The Supreme Court of Canada has shut down democratic debate with a string of recent decisions that push it more into a policy-making role, Macdonald-Laurier Institute Senior Fellow Dwight Newman said in a recent video interview with Maclean’s magazine.
Newman says that a string of recent decisions – including a ruling on assisted suicide and the right to strike – will mean there is less opportunity for Canadians to make their voices heard over contentious issues.
“When the court ends up making a decision it may mean that there’s no more opportunity to make a democratically-chosen decision, to engage in democratic debate about the issue”, Newman says.
Newman took part in a panel, as part of the Manning Networking Conference held in Ottawa last weekend, that looked at MLI’s paper from last year that declared the Supreme Court the “policy-maker of the year” for 2014.
Newman’s comments on the panel were included in an article from the Hill Times.
