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The Charter Debates
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms may only be thirty-five years old but it is an important document for all Canadians. Few today, however, are aware of the extensive work and tumultuous debates that occurred behind the scenes. In The Charter Debates, Adam Dodek tells the story of the Special Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Commons on the Constitution, whose members were instrumental in drafting the Charter. Dodek places the work of the Joint Committee against the backdrop of the decades-long process of patriation and takes the reader inside the committee room, giving them access to Cabinet discussions about constitutional reform. The volume offers a textual exploration of the edited proceedings concerning major Charter subjects such as fundamental freedoms, democratic rights, equality rights, language rights, and the limitations clause. Presenting key moments from the transcripts, carefully selected and contextualized, The Charter Debates is a one-of-a-kind resource for scholars, students, and general readers interested in the Charter and its impact on constitutional politics in Canada.
Contested Constitutionalism
The introduction of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 was accompanied by much fanfare and public debate. This book does not celebrate the Charter; rather it offers a critique by distinguished scholars of law and political science of its effect on democracy, judicial power, and the place of Quebec and Aboriginal peoples twenty-five years later. By employing diverse methodological approaches, contributors shift the focus of debate from the Charter’s appropriateness to its impact – for better or worse – on political institutions, public policy, and conceptions of citizenship in the Canadian federation.
A People’s Senate for Canada
This little book is written for Canadians who care about our democracy and the future of our planet. The Senate, surprisingly, could make major contributions to both. A People’s Senate for Canada explains how we can make that happen. What if we had a Senate that was independent of party politics, truly committed to “sober second thought” and dedicated to the common good? What if Senate appointments focused on experience, integrity and creativity, and flowed from a non-partisan participatory process based on merit and reflective of our country’s diversity? What if senators were able to fully devote themselves to their proper legislative and investigative work, cooperating wherever pos...
Constraining the Court
When the Supreme Court of Canada makes a decision that invalidates a statute, it creates a constitutional moment. But does that have a direct and observable impact on public policy? Constraining the Court explores what happens when a statute involving a significant public policy issue – French language rights in Quebec, supervised consumption sites, abortion, or medical assistance in dying – is declared unconstitutional. James B. Kelly examines the conditions under which Parliament or provincial/territorial legislatures attempt to contain the policy impact of judicial invalidation and engage in non-compliance without invoking the notwithstanding clause. He considers the importance of the issue, the unpopularity of a judicial decision, the limited reach of a negative rights instrument such as the Charter, the context of federalism, and the mixture of public and private action behind any legislative response. While the Supreme Court’s importance cannot be denied, this rigorous analysis convincingly concludes that a judicial decision does not necessarily determine a policy outcome.
Semi-Nomadic Anecdotes
This is a personal story of a life lived in many places, from a childhood in Newfoundland to the bustling and increasingly modern metropolis of Beijing, China. It includes stops in London and Paris and Jakarta and Prague, and many years in Ottawa, where I was lucky to serve in a number of senior positions, including Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet during the intense period leading up to the Quebec referendum on sovereignty in 1995. It is not a diary, nor a complete history of the events through which I have lived. It is simply a collection of anecdotes and events as I remember them.
Rethinking Church, State, and Modernity
The contributors consider how Canada's religious experience is distinctive in the modern world, somewhere between the largely secularized Europe and the relatively religious United States.
Language of the Skies
The Language of the Skies chronicles one of the most bitter crises in French-English relations in Canada: the bilingual air traffic control conflict which arose in the mid-1970s when francophone controllers and pilots attempted to use French, as well as English, in Quebec aviation.
Governing with the Charter
In Governing with the Charter, James Kelly clearly demonstrates that our current democratic deficit is not the result of the Supreme Court’s judicial activism. On the contrary, an activist framers’ intent surrounds the Charter, and the Supreme Court has simply, and appropriately, responded to this new constitutional environment. While the Supreme Court is admittedly a political actor, it is not the sole interpreter of the Charter, as the court, the cabinet, and bureaucracy all respond to the document, which has ensured the proper functioning of constitutional supremacy in Canada. Kelly analyzes the parliamentary hearings on the Charter and also draws from interviews with public servants, senators, and members of parliament actively involved in appraising legislation to ensure that it is consistent with the Charter. He concludes that the principal institutional outcome of the Charter has been a marginalization of Parliament and that this is due to the Prime Minister’s decision on how to govern with the Charter.
The Canadian Senate in Bicameral Perspective
The Canadian Senate in Bicameral Perspective is the first scholarly study of the Senate in over a quarter century and the first analysis of the upper house as one chamber of a bicameral legislature. David E. Smith's aim in this work is to demonstrate the interrelationship of the two chambers and the constraints this relationship poses for Senate reform. He analyses past literature on the Senate and current proposals for reform - such as a Triple-E Senate - and compares Canada's upper chamber with those of Australia, the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom, noting a revival of interest in Canada and abroad in upper chambers and bicameralism. Drawing on parliamentary debates and committee reports, as well as a range of broad secondary sources, The Canadian Senate in Bicameral Perspective examine the Canadian Senate within the international context, shedding light on its role as a political institution and arguing for a renewed investigation into its future.
Elusive Destiny
A political biography extraordinaire, Elusive Destiny reveals the inner workings of the Liberal Party in its heyday as charted through the meteoric rise and fall of John Napier Turner. It highlights Turner’s vision for the country and tallies the political price he paid when he deviated from the Trudeau legacy on matters such as language rights, social spending, and Quebec. It also provides a new perspective on federal politics from the 1960s through the 1980s while giving John Turner his rightful place in Canadian history.
