Canada Top Court Takes on Senate Reform Case

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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The federal government of Canada has asked the Supreme Court of Canada to ignore any specific details of upcoming changes to the Senate and solely determine on the procedure to making such changes. The Supreme Court of Canada began the iconic hearings on the future of the upper chamber today. The government has alleged that abolishing the upper chamber would not be a significant change to Parliament.

The Conservative government has been very clear about its intent in the aforementioned request, as it claims to not have asked the Supreme Court to decide on what should happen to the Senate, but only about the legal procedure that the provinces and federal government shall adopt in order to enact reforms or even abolish the red chamber. The lawyers have asked the court, on behalf of the federal government, to take a restricted look at the Constitution, which the justices seem uncomfortable doing.

During the first court hearing on Tuesday, federal lawyer Robert Frater was informed by Justice Rosalie Abella that “the textual approach you take … is really quite literal, which strikes me as different from how we’ve been interpreting constitutional texts.” He added that “you’re not inviting us to look at the bigger picture … of how Canada works.” The court has scheduled to hold three days of hearings in total on the future of the Senate, in light of the request made by the federal government in February, which requested the top court to clarify the rule on the legality of Senate reform.

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