Book Review of Constitutional Amendment in Canada by Emmett Macfarlane, Ed.

Abstract

Constitutional Amendment in Canada, edited by political scientist Emmett Macfarlane, seeks “to fill the gap in scholarly analysis of the political and legal implications" of the amendment formulas in the Constitution Act, 1982. In many respects, the book achieves its objective and functions as a sextant with which to navigate the Constitution’s amendment formulas as well as recent Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence. This review highlights some of the many excellent contributions to the book, explains why constitutional politics is an important dimension that is missing from the analysis, and critically evaluates one of the main claims in the book that the amendment formulas unduly limit important public policy objectives.