny, by applying to him these words: Ecce qui
tollit peccata mundi—‘Behold the man that taketh away the sins of
the world!’”
“Certainly,” said I, “according to Father Bauny, we may be said to
behold a redemption of an entirely new description.”
“Would you have a more authentic witness on the point?” added
he. “Here is the book of Father Annat.[121] It is the last that he wrote
against M. Arnauld. Turn up to page 34, where there is a dog’s ear,
and read the lines which I have marked with pencil—they ought to
be written in letters of gold.” I then read these words: “He that has
no thought of God, nor of his sins, nor any apprehension (that is, as
he explained it, any knowledge) of his obligation to exercise the acts
of love to God or contrition, has no actual grace for exercising those
acts; but it is equally true that he is guilty of no sin in omitting them,
and that, if he is damned, it will not be as a punishment for that
omission.” And a few lines below, he adds: “The same thing may be
said of a culpable commission.”
“You see,” said the monk, “how he speaks of sins of omission and
of commission. Nothing escapes him. What say you to that?”
 “Say!” I exclaimed. “I am delighted! What a charming train of
consequences do I discover flowing from this doctrine! I can see the
whole results already; and such mysteries present themselves before
me! Why, I see more people, beyond all comparison, justified by this
ignorance and forgetfulness of God, than by grace and the
sacraments![122] But, my dear father, are you not inspiring me with a
delusive joy? Are you sure there is nothing here like that sufficiency
which suffices not? I am terribly afraid of the Distinguo;—I was
taken in with that once already! Are you quite in earnest?”
“How now!” cried the monk, beginning to get angry; “here is no
matter for jesting. I assure you there is no such thing as
equivocation here.”
“I am not making a jest of it,” said I; “but that is what I really
dread, from pure anxiety to find it true.”[123]
“Well then,” he said, “to assure yourself still more of it, here are
the writings of M. le Moine,[124] who taught the doctrine in a full
meeting of the Sorbonne. He learned it from us, to be sure; but he
has the merit of having cleared it up most admirably. O how
circumstantially he goes to work! He shows that, in order to make
out an action to be a sin, all these things must have passed through
the mind. Read, and weigh every word.”—I then read what I now
give you in a translation from the original Latin: “1. On the one
hand, God sheds abroad on the soul some measure of love, which
gives it a bias toward the thing commanded; and on the other, a
rebellious concupiscence solicits it in the opposite direction. 2. God
inspires the soul with a knowledge of its own weakness. 3. God
reveals the knowledge of the physician who can heal it. 4. God
inspires it with a desire to be healed. 5. God inspires a desire to pray
and solicit his assistance.”
“And unless all these things occur and pass through the soul,”
added the monk, “the action is not properly a sin, and cannot be
imputed, as M. le Moine shows in the same place and in what
follows. Would you wish to have other authorities for this? Here they
are.”
 “All modern ones, however,” whispered my Jansenist friend.
“So I perceive,” said I to him aside; and then, turning to the
monk: “O my dear sir,” cried I, “what a blessing this will be to some
persons of my acquaintance! I must positively introduce them to
you. You have never, perhaps, met with people who had fewer sins
to account for all your life. For, in the first place, they never think of
God at all; their vices have got the better of their reason; they have
never known either their weakness or the physician who can cure it;
they have never thought of ‘desiring the health of their soul,’ and still
less of ‘praying to God to bestow it;’ so that, according to M. le
Moine, they are still in the state of baptismal innocence. They have
‘never had a thought of loving God or of being contrite for their
sins;’ so that, according to Father Annat, they have never committed
sin through the want of charity and penitence. Their life is spent in a
perpetual round of all sorts of pleasures, in the course of which they
have not been interrupted by the slightest remorse. These excesses
had led me to imagine that their perdition was inevitable; but you,
father, inform me that these same excesses secure their salvation.
Blessings on you, my good father, for this way of justifying people!
Others prescribe painful austerities for healing the soul; but you
show that souls which may be thought desperately distempered are
in quite good health. What an excellent device for being happy both
in this world and in the next! I had always supposed that the less a
man thought of God, the more he sinned; but, from what I see now,
if one could only succeed in bringing himself not to think upon God
at all, everything would be pure with him in all time coming. Away
with your half-and-half sinners, who retain some sneaking affection
for virtue! They will be damned every one of them, these semi-
sinners. But commend me to your arrant sinners—hardened,
unalloyed, out-and-out, thorough-bred sinners. Hell is no place for
them; they have cheated the devil, purely by virtue of their devotion
to his service!”
The good father, who saw very well the connection between these
consequences and his principle, dexterously evaded them; and
maintaining his temper, either from good nature or policy, he merely
replied: “To let you understand how we avoid these inconveniences,
you must know that, while we affirm that these reprobates to whom
you refer would be without sin if they had no thoughts of conversion
and no desires to devote themselves to God, we maintain, that they
all actually have such thoughts and desires, and that God never
permitted a man to sin without giving him previously a view of the
evil which he contemplated, and a desire, either to avoid the
offence, or at all events to implore his aid to enable him to avoid it;
and none but Jansenists will assert the contrary.”
