2020 Vision: Dunsmuir 2.0
In early 2015 I was scheduled to present a paper called “2020 Vision: Dunsmuir 2.0” to a judicial training seminar. I never made it to the seminar and the paper was never published: I submitted it to a leading Canadian journal but when it came back with a “revise and resubmit” I ultimately dropped it to work on other matters, partly because I wasn’t sure of the academic strength of the paper. And yet, it bears an uncanny resemblance to a recent Supreme Court of Canada decision….
Here is the key section of the paper, retrieved from a dusty corner of Windows Explorer, last edited in September 2015:
In this section, I present proposed solutions to the three problems identified in the previous section. My suggestions as to how the Court might resolve these problems are drawn primarily from post-Dunsmuir decisions, some from the Court and some from lower courts. The reason is simple: Dunsmuir 2.0 can be created more easily with tools that are readily available and its reception will be smoother if it elaborates tendencies already present in the jurisprudence. My goal is to elaborate an administrative law doctrine that is simpler – though not necessarily simple – while respecting Dunsmuir’s desire for continuity and its underlying values.
Reasonableness is Always the Standard of Review
The Court’s distaste for the correctness standard is obvious. In McLean, Moldaver J. derided counsel’s habit of making “fashionable” claims in favour of correctness review.[1] It has been said, in addition, that the presumption of deference for interpretations of a decision-maker’s home statute is the “black hole” of the Dunsmuir framework – sucking the light from the correctness categories – because in almost all judicial review cases, some decision-maker somewhere will have interpreted its home statute.[2]
But the ongoing availability of the correctness categories makes it inevitable that lower courts will continue to apply an interventionist standard of review and that counsel will plague the Court with fashionable arguments. Indeed, the Court itself has defined these categories broadly: in Canadian National Railway, Rothstein J. suggested that a ‘true’ question of jurisdiction or vires was one where the decision-maker was “required to explicitly determine whether its own statutory grant of power gave it the authority to decide the matter”; and that a question of general law of central importance to the legal system was one which has “precedential value outside of issues arising” under a “specific regulatory regime”.[3] No doubt more restrictive definitions could be given. However, the difficulty is that any attempt to delineate the correctness categories will invite argument that a particular decision falls within one of them. And remember: the contextual factors are still lingering on the edges of these categories, to further complicate matters.
It is time, therefore, to double down on Dunsmuir and apply a reasonableness standard to all reviewabledecisions. Not presumptively or contingently, but absolutely, as a bright-line rule. From cabinet down to the most low-level administrative decision-makers, reasonableness will be the standard of review. This does away with the problem associated with the relationship between the categorical and contextual approaches.
Similarly, both procedural and substantive review should be conducted under the reasonableness banner, doing away with the difficult threshold classification of questions as substantive or procedural. This threshold question will often be difficult to resolve. Recently, for example, the British Columbia Court of Appeal split on whether the initiation of disciplinary proceedings long after the infractions in question were committed was a matter of delay going to fairness and thus procedure, or a matter of the application by an administrative tribunal of the doctrine of abuse of process.[4] Fusing the two poles of procedural and substantive review would remove this threshold matter from the judicial review landscape.
Fusing Review of the Decision-Making Process and Substantive Outcome
There is no need to insist on a distinction between process and substance, or between reasoning and outcomes. The Court has occasionally suggested this itself. For instance, in Construction Labour Relations v. Driver Iron Inc.,[5] it offered the following guidance: “For reviewing courts, the issue remains whether the decision, viewed as a whole in the context of the record, is reasonable”. And in Agraira, although there was a bifurcation later in the judgment, it was said that the appropriate focus was on the “decision as a whole”.[6] There is thus important support for Stratas J.A.’s recent conclusion that the reviewing court must focus “on the outcome reached by the administrative decision-maker with due regard to any significant problems in its reasoning”.[7]
For the most part, errors in the reasoning process will infect the final decision. For example, a failure to take a pertinent factor into account, or to analyze it appropriately, will occur in the reasoning process but will render the final decision unreasonable. Some errors in the decision-maker’s reasons will naturally be determinative. If so, the decision should be quashed.
On other occasions, it is possible that the decision-maker would have reached the same result even if the error had been brought to its attention and corrected. Determining whether to uphold the decision in light of such an error is not a matter for substantive analysis but for remedial discretion.[8] A decision need not always be quashed. A reviewing court may exercise its discretion to uphold it if remitting it would cause undue delay, expense or hardship. But this power should be deployed sparingly, for it is often impossible to know how a hearing would have unfolded had the individual been properly apprised of the decision-maker’s reasoning process.[9] Generally, though, an important error in the reasoning process will justify a reviewing court in quashing the decision.
