The aim of a special issue of a law journal is to examine a single thing\u2014a case, a question, a problem, a person\u2014from multiple perspectives. By presenting different accounts of the same thing, a special issue invites readers to consider the multiple frames and theoretical lenses through which one slice of social experience can be understood and analyzed.[1]<\/a> In this sense, a special issue is as much a lesson in the variability and contingency of how we understand events in the world, as an opportunity to measure a legacy.<\/p>\n In this paper, I embrace the animating spirit of a special issue to argue for a particular approach to thinking about the Supreme Court of Canada, an approach that helps us think about the Court in a world of legal diversity and complexity. To make this argument, I present several ways to read the Court\u2019s opinion in the Reference Re Senate Reform<\/em>[2]<\/a> and then reflect on what these readings reveal about our understanding of the Court. I start from the premises that the Reference<\/em> is one of the Court\u2019s most significant constitutional decisions in the contemporary era and that each opinion issued by the Court is an institutional artifact. From these premises, I accept a third, that it is equally important to ask what the Reference<\/em> reveals about the Supreme Court as it is to ask what the Court\u2019s opinion foreshadows for the Senate.<\/p>\n I present my argument in two parts. In Part I, I offer four readings of the Reference<\/em>, each focusing on a different dimension of the case\u2014the doctrinal, the metaphorical, the institutional, and the contextual.<\/em> On the one hand, I present multiple readings of the Court\u2019s opinion to contribute to a deeper understanding of the case. On the other, I use this methodology to remind us that when we read the Reference <\/em>our interpretation depends on many factors\u2014social experience, professional affiliation, disciplinary background, theoretical commitments, and so on. These factors shape and colour the lenses we wear when we read any text, including the legal lenses we wear when we read the Reference<\/em>. These lenses determine whether we focus on the jurisprudential dimensions of the case or the political concerns. They influence whether a reader cares most about the historical narrative the judges tell or the theory of unwritten constitutionalism on which the judges rely. They inform whether we assess the Court\u2019s work from the perspective of the state or the citizen. In other words, what we think is important about the Court\u2019s opinion is shaped by the assumptions we make, the beliefs we hold, and the interests we pursue when reading it, including our interests in, assumptions of, and beliefs about law. Confronting multiple ways to read the Reference <\/em>is therefore a chance to notice the assumptions embedded in our interpretations, reflect on why we find them meaningful, consider their implications, and explore the larger narratives of which they are a part.<\/p>\n In Part II, I reflect on the four readings and ask what we can learn from their juxtaposition. I argue that the readings demonstrate the value of thinking about the Supreme Court through a lens that accounts for the contemporary landscape, characterized by social and legal diversity. I contend that looking through such a theoretical lens, one shaped by an \u201cethos of pluralism\u201d,[3]<\/a> opens up lines of inquiry into the Court\u2019s institutional dimensions that can easily be obscured or overlooked by some dominant narratives. I sketch a research agenda that is constructed from these lines of inquiry and argue that this agenda is worth pursuing. It is an opportunity to advance conversations about the responsiveness and inner morality of our public institutions. Further, this agenda poses questions about the roles of our institutions, and our expectations of them, within a constitutional structure that takes plurality and diversity seriously. Finally, it provides a framework for thinking about the significance of the Court\u2014and the Reference\u2014<\/em>from the perspective of citizens and communities, that is those who live law. This research agenda admittedly raises more questions than answers. Yet it does so with good reason. The aim is to suggest that pluralist hypotheses about law have something to offer our understanding of the Court, without closing any doors on what those offerings are or where they might lead.[4]<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n In this Part, I present four readings of the Court\u2019s opinion in the Reference<\/em>. Each is oriented around a particular interest or issue. First, the doctrinal reading assesses the coherence of the Court\u2019s reasoning and the place of the Reference <\/em>in the canon of Canadian constitutional law. Second, the metaphorical reading examines the way the Reference <\/em>opinion reflects and contests the metaphors often used to describe the constitutional role of the Supreme Court. Third, the institutional reading asks what factors might influence the judges when deciding the Reference. <\/em>Finally, the contextual reading considers where the Reference <\/em>fits within\u2014and what it adds to\u2014the grand scheme of norms that govern constitutional change.<\/p>\n Of course, these four readings are neither mutually exclusive nor exhaustive. The lenses we wear are always multifocal; when we read the Reference<\/em>, we simultaneously pursue many interests and communicate many theoretical commitments. In addition, the many foci of our lenses can be combined and configured in countless ways. This means that the four readings offered here are simply representative of the many possible ways of reading the Reference<\/em>. The point in setting out these different readings side-by-side is not to say all there is to say about the Reference<\/em>, but rather to encourage reflection on why we say what we say and what we are actually saying when we say it.<\/p>\n The Reference <\/em>is a case about constitutional interpretation. In February 2013, the Court was asked to advise on six questions, each dealing with the scope of Parliament\u2019s authority to reconfigure the Senate. In April 2014, it released its answers. The Court\u2019s opinion in the Reference <\/em>is a significant contribution to Canadian constitutional law because it provides an authoritative interpretation of Canada\u2019s constitutional amending formulas, as set out in Part V of the Constitution Act, 1982<\/em>.[5]<\/a> While the Court has resolved disputes about the amending procedure in the past,[6]<\/a> the Reference<\/em> was the Court\u2019s first opportunity to comprehensively interpret and apply Part V,[7]<\/a> thereby filling a gap that has fuelled political controversy and legal uncertainty for decades.<\/p>\n In its interpretation of the Part V formulas, the Court restated the principle that formal constitutional amendment is not a unilateral undertaking in Canada.[8]<\/a> The federal and provincial governments must work together, engaging in dialogue about the future of Canada\u2019s constitutional configuration. The Part V procedures are intended to foster this dialogue by requiring substantial provincial consent for any constitutional change that engages provincial interests.[9]<\/a> In the context of Senate reform, this means that Parliament alone cannot alter the fundamental nature or role of the Senate.[10]<\/a> Any such alteration would engage the provinces\u2019 interests as \u201cequal stakeholders in the Canadian constitutional design\u201d[11]<\/a> and would therefore require substantial provincial consent.<\/p>\n On this interpretation of Part V, the Court concluded that most of the federal government\u2019s proposals for Senate reform require provincial consent.[12]<\/a> First, creating advisory elections would endow Senators with a \u201cpopular mandate which is inconsistent with the Senate\u2019s role as a complementary legislative chamber of sober second thought.\u201d[13]<\/a> Such a change would alter the architecture of the constitution, thereby triggering the amending formulas and the need for substantial provincial consent. Similarly, implementing fixed terms for senators would make a \u201cqualitative difference\u201d[14]<\/sup><\/a> to the Senate\u2019s independence and capacity for dispassionate legislative review. Such a change to the Senate\u2019s fundamental nature and role would engage provincial interests and therefore require provincial input. Finally, abolition of the Senate would renovate Canada\u2019s constitutional architecture and the reform process contemplated by Part V. Such change would be an amendment to the Constitution of Canada in relation to Part V and would therefore require the unanimous consent of Parliament and the provincial legislatures.