The Supreme Court of Canada as a “National School Board”: The Charter and Educational Change
Keywords:
Supreme Court of Canada, Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, judicial activism, educational policy, constitutional lawAbstract
Since the constitutional entrenchment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, the Supreme Court of Canada is hesitantly but perceptibly beginning to assume an expanded and more activist role in educational policy making. If the U.S. constitutional experience with regard to education has any implicit lessons for Canadians, it is that the imposition of “national” education standards and policy on local school systems may induce profound social and cultural changes at all levels of Canadian society. After surveying recent constitutional trends and developments in Charter jurisprudence and education, this paper examines the implications for Canadian schooling and education of an activist Supreme Court and discusses some of the advantages and disadvantages of national policy making and judicial intervention in the educational arena.
References
Agresto, John. (1984). The Supreme Court and constitutional democracy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Asch, Michael. (1984). Home and native land: Aboriginal rights and the Canadian Constitution. Toronto: Methuen.
Barry, Leo. (1982, June). Law, policy and statutory interpretation under a constitutionally entrenched Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Canadian Bar Review, 60.
Bill 101 (1984, 27 July). Unreported SCC.
Bill C. 48 Proposed Act Respecting Multiculturalism.
Bilodeau, Roger. (1983). La langue, l’education et les minorites: Avant et depuis la Charte Canadienne des droit et libertés. Manitoba Law Journal, 13.
Brown v. Board of Education. (1954). 347 U. S. 483.
Canada gets more civil about civil rights. (1984 May). New York Times.
Chrétien, Jean. (1981, May). House of Commons Debates, 32nd Parliament.
Cohen, Lenard J. (1986). Charter rights and non-Charter groups: The politicization of ethnicity in Canada. Unpublished manuscript.
Comfort, Louise K. (1982). Education policy and evaluation: A context for change. New York: Pergammon Press.
Constitution Act. (1982). Part I of Schedule B, Canada Act, 1982, c. 119 (U.K.)
Corwin, Edward S. (1949). The Supreme Court as a national school board. Law and Contemporary Problems, 14.
Dickson, Brian. (1983). The public responsibilities of lawyers. Manitoba Law Journal, 13.
Dickson, Brian. (1984, May). Remarks in The National.
Dickson, Brian. (1985, February 5). Address to the Canadian Bar Association. Toronto Globe and Mail.
Epperson v. Arkansas. (1968). 393 U. S.
Felsky, Martin. (1984). The Berger affair and the independence of the judiciary. University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review.
Freedman, Samuel. (1984, August). Remarks in The National.
Gibson, Dale. (1967). And one step backwards: The Supreme Court and constitutional law in the sixties. Canadian Bar Review, 53.
Grant, J. A. C. (1964). Judicial review in Canada: Procedural aspects. Canadian Bar Review, 42.
Hargraves, Susan. (1981). Federal intervention in Canadian education. In G. Ivany & Michael E. Manley-Casimir (Eds), Education Canada: Federal-provincial relations. (pp. 22–33) Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
Hodgson, Ernest D. (1976). Federal intervention in public schooling. Toronto: Canadian Education Association.
Hogg, Peter. (1982). The Canada Act, 1982, Annotated. Toronto: Carswell Co., Ltd.
Hogg, Peter. (1984). Canada’s new Charter of Rights. American Journal of Comparative Law, 32.
House of Commons Debates, 32nd Parliament, (1981).
Hovius, Berend, & Martin, Robert. (1983). The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the Supreme Court of Canada. Canadian Bar Review, 61.
Indian Act. (1952). R. S. C. c. 149.
Johnson, Pierre-Marc. (1984 July 27). Ruling takes away control of schools Minister contends. Globe and Mail.
Jung, David & Kirp, David. (1984). Law as an instrument of educational policymaking. The American Journal of Comparative Law, 32.
Knopff, Ranier. (1983, September). Federalism, the Charter and the court: Comment on Smith’s “The origins of judicial review.” Canadian Journal of Political Science, 16.
Kurland, Philip B. (1964). The Supreme Court, 1963 Term Forward: Equal in origin and equal in title to the legislative and executive branches of the government. Harvard Law Review, 78.
Laskin, Bora. (1959). An inquiry into the Diefenbaker Bill of Rights. Canadian Bar Review, 37.