Putting Adequacy of Reasons on a Distinct Basis
The Court’s concern that decisions be justified, transparent and intelligible should not be dismissed entirely. The concern is impossible to operationalize in the Dunsmuir framework without causing the problems identified above. But it can perhaps be accommodated elsewhere.
My suggestion is the requirement that a decision be understandable flows from the need to protect the courts’ inherent supervisory jurisdiction. Simply put, the core function of judicial review cannot be performed without a decision based on an adequate record.
Some recent cases illustrate the point. In Leahy v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration),[10] the judges of the Federal Court of Appeal found themselves without “the basic information we need in order to discharge our role”. The decision had to be quashed: “Any reviewing court upholding a decision whose bases cannot be discerned would blindly accept the decision, abdicating its responsibility to ensure that it is consistent with the rule of law”.[11] Similarly, in Wall v. Independent Police Review Director,[12] a decision was communicated in a letter “devoid of any reasons adequate to allow for judicial review of the Director’s decision”[13] and was thus unlawful.
This is not necessarily to impose a general duty of reason giving on administrative decision-makers. Depending on the context, a reviewing court might be able to perform its constitutionally guaranteed role in the absence of elaborate reasons. Moreover, the requirement of adequacy is a relaxed one, which will be satisfied in the vast majority of cases. The decision need only be understandable to the reviewing court. The substantive analysis of the quality of reasons given will occur as part of the organic exercise of reviewing the outcome.
What is a reviewing court to do when an inadequate decision is attacked in judicial review proceedings? One possibility is to remit the matter to the decision-maker in question so that a proper basis for the decision can be discerned. An additional possibility is that adequate reasons should be treated as a pre-condition to deference.[14] If there are no reasons to defer to, no deference can be granted and a court must resolve the questions presented de novo if it is competent do so.
It is true that this is a functional approach to reasons, which puts less emphasis on the dignitarian interests that reason-giving furthers.[15] However, the rigorous reasonableness review envisaged by Dunsmuir can also be seen as protecting these interests: “The breadth of [the Dunsmuir] criteria means that the universe of decisions that are unreasonable due to inadequate reasons is broader than the more narrow range of decisions that would be procedurally unfair due to a lack of reasons”.[16]
Fusing the procedural and substantive aspects of Dunsmuir’s reasonableness standard and hiving off the adequacy of reasons to be treated as a distinct issue for constitutional review eliminates the problems associated with the bifurcated approach suggested by paragraph 47 of Dunsmuir.
Guidance on the “Range” of Reasonable Outcomes
Reasonableness Sometimes Means There is Only One Reasonable Answer
The cornerstone of Dunsmuir 2.0 is the suggestion in McLean that sometimes a question will have only one reasonable answer. It is the cornerstone because it responds to the concern that eliminating correctness review altogether would turn the “constitutional guarantee” of judicial review into an “empty shell”.[17] For we have known since Crevier v. A.G. (Québec)[18]that judicial review of administrative action is a “hallmark” of the inherent jurisdiction of the s. 96 courts.[19] My response is that the constitutional guarantee of effective judicial review is ensured by insisting that in some cases there is only one reasonable answer and that it must be provided by the reviewing court. As Julius Grey explained several decades ago:
What Crevier does entrench is some degree of review. The courts will not interfere at the same moment on all issues or against all tribunals. However, they now clearly possess a constitutional right to step in when the bounds of tolerance are exceeded by any decision-maker. Clearly, the precise location of the bounds of tolerance is left to the court and that is quite consistent with the general trends in modern administrative law.[20]
Setting ‘reasonableness’ as the “bounds of tolerance”, yet recognizing that in some instances only one reasonable answer will be available gives full effect to the s. 96 jurisprudence. This takes the focus off the metaphysics of standard of review by looking instead to the dispute-resolution role played in the Canadian legal system by section 96 courts.[21] In brief, the ‘one reasonable answer’ cornerstone holds that there are some cases in which there is only one possible answer and that it should be given by a section 96 court acting as an independent arbiter. Typically, this will be because a uniform answer is required across administrative tribunals within a province or territory, and nationally,[22] to stave off juridical disorder.[23]
It will be helpful to identify some types of decision that will typically admit of only one reasonable answer. This is not meant as an attempt to set out categories, but to give examples of the underlying principle in action.