[15]<\/a><\/p>\n In its reasoning, the Court restated the general principles that govern constitutional interpretation, affirming that any interpretation must be attentive to the text, its historical, philosophical, and linguistic contexts, and to past judicial interpretations.[16]<\/a> Further, it offered an important statement on the constitutional status and interpretive role of \u201cconstitutional architecture\u201d.[17]<\/a> Drawing on theories of unwritten constitutionalism and precedent, the Court concluded that the constitution must be interpreted in light of the structural aspirations and assumptions embedded within it. According to the Court, these structural concerns include the foundational principles on which the constitution is based (e.g. democracy, federalism, rule of law) and the structure of government that the constitution seeks to implement. Moreover, the individual elements of the constitution\u2014textual, institutional, conceptual, theoretical\u2014are linked. These links give rise to the \u201cbasic structure\u201d or \u201cinternal architecture\u201d of the constitution as a whole.[18]<\/a> According to the Court, the constitution must be understood and applied in light of this structure and the way that its elements are intended to interact.[19]<\/a><\/p>\n The Court\u2019s reasoning in the Reference <\/em>has been criticized for its reliance on constitutional architecture. As I discuss below, some of these critiques are justified, especially given the uncertainties that remain and the implications of the Court\u2019s structural conclusions. It is unfair, however, to argue that constitutional architecture is a new concept or interpretive tool. In fact, the structure of the constitution and its interpretive force are established in Canada\u2019s constitutional jurisprudence. For example, the Court has repeatedly invoked unwritten constitutional principles\u2014the pillars on which the constitution rests[20]<\/a>\u2014to fill textual gaps, inform textual interpretation, and ground substantive obligations.[21]<\/a> Moreover, structural reasoning is implicit in all federalism jurisprudence and other cases in which the courts look to constitutional relationships and institutional arrangements when determining the balance of legislative authority between Parliament and the provinces.[22]<\/a> Further, ensuring the harmonious interaction of individual constitutional elements\u2014for example, between section 96 and the Charter<\/em>, between the Charter <\/em>and the common law, and between Aboriginal rights and the Crown prerogative\u2014is an established interpretive objective in constitutional cases.[23]<\/a> In this sense, the Court\u2019s structural reasoning in the Reference <\/em>sits within a line of cases in which the judges look to the normative force of architecture in order to interpret and apply the constitution.<\/p>\n At the same time, however, the Reference <\/em>takes constitutional architecture further. The Court introduced the concept into the specific contexts of Part V and Senate reform. It established that, for the purposes of Part V, an \u201camendment to the Constitution of Canada\u201d can include changes to constitutional text as well as to constitutional architecture.[24]<\/a> This conclusion means that at least some of the constitution\u2019s \u201cbasic structure\u201d is constitutionally entrenched and therefore subject to change only in accordance with the Part V procedures.[25]<\/a> For example, according to the Court, the federal government\u2019s proposed advisory election schemes triggered Part V even though they did not change any constitutional text. The relevant change was architectural; the proposed election schemes would equalize the power of the Senate and the House of Commons. Such equalization would be inconsistent with the assumption, implicit within the constitution\u2019s existing structure, that the Senate is complementary\u2014rather than equal\u2014to the House.<\/p>\n The Court\u2019s conclusion that parts of the constitution\u2019s architecture are entrenched brings the principle set out in OPSEU<\/em>[26]<\/a> into the Part V era. In OPSEU<\/em>, decided under the amending regime that immediately preceded Part V, Justice Beetz concluded that the constitution has a basic structure that neither order of government could unilaterally override. The Reference <\/em>confirms that the same is true today. Part V entails that some of the constitution\u2019s architecture cannot be altered unilaterally by either order of government; it requires the consent of Parliament and the provincial legislatures.<\/p>\n It was always the case that the courts would be involved in the application of Part V. Its design requires interpretation of politically loaded issues, and in Canada\u2019s constitutional democracy, that task falls to the courts.[27]<\/a> After the Reference<\/em>, some of these interpretive uncertainties have been resolved, but others remain or have emerged anew.<\/p>\n We can see a number of the unknowns when we try to identify the conditions in which Part V is triggered. For example, in order to apply the amending formulas, we must know what falls within the \u201cConstitution of Canada\u201d for the purposes of Part V. After the Reference <\/em>and the Supreme Court Act Reference<\/em>, the line between the entrenched and unentrenched parts of the constitution\u2019s architecture is not well defined. The uncertainty arises because the Court held that the \u201centire process\u201d of selecting senators was entrenched by virtue of section 42(1)(b) of the Constitution Act, 1982<\/em>[28]<\/a> but did not specify whether that entire process includes only the legal parts of the process or also includes the conventional and informal ones. If the latter, admittedly an unlikely conclusion, does this mean that introducing any element of Prime Ministerial consultation into the Senate selection process alters the constitution\u2019s architecture and therefore triggers Part V?[29]<\/a> What would be the implications for constitutional conventions generally? We must be cautious of the overentrenchment of conventions, both because of democratic concerns about entrenchment through judicial interpretation and because of concerns about the crystallization of the constitution.<\/p>\n Another uncertainty to be examined after the Reference <\/em>is what type of conduct can amend constitutional architecture for the purposes of Part V. The questions in the Reference <\/em>dealt only with legislative action. But certainly other types of conduct\u2014practices, policies, and decisions\u2014can have transformative constitutional effect. In what forms and at what point can this conduct sustain an amendment? In the context of Senate reform for example, is the Prime Minister\u2019s failure to recommend candidates to the Governor General for appointment reviewable under Part V?[30]<\/a><\/p>\n Further, the Court\u2019s architectural reasoning in the Reference <\/em>lends itself to questions about the limits of Part V. If parts of the architecture of the constitution are entrenched, are there limits to the architectural amendments that are possible under Part V? At some point, the continuity of the constitution runs out. Surely the meaning of the constitution\u2019s animating principles and assumptions can evolve over time, but they are not \u201cinfinitely pliable\u201d.[31]<\/a> Can the internal structure of Part V, designed to capture all possible amendments to the Constitution of Canada,[32]<\/a> contemplate revolutionary change such as repeal of the Charter <\/em>or the abolition of bicameralism?[33]<\/a> Or would such change unfold outside Part V and outside the procedural supervision of the courts?[34]<\/a> Moreover, does the constitution\u2019s architecture, constructed on a foundation of assumptions and principles, sustain an argument for a Canadian basic structure doctrine?