Roach K. A Dialogue About Principle and a Principled Dialogue: Justice Iacobucci’s Substantive Approach to Dialogue
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provided that it is available, is to use the override to reject the Court’s
decision.
Justice Iacobucci’s dissent in Hall appeals to the anti-majoritarian role
of the independent courts in upholding the constitutional rights of the
unpopular. Here the importance of criminal justice to the Charter
cannot be overstated. Most Charter decisions involve the rights of the
accused,
75
and those accused of crimes are among the most unpopular
segments of our society, if not the most unpopular.
76
It does not help
that politicians sometimes exploit our fear of crime and that the
accused is too often a member of a disadvantaged group, such as a
person with a poor education, a person with a mental disability, an
Aboriginal person, or an African Canadian. Without unpopular
decisions by courts , the rights of the accused would likely not be con-
sidered seriously in our important societal dialogues about crime.
Even critics of judicial review such as Jeremy Waldron concede that
the judiciary may play an important role to alerting legislatures to
issues of rights that might otherwise be ignored.
77
Waldron also acknowl-
edges that there may be dangers if rights claims on behalf of some
groups are consistently dismissed in the legislative process and if there
are fewer ‘elite sympathizers’ with respect to those rights claims in legis-
latures than in courts.
78
In my view, this is the case with respect to the
rights of the accused. Few politicians in any party make it a ha bit to
defend the rights of the accused. This is not a trivial point, given find-
ings that most Charter litigation involves rights claims by the accused.
Democratic opponents of judicial review such as Waldron should con-
sider how often those accused of crime come out on the losing end
of the legislative process and the role of judicial review in ensuring
that at least some serious consideration is given to the rights of the
accused.
79
A few weeks after Hall, Justice Iacobucci’s more robust approach to
protecting the rights of the accused aga inst legislative hostility won the
day when, in another 5:4 decision, the Supreme Court struck down
Parliament’s denial of the vote to all prisoners serving sentences of two
years’ imprisonment or more. The law that was struck down had been
enacted in 1993 as a reply to judicial decisions striking down a federal
75 Kelly, Governing with the Char ter, supra note 64 at 15.
76 Ely, Democracy and Distrust, supra note 25; Donald Dripps, ‘Criminal Procedure.
Footnote Four and the Theory of Public Choice: Or, Why Don’t Legislatures Give a
Damn about the Rights of the Accused’ (1993) 44 Syracuse L.Rev. 1079.
77 Jeremy Waldron, ‘The Core of the Case Against Judicial Review’ (2006) 115 Yale L.J.
1346 at 1370 [Waldron, ‘Core of the Case’].
78 Ibid. at 1404.
79 In the United States, the democratic vulnerability of those who have been accused of
crime is only increased by frequent and permanent disenfranchisement of felons.
468 UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LAW JOURNAL
law denying all prisoners the vote. The federal government defended the
constitutionality of its reply legislation, arguing that it served vital interests
with respect to the punishment of offenders and upholding the rule of
law. It also argued that the reply legislation had respected the Court’s pre-
vious decision because it denied the vote to a smaller group of prisoners:
those serving ‘federal time’ of two years or more. Chief Justice McLachlin,
writing for a five-judge majority that included Justice Iacobucci, con-
cluded that the government had failed to justify the violation of the
right to vote. In accordance with Justice Iacobucci’s dissent in Hall,
Chief Justice McLachlin stressed that the fact that Parliament was
responding to a previous decision by the Court did not entitle the
reply legislation to increased judicial deference: ‘Parliament must
ensure that whatever law it passes, at whatever stage of the process, con-
forms to the Constitution. The healthy and important promotion of a dia-
logue between the legislature and the courts should not be debased to a
rule of “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again .”’
80
In a manner consist-
ent with the dialogue thesis, the Chief Justice emphasized that the gov-
ernment has the burden of justification under s. 1 of the Charter. The
Court stressed its anti-majoritarian role in protecting those that
Parliament is willing to deem ‘temporary outcasts from our system of
rights and democracy’
81
and the vision of equal citizenship and equal
dignity that animates universal suffrage. Quoting from the Gladue case dis-
cussed above, the Court also noted the disproportionate effect of the law
on Aboriginal people, who were granted the vote only in 1960. It
dismissed the government’s argument that there was no concern about
discrimination because most Aborigi nal people could still vote, noting
that the government’s task under s. 1 was to justify denying the vote to
the disenfranchised prisoners.