“Strange! father,” returned I; “is this, then, the heresy of the
Jansenists, to deny that every time a man commits a sin, he is
troubled with a remorse of conscience, in spite of which, he ‘leaps
the fence and transgresses,’ as Father Bauny has it? It is rather too
good a joke to be made a heretic for that. I can easily believe that a
man may be damned for not having good thoughts; but it never
would have entered my head to imagine that any man could be
subjected to that doom for not believing that all mankind must have
good thoughts! But, father, I hold myself bound in conscience to
disabuse you, and to inform you that there are thousands of people
who have no such desires—who sin without regret—who sin with
delight—who make a boast of sinning. And who ought to know
better about these things than yourself? You cannot have failed to
have confessed some of those to whom I allude; for it is among
persons of high rank that they are most generally to be met with.[125]
But mark, father, the dangerous consequences of your maxim. Do
you not perceive what effect it may have on those libertines who like
nothing better than to find out matter of doubt in religion? What a
handle do you give them, when you assure them, as an article of
faith, that on every occasion when they commit a sin, they feel an
inward presentiment of the evil, and a desire to avoid it? Is it not
obvious that, feeling convinced by their own experience of the falsity
of your doctrine on this point, which you say is a matter of faith,
they will extend the inference drawn from this to all the other
points? They will argue that, since you are not trust-worthy in one
article, you are to be suspected in them all; and thus you shut them
up to conclude, either that religion is false, or that you must know
very little about it.”
Here my friend the Jansenist, following up my remarks, said to
him: “You would do well, father, if you wish to preserve your
doctrine, not to explain so precisely as you have done to us, what
you mean by actual grace. For, how could you, without forfeiting all
credit in the estimation of men, openly declare that nobody sins
without having previously the knowledge of his weakness, and of a
physician, or the desire of a cure, and of asking it of God? Will it be
believed, on your word, that those who are immersed in avarice,
impurity, blasphemy, duelling, revenge, robbery and sacrilege, have
really a desire to embrace chastity, humility, and the other Christian
virtues? Can it be conceived that those philosophers who boasted so
loudly of the powers of nature, knew its infirmity and its physician?
Will you maintain that those who held it as a settled maxim that ‘it is
not God that bestows virtue, and that no one ever asked it from
him,’ would think of asking it for themselves? Who can believe that
the Epicureans, who denied a divine providence, ever felt any
inclination to pray to God?—men who said that ‘it would be an insult
to invoke the Deity in our necessities, as if he were capable of
wasting a thought on beings like us?’ In a word, how can it be
imagined that idolaters and Atheists, every time they are tempted to
the commission of sin, in other words, infinitely often during their
lives, have a desire to pray to the true God, of whom they are
ignorant, that he would bestow on them virtues of which they have
no conception?”
“Yes,” said the worthy monk, in a resolute tone, “we will affirm it:
and sooner than allow that any one sins without having the
consciousness that he is doing evil, and the desire of the opposite
virtue, we will maintain that the whole world, reprobates and infidels
included, have these inspirations and desires in every case of
temptation. You cannot show me, from the Scripture at least, that
this is not the truth.”
On this remark I struck in, by exclaiming: “What! father, must we
have recourse to the Scripture to demonstrate a thing so clear as
this? This is not a point of faith, nor even of reason. It is a matter of
fact: we see it—we know it—we feel it.”
But the Jansenist, keeping the monk to his own terms, addressed
him as follows: “If you are willing, father, to stand or fall by
Scripture, I am ready to meet you there; only you must promise to
yield to its authority; and since it is written that ‘God has not
revealed his judgments to the Heathen, but left them to wander in
their own ways,’ you must not say that God has enlightened those
whom the Sacred Writings assure us ‘he has left in darkness and in
the shadow of death.’ Is it not enough to show the erroneousness of
your principle, to find that St. Paul calls himself ‘the chief of sinners,’
for a sin which he committed ‘ignorantly, and with zeal?’ Is it not
enough to find, from the Gospel, that those who crucified Jesus
Christ had need of the pardon which he asked for them, although
they knew not the malice of their action, and would never have
committed it, according to St. Paul, if they had known it? Is it not
enough that Jesus Christ apprizes us that there will be persecutors
of the Church, who, while making every effort to ruin her, will ‘think
that they are doing God service;’ teaching us that this sin, which in
the judgment of the apostle, is the greatest of all sins, may be
committed by persons who, so far from knowing that they were
sinning, would think that they sinned by not committing it? In fine, is
it not enough that Jesus Christ himself has taught us that there are
two kinds of sinners, the one of whom sin with ‘knowledge of their
Master’s will,’ and the other without knowledge; and that both of
them will be ‘chastised,’ although, indeed, in a different manner?”
Sorely pressed by so many testimonies from Scripture, to which he
had appealed, the worthy monk began to give way; and, leaving the
wicked to sin without inspiration, he said: “You will not deny that
good men, at least, never sin unless God give them”——“You are
flinching,” said I, interrupting him; “you are flinching now, my good
father; you abandon the general principle, and finding that it will not
hold good in regard to the wicked, you would compound the matter,
by making it apply at least to the righteous. But in this point of view
the application of it is, I conceive, so circumscribed, that it will
hardly apply to anybody, and it is scarcely worth while to dispute the
point.”