<\/p>\n Ultimately, the Reference <\/em>went far in resolving political and legal disputes about whether Parliament can act unilaterally to implement the federal government\u2019s Senate reform agenda. The answer is generally no. Further, it advanced the procedural law of constitutional amendment and established a framework for interpreting Part V, confirming that substance will trump form when applying the amending formulas. That said, within the amending framework, many unknowns and questions remain to be worked out in future cases. Given these questions and Canada\u2019s political history of megaconstitutional reform, these future cases are likely to be more concerned with what can be achieved outside the formal Part V regime altogether than with which amending formula applies to any particular proposal.<\/p>\n In the Reference<\/em>, the Supreme Court served the roles that it is expected to play in constitutional judicial review\u2014umpire, guardian, and advisor.[35]<\/a> As umpire, the Court set out the \u201crules\u201d for amending the constitution, identifying the baseline procedural obligations that government officials must respect in order to reform the Senate within constitutional bounds. The disputes to be refereed dealt with the division of powers under Part V. The Court was asked to decide when Parliament and the provinces must act jointly. As guardian, the Court protected its charge (the constitution) from improper interference (procedurally invalid reform). Interpreting amending procedures is the ultimate task of a constitutional guardian because the procedures safeguard the constitution against illegitimate attempts at change. Finally, as advisor, the Court counseled the federal executive on the proper procedure for amending the constitution. Such advice was needed to resolve political disputes about the legality of the federal government\u2019s methods for pursuing Senate reform.<\/p>\n The umpire, guardian, and advisor metaphors are relational. They describe the Court\u2019s role in relation to other official actors, namely the institutions of the legislative and executive branches of government at the federal and provincial levels. In this sense, they mirror another metaphor\u2014institutional dialogue\u2014that often frames conversations about the Court\u2019s institutional relationships.[36]<\/a> But each of these descriptions has limits. For example, the metaphors of constitutional guardian and umpire are at odds with dialogue. A dialogue is an interaction between equals. Yet as guardian, the Court is obliged to shield the constitution from improper government action. The nature of the guardian role creates a hierarchical relationship between the Court and other government actors, a relationship inconsistent with institutional equality.[37]<\/a> Similarly, an umpire is to be dispassionate in its enforcement of rules. The neutrality expected of an umpire does not sit well with the direct engagement required of a participant in a dialogue.[38]<\/a><\/p>\n The Reference <\/em>highlights another limit, this one to the description of the Court as constitutional advisor.[39]<\/a> An advisor provides guidance or recommendations to its principal, who is then free to accept or reject the advice given. Yet in effect, the Court\u2019s opinions in reference cases are not advisory; they are given the same binding and precedential weight as the Court\u2019s appellate decisions.[40]<\/a> Moreover, in the Reference<\/em>, the Court\u2019s answers to the procedural questions effectively doomed the fate of the federal government\u2019s Senate reform agenda. This outcome was not unexpected. Given political realities in Canada, whenever a reform proposal triggers multilateral obligations, the procedural analysis effectively determines the practical outcome, namely preservation of the status quo.[41]<\/a> Again the effects of the Court\u2019s decision extend beyond simply giving advice.<\/p>\n Questions about whether the Court is an advisor also come up when the Court describes its advisory role as outside the judicial function.[42]<\/a> If the judges are not adjudicating when they hear a reference, what are they doing? And if the Court\u2019s reference role is not adjudicative, should we have concerns about democracy, legitimacy, and ethics given the binding and precedential effects of a reference opinion?[43]<\/a> Are these concerns overcome by the formalities and procedural dimensions of a reference?<\/p>\n The Court\u2019s constitutional roles have been generating debate since long before the Reference <\/em>and will undoubtedly continue to do so. But the Reference <\/em>marks an opportunity to ask whether contemporary descriptions of the Court\u2019s roles adequately capture the range of expectations and aspirations to which we hold the Court. At a minimum, the advisory label requires more nuance to accurately capture and theorize the character of contemporary reference cases at the Court, the institution\u2019s role within them, and their usefulness within Canada\u2019s constitutional order. As a starting point, we should better understand where the Court\u2019s advisory role stands in relation to its adjudicative function.[44]<\/a> Further, we should consider whether the Court\u2019s advisory role is better understood through the frame of a constitutional court.[45]<\/a><\/p>\n In seizing the chance to examine the Court\u2019s roles, new metaphors can be imagined. Scholars have already proposed some options, such as a \u201cpartner in an ongoing dance\u201d[46]<\/a> and a facilitator of intergovernmental dialogue,[47]<\/a> and they have rejected others such as \u201cmirror\u201d and \u201cengineer\u201d.[48]<\/a> From the Reference <\/em>emerges another possible metaphor. The prominence of constitutional architecture in the Court\u2019s reasoning in the Reference<\/em>, alongside the structural concerns fuelling other contemporary constitutional disputes, point to a need to examine the Court\u2019s role both inside the constitution\u2019s architecture as a \u201cconstitutionally essential institution\u201d[49]<\/a> and outside as one of the constitution\u2019s interpreters. Here, three questions come to the fore: Is the Court a constitutional architect? Is this a metaphor that we would want to describe the Court? And is there a problem of mixing metaphors when we focus on \u201cconstitutional architecture\u201d within the \u201cliving tree\u201d?<\/p>\n The Reference <\/em>was heard by eight judges: six appointed by Conservative Prime Ministers, two by Liberals; two judges from Qu\u00e9bec, three from Ontario, one from Atlantic Canada, one from the Prairies, one from British Columbia; three women and five men; all over the age of fifty-five; and no Aboriginal judges, no judges from visible minorities, and no judges who came to the Supreme Court bench directly from practice. There were eighteen parties who made submissions in the case: the Attorney General of Canada; the Attorneys General of all the provinces and territories except the Yukon; two senators; the F\u00e9d\u00e9ration des communaut\u00e9s francophones et acadienne du Canada; the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de l\u2019Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick; and an amicus curiae<\/em> appointed by the Court to make submissions on the merits. Forty lawyers appeared on behalf of these parties. All the parties made both oral and written submissions.<\/p>\n The Reference <\/em>opinion was authored per curiam<\/em>, drafted first in English.<\/em> In its reasons, the Court referred to fifteen cases, all judgments of appellate-level courts. It cited three constitutional texts (Constitution Act, 1867<\/em>, Constitution Act, 1982<\/em>, and Constitution Act, 1965<\/em>, SC 1965, c 4), one statute (Supreme Court Act<\/em>), and four bills. It cited ten texts commissioned or produced by federal government actors. It cited twenty-two academic texts and twenty-three academic authors. Seven of those texts were written in French; three of the authors are women. The Court did not cite any of the expert reports that were included in the record or any sources of foreign law.[50]<\/a> The opinion was 112 paragraphs long and was issued five months after the Reference<\/em> was heard. The hearing was held over three days, ten months after the Governor in Council issued the Notice of Reference. It was the only reference heard by the Court in 2013.