Rob Ford fixed all that.
Wow, maybe that was his purpose in life - destroy the unions and then destroy himself, computer virus style.
This is indirectly backwards. The Constitution guarantees that at least 3 members of the Supreme Court will be from Quebec. A big reason for that is to ensure that there are members of the Court with a background in civil law, as the Supreme Court must sometimes rule on cases from Quebec. Specifically it is required that the Quebec judges be a member of the Bar of Quebec or a Quebec superior court.
Mr Nadon was appointed to fill one of the three Quebec spaces. Mr Nadon was originally a lawyer in Quebec and thus a member of the Quebec Bar, however for 20 years or so he has been a judge at the Federal level and not a member of the Bar. The Supreme Court ruled that only current members of the Bar were eligible, not former members.
The issue is that the Federal Courts are not created by the Constitution, but are purely statutory courts. They were created nearly a century after the Supreme Court itself, and the Federal Courts judges do not appear to be included in the provision for the appointment of judges in the Supreme Court Act:
Section 6 of the Act, which applies only to Quebec, says that the judges are to be appointed from the Quebec superior courts, or from the Quebec bar. Justice Nadon was not a judge of either of the Quebec superior courts, and was not currently a member of the Quebec bar, so the SCC ruled he was not eligible.
The purpose of s. 6 is to guarantee that there is a significant number of judges on the Supreme Court who are trained in Quebec’s civil law.
However, the logic of the Court’s analysis suggests that judges on the Federal Court can be appointed to one of the positions on the Supreme Court which is not a Quebec position, because the general appointment provision, s. 5, uses the language of “who is or has been” a judge of a superior court of a province, or a member of a provincial bar. So, the argument is that a judge of the Federal Courts who “has been” a member of a provincial bar, other than Quebec’s bar, would be eligible to be appointed to the Supreme Court.
This point is not simply academic: there is currently one judge on the Supreme Court who was appointed from the Federal Court of Appeal: Justice Rothstein. However, he was a member of the bar of Manitoba for more than 10 years prior to his appointment to the Federal Courts, so the language of “has been” presumably makes his appointment valid.
That’s just an opinion, however. The issue may arise in the future.
Significantly, Justice Rothstein did not sit on the case which determined that Justice Nadon was not eligible. Presumably, the Chief Justice did not want any issues arising about Justice Rothstein’s ability to sit on the case which potentially could touch on the validity of his appointment.
Thank you. Ignorance fought.
I would like to see governments remove laws from the books once, after the matter has been appealed as far as either party may wish and be able to appeal, the laws have been found to be unconstitutional. With respect to the Nadon matter, the Harpers changed the Supreme Court Act by stuffing a last minute clause into an unrelated omnibus bill. That is why when you read the SCC Act today, clause 6.1 clearly sets out requirements that Nadon would easily have passed. The thing is, however, that the SCC found this clause unconstitutional, so while the clause still proudly sits there for all to read and assume it really is the law, it actually is not the law. Aside from being poor housekeeping, it serves to mislead people who want to learn about the laws that we live under.
That would be easier if we’d stop trying to jam an entire legislative year into a single bill.
I think time allocation rules for debates on the bills need to be tweaked. My understanding is that right now, there’s X time allocated for each bill, so cramming as much as possible into an omnibus bill limits debate.
Maybe something as simple as saying each bill gets X amount of time, but then adding additional time based on the length of the bill? A fifty page bill bill gets X + Y hours of debate, one hundred page bill gets X + Z hours, etc.
I’m for not permitting omnibus bills / not permitting unrelated matters in single bills.
While there are certainly cases of this happening it is a rather unusual event that would hardly register as a significant element in the life of a person living in Toronto as opposed to anywhere else. The last TTC strike is still fresh in people’s minds, I guess.
True - but the Speaker normally gives a broad latitude to “related”. Many of Mike Harris’s labour bills were all schedules to one omnibus bill dealing with labour and employment matters, which probably did meet the “one subject” test. Tests based on subject-matter will always be subjective; supplement it with debate times based on the size of the bill would simply add another check, on an objective standard.
That’s because in Canada, public employees have roughly the same employee rights as employees in the private sector, including the right to strike.
In the US, public sector employees do not necessarily have the same rights as private sector employees.
For instance, in the US, federal employees do not have the right to strike, as the air traffic controllers found out under President Reagan.
So how was everybody’s long weekend?
Me, I spent it mainly following the play of our Lethbridge Bulls (WMBL team) in the playoffs. I was at their games Friday and Saturday night here in Lethbridge; I watched their games in Okotoks on Sunday and Monday on TV. Looks like I’ll be at their deciding game Tuesday night in Lethbridge.
I would have liked to do typical long weekend stuff (Waterton National Park, golf, etc.), but the Bulls have done so well (and they don’t, typically) that I had to get out and support the team.
So, how was everybody else’s long weekend? (And cheer for the Lethbridge Bulls on Tuesday!)
Great long weekend for me. I spent it at a lake with some old and dear friends. To be honest, I thought it was just Ontario with a long weekend in August.
Moved my father into an old folks home; went to a wedding of the daughter of some old friends; took the Cub swimming and spray parking; generally exhausted.
Began staining the fence, and drinking copious quantities of Steamwhistle accompanied by some great bbq. Only wisserteen sections to go…<sigh>
I worked (like I did last weekend, can I say I am soooo glad I am getting paid for those hours), then we drove to Thorhild to pick up a camping trailer with a stop along the way to have supper with friends then dim sum for breakfast with cousins and home again in a drenching rain that was freaky driving and idiots trying to enter the lane where we were. So glad I wasn’t doing the driving. Then I worked Monday.
I’ll be happy when this week is done, because class will be over for good or ill and I will be on vacation. We are going to the medieval faire also, I’ve never been so it should be fun.
We did generally nothing. My August is damned busy as it is. It was nice to have a few days where we just sort of did what we pleased and didn’t have to rush anywhere.
Took the horses out on Saturday for a long ride through the bush; hot tub and wine to soak out the aches and pains afterwards. Rest of the weekend was spent getting the house in shape for company arriving later this week. Family visits are great but discovering that you only have towels and bed linens for one queen bed is expensive!
Sadly, I can report that Lethbridge lost its best-of-five series to the Okotoks Dawgs.
Oh well. We’ll get 'em next year! Go Bulls!