Last month, a major constitutional showdown took place before the Supreme Court of Canada. Over four days of hearings, the court heard from a record number of interveners in quite possibly the biggest and most consequential case since the Charter was adopted in 1982.
In the wake of these hearings, the justices will now deliberate on Hak v Quebec. It’s a case that addresses the scope of rights and their limits, whether the Notwithstanding Clause is subject to any restrictions beyond proper application, and the balance of power between courts and legislatures.
Many are tempted to view this case through the lens of the law that’s at issue: Quebec’s controversial Bill 21, and whether it is right or wrong. But the stakes are far greater.
This case is really a question of who decides what the law means, how it is interpreted, and ultimately changed. However the court rules, the decision will shape Canadian politics for years to come.
At MLI, this is central to our Judicial Foundations Project, where we examine how courts, legislatures, and constitutional principles interact in Canada’s parliamentary democracy. These cases raise fundamental questions about whether that balance is being maintained, or fundamentally altered.
To discuss the Supreme Court hearings and what’s at stake in the outcome, three leading experts join Inside Policy Talks.
Yuan Yi Zhu is a professor of International Law at Leiden University whose work focuses on constitutionalism, public law, and the limits of judicial power. He is a member of MLI’s Judicial Foundations Project.
Xavier Foccroulle Ménard is a lawyer with Stikeman Elliott, and a legal scholar specializing in constitutional law, rights adjudication, and the theory of the Charter.
And François Côté is a lawyer with Droits Collectifs Québec, an organization which is directly involved in the case as an intervener.
On the podcast, they discuss with Peter Copeland, deputy director of domestic policy at MLI, the key factors at play in this case and how they connect to Canada’s growing culture of judicial activism.