Privilege
Where privilege is claimed, a uniform answer must be given. As the Alberta Court of Appeal recently put it, “The law of privilege must be the same whenever it is applied”.[24] It would be intolerable for the possibility of disclosure to depend on different approaches taken by different decision-makers: “Once a document is disclosed, it is exposed for all purposes, and nothing can be done to make it secret again”.[25] It must be answered “de manière uniforme et cohérente”.[26] Something similar might be said of international treaties, whose provisions must be interpreted identically across the country (and perhaps between Canada and other states)[27] but whose application might well be different in particular regulatory contexts.[28]
Competing Jurisdictions
It will occasionally be the case that two competing bodies may potentially have jurisdiction over the same subject-matter. In such cases, a s. 96 court is well-placed to intervene. In J.D. Irving, Limited v. North Shore Forest Products Marketing Board et al.,[29] Robertson J.A. considered that the only ‘true’ questions of jurisdiction or vires were those “cases in which the tribunal must decide whether it possesses the jurisdiction to decide an issue or whether the jurisdiction rests in a superior court, another tribunal, or whether there is a concurrency of jurisdiction”. Similarly, in Canadian National,[30] Rothstein J. resolved without any reference to standard of review a question about the relative competencies of the Governor in Council and the Federal Court of Appeal in respect of decisions of the Canadian Transportation Agency. This was quite proper, for these provisions were not administered by any of the decision-makers, but by the courts, who were ideally placed to give a uniform answer.
Acting as an independent arbiter with no institutional stake in the matter, a s. 96 court can determine which body has the authority to resolve the question. It would be problematic for decision-maker A to exclude the authority of decision-maker B without decision-maker B having a say. What is needed is for an independent arbiter to determine the appropriate relationship between decision-maker A and decision-maker B.[31]
Legislative Schemes Requiring Uniformity
Sometimes, the legislature will set out mechanisms for achieving uniformity in a legislative scheme. In the immigration system, for example, provision is made for the Federal Court to state a certified question of law to the Federal Court of Appeal for resolution. In such circumstances, deference would be inapposite: the legislature has indicated that some questions are to be answered finally by courts.[32] Similar logic underpinned Rothstein J.’s majority reasons in Rogers. From the “concurrent jurisdiction” of the Copyright Board and Federal Court over certain questions of law, he concluded “it must be inferred” that Parliament intended the federal courts to answer such questions authoritatively.[33] Rogers has subsequently been limited to its special facts[34] but it is evidence of how the Court post-Dunsmuir has come to think of the importance of legislative schemes that promote uniformity.[35] Where such a scheme exists, only one reasonable answer will be possible and, plainly, it must be given by the court identified by the legislature. This will, however, be the exception rather than the rule, for Canadian administrative law has long recognized “the existence of distinctive, quasi-autonomous legal regimes where administrators are free to develop within their area of statutory authority their own principles and policies, attuned to their legislative purpose and the realities of those they administer”.[36]
Independence, Bias, Bad Faith and the Duty of Fairness
Where it is alleged that a decision-maker lacks independence, is biased, acted in bad faith or is subject to a duty of fairness, a reviewing court will have to resolve the matter impartially. In each of these examples, an independent arbiter must decide in order to maintain confidence in the administration of justice. A single administrative decision-maker has an important conflict of interest in determining each of these questions. There is an important risk of self-dealing, which has the potential to undermine the integrity of the legal system. Another example is provided by claims based on legitimate expectations, where a reviewing court will have to determine whether the government really did make a “clear, unambiguous and unqualified” promise.[37] Here, the risk of self-dealing by the decision-maker again suggests that recourse to an independent s. 96 arbiter would be appropriate.
In most of these cases, it is also unlikely that a decision-maker will have given a reasoned decision. Ordinarily, such claims are denied summarily. Occasionally, however, a decision-maker will give a reasoned decision which relies on statutory provisions which are within its expertise. There may in such circumstances be more than one possible answer. For example, where overlapping functions which would otherwise give rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias are usually authorized by statute, more than one reasonable interpretation of the provisions may be available, and the decision-maker will be better-placed than the reviewing court to determine which is more appropriate.