My friend, however, who was so ready on the whole question, that
I am inclined to think he had studied it all that very morning,
replied: “This, father, is the last entrenchment to which those of your
party who are willing to reason at all are sure to retreat; but you are
far from being safe even here. The example of the saints is not a
whit more in your favor. Who doubts that they often fall into sins of
surprise, without being conscious of them? Do we not learn from the
saints themselves how often concupiscence lays hidden snares for
them; and how generally it happens, as St. Augustine complains of
himself in his Confessions, that, with all their discretion, they ‘give to
pleasure what they mean only to give to necessity?’
“How usual is it to see the more zealous friends of truth betrayed
by the heat of controversy into sallies of bitter passion for their
personal interests, while their consciences, at the time, bear them
no other testimony than that they are acting in this manner purely
for the interests of truth, and they do not discover their mistake till
long afterwards!
“What, again, shall we say of those who, as we learn from
examples in ecclesiastical history, eagerly involve themselves in
affairs which are really bad, because they believe them to be really
good; and yet this does not hinder the fathers from condemning
such persons as having sinned on these occasions?
“And were this not the case, how could the saints have their
secret faults? How could it be true that God alone knows the
magnitude and the number of our offences; that no one knows
whether he is worthy of hatred or love; and that the best of saints,
though unconscious of any culpability, ought always, as St. Paul says
of himself, to remain in ‘fear and trembling?’[126]
“You perceive, then, father, that this knowledge of the evil, and
love of the opposite virtue, which you imagine to be essential to
constitute sin, are equally disproved by the examples of the
righteous and of the wicked. In the case of the wicked, their passion
for vice sufficiently testifies that they have no desire for virtue; and
in regard to the righteous, the love which they bear to virtue plainly
shows that they are not always conscious of those sins which, as the
Scripture teaches, they are daily committing.
“So true is it, indeed, that the righteous often sin through
ignorance, that the greatest saints rarely sin otherwise. For how can
it be supposed that souls so pure, who avoid with so much care and
zeal the least things that can be displeasing to God as soon as they
discover them, and who yet sin many times every day, could possibly
have, every time before they fell into sin, ‘the knowledge of their
infirmity on that occasion, and of their physician, and the desire of
their souls’ health, and of praying to God for assistance,’ and that, in
spite of these inspirations, these devoted souls ‘nevertheless
transgress,’ and commit the sin?
“You must conclude then, father, that neither sinners nor yet
saints have always that knowledge, or those desires and inspirations
every time they offend; that is, to use your own terms, they have
not always actual grace. Say no longer, with your modern authors,
that it is impossible for those to sin who do not know righteousness;
but rather join with St. Augustine and the ancient fathers in saying
that it is impossible not to sin, when we do not know righteousness:
Necesse est ut peccet, a quo ignoratur justitia.”
The good father, though thus driven from both of his positions, did
not lose courage, but after ruminating a little, “Ha!” he exclaimed, “I
shall settle you immediately.” And again taking up Father Bauny, he
pointed to the same place he had before quoted, exclaiming: “Look
now—see the ground on which he establishes his opinion! I was sure
he would not be deficient in good proofs. Read what he quotes from
Aristotle, and you will see that after so express an authority, you
must either burn the books of this prince of philosophers or adopt
our opinion. Hear, then, the principles which support Father Bauny:
Aristotle states first, ‘that an action cannot be imputed as
blameworthy, if it be involuntary.’”
“I grant that,” said my friend.
 “This is the first time you have agreed together,” said I. “Take my
advice, father, and proceed no further.”
“That would be doing nothing,” he replied; “we must know what
are the conditions necessary to constitute an action voluntary.”
“I am much afraid,” returned I, “that you will get at loggerheads
on that point.”
“No fear of that,” said he; “this is sure ground—Aristotle is on my
side. Hear, now, what Father Bauny says: ‘In order that an action be
voluntary, it must proceed from a man who perceives, knows, and
comprehends what is good and what is evil in it. Voluntarium est—
that is a voluntary action, as we commonly say with the philosopher’
(that is Aristotle, you know, said the monk, squeezing my hand;)
‘quod fit a principio cognoscente singula in quibus est actio—which is
done by a person knowing the particulars of the action; so that
when the will is led inconsiderately, and without mature reflection, to
embrace or reject, to do or omit to do anything, before the
understanding has been able to see whether it would be right or
wrong, such an action is neither good nor evil; because previous to
this mental inquisition, view, and reflection on the good or bad
qualities of the matter in question, the act by which it is done is not
voluntary.’ Are you satisfied now?” said the father.
“It appears,” returned I, “that Aristotle agrees with Father Bauny;
but that does not prevent me from feeling surprised at this
statement. What, sir! is it not enough to make an action voluntary
that the man knows what he is doing, and does it just because he
chooses to do it? Must we suppose, besides this, that he ‘perceives,
knows, and comprehends what is good and evil in the action?’ Why,
on this supposition there would be hardly such a thing in nature as
voluntary actions, for nobody almost thinks about all this. How many
oaths in gambling—how many excesses in debauchery—how many
riotous extravagances in the carnival, must, on this principle, be
excluded from the list of voluntary actions, and consequently neither
good nor bad, because not accompanied by those ‘mental reflections
on the good and evil qualities’ of the action? But is it possible, father,
that Aristotle held such a sentiment? I have always understood that
he was a sensible man.”