Laskin, Bora. (1962). Canada’s Bill of Rights: A dilemma for the courts? The International Comparative Law Quarterly, 2.
Laskin, Bora. (1984a January 2). The court is finally supreme. Vancouver Sun.
Laskin, Bora. (1984b April). Laskin seized chance for change. The National.
Law Society of Upper Canada v. Skapinker. (3 May 1984). Unreported (SCC).
Lederman, W. R. (1956). The independence of the judiciary. Canadian Bar Review, 34.
Le jugement final. (1984, July 27). Le Devoir.
Levesque lauds ‘open’ Mulroney for stand on provincial relations. (1984, August 10). Globe and Mail.
Low, Martin, (1984). The Canadian Charter of Rights and the role of the courts. University of British Columbia Law Review, 18.
Manitoba Public Schools Act. (1980). C. P. 250 C. C. S. M.
Manley-Casimir, Michael E. (1980, Spring). Schooling in a federal state. Education Canada, 20.
Manley-Casimir, Michael E. (1982, November). Canadian and U. S. legal traditions: Implications for administrative practice. Canadian School Executive, 2.
Manley-Casimir, Michael E., & Sussel, Terri, A. (in press). The equality provisions of the Charter and educational policy: Preparations for implementation. Interchange.
Marbury v. Madison. (1803). 5 U. S. 173
McCloskey, Robert. (1967). Reflections on the Warren court. In Herbert Jacob (Ed.), Law, politics and the federal courts (pp. ). Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
McCollum v. Board of Education. (1948). 33 U. S. 203.
McCulloch v. Maryland. (1819). 17 U. S. 316
McWhinney, Edward. (1982). Canada and the constitution: Patriation and the Charter of Rights. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Milne, David. (1982). The new Canadian constitution. Toronto: James Lorimer & Co.
Morton, F. L. (1984). Charting the Charter – Year One. Unpublished paper presented at the meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Toronto.
Muir, W. K. (1967). Prayer in public schools. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). (1976). Review of national policies for education, Canada. Paris: OECD.
The Queen v. Drybones. (1970). SCR 282.
Re Minority Language Education Rights (27 June, 1984). Unreported (Ont. CA).
Reutter, Edmond. (1982). The Supreme Court’s impact on public education. Topeka: National Organization on Legal Problems of Education.
Russell, Peter. (1982). The effect of a Charter of Rights on the policy making role of Canadian courts. Canadian Public Administration, 25.
Russell, Peter. (1983). The political purposes of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Canadian Bar Review, 61.
Russell, Peter. (1984). Constitutional reform of the judicial bench. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 17.
Schmidhauser, John R. (1984). Constitutional law in American politics. California: Cole/Brooks Publisher.
Schubert, Glendon. (1967). The rhetoric of constitutional change. Journal of Public Law, 16.
Sheppard, Robert, & Valpy, Michael. (1982). The national deal. Toronto: Fleet Books.
Shetreet, Shimon. (1980). On assessing the role of the court in society. Manitoba Law Journal, 10.
Slatterley, Brian. (1983). Legislative note. Canadian Bar Review, 61.
Smith, Jennifer. (1983a, March). The origins of judicial review in Canada. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 16.
Smith, Jennifer. (1983b, September). Reply to comments of Knopff and Strayer. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 16.
Strauber, Ira. (1983). Transforming political rights into legal ones. Polity, 26.
Strayer, B. L. (1968). Judicial review of legislation in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto.
Strayer, B. L. (1983, September). Comment on “The origins of judicial review”. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 16.
Tarnopolsky, W. S. (1975). The Canadian Bill of Rights. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. (1969). 393 U. S. 503
Trudeau, Pierre Elliot. (1968). A constitutional declaration of rights. In P. E. Trudeau, Federalism and the French-Canadians (pp. ). Toronto: Macmillan.
Trudeau, Pierre Elliot. (1981). House of Commons Debates, 32nd Parliament.
Weiler, Paul. (1974). In the last resort. Toronto: Carswell Methuen.
Westin, Peter. (1982). The empty idea of equality. Harvard Law Review, 530.
Winnipeg School Division, No. 1 v. Maud et al. (1985, 19 September). Unreported (S. C. C.).
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The Canadian Journal of Education follows Creative Commons Licencing CC BY-NC-ND.
