From the MVR to Chaoulli v. Quebec: The Road Not Taken and the Future of Section 7

Abstract

The Court’s decisions in the MVR and Chaoulli v. Quebec serve as bookends for this paper. Its goal of providing a holistic account of the guarantee begins with the saga of “MV logic” and its dominance in the jurisprudence. From there attention shifts to the interpretation of section 7’s two clauses, and is followed by a discussion of the choices the Court must consider in deciding what to do with section 7. The discussion proceeds in three stages. A first section explains what MV logic is, and shows how its institutional conception of review was destined to fail. That part analyzes the evolution of the section 7 jurisprudence and provides the foundation for the rest of the paper.The next section turns to the Court’s interpretation of section 7’s two clauses and explains the shifting methodologies it employs to give them meaning.

Keywords: Canadian Charter, s. 7, Interpretation, MVR, Chaoulli v. Quebec,

JEL Classification: K10