“I shall soon convince you of that,” said the Jansenist; and
requesting a sight of Aristotle’s Ethics, he opened it at the beginning
of the third book, from which Father Bauny had taken the passage
quoted, and said to the monk: “I excuse you, my dear sir, for having
believed, on the word of Father Bauny, that Aristotle held such a
sentiment; but you would have changed your mind had you read
him for yourself. It is true that he teaches, that ‘in order to make an
action voluntary, we must know the particulars of that action’—
singula in quibus est actio. But what else does he mean by that,
than the particular circumstances of the action? The examples which
he adduces clearly show this to be his meaning, for they are
exclusively confined to cases in which the persons were ignorant of
some of the circumstances; such as that of ‘a person who, wishing
to exhibit a machine, discharges a dart which wounds a bystander;
and that of Merope, who killed her own son instead of her enemy,’
and such like.
“Thus you see what is the kind of ignorance that renders actions
involuntary; namely, that of the particular circumstances, which is
termed by divines, as you must know, ignorance of the fact. But with
respect to ignorance of the right—ignorance of the good or evil in an
action—which is the only point in question, let us see if Aristotle
agrees with Father Bauny. Here are the words of the philosopher: ‘All
wicked men are ignorant of what they ought to do, and what they
ought to avoid; and it is this very ignorance which makes them
wicked and vicious. Accordingly, a man cannot be said to act
involuntarily merely because he is ignorant of what it is proper for
him to do in order to fulfil his duty. This ignorance in the choice of
good and evil does not make the action involuntary; it only makes it
vicious. The same thing may be affirmed of the man who is ignorant
generally of the rules of his duty; such ignorance is worthy of blame,
not of excuse. And consequently, the ignorance which renders
actions involuntary and excusable is simply that which relates to the
fact and its particular circumstances. In this case the person is
excused and forgiven, being considered as having acted contrary to
his inclination.’
“After this, father, will you maintain that Aristotle is of your
opinion? And who can help being astonished to find that a Pagan
philosopher had more enlightened views than your doctors, in a
matter so deeply affecting morals, and the direction of conscience,
too, as the knowledge of those conditions which render actions
voluntary or involuntary, and which, accordingly, charge or discharge
them as sinful? Look for no more support, then, father, from the
prince of philosophers, and no longer oppose yourselves to the
prince of theologians,[127] who has thus decided the point in the first
book of his Retractations, chapter XV.: ‘Those who sin through
ignorance, though they sin without meaning to sin, commit the deed
only because they will commit it. And, therefore, even this sin of
ignorance cannot be committed except by the will of him who
commits it, though by a will which incites him to the action merely,
and not to the sin; and yet the action itself is nevertheless sinful, for
it is enough to constitute it such that he has done what he was
bound not to do.’”
The Jesuit seemed to be confounded more with the passage from
Aristotle, I thought, than that from St. Augustine; but while he was
thinking on what he could reply, a messenger came to inform him
that Madame la Mareschale of ——, and Madame the Marchioness of
——, requested his attendance. So taking a hasty leave of us, he
said: “I shall speak about it to our fathers. They will find an answer
to it, I warrant you; we have got some long heads among us.”
We understood him perfectly well; and on our being left alone, I
expressed to my friend my astonishment at the subversion which
this doctrine threatened to the whole system of morals. To this he
replied that he was quite astonished at my astonishment. “Are you
not yet aware,” he said, “that they have gone to far greater excess in
morals than in any other matter?” He gave me some strange
illustrations of this, promising me more at some future time. The
information which I may receive on this point, will, I hope, furnish
the topic of my next communication.—I am, &c.
 LETTER V.

DESIGN OF THE JESUITS IN ESTABLISHING A NEW SYSTEM OF MORALS—TWO

SORTS OF CASUISTS AMONG THEM, A GREAT MANY LAX, AND SOME SEVERE
ONES—REASON OF THIS DIFFERENCE—EXPLANATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF
PROBABILITY—A MULTITUDE OF MODERN AND UNKNOWN AUTHORS
SUBSTITUTED IN THE PLACE OF THE HOLY FATHERS.

Paris, March 20, 1656.

Sir,—According to my promise, I now send you the first outlines of
the morals taught by those good fathers the Jesuits—“those men
distinguished for learning and sagacity, who are all under the
guidance of divine wisdom—a surer guide than all philosophy.” You
imagine, perhaps, that I am in jest, but I am perfectly serious; or
rather, they are so when they speak thus of themselves in their book
entitled “The Image of the First Century.”[128] I am only copying their
own words, and may now give you the rest of the eulogy: “They are
a society of men, or rather let us call them angels, predicted by
Isaiah in these words, ‘Go, ye swift and ready angels.’”[129] The
prediction is as clear as day, is it not? “They have the spirit of
eagles; they are a flock of phœnixes (a late author having
demonstrated that there are a great many of these birds); they have
changed the face of Christendom!” Of course, we must believe all
this, since they have said it; and in one sense you will find the
account amply verified by the sequel of this communication, in which
I propose to treat of their maxims.
Determined to obtain the best possible information, I did not trust
to the representations of our friend the Jansenist, but sought an
interview with some of themselves. I found, however, that he told
me nothing but the bare truth, and I am persuaded he is an honest
man. Of this you may judge from the following account of these
conferences.