82
The dissenting judges would have upheld the denial of the vote as
within the range of reasonable choices that Parliament was entitled to
make. Justice Gonthier placed much emphasis on the fact that a variety
of provinces and other countries disenfranchise prisoners. He concluded
that there was ‘a need for deference to Parliament in its drawing of a line,
especially since this Court gave the impression that it was up to
Parliament to do exactly that after the first Sauve
´
case was heard in
1993 ... . the analysis of social and political philosophies and the accom-
modation of values in the context of the Charter must be sensitive to the
fact that there may be many possible reasonable and rational balances.’
83
80 Sauve
´
v. Canada, [2002] 3 S.C.R. 519 at para. 17. I represented Aboriginal Legal
Services of Toronto, who argued that the voting ban was an unjustified violation of
ss. 3 and 15 of the Charter.
81 Ibid. at para. 40.
82 Ibid. at para. 60.
A DIALOGUE ABOUT PRINCIPLE AND A PRINCIPLED DIALOGUE
469
He also stressed the importance of dialogue and argued that ‘the heart of
the dialogue metaphor is that neither the courts nor Parliament hold[s] a
monopoly on the determination of values.’
84
The reference to the Court’s
first decision on this issue suggests that the minority conceived of
dialogue in more strategic terms than the majority, who emphasized
that the government still had the burden of justifying the limits on
rights, regardless of the stage of the dialogue between courts and legisla-
tures. The minority’s emphasis on the idea that the courts do not have a
monopoly on values appealed to the idea that courts should defer to
reasonable views of rights that have been endorsed by the majority in
the legislature and not impose its own majority vote on the people.
85
One of my concerns about such an approach is that legislatures will
have a distinct tendency to interpret the rights of the accused, and of
other unpopular groups such as non-citizens, in a very stingy manner.
The accused and the truly unpopular will consistently lose.
One other judicial second-look case should be mentioned because it
involved Justices Iacobucci and McLachlin writing a joint judgment that
upheld Parliament’s reply to the Court’s controversial decision in
O’Connor
86
that had established a regime to govern demands for pro-
duction and disclosure of complainants’ private records in sexual
assault cases. The majority in O’Connor, including Justice Iacobucci, had
established a threshold of likely relevance for production of the records
to the judge, stressing the difficulties that the accused would have in
establishing the relevance of documents that he had never seen, but a
higher threshold for disclosure of the documents to the accused that
would require balancing the accused’s right to full answer and defence
against the complainant’s right to privacy, except with respect to docu-
ments in the Crown’s possession, to which the normal Stinchcombe disclos-
ure rules would apply. The minority dissented and would have required a
balancing of the competing rights, including the complainant’s equality
rights, before either production to the judge or disclosure to the
accused. The Court’s decision in O’Connor was unpopular because it
allowed those accused of sexual assault to attempt to gain access to the
private records of victims of sexual assault, and within two years
Parliament enacted legislation that followed the minori ty’s judgment in
requiring a balancing of the competing rig hts and interests at the pro-
duction as well as the disclosure stage. The new legislation also set out
eleven possible assertions that, taken alone or in combination, were
83 Ibid. at para. 174.
84 Ibid.
85 Jeremy Waldron, Law and Disagreement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999);
Waldron, ‘Core of the Case,’ supra note 77.
86 Supra note 40.
470 UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LAW JOURNAL
deemed insufficient to justify the judge in even ordering the document
produced so that he or she could examine its relevance. In my view,
this part of the legislation was an egregious display of Parliament’s lack
of concern about the rights of the accused and the possibility that
denial of access to possibly relevant evidence could contribute to a mis-
carriage of justice. Even under immigration security certificate cases,
the judge gets to see all possibly relevant evidence. For these reasons, I
have argued elsewhere that the Court ough t to have struck the reply legis-
lation down, effectively requiring Parliament to face up to the fact that it
was overriding the rights of the accused.
