The Starphoenix May 7, 2014
The Harper government's attack on the Supreme Court of Canada was neither random nor a spontaneous act of frustration.
While it is true the government has run into a string of losses at the court, not the least of which were its skewering of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's plan to unilaterally and unconstitutionally change the Senate, and its rejection on constitutional grounds of his most recent appointment to the court to represent Quebec.
These rulings came from a court the majority of whose members were appointed by this prime minister, and the government's losses reflect its own disregard for Canada's Constitution.
But, as Justice Minister Peter MacKay made clear Monday in some flippant remarks about the ire expressed by opposition parties, Canada's legal community, pundits and academics over the assault by the Prime Minister's Office on Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, he knew more than two months before appointing Federal Court Justice Marc Nadon for the position that it would be challenged.
So it was not by accident that the government set the cat among the pigeons on Oct. 3, when Mr. Harper announced Justice Nadon's appointment, Both Mr. MacKay and the prime minister were already refusing in July to accept advice from the Chief Justice that 11 former presidents of the Canadian Bar Association insist was offered "quite properly and according to long-standing tradition."
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/touch/story.html?id=9814015
While it is true the government has run into a string of losses at the court, not the least of which were its skewering of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's plan to unilaterally and unconstitutionally change the Senate, and its rejection on constitutional grounds of his most recent appointment to the court to represent Quebec.
These rulings came from a court the majority of whose members were appointed by this prime minister, and the government's losses reflect its own disregard for Canada's Constitution.
But, as Justice Minister Peter MacKay made clear Monday in some flippant remarks about the ire expressed by opposition parties, Canada's legal community, pundits and academics over the assault by the Prime Minister's Office on Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, he knew more than two months before appointing Federal Court Justice Marc Nadon for the position that it would be challenged.
So it was not by accident that the government set the cat among the pigeons on Oct. 3, when Mr. Harper announced Justice Nadon's appointment, Both Mr. MacKay and the prime minister were already refusing in July to accept advice from the Chief Justice that 11 former presidents of the Canadian Bar Association insist was offered "quite properly and according to long-standing tradition."
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/touch/story.html?id=9814015
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