scholarly journals The Supreme Court of Canada Long-Gun Registry Decision: The Constitutional Question Behind an Intergovernmental Relations Failure

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Peach
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Intergovernmental Relations ◽  
Gun Control ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Intergovernmental Cooperation ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Refusal To Participate ◽  
Turn Over

In 2012, Parliament repealed the federal law that had established a mandatory long-gun registry. The law to repeal the long-gun registry also provided for the destruction of the data contained therein. Quebec, however, expressed its intention to establish its own gun-control scheme and asked the federal government for its data on long-guns owned by residents of Quebec.  When the federal government refused to turn over the data from the long-gun registry, despite the fact that Quebec government offi cials had access to the data while the long-gun registry was in operation, Quebec challenged the constitutionality of the federal law providing for the destruction of the data and sought an order requiring the federal government to turn over the data to Quebec. Th e federal government’s refusal to participate in an act of intergovernmental cooperation began a three-year round of constitutional litigation that concluded in March of 2015 with a split decision of the Supreme Court of Canada.

scholarly journals The Impact of the Supreme Court of Canada on Intergovernmental Relations

Federalism-E ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Goldlist
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Intergovernmental Relations ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Political Resources ◽  
Canadian Federalism ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Constitutional Adjudication ◽  
The Impact

The role of the Supreme Court in the practice of Canadian federalism, specifically the extent of its power and the effects of that power, is a hotly contested issue in Canadian political science. While some scholars have argued that the Court has taken on too political of a role that must be restricted, this paper develops the Court as a constitutional ‘umpire,’ whose rulings serve the important, but limited, functions of allocating political resources to incentivize negotiation, and establishing jurisdictional boundaries for said negotiations, leaving specific policy decisions to political, as opposed to legal, actors. Concerning the net outcome of the Court’s jurisprudence on the distribution of legislative powers, this paper illustrates the Court’s overall balancing approach, with grants of power to one level of government met with increases in authority to the other, in all major policy areas. Thus, ultimately shown to embrace both a limited and impartial approach to constitutional adjudication, the Court has done much to enhance its democratic legitimacy and constitutional utility.

Intergovernmental Relations‘ Third Wheel: The Role of the Supreme Court in an Era of Collaborative Federalism

Federalism-E ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Allison O‘Beirne
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Intergovernmental Relations ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Division Of Powers ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Way

The Supreme Court of Canada has an absolutely undeniable role in intergovernmental relations. As the country‘s only constitutionally entrenched body charged with the resolution of division-of-powers disputes, its decisions and rulings are always certain to influence the way in which governments interact with each other. Recently, however, the Supreme Court has come to be less highly regarded as a method of resolving the disputes that arise between governments [...]

scholarly journals La réforme des institutions centrales. Quelques jalons

2005 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 173-188
Author(s):  
Gérald-A. Beaudoin
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
The Supreme Court

« In this article the author envisages and studies the reform of the Senate, of the House of Commons and of the Supreme Court of Canada ; the function of the Governor General is also considered. A suggestion is made for introducing a system of mitigated proportional representation in the House of Commons, as proposed by the Pepin-Robarts report of January 1979. The authors analyses the advantages and disadvantages of an elected Senate, of a Senate whose members are appointed by the federal government or by the federal and provincial governments, of a second House which would constitute a House of the Provinces ; the author is aganist an equal representation of the provinces in the Senate. Professor Beaudoin favours a specialized constitutional Court of Canada, although he considers that such a reform is very unlikely to happen ; however, he adds that in any case, the Supreme Court is de facto a constitutional court to a certain extent. He recommends that the principle of dualism be more visible. Finally, the author describes how the function of Governor General has evolved since 1926, and outlines the role that the Governor General may play in normal and anormal times. »

scholarly journals Open secularism and the RCMP turban debate

2020 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-28
Author(s):  
Richard Mann
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Royal Canadian Mounted Police ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Newspaper Articles

This article examines newspaper articles and opinion pieces related to the 1989 and 1990 case of allowing RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) officers to wear turbans as part of their formal uniform. Many of those opposed to allowing for this change in RCMP policy demonstrate a sense of an assumed national identity that tends to label immigrants and people from non-European backgrounds as un-Canadian. Once the federal government approved this change in RCMP policy, some of the groups that opposed it attempted to bring it to the Supreme Court of Canada. The argument they made was one for closed secularism. The policy change, however, and the impact it had on Baltej Singh Dhillon, the first Sikh RCMP officer who became an officer and was allowed to wear his turban the results of which present a case for open secularism.

scholarly journals Affordable Care Act Litigation: The Standing Paradox

2012 ◽  
Vol 38 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 410-444
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Weeks Leonard
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Affordable Care Act ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Legal Challenge ◽  
Patient Protection ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Minimum Requirements ◽  
Federal Laws

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA or the “Act”) litigation presents a standing paradox. In the current posture, it appears that states lack standing to challenge the federal law on behalf of individuals, while individuals possess standing to challenge the federal law on behalf of states. This Article contends that there is no principled reason for this asymmetry and argues that standing doctrine should apply as liberally to states as to individuals, assuming states allege the constitutional minimum requirements for standing and especially where the legal challenge turns on the allocation of power between the federal government and the states. While states may have no greater claim to judicial review of federal laws than individuals, they should not have any less.The Supreme Court will not have to reach this particular procedural conundrum to decide the merits of the Florida lawsuit on which it granted certiorari because the particular constellation of plaintiffs before the Court covers all fronts.

A Crisis in National Unity?: The Chicken and Egg War, 1970–1971

2021 ◽  
pp. e20200053
Author(s):  
Jodey Nurse ◽  
Bruce Muirhead
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Broiler Chickens ◽  
Supply Management ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Agricultural Marketing ◽  
National System ◽  
The Supreme Court

This article examines the now largely forgotten, but then important, “Chicken and Egg War” of 1970–71. The chicken and egg war began when the Quebec government established the Fédération des producteurs d’œufs de consommation du Québec (FPOCQ) in 1970, a marketing board that began to restrict the price, grading, and sale of all eggs in Quebec, including egg imports from other provinces. The new board disrupted egg sales in Manitoba and Ontario, and it was not long before a series of legislative retaliations among the provinces took place, including strict import controls on broiler chickens and eggs and the seizure of out-of-province produce. Although predominantly contained to the neighbouring provinces of Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec, this event was significant because it resulted in appeals to the Supreme Court of Canada, claims made concerning the rights of provinces vis-à-vis the federal government, and the restriction of agricultural goods, in this case, poultry and eggs, across provincial boundaries. This episode also had serious political ramifications, including fractured relationships among farmers, consumers, other industry stakeholders, and politicians and heightened tensions surrounding the legality and authority of provincial agricultural marketing boards. Ultimately, this “war” provided a significant impetus for the federal government to establish a national system of supply management in the egg and poultry sectors, a system which remains today.

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