87
The Court, however, did not see matters in such a way. Justices
Iacobucci and McLachlin stressed that courts ‘must presume that
Parliament intended to enact constitutional legislation and strive,
where possible, to give effect to this intention.’ In upholding reply legis-
lation, they added that
Courts do not hold a monopoly on the protection and promotion of rights and
freedoms; Parliament also plays a role in this regard and is often able to act as a
significant ally for vulnerable groups. This is especially important to recognize in
the context of sexual violence. ... If constitutional democracy is meant to ensure
that due regard is given to the voices of those vulnerable to being overlooked by
the majority, then this court has an obligation to consider respectfully
Parliament’s attempt to respond to such voices.
88
This approach, however, runs the risk of deferring to Parliament’s
interpretation of the rights of the accused, an interpretation that is
bound to be affected by the unpopularity of those accused of crime.
Women are undoubtedly a vulnerable group, and they are underrepre-
sented in the legislature, but they have far more political power than
those accused of crime. Parliament has a much greater incentive to
favour the rights of victims and potential victims of crime than it has to
favour the rights of the accused.
The reconciliation-of-rights approach in Mills runs the risk of discount-
ing the fact that limits are actually being placed on rights. It avoids
placing the burden on the government to justify limits on rights and,
in part icular, to justify its choice not to select the least restrictive
measure to advance its legitimate objective. Although Justice Iacobucci
has defended the reconciliation-of-rights approach as one that is
conducive to dialogue,
89
his defence avoids the central role that s. 1 of
the Charter plays in providing a disciplined and clear structure for a
87 Roach, Supreme Court, supra note 41 at c. 14.
88 Mills, supra note 5 at paras. 56, 58.
89 Hon. Frank Iacobucci, ‘Reconciling Rights: The Supreme Court of Canada’s Approach
to Competing Charter Rights’ (2003) 20 Supreme Court L.Rev. (2d) 137 at 165.
A DIALOGUE ABOUT PRINCIPLE AND A PRINCIPLED DIALOGUE
471
dialogue of justification between the government and the court. Many
of Justice Iacobucci’s other judgments that defend dialogue, including
his dissent in Hall, his decision in Bell ExpressVu, and the majority
judgment in Sauve
´
, stress the central role of justification under s. 1 of
the Charter.
To its credit, the Court in Mills did not ignore the risk that the
legislation created for the accused. It read down Parliament’s long list
of prohibited grounds for justifying production as not applying if the
accused could ‘point to case specific evidence or information to show
that the record in issue is likely relevant.’ It also indicated that, in
close cases, judges should err on the side of looking at the private
records.
90
This reading-down remedy has satisfied many defence
lawyers and commentators.
91
At the same time, however, I have some
democratic objections to reliance on the reading-down remedy.
Mills fits into a pattern of cases in which the Court stopped short of strik-
ing down legislation and saved it through creative interpretative reme-
dies.
92
Although reading down can achieve just results in individual
cases and avoid controversy between the Court and Parliament that
might even provoke use of the override, interpretative remedies are not
optimal for encouraging democratic dialogue between courts and
legislatures.
93
VIII Dialogue and Charter remedies
One of the more important but neglected sites of dialogue between
courts and legislatures is the crafting of remedies. In the first decade of
the Charter, the Supreme Court, influ enced by its desire to make clear
that the Charter is not toothless, often relied on the simple and blunt
remedy of a declaration of invalidity. In the second decade of Charter jur-
isprudence, during which Justice Iacobucci played such an important
role, the Court made much greater use of both interpretative reading-
down remedies and suspended declarations of invalidity.
94
As I have
argued elsewhere, the delayed declaration of invalidity is a valuable
instrument of democratic dialogue that gives legislatures an early oppor-
tunity to respond to and pre-empt the court’s remedy by selecting from a
90 Mills, supra note 5 at para. 120; see also at paras. 132, 137.
91 Stephen Coughlan, ‘Complainant’s Records after Mills: Same as It Ever Was’ (2000) 33
Const. Rev. (5th) 300; David Paciocco & Lee Stuesser, The Law of Evidence, 4th ed. ch. 12
(Toronto: Irwin Law, 2005).
92 R. v. Butler, [1992] 1 S.C.R. 452; R. v. Sharpe, [2001] 1 S.C.R. 45; Canadian Foundation for
Children, Youth and the Law v. Canada (A.G.), [2004] 1 S.C.R. 76.
93 Roach, ‘Bills of Rights,’ supra note 7 at 748–53; Hogg et al., ‘Dialogue Revisited,’ supra
note 8.