These cases where uniformity is needed should not be confused with procedural issues more generally. Where a decision-maker takes a context-sensitive decision to accord or deny a procedural claim, or to limit a party’s participation in an administrative proceeding, it will typically be difficult to say that only one outcome was possible, though on some occasions the decision-maker’s range of manoeuvre will be constrained by “the well-defined legal standards set by the existing case law on procedural fairness”.[38]
Facial Challenges to the Constitutionality of Legislation
In Doré v. Barreau du Québec,[39] the Court addressed a challenge on freedom of expression grounds to a sanction imposed by a professional disciplinary body. A standard of reasonableness was applied, Abella J. commenting that a reviewing court’s role in such cases is to ensure a “proportionate balancing” of Charter rights and a decision-maker’s statutory objectives.[40] In other words, more than one reasonable answer could be given by the decision-maker, which was an expert in addressing such concerns and in calibrating sanctions appropriately.
A revealing contrast can be drawn with Saskatchewan (Human Rights Commission) v. Whatcott.[41] Here, there was a facial challenge to a provision of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code that penalized hate speech. This challenge was resolved by the Court.[42] It was a question that admitted of only one answer and, given the central role of s. 96 courts in constitutional adjudication, the Court was well placed to give it. The nationwide ramifications for hate speech laws indicated that a uniform answer was necessary. Moreover, a revealing contrast can be drawn within Whatcott itself. When it came time to analyze the sanctions imposed by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal, the Court preached deference.[43] On a facial challenge to legislation, then, a uniform answer is required, but uniformity would be a vice when it comes to applying legislation in various contexts.
“Clear” Statutory Provisions
It has been insisted by various Courts of Appeal that where the principles of statutory interpretation dictate that there is only one right answer to a question of interpretation, a reviewing court must insist upon it.[44] This would be consistent with Dunsmuir 2.0: only one answer is possible when a statutory provision is clear; a uniform response must be given by a s. 96 court in order to give effect to legislative intent: “The rule of law requires nothing less”.[45]
Other Factors Making up the Range[46]
The strength of the “range” concept is that it is responsive to the merits of a particular case. It does not require the four-factor box-ticking exercise that characterized the previous pragmatic and functional approach. Rather, the factors limiting or extending the range will vary from case to case.[47]
As a starting point, matters of legal principle demand a narrower range, but those involving issues of discretion or policy command a broader one. A decision-maker will be “constrained” by statutory text, purpose, context and relevant judicial pronouncements, but will have more “room to manoeuvre…in a case turning upon one or more of factual appreciation, fact-based discretions, administrative policies, or specialized experience and expertise not shared by the reviewing court on the particular point in issue”.[48]
Other contextual factors will provide further guidance. In Mills v. Ontario (Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal), Rouleau J.A. understood Dunsmuir as requiring “a contextual approach to deference where factors such as the decision-making process, the type and expertise of the decision-maker, as well as the nature and complexity of the decision will be taken into account”.[49] And in Canada (Transport, Infrastructure and Communities) v. Farwaha,[50] Stratas J.A. took a similar view, noting the importance of statutory language, but also that sometimes “the nature of the matter and the importance of the matter for affected individuals may more centrally implicate the courts’ duty to vindicate the rule of law, narrowing the range of options available to the decision-maker”. Other factors may include: the desirability of coherence in the law;[51] the “rationale of the statutory regime”;[52] and separation of powers concerns.[53]
The significance of the “range” concept is as follows. It is necessary for an individual attacking an administrative decision to demonstrate that one or more indicia of unreasonableness taint the decision; she has “to point to some reason, whether stemming from the facts or the words of the statute to question the reasonableness of the tribunal’s interpretation”.[54] Once she has done so, the question becomes whether the decision-maker has provided “a convincing explanation”.[55] Depending on how broad or narrow the range, the explanation will have to be more or less “convincing”.
This is not an invitation to reviewing courts to engage in impermissible reweighing of factors considered by the decision-maker.[56] Where the range is broad, less will be required by way of explanation. Where the range is narrow, more will be required. An analogy with the standard of reasonable care in the law of tort may be illuminating: the more dangerous an activity, the more is required by way of safeguards and precautions. Similarly, in administrative law, the narrower the range of reasonable outcomes, the more that will be required to explain apparent anomalies in the decision.
It bears emphasizing that reasonableness review is robust. No parts of the decision are ‘off limits’ to reviewing courts: both legal and factual errors may, in principle, justify the quashing of a decision, be it one that involves interpretation or exercising discretion. Reasonableness requires an explanation of anomalies that would threat public confidence in the administrative justice system.
