If you have not read Part 1 of this post I suggest that you read it first, here. This Part is for those interested in law and how it develops but is not a technical law journal article. For anyone wanting a detailed legal analysis I suggest reading Paul Daly’s 5 blog posts starting here.

A Bit of History

Changing Courts, Changing Attitudes

Until about the early 1980’s most Canadian judges were men, usually appointed from law firms representing businesses and governments.  Judges appeared generally sympathetic to litigants like their former clients and less sympathetic to unions, women and the less fortunate in society. As a broad generalization, judges were to the political right of the average Canadian.

Gradually, judicial appointments became more diverse and judicial attitudes evolved. The attitude change was substantially influenced by administrative law professors like Bora Laskin (who eventually became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada). Some law professors (then and now) serve as labour arbitrators or members of administrative tribunals like Labour Relations Boards or Human Rights Commissions. Unions will reject the appointment of arbitrators unless they believe them to be at least somewhat sympathetic to unions. Hence these arbitrators and labour board members led the way, both in law journal articles and as judges, to offset the perceived judicial bias against unions and labour relations adjudicators.  The attitude moved leftwards and has remained there, but whether you see this as having moved to the political centre or to the left of centre depends upon your political views.

Judges protected labour adjudicators by declaring that labour boards had labour relations expertise equal to or greater than generalist judges. In practice this was usually true.  “Expertise” became shorthand for “stop picking on them” and show some deference. Considerable respect for such decision-makers has been the judicial policy for decades.

Continue reading “Vavilov (Part 2 of 2): Did the Court Fix Canadian Judicial Review?”