94 Kelly, Governing with the Char ter, supra note 64 at c. 5.
472 UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LAW JOURNAL
range of constitutional options, including using the override.
95
Delayed
declarations of invalidity are also not inconsistent with principled rights
protection, because the Court’s remedy takes effect after a short delay
unless the legislature adopts some other constitutional option in the
mean time and because the Court should retain the discretion to
provide individual exemptions from the period of suspension, especially
when liberty is at stake.
96
It has been embraced in other jurisdictions, most
notably by South Africa’s Constitution,
97
and it accords with the fact that
many modern rights require positive state action, but its status in Canada
remains unclear because the Court has attempted to limit its use to set
categories of cases and to deny that its use is justified for reasons of insti-
tutional dialogue.
98
As will be seen, Justice Iacobucci was prepared to use
this remedy for dialo gic ends in a number of cases.
Interpretative remedies of the sort used in Mills are more problematic
for democratic dialogue between courts and legislatures. Reading-in or
reading-down remedies allow the court to fix the legislation without leg-
islative reconsideration and deliberation. In Vriend, Justice Iacobucci used
an interpretative remedy by reading sexual orientation into Alberta’s
human-rights code as a prohibited ground of discrimination, but only
after concluding that the Alberta legislature had made ‘an express invita-
tion for the courts to read sexual orientation into the
IRPA [Individual’s
Rights Protection Act, R.S.A. 1980, c. I-2, as am. by S.A. 1990, c. 23] in the
event that its exclusion from the legislation is found to violate the pro-
visions of the Charter’
99
when it decided to await the result of Vriend
after its own committee had proposed that sexual orientation be added
to the code. In Vriend, Justice Iacobucci was understandably reluctant
to place the entire quasi-constitutional human-rights code at risk by
using a suspended declaration of invalidity. At the same time, he recog-
nized that the Court’s reading-in remedy was not necessarily the last
word, since the legislature could always enact new legislation changing
the details of the
IRPA as it applied to the new ground of discrimination
or, as discussed above, it could enact a law notwithstanding equality
rights that would delete protection against discrimination on the basis
of sexual orientation from the
IRPA.
95 Kent Roach, ‘Remedial Consensus and Dialogue under the Charter’ (2002) 35
U.B.C.L.Rev. 211; Roach, Supreme Court, supra note 41 at 152–4.
96 For criticisms of the suspended declaration of invalidity see Bruce Ryder, ‘Suspending
the Charter’ (2003) 21 Supreme Court L.Rev. (2d) 267. In R. v. Demers, [2004] 2 S.C.R.
489, the Court restricted remedies under s. 24(1) of the Charter during the period of
the delay. For criticisms of this decision see Kent Roach, ‘New and Problematic
Restrictions on Constitutional Remedies: R v. Demers’ (2004) 49 Crim. L.Q. 253.
97 Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, s.172.
98 Schachter v. Canada, [1992] 2 S.C.R. 679.
99 Vriend, supra note 4 at para. 171.
A DIALOGUE ABOUT PRINCIPLE AND A PRINCIPLED DIALOGUE
473
A year later, when faced with a somewhat similar problem relating to a
discriminatory definition of ‘spouse’ that did not include same-sex
spouses, Justice Iacobucci eschewed the reading-in remedy in favour of
a suspended declaration of invalidity. In M. v. H.,
100
he reasoned that
changing the definition of ‘spouse’ in one part of the Family Law Act
would have repercussions on other parts of that statute, as well as other
statutes, and that reading in all the various details would amount ‘to
the making of ad hoc choices, which ... is properly the task of the legisla-
tures, not the courts.’
101
He also indicated that ‘the legislature ought to be
given some latitude in order to address these issues in a more compre-
hensive fashion.’
102
Although conservative critics of judicial activism
denounced this case as a ‘remedial decree’
103
that ‘renders denial of judi-
cial activism problematic,’
104
the six-month suspended declaration of inva-
lidity allowed the Ontario legislature to decide how to respond to the
case. To its credit, Ontario amended not only the Family Law Act but
more than sixty other pieces of legislation to include same-sex partners.
More controversially, the province did not redefine ‘spouses’ to include
same-sex partners but, rather, introduced the concept of ‘same- sex part-
ners’ who would, consistent with the Court’s ruling, have the same rights
and responsibilities as ‘spouses,’ still defined as a man and a woman.