In the conversation I had with the Jansenist, he told me so many
strange things about these fathers, that I could with difficulty believe
them, till he pointed them out to me in their writings; after which he
left me nothing more to say in their defence, than that these might
be the sentiments of some individuals only, which it was not fair to
impute to the whole fraternity.[130] And, indeed, I assured him that I
knew some of them who were as severe as those whom he quoted
to me were lax. This led him to explain to me the spirit of the
Society, which is not known to every one; and you will perhaps have
no objections to learn something about it.
“You imagine,” he began, “that it would tell considerably in their
favor to show that some of their fathers are as friendly to
Evangelical maxims as others are opposed to them; and you would
conclude from that circumstance, that these loose opinions do not
belong to the whole Society. That I grant you; for had such been the
case, they would not have suffered persons among them holding
sentiments so diametrically opposed to licentiousness. But as it is
equally true that there are among them those who hold these
licentious doctrines, you are bound also to conclude that the Spirit of
the Society is not that of Christian severity; for had such been the
case, they would not have suffered persons among them holding
sentiments so diametrically opposed to that severity.”
“And what, then,” I asked, “can be the design of the whole as a
body? Perhaps they have no fixed principle, and every one is left to
speak out at random whatever he thinks.”
“That cannot be,” returned my friend; “such an immense body
could not subsist in such a hap-hazard sort of way, or without a soul
to govern and regulate its movements; besides, it is one of their
express regulations, that none shall print a page without the
approval of their superiors.”
 “But,” said I, “how can these same superiors give their consent to
maxims so contradictory?”
“That is what you have yet to learn,” he replied. “Know, then, that
their object is not the corruption of manners—that is not their
design. But as little is it their sole aim to reform them—that would
be bad policy. Their idea is briefly this: They have such a good
opinion of themselves as to believe that it is useful, and in some sort
essentially necessary to the good of religion, that their influence
should extend everywhere, and that they should govern all
consciences. And the Evangelical or severe maxims being best fitted
for managing some sorts of people, they avail themselves of these
when they find them favorable to their purpose. But as these
maxims do not suit the views of the great bulk of people, they wave
them in the case of such persons, in order to keep on good terms
with all the world. Accordingly, having to deal with persons of all
classes and of all different nations, they find it necessary to have
casuists cut out to match this diversity.
“On this principle, you will easily see that if they had none but the
looser sort of casuists, they would defeat their main design, which is
to embrace all; for those that are truly pious are fond of a stricter
discipline. But as there are not many of that stamp, they do not
require many severe directors to guide them. They have a few for
the select few; while whole multitudes of lax casuists are provided
for the multitudes that prefer laxity.[131]
“It is in virtue of this ‘obliging and accommodating’ conduct, as
Father Petau[132] calls it, that they may be said to stretch out a
helping hand to all mankind. Should any person present himself
before them, for example, fully resolved to make restitution of some
ill-gotten gains, do not suppose that they would dissuade him from
it. By no means; on the contrary, they will applaud and confirm him
in such a holy resolution. But suppose another should come who
wishes to be absolved without restitution, and it will be a particularly
hard case indeed, if they cannot furnish him with means of evading
the duty, of one kind or another, the lawfulness of which they will be
ready to guarantee.
 “By this policy they keep all their friends, and defend themselves
against all their foes; for, when charged with extreme laxity, they
have nothing more to do than produce their austere directors, with
some books which they have written on the severity of the Christian
code of morals; and simple people, or those who never look below
the surface of things, are quite satisfied with these proofs of the
falsity of the accusation.
“Thus are they prepared for all sorts of persons, and so ready are
they to suit the supply to the demand, that when they happen to be
in any part of the world where the doctrine of a crucified God is
accounted foolishness, they suppress the offence of the cross, and
preach only a glorious and not a suffering Jesus Christ. This plan
they followed in the Indies and in China, where they permitted
Christians to practise idolatry itself, with the aid of the following
ingenious contrivance:—they made their converts conceal under
their clothes an image of Jesus Christ, to which they taught them to
transfer mentally those adorations which they rendered ostensibly to
the idol Cachinchoam and Keum-fucum. This charge is brought
against them by Gravina, a Dominican, and is fully established by the
Spanish memorial presented to Philip IV., king of Spain, by the
Cordeliers of the Philippine Islands, quoted by Thomas Hurtado, in
his ‘Martyrdom of the Faith,’ page 427. To such a length did this
practice go, that the Congregation De Propaganda were obliged
expressly to forbid the Jesuits, on pain of excommunication, to
permit the worship of idols on any pretext whatever, or to conceal
the mystery of the cross from their catechumens; strictly enjoining
them to admit none to baptism who were not thus instructed, and
ordering them to expose the image of the crucifix in their churches:
—all which is amply detailed in the decree of that Congregation,
dated the 9th of July, 1646, and signed by Cardinal Capponi.[133]
“Such is the manner in which they have spread themselves over
the whole earth, aided by the doctrine of probable opinions, which is
at once the source and the basis of all this licentiousness. You must
get some of themselves to explain this doctrine to you. They make
no secret of it, any more than of what you have already learned;
with this difference only, that they conceal their carnal and worldly
policy under the garb of divine and Christian prudence; as if the
faith, and tradition its ally, were not always one and the same at all
times and in all places; as if it were the part of the rule to bend in
conformity to the subject which it was meant to regulate; and as if
souls, to be purified from their pollutions, had only to corrupt the
law of the Lord, in place of ‘the law of the Lord, which is clean and
pure, converting the soul which lieth in sin,’ and bringing it into
conformity with its salutary lessons!