One might quibble
that this simply represents “the bold innovations of a traffic engineer that in
the end do no more than shift rush hour congestion from one road intersection
to another without any overall saving to motorists in time or expense”.[57]
As Heckman comments, it may be “that Dunsmuir
has not really simplified the task of ascertaining the appropriate degree
of deference, but has simply left it for a later stage in the analysis”.[58]
However, it is better “to adapt the framework of judicial review to varying
circumstances and different kinds of administrative actors than it is to go
through the same checklist of factors in every case, whether or not they are
pertinent”.[59]
[1] McLean, at para. 25.
[2] Paul Daly, “Unreasonable Interpretations of Law” (2014), 66 S.C.L.R. (2d) 233, at p. 235.
[3] Canadian National, at paras. 60-61.
[4] Robertson v. British Columbia (Teachers Act, Commissioner), 2014 BCCA 331.
[5] [2012] 3 SCR 405, at para. 3.
[6] Agraira, at para. 58.
[7] Forest Ethics, at para. 62.
[8] Lemus v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2014 FCA 114, at para. 33.
[9] See e.g. Cardinal v. Director of Kent Institution, [1985] 2 S.C.R. 643, at p. 661:
The right to a fair hearing must be regarded as an independent, unqualified right which finds its essential justification in the sense of procedural justice which any person affected by an administrative decision is entitled to have. It is not for a court to deny that right and sense of justice on the basis of speculation as to what the result might have been had there been a hearing.
[10] 2012 FCA 227, at para. 124.
[11] Ibid., at para. 122.
[12] 2014 ONCA 884.
[13] Ibid. at para. 54.
[14] The theory advanced in Professor Dyzenhaus’s over-cited and under-read article on deference: “The Politics of Deference: Judicial Review and Democracy”, in Michael Taggart, ed., The Province of Administrative Law (Oxford: Hart, 1997), p. 279.
[15] T.R.S. Allan, “Procedural Fairness and the Duty of Respect” (1998), 18 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 497. See e.g. Baker, at para. 39: “Those affected may be more likely to feel they were treated fairly and appropriately if reasons are given”.
[16] Neil G. Wilson, “Adequacy of Reasons – From Procedural Fairness to Substantive Review” (2011), 90 Canadian Bar Review 509, at p. 510. Wilson views “reasons as fairness” as “a superfluous appendage to Canadian administrative law” (p. 515).
[17] Alberta Teachers’, at para. 103, per Cromwell J. See generally Lauren J. Wihak, “Wither the Correctness Standard of Review? Dunsmuir, Six Years Later” (2014), 27 C.J.A.L.P. 173.
[18] [1981] 2 SCR 220.
[19] Ibid, at p. 236.
[20] Julius Grey, “Sections 96-100: A Defense” (1985), 1 Admin. L.J. 3, at p. 11.
[21] Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia v. British Columbia (Attorney General), 2014 SCC 59, at para. 32; Wilson v. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, 2015 FCA 17, at para. 55. See also Dunsmuir, at para. 163, per Deschamps J., referring to the “prime societal importance” of consistency in the law, especially laws of general application, furthered by de novo review of questions of law where a statutory right of appeal has been created.
[22] See Peter W. Hogg, « Judicial Review in Canada : How Much do We Need it? » (1974), 26 Admin. L.R. 337.
[23] Yves-Marie Morissette, « Rétrospective et prospective sur le contentieux administratif » (2008-2009), 39 R.D.U.S. 1, at p. xxx :
Si l’on ne fixe pas d’autorité la portée d’un texte d’application générale, qu’il s’agisse d’une loi ou d’un texte constitutionnel, on s’expose à ce que des interprétations raisonnables, mais contradictoires de textes qui ne sont pas du ressort exclusif des décideurs créent un désordre normatif en droit positif. Dans ces conditions, les tribunaux de droit commun sont justifiés d’intervenir pour rétablir une uniformité de sens ou tendre vers elle.
[24] Imperial Oil Limited v Alberta (Information and Privacy Commissioner), 2014 ABCA 231, at para. 38.
[25] ibid., at para. 37.
[26] Association des pompiers professionnels de Québec inc. c. Québec (Ville de), 2013 QCCA 2084, at para. 20.
[27] Hernandez Febles v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2012 FCA 324, at paras. 22-25.
