Abstract: Independent officers of Parliament have come to play a vital role in providing parliamentarians with access to critical information and resources that allow them to hold the government of the day to account. The Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner holds a unique mandate, given that her primary focus concerns MP behaviour. Although her central role is to help maintain appropriate boundaries of influence between third party interest groups and the government, there is a strong push from both the public and parliamentarians for the Commissioner to take on a broader mandate. In particular, some observers would like to allow the Ethics Commissioner to investigate MPs for inappropriate behaviour in the House of Commons and to examine situations involving overt partisanship. The proposed paper will draw on a comprehensive examination of the Commissioner’s reports, recommendations, and committee appearances, as well as interviews with other officers and parliamentarians. It will seek to analyze and understand the mandated relationship between the Commissioner and parliamentarians, how the lines of accountability operate, and how well the government responds to the Commissioner’s recommendations. These questions are fundamentally important to understanding the functioning of Parliament, how officers execute their mandates, and the relationship between the government, the legislature, and these independent actors.

Abstract: On November 22, 2006, the Canadian House of Commons passed (265-16) the following resolution: “That this House recognize that the Québécois form a nation within a united Canada”. More or less twenty-five years after the failure of the Meech Lake Accord, which included a section recognizing Québec as a distinct society and inviting judges to interpret the whole constitution of Canada in light of this principle, among others, I wish to reconsider the meaning of the 2006 resolution passed by the House of Commons at the request of then Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The paper will attempt to analyse the respective views of the main political actors involved in this debate at the time, with an emphasis on Michael Ignatieff, Stéphane Dion and Prime Minister Harper. In light of the nuances between the French and English wording of the resolution, the paper will attempt to specify what, and who, Prime Minister intended to recognize in the context of the time. The paper will also consider the differences between the 2006 resolution and the distinct society clause in the Meech Lake Accord. Finally, the paper will attempt to ascertain, 10 years after the passing of the resolution, whether or not it has had serious political or constitutional consequences.

Abstract: Significant social change is rarely secured through the courts acting alone as Gerald Rosenberg observed years ago. For courts to be effective agents of change, they require political cooperation in implementing reforms, legal precedents, broad public support, among other conditions. Even if these conditions are met, the “court’s contribution, then, is akin to officially recognizing the evolving state of affairs” (Rosenberg 1991). These conditions are even more complex when decisions affect the development of policy at both the federal and provincial levels (Verelli, Manfredi, Kelly). The recent Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) decision in the Carter case on assisted suicide is a fascinating example of how a SCC decision will propel social change but require political cooperation at and between the two levels of government for an effective but responsible policy of assisted suicide to be developed. However, instead a clash may ensue with the Quebec government leading action in this area and the federal government attempting to find a means of developing a policy that fits both the SCC directions and the Quebec (and other) provincial legislative schemes. This paper analyses the dilemma posed by the recent decision in the context of the literature on the impact of the SCC on federal-provincial relations and policy development.

Abstract: "This paper deals with three issues raised during the Canadian Coalition Dispute of December 2008. They are: (1) In a minority Parliament, has the leading party become entitled to office? (2) During the life of a Parliament, can a minority government still be replaced by another government without an election being held? (3) Can the Crown still refuse a dissolution to the Prime Minister? The views of the Canadian public at that time, as reflected by opinion polls, did not square with those of most constitutional experts. The purpose of the paper is to determine whether the latter were still valid today. For that purpose, I scrutinized the precedents found in the United Kingdom, Canada and its provinces, and Australia and its States. The basic data are the outcome (electoral results and government formation) of 300 elections held since 1900. The focus is on those that produced minority (« hung ») Parliaments. The circumstances of government formation have been examined using the available historical literature and official documents. The paper concludes that the views advanced by the Conservative Government in 2008 (the so-called “Harper rules”) do not square with the parliamentary practice of the most relevant Westminster systems, and that the conventional wisdom exposed by most experts remains valid even if we exclude pre-1900 precedents.."