🇨🇦 Listen to ordinary people, then quote Jean Monnet

The sharpest tell was not Glenn Joyal saying judges must listen to ordinary Canadians. It was a Supreme Court nominee wrapping himself in institutional piety, then reaching for Jean Monnet, patron saint of post-national bureaucracy, as reported. Nothing says trust the people like citing the architect of European integration while angling for a seat on Canada’s most activist bench.

Joyal admits judges have been taking up a huge footprint in society since the Charter, then sells the usual line about demagogy and disinformation corroding faith in institutions. Translation: the public noticed courts increasingly shape policy while facing almost no democratic accountability. He calls himself an institutionalist and talks about a symbiotic role between Parliament and the Court. Canadians should hear the subtext clearly: the managerial state governing by robe, committee, and constitutional sermon. After the Trudeau era hollowed out trust, the answer from Ottawa’s class is not humility, restraint, or sovereignty. It is better messaging from the same insulated elite machine.

🍁 Maple Chronicles