[28] Hernandez Febles v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2012 FCA 324, at paras. 75-78.
[29] 2014 NBCA 42, at para. 18.
[30] Ibid.,at paras. 34-49.
[31] See e.g. Christian Brunelle and Mélanie Samson, « Les conflits de compétence entre tribunaux spécialisés : une question de textes ou de contextes? » (2008-2009) 39 R.D.U.S. 223.
[32] Kanthasamy v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2014 FCA 113.
[33] Rogers, at para. 15
[34] Re:Sound v. Fitness Industry Council of Canada, 2014 FCA 48.
[35] See also Tervita Corp. v. Canada (Commissioner of Competition), 2015 SCC 3, at para. 39, where the existence of an appeal provision in the Competition Tribunal Act, s. 13(1) providing a right of appeal from the Tribunal to the Federal Court of Appeal as if it were a judgment of the Federal Court, was held to rebut the presumption of reasonableness review.
[36] Gerald P. Heckman, “Nor-Man Regional Health Authority: Labour Arbitration, Questions of General Law and the Challenges of Legal Centrism” (2011), 35 Manitoba L.J. 63.
[37] Canada (Attorney General) v. Mavi, [2011] 2 S.C.R. 504, at para. 68.
[38] Maritime Broadcasting, at para. 58.
[39] [2012] 1 SCR 395.
[40] Doré, at para. 57.
[41] [2013] 1 SCR 467.
[42] Whatcott, at para. 61.
[43] Whatcott, at paras. 166-168.
[44] See e.g. British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority v. Workers’ Compensation Board of British Columbia, 2014 BCCA 353; Corporation d’Urgences-santé c. Syndicat des employées et employés d’Urgences-santé (CSN), 2015 QCCA 315; Ontario (Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario) v. 751809 Ontario Inc. (Famous Flesh Gordon’s), 2013 ONCA 157;Qin v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2013 FCA 263; Small v. New Brunswick Liquor Corporation (2012), 390 NBR (2d) 203.
[45] Qin v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2013 FCA 263, at para. 33. This position has been strongly criticized. See Paul Daly, “Unreasonable Interpretations of Law” (2014), 66 S.C.L.R. (2d) 233.
[46] See generally, David W. Elliott, “Khosa – Still Searching for that Star” (2009), 33 Manitoba L.J. 211.
[47] Robert E. Hawkins, “Whither Judicial Review?” (2009), 88 Canadian Bar Review 603, at p. 609 complained of the contextual pragmatic and functional analysis that is factors « were fluid in definition and of uncertain relative weight », which « provided easy cover for interventionist courts and only tenuous protection for administrative decision-makers ». See similarly Andrew Green, “Can There be too Much Context in Administrative Law? Setting the Standard of Review in Canadian Administrative Law” (2014), 47 U.B.C.L.R. 443: “complexity would increase mistakes in application as well as provide the opportunity for this test to be manipulated such that a judge may choose a standard of review that she feels aids in achieving her preferred outcome”. It is not clear that this problem can ever be fully erased.
[48] Canada (Attorney General) v. Canadian Human Rights Commission, 2013 FCA 75, at para. 13. See also Telfer v. Canada Revenue Agency, [2009] 4 C.T.C. 123, at para. 34.
[49] 2008 ONCA 436, at para. 22.
[50] 2014 FCA 56, at para. 91.
[51] Canada (Attorney General) v. Canadian Human Rights Commission, 2013 FCA 75, at para. 16.
[52] Catalyst Paper Corp. v. North Cowichan (District), [2012] 1 SCR 5, at para. 25.
[53] Canada (Fisheries and Oceans) v. David Suzuki Foundation, 2012 FCA 40; Kandola.
[54] Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission v. Allen, 2014 NLCA 42, at para. 41.
[55] Ibid., at para. 42.
[56] Khosa, at para. 61.
[57] Dunsmuir, at para. 139, per Binnie J.
[58] Gerald A. Heckman, “Substantive Review in Appellate Courts Since Dunsmuir” (2010), 47 Osgoode Hall L.J. 751.
[59] Chamberlain v. Surrey School District No. 36, [2002] 4 SCR 710, at para. 195, per LeBel J. See similarly Dunsmuir, at para. 160, per Deschamps J., emphasizing the desirability of focusing “on the issues the parties need to have adjudicated rather than on the nature of the judicial review process itself”.
This content has been updated on December 23, 2019 at 13:55.