<\/p>\n It is hard to know whether any of these numbers are meaningful without situating them within broader trends. On some issues, such analysis is possible. The Supreme Court releases statistics of the Court\u2019s work over ten year periods[51]<\/a> and there has been a trend in the scholarly literature toward empirical study and theorization of the Court\u2019s decision-making process in the modern era.[52]<\/a> As a result, the Reference <\/em>opinion can be read in light of existing studies of whether American models of strategic and attitudinal decision making resonate in the Canadian context (they do not)[53]<\/a> or whether there is a relationship between the party of a Prime Minister who appoints a judge and the judge\u2019s voting patterns (there is not).[54]<\/a> Further, in the empirical spirit, the Reference<\/em> could be read against the range of existing studies on the Court\u2019s decision making. Among other things, these studies investigate who intervenes in the Court\u2019s cases and what effects they have,[55]<\/a> how a particular judge influences the Court,[56]<\/a> how a judge\u2019s role conception affects his or her decision making,[57]<\/a> which jurisprudential theories are reflected in the Court\u2019s decision making,[58]<\/a> whether a judge\u2019s biographical features have any explanatory force,[59]<\/a> and who the Court cites in its reasons.[60]<\/a><\/p>\n Thinking about the Reference <\/em>in relation to empirical trends reveals that scholars who study the Court using quantitative methods have not shown any particular interest in the Court\u2019s advisory role. While this may be explained by the belief that \u201creference questions make up a negligible part of the court\u2019s docket,\u201d[61]<\/a> it is somewhat surprising given the political context of many constitutional references and contemporary scholarly interests in the ideological influences on decision making.<\/p>\n It is also surprising because some empirical study of Supreme Court references could provide a richer framework for understanding individual reference cases. For example, such research could explore the contribution that individual parties make to the Court\u2019s reasoning in references, tracing the impact of submissions by particular provincial Attorneys General, intervening interest groups, and amici curiae<\/em>. This work could shed light not only on who has made an impact in the past, but also on whose voices are missing and which perspectives should be heard when the Court answers constitutional questions.<\/p>\n Quantitative analysis could also measure the extent to which constitutional concepts emerge or qualitatively develop in references and the impact of reference opinions on both lower court reasoning and government policy agendas. It could also reveal whether the frequency of calls for references and the nature of the reference questions posed have changed over time and whether such changes correlate to historical fluctuations in attitudes toward the Court. This research would help us assess the significance of the Court\u2019s reference jurisprudence and inform conversations about when a reference is warranted or desirable. Further, it would help in assessing the value of a reference procedure as a mechanism for managing constitutional disputes. The insights gained from all of this longitudinal knowledge could then contribute to comparative conversations, helping to build cases for or against the inclusion of a reference jurisdiction in constitutional design.<\/p>\n Finally, in contrast to the high courts in some other common law countries, including the United States and Australia, the Canadian Supreme Court is authorized to provide advisory opinions and has a well-established history with references. Accordingly, the Court\u2019s reference cases could be a manageable but meaningful data set for building and testing models of decision making particular to the Canadian Court. Rather than adopting American starting points, these models would start from Canada\u2019s legal, political, philosophical, linguistic, and historical cultures. At the same time, they could aim to account for comparative methods and cross-border institutional interaction in the Court\u2019s reasoning.<\/p>\n Overall, empirical study of references would both contribute to existing areas of research and illuminate new paths of inquiry. It would all contribute to analyses of the advisory jurisdiction\u2019s place in the Court\u2019s institutional design and the Canadian constitutional order. One part of this analysis could assess whether the advisory jurisdiction is one of the Court\u2019s constitutionally entrenched \u201cessential features\u201d,[62]<\/a> protected from unilateral reform by the Part V procedures.[63]<\/a> Another part could consider what might have been, asking what the Canadian constitutional landscape would look like if the Court did not have an advisory jurisdiction[64]<\/a> or if certain references had never been decided. Yet another could look at the experience of upper house reform around the world,[65]<\/a> and compare the Canadian experience of judicial involvement to the purely political processes of other jurisdictions. Together, these analyses would provide a frame through which to consider whether the Reference <\/em>is as significant as it is believed to be.<\/p>\n The Court\u2019s opinion in the Reference <\/em>is an important statement of law but not a final or exhaustive one. It binds political officials seeking to implement a reform agenda; an amendment will be constitutional only with compliance. At the same time, there is much more to the law of constitutional amendment than the rules and principles set out in the judges\u2019 opinion.<\/p>\n These rules and principles exist within a grander normative universe.[66]<\/a> The thresholds of consent specified in Part V and interpreted in the judgment sit alongside multiple sources and types of law. These laws interact. This entire universe bears on actors who try to reform the constitution. Some rules are attributable to official written sources. For example, under section 35.1 of the Constitution Act, 1982<\/em>, the federal and provincial governments must convene a constitutional conference if they intend to amend section 91(24) of the Constitution Act, 1867 <\/em>(\u201cIndians and lands reserved for Indians\u201d) and they must invite \u201crepresentatives of aboriginal peoples of Canada\u201d to discuss the amendment. Similarly, pursuant to the Regional Veto Act<\/em>,[67]<\/a> a Minister of the Crown can only initiate an authorizing resolution under Part V if a majority of the provinces has consented to the amendment.[68]<\/a> The Act <\/em>has a broad definition of what \u201cmajority\u201d means.[69]<\/a><\/p>\n Other sources add to the terrain\u2014common law duties, constitutional conventions, codes of conduct, the expertise of experienced counselors, and so on. Within this landscape, government actors seeking constitutional reform have a duty not to unilaterally interfere with the basic structure of the constitution[70]<\/a> and a duty to bargain in good faith when called to the negotiating table.[71]<\/a> They are expected to respect the conventions of responsible government, the customs of party discipline, and the codes of conduct that structure constitutional conferences.[72]<\/a> They feel the authority of advice from seasoned statespeople; they are led by the example of experienced negotiators; they are influenced by the duties of their office; they have personal moral compasses.[73]<\/a><\/p>\n Within this normative universe, the Reference <\/em>opinion makes an important contribution. It offers official interpretations of law, which are associated with defined institutional processes of enforcement and dispute resolution. It presents reasons for why certain procedures must be followed to lawfully reform the Senate and for why we should think through future cases in particular ways. It offers a public framework for talking about constitutional amendment. It constitutes fodder that could facilitate the negotiation of Senate reform among the provinces or foment existing tensions along federal-provincial lines.[74]<\/a> It broadcasts the message that our constitution calls for consensus.