“Go and see some of these worthy fathers, I beseech you, and I
am confident that you will soon discover, in the laxity of their moral
system, the explanation of their doctrine about grace. You will then
see the Christian virtues exhibited in such a strange aspect, so
completely stripped of the charity which is the life and soul of them
—you will see so many crimes palliated and irregularities tolerated,
that you will no longer be surprised at their maintaining that ‘all men
have always enough of grace’ to lead a pious life, in the sense in
which they understand piety. Their morality being entirely Pagan,
nature is quite competent to its observance. When we maintain the
necessity of efficacious grace, we assign it another sort of virtue for
its object. Its office is not to cure one vice by means of another; it is
not merely to induce men to practise the external duties of religion:
it aims at a virtue higher than that propounded by Pharisees, or the
greatest sages of Heathenism. The law and reason are ‘sufficient
graces’ for these purposes. But to disenthral the soul from the love
of the world—to tear it from what it holds most dear—to make it die
to itself—to lift it up and bind it wholly, only, and forever, to God—
can be the work of none but an all-powerful hand. And it would be
as absurd to affirm that we have the full power of achieving such
objects, as it would be to allege that those virtues, devoid of the
love of God, which these fathers confound with the virtues of
Christianity, are beyond our power.”
Such was the strain of my friend’s discourse, which was delivered
with much feeling; for he takes these sad disorders very much to
heart. For my own part, I began to entertain a high admiration of
these fathers, simply on account of the ingenuity of their policy; and
following his advice, I waited on a good casuist of the Society, one
of my old acquaintances, with whom I now resolved purposely to
renew my former intimacy. Having my instructions how to manage
them, I had no great difficulty in getting him afloat. Retaining his old
attachment, he received me immediately with a profusion of
kindness; and after talking over some indifferent matters, I took
occasion from the present season,[134] to learn something from him
about fasting, and thus slip insensibly into the main subject. I told
him, therefore, that I had difficulty in supporting the fast. He
exhorted me to do violence to my inclinations; but as I continued to
murmur, he took pity on me, and began to search out some ground
for a dispensation. In fact he suggested a number of excuses for me,
none of which happened to suit my case, till at length he bethought
himself of asking me, whether I did not find it difficult to sleep
without taking supper? “Yes, my good father,” said I; “and for that
reason I am obliged often to take a refreshment at mid-day, and
supper at night.”[135]
“I am extremely happy,” he replied, “to have found out a way of
relieving you without sin: go in peace—you are under no obligation
to fast. However, I would not have you depend on my word: step
this way to the library.”
On going thither with him he took up a book, exclaiming, with
great rapture, “Here is the authority for you: and, by my conscience,
such an authority! It is Escobar!”[136]
“Who is Escobar?” I inquired.
“What! not know Escobar?” cried the monk; “the member of our
Society who compiled this Moral Theology from twenty-four of our
fathers, and on this founds an analogy, in his preface, between his
book and ‘that in the Apocalypse which was sealed with seven seals,’
and states that ‘Jesus presents it thus sealed to the four living
creatures, Suarez, Vasquez, Molina, and Valencia,[137] in presence of
the four-and-twenty Jesuits who represent the four-and-twenty
elders?’”
 He read me, in fact, the whole of that allegory, which he
pronounced to be admirably appropriate, and which conveyed to my
mind a sublime idea of the excellence of the work. At length, having
sought out the passage on fasting, “O here it is!” he said; “treatise
1, example 13, no. 67: ‘If a man cannot sleep without taking supper,
is he bound to fast? Answer: By no means!’ Will that not satisfy
you?”
“Not exactly,” replied I; “for I might sustain the fast by taking my
refreshment in the morning, and supping at night.”
“Listen, then, to what follows; they have provided for all that: ‘And
what is to be said, if the person might make a shift with a
refreshment in the morning and supping at night?’”
“That’s my case exactly.”
“‘Answer: Still he is not obliged to fast; because no person is
obliged to change the order of his meals.’”
“A most excellent reason!” I exclaimed.
“But tell me, pray,” continued the monk, “do you take much wine?”
“No, my dear father,” I answered; “I cannot endure it.”
“I merely put the question,” returned he, “to apprize you that you
might, without breaking the fast, take a glass or so in the morning,
or whenever you felt inclined for a drop; and that is always
something in the way of supporting nature. Here is the decision at
the same place, no. 57: ‘May one, without breaking the fast, drink
wine at any hour he pleases, and even in a large quantity? Yes, he
may: and a dram of hippocrass too.’[138] I had no recollection of the
hippocrass,” said the monk; “I must take a note of that in my
memorandum-book.”
“He must be a nice man, this Escobar,” observed I.
“Oh! everybody likes him,” rejoined the father; “he has such
delightful questions! Only observe this one in the same place, no.
38: ‘If a man doubt whether he is twenty-one years old, is he
obliged to fast?[139] No. But suppose I were to be twenty-one to-
night an hour after midnight, and to-morrow were the fast, would I
be obliged to fast to-morrow? No; for you were at liberty to eat as
much as you pleased for an hour after midnight, not being till then
fully twenty-one; and therefore having a right to break the fast-day,
you are not obliged to keep it.’”
