Balancing Legality and Legitimacy in Canada's COVID-19 Response

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has delivered an impossible balancing act for democracies. As a public health crisis that demands exceptional measures to contain, the pandemic has forced democratic governments to reconcile competing obligations to legality, political legitimacy, and emergency response. In Canada, we have seen provincial governments impose emergency orders that severely curtail civil liberties. Meanwhile, the federal government has assumed enormous spending powers for crisis relief. While these measures may be necessary to mitigate the pandemic’s worst effects, they also threaten the country’s fundamental commitments to democracy, constitutionalism, and the Rule of Law. This paper analyzes how political and legal controls have operated to ensure that emergency measures strike an appropriate balance between legal rights, democratic norms, and crisis response. While a conclusive assessment of Canada’s COVID-19 response would be premature, I find an emerging picture of a measured approach that is responsive to political and legal controls – not only preserving legality and legitimacy, but sustaining the public trust that is essential to resolving a crisis like COVID-19.