[75]<\/a><\/p>\n But for all that the Reference <\/em>opinion might offer, its normative force is not fixed. Legal normativity is not that simple. It is not just transmitted from state to citizen or court to political actor. The framework, reasons, rules, and principles contemplated in the Reference <\/em>opinion acquire their meaning as they are put into practice. The forms that they take get worked out as legal actors carry out the duties of their offices and interact with each other in the course of their work. Institutional pressures are exerted; normative arguments are made; they interact, converge, and are transformed; assumptions are adjusted; conduct continues. In any situation, the actors navigate the obligations and influences that weigh on them.[76]<\/a> They comply, resist, and adjust their actions and expectations. By doing so, they communicate with other actors and observers.[77]<\/a> The meaning of the judgment, its messages, and its effects depend on the diverse capacities and cultures of the legal subjects who receive them.[78]<\/a> The meanings and effects are therefore fluid; they are shaped, channelled, and expressed by assertions, interactions, aspirations, and narratives.[79]<\/a><\/p>\n This fluidity of the law of constitutional amendment pre-existed the Reference <\/em>and it will continue despite the rhetoric of certainty associated with a Supreme Court judgment. For example, the scope of Part V will continue to be worked out as government actors pursue institutional reform in the future. By witnessing the proposals that are raised and the responses that are given, we will come to make sense (or not) of what triggers the Part V procedures. From this perspective, we can ask, for instance, why the Regional Veto Act<\/em>, which arguably changes the thresholds of consent imposed by Part V, was accepted as constitutionally valid but the Senate Reform Act<\/em> was not. While the reasons are surely not just legal, context would help us to determine how the law can reconcile these outcomes. Further, as actors continue to try to reform the Senate without triggering Part V, whether from inside or outside the Senate,[80]<\/a> the boundaries of Part V will be staked as challenges are raised (or are not) and defences mounted (or not). These boundaries will be provisional, restaked over time with new cases, new actors, and new arguments. Moreover, with each proposal and each negotiation we will come to assess the customs, conventions, and latent norms of constitutional amendment. This fluidity is not unique to the Reference<\/em>; it simply reflects the nature of law.<\/p>\n In this way, the demands of the constitution in the context of constitutional amendment are \u201cworked out through a multi-faceted interaction of understandings and beliefs and commitments\u201d[81]<\/a> and the Court is \u201cbut one…partner in the formulation of those understandings.\u201d[82]<\/a> The Reference <\/em>must always be read\u2014and its significance always assessed\u2014within this broader normative scheme. This is a humbling reading of the Reference<\/em>, one that reminds us that the Court\u2019s judgment is just one part of a much larger conversation about the process for achieving Senate reform. Being humbled by the scope and complexity of the law of formal constitutional amendment might be daunting. Its daunting character could be amplified when we consider that formal constitutional amendment is just one part of constitutional change writ large.<\/p>\n But in whatever way this reading of the Reference<\/em> is daunting it is also an opportunity. It is a chance to think about the work of the Supreme Court in context, in light of the diverse legal terrain in which the Court operates and from which disputes emerge. It is also a chance to see a messier side of normative experience at home in the legal sphere and to ask what this messiness means for our assessments of the Court\u2019s significance. Further still, it is an opportunity to see how the most seemingly state-centric, public law issues and institutions are inextricably tied to social life and human agency. To the extent that this is not the usual starting point for thinking about the Court and its work, that which is humbling or daunting also points to further routes of inquiry. I examine these routes of inquiry, and the need for them, in Part II.<\/a><\/p>\n The four readings set out in Part I focus on one opinion of the Supreme Court. But in focusing on the work of the Court, the readings also say something about the Court as an institution. More specifically, they say something about how the Court as an institution is understood. In this Part, I explore those understandings, arguing that contemporary dominant narratives do not say enough about the Court as an institution in a world in which the nature of law and the experience of legal normativity are not defined by proximity to the state. I contend that this gap should be filled in order to get a better grasp on why and in what ways we should care about the Court today. I propose a research agenda aimed at securing that grasp. The claim is that pursuing this agenda can help us to consider the ways in which the Court matters\u2014and does not\u2014in our diverse social realities and complex legal landscapes.<\/p>\n There is no universal understanding of the Court as an institution. The contemporary written record about the Court is vast.[83]<\/a> It tells many stories from various perspectives. Some have taken hold in popular discourse and legal culture, while others have not. Some have oriented around common themes, while others have resisted. Within the broad strokes of these stories and themes, two storylines are particularly prominent.<\/p>\n The first is a story about how the Court came to be a significant institution in Canada. As the story goes, the Court was quiet for a century.[84]<\/sup><\/a> It was \u201canonymous\u201d,[85]<\/sup><\/a> \u201ccaptive\u201d,[86]<\/sup><\/a> and a \u201cminor blip on the Canadian political scene.\u201d[87]<\/sup><\/a> It suffered the effects of political ambivalence and public doubt.[88]<\/sup><\/a> It deferred to the Privy Council;[89]<\/sup><\/a> it lacked support from the legal profession;[90]<\/a> and it made the provinces nervous with its power of centralization.[91]<\/sup><\/a> Yet according to the story, the Court became prominent and loud in the latter half of the twentieth century. This Court shed its timid reputation gradually: appeals to the Privy Council ended; the Court gained control over its docket; and the Charter <\/em>and the principle of constitutional supremacy were entrenched.[92]<\/a> The modern Court\u2019s voice is powerful, heard in homes, workplaces, churches, elections, and schools across the country. This is the \u201cconstitutionally essential\u201d Court,[93]<\/sup><\/a> home to the \u201cmost important decision-makers in Canada.\u201d[94]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n The second dominant storyline recounts what is thought to be important about the Supreme Court today. It is a storyline that tells of the Court\u2019s power, its judges, their judgments, and their processes of decision making. It tells of a Court that is one of Canada\u2019s most vocal and powerful public institutions. It recounts stories about the many hats the Court is expected to wear\u2014final court of appeal, constitutional umpire, national advisor, policy maker,[95]<\/a> symbol of national pride, centralizing force, and guardian of rights\u2014and about the Court\u2019s many successes and failures in performing these roles. Along this storyline, the Court either runs our lives or is largely irrelevant. It is either a bulwark against abuses of majority power or an unwelcome interloper in the policy agenda of elected officials. Its judges are either respectful of interested parties or colonized by interest groups. It should both be reformed and stay the same. Whatever the case, the Court is legally, socially, and politically significant.<\/p>\n These narratives and the individual contributions from which they are constructed reflect (either implicitly or explicitly) certain beliefs about law. This makes sense. The way that we think about law informs our inquiry into it.[96]<\/a> It bears on the way that we design our legal procedures and institutions. It shapes our expectations of these institutions and our calls for their reform. Moreover, it coalesces in the legal narratives that we tell ourselves and that we find persuasive.[97]<\/a> It follows that the way we think about law shapes the way that we think about the Supreme Court, the way that we study it, the way that we read its cases, and the stories we tell to make sense of them.