“Well, that is vastly entertaining!” cried I.
“Oh,” rejoined the father, “it is impossible to tear one’s self away
from the book: I spend whole days and nights in reading it; in fact, I
do nothing else.”
The worthy monk, perceiving that I was interested, was quite
delighted, and went on with his quotations. “Now,” said he, “for a
taste of Filiutius, one of the four-and-twenty Jesuits: ‘Is a man who
has exhausted himself any way—by profligacy, for example[140]—
obliged to fast? By no means. But if he has exhausted himself
expressly to procure a dispensation from fasting, will he be held
obliged? He will not, even though he should have had that design.’
There now! would you have believed that?”
“Indeed, good father, I do not believe it yet,” said I. “What! is it no
sin for a man not to fast when he has it in his power? And is it
allowable to court occasions of committing sin, or rather, are we not
bound to shun them? That would be easy enough, surely.”
“Not always so,” he replied; “that is just as it may happen.”
“Happen, how?” cried I.
“Oho!” rejoined the monk, “so you think that if a person
experience some inconvenience in avoiding the occasions of sin, he
is still bound to do so? Not so thinks Father Bauny. ‘Absolution,’ says
he, ‘is not to be refused to such as continue in the proximate
occasions of sin,[141] if they are so situated that they cannot give
them up without becoming the common talk of the world, or
subjecting themselves to personal inconvenience.’”
“I am glad to hear it, father,” I remarked; “and now that we are
not obliged to avoid the occasions of sin, nothing more remains but
to say that we may deliberately court them.”
 “Even that is occasionally permitted,” added he; “the celebrated
casuist Basil Ponce has said so, and Father Bauny quotes his
sentiment with approbation, in his Treatise on Penance, as follows:
‘We may seek an occasion of sin directly and designedly—primo et
per se—when our own or our neighbor’s spiritual or temporal
advantage induces us to do so.’”
“Truly,” said I, “it appears to be all a dream to me, when I hear
grave divines talking in this manner! Come now, my dear father, tell
me conscientiously, do you hold such a sentiment as that?”
“No, indeed,” said he, “I do not.”
“You are speaking, then, against your conscience,” continued I.
“Not at all,” he replied; “I was speaking on that point not
according to my own conscience, but according to that of Ponce and
Father Bauny, and them you may follow with the utmost safety, for I
assure you that they are able men.”
“What, father! because they have put down these three lines in
their books, will it therefore become allowable to court the occasions
of sin? I always thought that we were bound to take the Scripture
and the tradition of the Church as our only rule, and not your
casuists.”
“Goodness!” cried the monk, “I declare you put me in mind of
these Jansenists. Think you that Father Bauny and Basil Ponce are
not able to render their opinion probable?”
“Probable won’t do for me,” said I; “I must have certainty.”
“I can easily see,” replied the good father, “that you know nothing
about our doctrine of probable opinions. If you did, you would speak
in another strain. Ah! my dear sir, I must really give you some
instructions on this point; without knowing this, positively you can
understand nothing at all. It is the foundation—the very A, B, C, of
our whole moral philosophy.”
Glad to see him come to the point to which I had been drawing
him on, I expressed my satisfaction, and requested him to explain
what was meant by a probable opinion?[142]
 “That,” he replied, “our authors will answer better than I can do.
The generality of them, and, among others, our four-and-twenty
elders, describe it thus: ‘An opinion is called probable, when it is
founded upon reasons of some consideration. Hence it may
sometimes happen that a single very grave doctor may render an
opinion probable.’ The reason is added: ‘For a man particularly given
to study would not adhere to an opinion unless he was drawn to it
by a good and sufficient reason.’”
“So it would appear,” I observed, with a smile, “that a single
doctor may turn consciences round about and upside down as he
pleases, and yet always land them in a safe position.”
“You must not laugh at it, sir,” returned the monk; “nor need you
attempt to combat the doctrine. The Jansenists tried this; but they
might have saved themselves the trouble—it is too firmly
established. Hear Sanchez, one of the most famous of our fathers:
‘You may doubt, perhaps, whether the authority of a single good and
learned doctor renders an opinion probable. I answer, that it does;
and this is confirmed by Angelus, Sylvester Navarre, Emanuel Sa, &c.
It is proved thus: A probable opinion is one that has a considerable
foundation. Now the authority of a learned and pious man is entitled
to very great consideration; because (mark the reason), if the
testimony of such a man has great influence in convincing us that
such and such an event occurred, say at Rome, for example, why
should it not have the same weight in the case of a question in
morals?’”
“An odd comparison this,” interrupted I, “between the concerns of
the world and those of conscience!”
“Have a little patience,” rejoined the monk; “Sanchez answers that
in the very next sentence: ‘Nor can I assent to the qualification
made here by some writers, namely, that the authority of such a
doctor, though sufficient in matters of human right, is not so in those
of divine right. It is of vast weight in both cases.’”
“Well, father,” said I, frankly, “I really cannot admire that rule.