105
Some objected to this concept on the basis that it denied gays and les-
bians symbolic recognition as spouses and even unsuccessfully challenged
the concept before the courts. M. v. H. left some policy space for elected
governments, and this was confirmed when a new Liberal government in
Ontario changed the law and redefined ‘spouses’ to include same-sex
partners.
106
This state of affairs suggests that even the Court’s controversial
decisions on gay rights left some space for democratic dialogue.
107
In his dissent in Little Sisters, Justice Iacobucci attempted to use a sus-
pended declaration of invalidity as a means to prompt the federal govern-
ment to rethink its approach to the censorship of imported material.
Justice Iacobucci – prophetically, as it turns out – predicted that the
100 [1999] 2 S.C.R. 3.
101 Ibid. at para. 142.
102 Ibid. at para. 147.
103 Manfredi, Judicial Power, supra note 63 at 152.
104 Morton & Knopff, Charter Revolution, supra note 66 at 20.
105 Jason Murphy, ‘Dialogic Responses to Mv.H’ (2001) 59 U.T.Fac.L.Rev. 299.
106 Spousal Relationships Statute Law Amendment Act, S.O. 2005. c. 5.
107 Similarly, Parliament’s legislation to allow same-sex marriage followed the broad
outlines of judicial decisions but also imposed its own policy slant on the issue by
introducing a clause on the issue of religious freedom. See Marriage for Civil Purposes
Act, S.C. 2005, c.33, ss. 3 and 3.1, which provides that religious officials are free not
to perform marriages that do not accord with their religious beliefs and should not
be penalized for acting on such beliefs.
474 UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LAW JOURNAL
majority’s use of a declaration that customs officials had violated the
Charter in the past by censoring material destined for the small gay
and lesbian bookstore would prove inadequate and result in new litiga-
tion. He argued that ‘[s]ystemic problems call for systemic solutions. I
believe that Customs’ history of improper censorship, coupled with its
inadequate response to the declarations of the courts below, confirms
that only striking down the legislation in question will guarantee vindi-
cation of the appellants’ constitutional rights.’
108
Appealing to the dialo-
gue metaphor, he concl uded that ‘where, as here, it appears that
Parliament has not turned its mind to the issue at hand, striking down
the legislation may encourage much needed changes.’
109
In Little Sisters, Justice Iacobucci also proposed some guidelines to assist
Parliament as it considered the case for reform. He stressed the import-
ance of notice and the right to make effective representations to the
decision maker; he also suggested that the decision maker should be
independent and properly staffed. In many ways these suggestions are
based on what Fuller has argued is the inner morality of law. In his
famous eight ways to fail to make law, Fuller articulates concerns about
ad hoc decision making, contradictory rules, a failure to make rules under-
standable and public, and a failure to achieve congruence between rules
and their administration, all of which were arguably relevant to the way
customs officials had censored a variety of books that were being
shipped to the Little Sisters bookstore. Justice Iacobucci’s proposals for
representations and reasons represent a Fullerian view of law based on
‘a kind of reciprocity between government and the citizen with respect
to the observance of rules.’
110
His invitation to Parliament to legislate
also demonstrates that his concept of dialogue included legislative as
well as judicial supervision of the executive.
The Supreme Court’s most important and controversial decision
about Ch arter remedies was Doucet-Boudreau v. Nova Scotia,
111
in which it
split 5:4 over whether a trial judge, after ordering a province to make
‘best efforts’ to comply with various deadlines to construct minority-
language schools throughout the province, could retain jurisdiction
and require the government to report back to the court and the
parties on their compliance with the order. Justices Iacobucci and
Arbour upheld the trial judge’s exercise of remedial discretion as consist-
ent with general constitutional principles concerning the need for effec-
tive and meaningful remedies that respect the role of the court and are
fair to the parties. Justices LeBel and Deschamps dissented on the basis
108 Little Sisters, supra note 3 at para. 253.
109 Ibid. at para. 268.
110 Fuller, Morality of Law, supra note 24 at 39.
111 [2003] 3 S.C.R. 3 [Doucet-Boudreau].
A DIALOGUE ABOUT PRINCIPLE AND A PRINCIPLED DIALOGUE
475
that the trial judge had no jurisdiction to retain jurisdiction and that he
violated the separation of powers by putting pressure on the government
to comply and by assuming an ‘ongoing supervisory and investigative
role.’