[98]<\/a> It informs the questions that we ask about the Court and the range of answers that we conceive of as possible. This relationship is reciprocal; by asking certain questions and considering certain answers, we reinforce the beliefs about law that shape the questions and answers.<\/p>\n The contributors to the modern written record about the Court do not all hold the same beliefs or assumptions about law. The record is theoretically and methodologically rich. But despite this richness, the dominant narratives exist against a background of common basic beliefs and assumptions about law. These basic beliefs and assumptions coalesce into a dominant \u201cethos\u201d or paradigm.[99]<\/a> When authors and readers share basic assumptions about law, a story can take certain starting points for granted and a dominant narrative can emerge. The corresponding ethos need not line up precisely with well-defined theories. Rather it can embody a set of prominent values, attitudes, and aesthetic commitments.[100]<\/a> The ethos then makes sense of the narratives and the narratives make sense within the paradigm.[101]<\/a><\/p>\n In thinking about prevailing legal paradigms and the study of the Supreme Court, two lines of thought in twentieth-century Anglo-American legal theory are of particular interest. The first is the entrenchment of legal centralism, the belief that law is a centre around which events unfold and that the state, its institutions, and its officials are at the centre of law.[102]<\/a> In Anglo-American orthodoxy, centralism is often associated with monism, the belief that law is a coherent, autonomous system, and positivism, the view that law\u2019s validity flows from its source (i.e. the state).[103]<\/a> Together, these beliefs have contributed to an ethos that values order, authority, objectivity, and formality when it comes to law.[104]<\/a><\/p>\n The second line of thought is a manifestation of the first. It reflects a preoccupation with judges and judicial decision making within conversations about the nature of law. This preoccupation can be seen in intellectual lineages connecting Austin to Gray and the legal realists at midcentury through to the Hart-Fuller and Hart-Dworkin debates in the latter half of the twentieth century.[105]<\/a> Along these lineages, theories of judicial decision making were blended into theories of the nature of law. In addition, it became commonplace to explore the relationship between law and values in terms of the judicial method and role.<\/p>\n These two currents of twentieth century Anglo-American legal thought resonate in the dominant narrative of the Court. <\/em>When the standard account is preoccupied by state law and when the nature of law is tied to what judges say and do, it makes sense for us to be particularly interested in the paraphernalia of official law\u2014judges, legislators, courts, constitutions, statutes, and judgments. Further, it can be taken for granted that the Supreme Court and its judges are worth studying and that the judgments of the Court are authoritative and normative. It makes sense to focus on adjudication as the primary mode of decision making at the Court. This focus seems to be justified even though the Court operates through multiple decision-making processes, methods, and forms. It makes sense for us to be preoccupied with power struggles between official institutions and to frame inquiries about the Court\u2019s influence in terms of institutional relationships rather than interaction among citizens. Further, it makes sense that we look to the Court rather than communities to learn the meaning of the constitution. Collectively, it makes sense to focus on these particular issues because this is where the prevailing understanding of law encourages us to look.<\/p>\n These currents resonate in some of the ways we read the Reference<\/em>. For example, they draw our attention to the power dynamics between the Court and other institutions of governance. When reading the Reference<\/em>, we then ask questions about the effects of the Court\u2019s Reference <\/em>decision on legislative and executive agendas. The dominant narratives and beliefs also draw our attention to the Court\u2019s judges and their process of decision making. We then collect qualitative and quantitative data on certain issues that are important within the paradigm (e.g. voting patterns, adherence to stare decisis<\/em>, attitudinal and strategic influences) but not others (e.g. the normative effects of interacting legal orders). Moreover, the dominant paradigms compel us to analyze the coherence of the Court\u2019s jurisprudence. Accordingly, we examine the Reference <\/em>in light of the doctrinal significance of constitutional architecture and interpretive ambiguities that must be worked out in future cases of constitutional amendment.<\/p>\n Ultimately, an ethos of centralism and judge-centricity makes sense of the prominence of the Supreme Court in the study and scholarship of law generally. In both legal education and scholarship, it is rarely necessary to justify the study of the Court or its judgments\u2014the importance of the exercise is immediately obvious because it is consistent with basic premises of our legal paradigms.<\/p>\n Whenever we confront propositions that conflict with the way we usually understand the world, we have choices. We can try to accommodate the conflicting view within our current understanding. Or we can dismiss it as an outlier that need not be explained. Alternatively, we can adopt the conflicting view as our primary explanatory model.[106]<\/a> Or we can ask what the conflicting view helps us understand about the world and about our current understanding of it.<\/p>\n In the next two sections of this paper, I propose that we think about the Court through a lens that is not the usual one. That is, I argue that there is merit to studying the Court through the lens of legal pluralism. A skeptical reader may be looking for a defence of the pluralist outlook from the outset. This skeptic would ask: What do we gain by expanding the definition of law to include non-state normative orders? Why do we need to include non-state orders within the concept of law in order to study the Court and its work in relation to them?<\/p>\n The skeptic is right to ask these questions. It is true that we need not adopt a pluralist understanding of law in order to see or study unofficial normative orders or to think about the Court\u2019s relationship to them. However, reflecting on the skeptic\u2019s questions both reveals the pull of legal orthodoxies and reinforces the merit in considering alternatives. Both support the rethinking that this paper seeks to promote.<\/p>\n First, the pull of orthodoxies. Asking what there is to gain from expanding the concept of law to include non-state orders is not a neutral question. When the question is posed in these terms, we presuppose that source is the key feature of law. This brings us into positivist territory from the outset. Understandings of law that do not identify pedigree as the defining characteristic of law are automatically excluded, alienated, or undermined.[107]<\/a> The question also suggests that centralism is the starting point for any discussion of law and that non-state law must always be defended or justified as such.[108]<\/a> The point here is not that centralism and positivism are incorrect assumptions about law. The point is to remember that they are assumptions. To ask the question in a way that prioritizes source and state presupposes the answer being sought.<\/p>\n Second, the merit of exploring alternatives. The skeptic\u2019s questions could, in the tradition of analytical jurisprudence, reflect a primary concern with understanding the nature of law through the analysis of key legal concepts. While the truth seeking and descriptive orientation of analytical jurisprudence can also take us into positivist territory, the more important focus for the purposes of this paper is the understanding of law and legal theory embedded within the analytical approach. Unlike the analytical tradition, this paper rests on the premise that doing legal theory is a way to consider how our beliefs about law shape the way that we see the world. It is also a chance to consider how those beliefs help us pursue our goals or hinder our pursuits. In this sense, the goal of doing legal theory is not to uncover universal truths about law. Rather it is to remind us that what we think are the best or only ways of understanding law or acting in relation to law are contingent. Further, it is to encourage us to explore whether there are better ways of understanding and acting when it comes to law given our particular aims and aspirations.