Who can assure me, considering the freedom your doctors claim to
examine everything by reason, that what appears safe to one may
seem so to all the rest? The diversity of judgments is so great”—
“You don’t understand it,” said he, interrupting me; “no doubt they
are often of different sentiments, but what signifies that?—each
renders his own opinion probable and safe. We all know well enough
that they are far from being of the same mind; what is more, there
is hardly an instance in which they ever agree. There are very few
questions, indeed, in which you do not find the one saying Yes, and
the other saying No. Still, in all these cases, each of the contrary
opinions is probable. And hence Diana says on a certain subject:
‘Ponce and Sanchez hold opposite views of it; but, as they are both
learned men, each renders his own opinion probable.’”
“But, father,” I remarked, “a person must be sadly embarrassed in
choosing between them!”—“Not at all,” he rejoined; “he has only to
follow the opinion which suits him best.”—“What! if the other is more
probable?” “It does not signify.”—“And if the other is the safer?” “It
does not signify,” repeated the monk; “this is made quite plain by
Emanuel Sa, of our Society, in his Aphorisms: ‘A person may do what
he considers allowable according to a probable opinion, though the
contrary may be the safer one. The opinion of a single grave doctor
is all that is requisite.’”
“And if an opinion be at once the less probable and the less safe,
is it allowable to follow it,” I asked, “even in the way of rejecting one
which we believe to be more probable and safe?”
“Once more, I say Yes,” replied the monk. “Hear what Filiutius,
that great Jesuit of Rome, says: ‘It is allowable to follow the less
probable opinion, even though it be the less safe one. That is the
common judgment of modern authors.’ Is not that quite clear?”
“Well, reverend father,” said I, “you have given us elbow-room, at
all events! Thanks to your probable opinions, we have got liberty of
conscience with a witness! And are you casuists allowed the same
latitude in giving your responses?”
“O yes,” said he, “we answer just as we please; or rather, I should
say, just as it may please those who ask our advice. Here are our
rules, taken from Fathers Layman, Vasquez, Sanchez, and the four-
and-twenty worthies, in the words of Layman: ‘A doctor, on being
consulted, may give an advice, not only probable according to his
own opinion, but contrary to his opinion, provided this judgment
happens to be more favorable or more agreeable to the person that
consults him—si forte hæc favorabilior seu exoptatior sit. Nay, I go
further, and say, that there would be nothing unreasonable in his
giving those who consult him a judgment held to be probable by
some learned person, even though he should be satisfied in his own
mind that it is absolutely false.’”
“Well, seriously, father,” I said, “your doctrine is a most
uncommonly comfortable one! Only think of being allowed to answer
Yes or No, just as you please! It is impossible to prize such a
privilege too highly. I see now the advantage of the contrary
opinions of your doctors. One of them always serves your turn, and
the other never gives you any annoyance. If you do not find your
account on the one side, you fall back on the other, and always land
in perfect safety.”
“That is quite true,” he replied; “and accordingly, we may always
say with Diana, on his finding that Father Bauny was on his side,
while Father Lugo was against him: Sæpe premente deo, fert deus
alter opem.”[143]
“I understand you,” resumed I; “but a practical difficulty has just
occurred to me, which is this, that supposing a person to have
consulted one of your doctors, and obtained from him a pretty liberal
opinion, there is some danger of his getting into a scrape by meeting
a confessor who takes a different view of the matter, and refuses
him absolution unless he recant the sentiment of the casuist. Have
you not provided for such a case as that, father?”
“Can you doubt it?” he replied. “We have bound them, sir, to
absolve their penitents who act according to probable opinions,
under the pain of mortal sin, to secure their compliance. ‘When the
penitent,’ says Father Bauny, ‘follows a probable opinion, the
confessor is bound to absolve him, though his opinion should differ
from that of his penitent.’”
“But he does not say it would be a mortal sin not to absolve him,”
said I.
“How hasty you are!” rejoined the monk; “listen to what follows;
he has expressly decided that, ‘to refuse absolution to a penitent
who acts according to a probable opinion, is a sin which is in its
nature mortal.’ And to settle that point, he cites the most illustrious
of our fathers—Suarez, Vasquez, and Sanchez.”
“My dear sir,” said I, “that is a most prudent regulation. I see
nothing to fear now. No confessor can dare to be refractory after
this. Indeed, I was not aware that you had the power of issuing your
orders on pain of damnation. I thought that your skill had been
confined to the taking away of sins; I had no idea that it extended to
the introduction of new ones. But from what I now see, you are
omnipotent.”
“That is not a correct way of speaking,” rejoined the father. “We
do not introduce sins; we only pay attention to them. I have had
occasion to remark, two or three times during our conversation, that
you are no great scholastic.”
“Be that as it may, father, you have at least answered my difficulty.
But I have another to suggest. How do you manage when the
Fathers of the Church happen to differ from any of your casuists?”
“You really know very little of the subject,” he replied. “The
Fathers were good enough for the morality of their own times; but
they lived too far back for that of the present age, which is no longer
regulated by them, but by the modern casuists. On this Father
Cellot, following the famous Reginald, remarks: ‘In questions of
morals, the modern casuists are to be preferred to the ancient
fathers, though those lived nearer to the times of the apostles.’ And
following out this maxim, Diana thus decides: ‘Are beneficiaries
bound to restore their revenue when guilty of mal-appropriation of
it? The ancients would say Yes, but the moderns say No; let us,
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