112
In an opinion consistent with the Bickel’s understanding of the judi -
ciary as the least dangerous branch, Justices Iacobucci and Arbour recog-
nized that the ‘courts have no physical or economic means to enforce
their judgments. Ultimately, courts depend on both the executive and
the citizenry to recognize and abide by their judgments.’
113
They stressed
that the trial judge’s strategy was designed to ensure a prompt remedy
while recognizing the governments should have flexibility to select the
precise means to comply. They recognized that ‘it will not be appropriate
for a court to leap into the kinds of decisions and functions for which its
design and expertise are manifestly unsuited.’
114
Their judgment is con-
sistent with the public law model of litigation ushered in by the use of
plan submissions to enforce Brown v. Board of Education.
115
In those
cases, the onus at first instance was placed on the government to
propose and report on desegregation plans. Although this led to exces-
sive delay, Bickel was sensitive to the fact that it was a process designed
to generate genuine consent for the Court’s controversial decision.
Fuller might also have sympathized with the trial judge’s best-efforts
order in Doucet-Boudreau because it was based on what Fuller called the
‘morality of aspiration,’ as opposed to a morality of obedience to clear
orders. In accordance with Fuller’s understanding of law as a fair colla-
borative enterprise, Justices Iacobucci and Arbour stressed that the
reporting sessions were conducted in a fair manner that allowed the gov-
ernment to know what was required of it and to file progress reports in
the form of affidavits. All parties had an opportunity to adduce evidence
at these reporting sessions. The trial judge used an innovative procedure,
but he did so in a manner that was fair to all the parties and true to the
judicial role.
In contrast, the minority argued that the best-efforts order was exces-
sively vague, as were the rules and objects of the reporting sessions. They
maintained that the proper approach would have been a more specific
order that could be enforced through a contempt order. The minority’s
approach was consistent with a form of positivism that sees law not as a
collaborative and aspirational enterprise but as one based on obeying
clear commands. They conceived the law in binary terms: the trial
judge, in their view, had no legitimate role beyond deciding whether
112 Ibid. at para. 136.
113 Ibid. at para. 31.
114 Ibid. at para. 57.
115 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
476 UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LAW JOURNAL
the government was guilty of contempt or not.
116
The minority judgment
is based on a positivist view of law as clear command, while Justices
Iacobucci and Arbour saw law as a continuing enterprise that would
require ongoing dialogue between the parties and the judge. At the
same time, this dialogue was not a political or bargaining dialogue but
one that should be conducted in a fair manner that provided all
parties with guaranteed and structured forms of participation before
the judge.
IX Conclusion
Those who write about judicial review often have an image of the
ideal judge that will make their system work. The ideal judge who will
make democratic dialogue work would be a judge with an open
mind who both listens to an d participates in the dialogue that is
adjudication. He or she would have a commitment to fairness and
process and a faith that a fair and empathetic hearing will make even
the loser more willing to accept the result. As a lawyer who had the
honour of appearing before Justice Iacobucci in several cases, I know
from experience that he was an active listener on the bench and one
who engaged with the ideas presented by all counsel. Win or lose, you
received a fair hearing.
The ideal dialogic judge would know something about the strengths
and weaknesses of all branches of government. He or she would have
the courage to protect the rights of the unpopular, to require govern-
ments to justify their actions, and to ensure that successful litigants
receive full and effective remedies. He or she would also respect the
ability of governments to justify limits on rights under s. 1, to select
among the best of constitutional options, and to take responsibility for
overriding rights under s. 33. Frank Iacobucci was such an ideal judge.
He engaged in a dialogue of principle in which the courts had a
special responsibility to protect rights and vulnerable minorities while
recognizing that legislatures had the right to justify departures from
those norms. He also engaged in a principled dialogue in which both
courts and legislatures participated in a way that respected their unique
institutional roles and legislatures could override principle, albeit in a
principled way that recognized the momentous significance of such
decisions. Justice Iacobucci enriched the dialogue that is our collective
process of self-government.
116 Doucet-Boudreau, supra note 111 at para. 128.
A DIALOGUE ABOUT PRINCIPLE AND A PRINCIPLED DIALOGUE
477