[109]<\/a><\/p>\n In this paper, therefore, I am not trying to persuade the skeptical reader that a pluralist outlook necessarily captures the true conception of law. A conception of law is neither true nor false. Rather it has either more or less merit when measured against one or more other criteria. When it comes to the study of institutions then, the question for theorists should be whether thinking through a particular lens can help us realize the institutions that we want and need, in light of the world that we have and to which we each aspire.<\/p>\n At the end of the day, the skeptic can find value in the methodology of this paper without accepting a pluralist outlook. By juxtaposing the dominant narrative of the Court against an alternative narrative that is grounded in a different conception of law, we can come to see the dominant narrative and the assumptions of law that sustain it more clearly. Such is the essence of a comparative exercise of jurisprudence. In this sense, the exercise might help us to better articulate justifications of the status quo. Or, it might help us take advantage of the \u201cgreat merit of legal pluralism,\u201d which is that \u201cit demands that we surrender the privileged epistemic perspective of our own law, and use the insights provided by others\u2019 to consider our own afresh.\u201d[110]<\/a><\/p>\n The dominant narratives about the Court, and the beliefs about law that they reflect, help us think about some institutional aspects of the Court. As noted above, they draw our attention to power dynamics between the branches of government, to the legal and ideological influences on judicial decision making, to jurisprudential coherence, and to the doctrinal and social impact of the Court\u2019s work. However, the dominant narratives and paradigm are not helpful for understanding all aspects of the Court or its institutional life. They encourage us to accept rather than question the legal authority and normative force of the Court\u2019s judgments. In particular, they encourage us to accept the legal authority and normative force of these judgments in official processes like constitution making or constitutional reform.<\/p>\n Moreover, when it is assumed that official law is at the top of the legal hierarchy and that its importance is justified within the rational democratic state,[111]<\/a> there is little motivation within law to explore how various legal orders (state, family, work, indigenous, customary, global, and local) freely interact and have reciprocal normative effects both before, during, and after a case at the Court. Rather, we most often focus on how the state legal order should either accommodate or dismiss non-state norms. This approach may promote certainty and predictability within law, but it does not resonate with the individual experience of navigating a range of rules in everyday life or making legal arguments or decisions.[112]<\/a> Nor does it do justice to the complexity that characterizes today\u2019s legal landscape.<\/p>\n Further, when state law is prioritized over other legal orders, we are not compelled to study the customs and internal ordering of the Court as issues of law. As a result, we miss out on asking about the \u201cinner morality\u201d of the Court as an institution, about how the institutional form of the Court measures up against the criteria of legality.[113]<\/a> Moreover, we tend not to inquire into what work the institutional form of the Court does in \u201cshaping the lives, roles, expectations and agency of those participating within it.\u201d[114]<\/a><\/p>\n Some of the issues that are of little importance within the dominant paradigm are those that come to mind in particular with the fourth reading\u2014the contextual reading\u2014of the Reference<\/em>. This reading conjures an image of the Court that is supreme within the judicial pyramid of the official legal order, but which does not have the final word on the meaning of the constitution. On this reading, the Court\u2019s judgment is one legal artifact among many that weigh on legal decisions and actions. In the context of the Reference<\/em>, the contextual reading suggests that government actors must respect the Court\u2019s interpretation of Part V, but that the ways in which the interpretation gets meaning, the way in which the prescribed thresholds of consent are reached, and the ways that the process of constitutional amendment actually unfold get worked out by the actors involved. The law is not contained within the Court\u2019s judgment and the Reference <\/em>opinion is not a fixed map for how to lawfully amend the constitution. Rather it is one contribution to the evolving legal landscape and to the ongoing enterprise of lawfully pursuing and realizing constitutional change.<\/p>\n The contextual reading reflects a perspective that takes seriously the many different laws and legal orders that operate in any given situation. These laws and legal orders do not always, if often, orient around the state. They are expressed in multiple sources\u2014experience, offices, morality, professional codes, political conventions, the constitution, statutes, legal tradition, and so on. This reading also takes legal actors seriously\u2014the individual is not an abstract entity who is merely subject to law that is imposed from above or outside. Rather, he or she is a legal agent, one who makes law and legal meaning through personal judgment and interaction with others. On this reading, law exists in the spaces within and between people. It is not separate from the cultures, traditions, languages, communities, and realities in which it is lived, practiced, and understood. Rather, law is inextricably tied to context. It is not knowable in the abstract. Accordingly, the normative weight of a particular rule cannot be assumed by virtue of its source or its merit. The authority of a particular institution cannot be assumed by virtue of its status. The constitutional character of a rule cannot be assumed by virtue of its formal entrenchment.[115]<\/a><\/p>\n The contextual reading of the Reference <\/em>confronts us with questions about the Court itself. In particular we are confronted by questions about the Court\u2019s significance. In a world with so much law, both official and unofficial, and in which legal agents\u2014in all their diversity and normative messiness\u2014are \u201cirreducible site[s] of normativity,\u201d[116]<\/a> of what significance is a single court, even a \u201csupreme\u201d one? If we then extend the inquiry by looking across the legal landscape, we see that law is both globalized across traditional borders and localized in the diverse lives of individuals. Moreover, we see that there is perpetual disagreement about the rules that govern any particular situation and the claims made to justify various positions on these rules.[117]<\/a> Within this landscape of legal complexity, it is fair to ask why we should care about the work of a national, domestic court. Moreover, to the extent that we should care, we must also consider the lines along which our caring and attention should be directed.<\/p>\n The contextual reading\u2014and the questions that flow from it\u2014align more closely with a pluralist ethos or perspective than with the dominant paradigm.[118]<\/a> Legal pluralism as a theory or hypothesis about law comes in many versions\u2014weak and strong, colonial, new, and critical. To cut through the variation, we can think of legal pluralism in terms of themes\u2014the hermeneutic, the plural, the adaptive, and the decentering.[119]<\/a> We can also think of it as an ethos, as a pluralist method, movement, or attitude. A pluralist ethos is found \u201cwherever there is a critique of the autonomy and separateness of law, and, wherever the coherence of law as a neutral system of norms derived simply from state authority is challenged.\u201d[120]<\/a> Within this ethos, law is fully embedded in social life, it is historically and politically contingent, and the possibilities for legal decision making are indeterminate and essentially plural.