Galling Argument

From Emmett Macfarlane

Yesterday, the federal government released its factum (set of arguments to the Court) on the Senate reform reference. Paul Wells already has a good initial take on the feds’ approach and I will be writing much more on this in the days leading up to the Supreme Court’s hearing in November. But I wanted to specifically comment on the Justice Department’s arguments about why unanimity is not required to abolish the Senate.
Whether it requires seven provinces or 10 to get rid of an institution many critics appear to regard as arcane or useless might seem like a relatively trivial legal issue. Yet the arguments presented throughout the factum, and on abolition especially, go to the heart of something much more important: if the Constitution is fundamentally about establishing the rules and structure for how our democracy and governing institutions function, the constitutional amending formula is about who gets to write those rules.