[121]<\/a><\/p>\n The merits of thinking of law in pluralist terms will always depend on the inquiry being pursued and the specifics of the pluralist understanding at issue. In general, however, a pluralist perspective is significant (and preferable) both empirically and conceptually. Empirically, it offers a way of thinking about law that is inextricably human. It accounts for the unofficial normative environments of our lives and the \u201ctacit legal regulation\u201d that makes official law possible.[122]<\/a> At the same time, it accounts for the ways in which official law \u201creaches into the lives of legal subjects\u201d[123]<\/a> but posits the individual as a legal agent who can navigate and transform official law.[124]<\/a> It draws attention to social and normative diversity and difference in social life,[125]<\/a> highlighting the interaction of various normative commitments in both everyday and official experience. It aims to account for both law as implicit social agreement[126]<\/a> and law as a moment of settling the fundamental normative disagreements that are inevitable in diverse societies.[127]<\/a> Conceptually, it recognizes law\u2019s openness, contextuality, and limits.[128]<\/a> It rejects centralism, positivism, monism, and prescriptivism as inherent features of law.[129]<\/a> It denies that law is knowable only\u2014or even primarily\u2014as objective knowledge.[130]<\/a><\/p>\n There is nothing new about pluralism as a legal theory or as an ethos, either as an empirical claim or a theoretical lens.[131]<\/a> And it is reflected in various forms in existing scholarship about the Supreme Court and even more so in critical analyses of the Court\u2019s jurisprudence.[132]<\/a> The Court is a bijural institution, one that confronts and invokes foreign and international law and which must navigate Canada\u2019s civil, common, and Aboriginal law traditions. No one would seriously argue that official law is the only normative order that informs human conduct. The normative force of the family, the religious community, and the workplace are well established. And yet understandings of the Court as an institution often do not account for these other normative orders. The Court is often treated as if it is separate from non-state normativity and as if, when it confronts other normative orders through its cases, judgments, and processes, the \u201creal\u201d legal questions have to do with how the state legal order should deal with those other orders in order to settle the law.<\/p>\n Ultimately, thinking about the Reference <\/em>and the Court from a pluralist perspective draws our attention to legal issues, questions, frameworks, and answers that are not priorities from a centralist or positivist perspective. In the next section, I sketch part of a research agenda that flows from such a perspective, focusing in particular on the constitutional dimensions of the agenda and issues that flow from the Reference.<\/em> In presenting this agenda, I aim to show why pursuing it has merit.<\/p>\n There is no single research agenda that flows from a pluralist study of the Court. Pluralism is itself plural[133]<\/a> and the possible lines of inquiry are vast. Here I point to six parts of a research agenda. As a whole, the agenda is intended to be suggestive rather than exhaustive. To pursue the lines of inquiry presented here is to pursue an understanding of the Supreme Court of Canada in today\u2019s legal world, a world characterized by legal complexity and social diversity, a world in which law is global and local, pervasive and obsolete, in perpetual flux. Further, it is to pursue an understanding of the Court\u2019s relationship to law given the theoretical implications of law\u2019s empirical complexities. There are many directions in which such an agenda could go. This one focuses on the directions that make sense in the context of the Reference<\/em>, those dealing with the constitutional, the transformational, the normative, the institutional, and the interpretive.<\/p>\n The first area of inquiry deals with normativity. It asks, as Van Praagh has done in the context of issues of identity, how we can reconcile the limited influence that the Court has in our everyday negotiations of life and the \u201cheavy responsibility\u201d that the Court bears as it \u201cchooses and wields concepts\u201d that have an impact on those negotiations.[134]<\/a> It encourages us to explore the possibility that the Court\u2019s relationship to law is both less and more than is captured by the dominant narrative and to assess the implications of this possibility. On this view, the relationship is less because the Court\u2019s legal supremacy dims as its judgments take their place on the crowded map of normative possibilities that weigh on the everyday lives of individuals and communities. Our lives are governed by customs, regulations, and codes outside of official statutes, constitutions, and cases. In any particular social situation, the Court\u2019s judgments must be understood alongside claims made by the other legal orders at play. And in practice, the meaning and normative force of the Court\u2019s judgments will always depend in part on how individuals navigate the overlapping normative claims that bear on their lives[135]<\/a> and how communities integrate statements of official law into their everyday practices.[136]<\/a> The official law cannot be understood without attention to context and social practice.[137]<\/a><\/p>\n At the same time, the Court\u2019s relationship to law is also more because the crowded map of normative possibilities puts the Court and its judgments in potential interaction with countless other norms and institutions. Moreover, the Court has \u201ca range of interpretive choices as it goes about the task of making decisions.\u201d[138]<\/a> Given the Court\u2019s position within the Canadian polity, the stakes of both its more and less positions are high.<\/p>\n This perspective compels us to abandon the assumption that the existence of state law and the institutional legal order explain normativity.[139]<\/a> Any commitment to this assumption overlooks the fact that the existence of a phenomenon, such as a judicial decision, says nothing about why humans act the way that they do and that there are many reasons why people might act in ways that appear to resist or comply with law.[140]<\/a> This understanding of normativity sometimes plays out in the dominant narrative about the Court as a \u201creverence for claims of authority based on expertise or on formal status\u201d and as a belief that the official pedigree of a judgment of the Court is sufficient justification for its invocation in decision making and dispute resolution.[141]<\/a> Further, it plays out as an assumption that the Court\u2019s judgments have normative force and that the content of the \u201cCourt\u2019s law\u201d is directly determined by the linguistic content of the judgment.[142]<\/a><\/p>\n But neither the dominant narrative of the Court nor the standard account of law that underlies it actually explains the force of the Court\u2019s judgments in human behaviour and in daily life. By assuming a necessary connection between the existence of official rules and human conduct, the nature of the relationship between normativity and the Court becomes a non-issue. An understanding of the Court shaped by a pluralist conception of law makes the character of this relationship an issue rather than an assumption. Indeed, with its focus on individuals and lived law, a pluralist narrative of the Court calls for an investigation of the normative effects of the Court\u2019s work in our lives as individuals, as officials, as office-holders, as members of communities, and so on.<\/p>\n The second area of inquiry deals with the interaction of legal orders, traditions, cultures, and norms. The centralist and monist account of law is not very helpful in addressing the issue of overlapping and interacting normative orders. In the story of the state legal order, official law and its corresponding institutions are at the top of the legal hierarchy and their paramount importance is justified within the rational democratic state.I.\u00a0 Four Readings of the Reference<\/em><\/h1>\n
<\/a>A.\u00a0 The Doctrinal<\/h2>\n
<\/a>B.\u00a0 The Metaphorical<\/h2>\n
<\/a>C.\u00a0 The Institutional<\/h2>\n
<\/a>D. The Contextual<\/h2>\n
II. Reading the Readings<\/h1>\n
<\/a>A. Dominant Narratives<\/h2>\n
<\/a>B.\u00a0 Theoretical Narratives<\/h2>\n
<\/a>C.\u00a0 Pluralist Narratives<\/h2>\n
<\/a>D. Future Narratives<\/h2>\n