COURT TRACKER SUMMARY REPORT

COURT TRACKER SUMMARY REPORT SUPREME COURT OF CANADA 2000-2016 PORTIA PROCTOR 08 JANUARY 2017

2 ABOUT THE MANNING CENTRE

MANNING CENTRE The Manning Centre s vision is of a freer, stronger, better-governed Canada. Our mission is to strengthen the values, knowledge, ethics, skills, communication capabilities, and leadership capacities of Canada s political participants who share our founding values and principles through research, training, and networking. Those guiding principles are: Maximize freedom, responsibility, and accountability Pursue market-based solutions to public problems Live within our means, fiscally and ecologically Decentralize economic and political power through subsidiarity Strengthen grassroots democracy and democratic institutions Respect Canada s cultural, religious and democratic traditions This report was funded by the Manning Foundation, a registered charity that falls under the Manning Centre trademark. 3

PETER MCCAFFREY ABOUT THE AUTHOR 4

PORTIA PROCTOR Portia Proctor is currently in her final year of undergraduate studies at McGill University, with aspirations to pursue a legal career. Her fascination with the judicial branch of government, combined with her passion for the law, is what motivated her to initiate this project while working as a Research and Data Intern at the Manning Centre. Portia is the Vice-President of the Pre-Law Moot Court Team and the Chair of the McGill Invitational Mooting Tournament. Portia has also served as an editor for the Undergraduate Psychology Journal and the McGill International Review, and debated at the provincial level. 5

6 CONTENTS

I. Executive Summary.... 8 II. Introduction...... 12 III. Methodology...... 14 IV. Cases........ 16 V. Justices....... 28 VI. Coalitions....... 36 VII. Conclusion....... 46 VIII. Notes....... 48 7

8 I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The decisions that emerge from the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) constitute an expression and application of law that are binding on lower courts and that profoundly impact current and future government policies. An essential part of government accountability and transparency is the ability of the public to follow, understand, and assess the decisions made by agents of the state, such as Supreme Court Justices. In one year, the SCC hears seventy or more cases, some of which will make the news, but many will not receive much public attention at all. While all cases are publicly accessible on the website of the Canadian Legal Information Institute, who provide a valuable public service, the format in which the information is presented is suited to looking up individual cases and does not lend itself to broader analysis. Transparency is not measured by the availability of public information, but rather by the ability to understand the data and by the capacity to draw one s own conclusions from it. Thus, the aim of the Court Tracker project is to take data coming from Canadian courts and present it in a useful and more easily understood format that enhances public knowledge. This report examines 1,184 official SCC cases, released between January 2000 and June 2016. This time period coincides with Chief Justice McLachlin s appointment as Chief Justice of the Court on January 7, 2000. The analysis is conducted across a wide variety of measures, including number of cases (per year, per province, per type of law ), Justice voting patterns, and coalitions. The principal results of this report are summarized below, beginning with the first case released in 2000, on January 13, 2000, and ending with the case released on June 30, 2016: 9

The Supreme Court of Canada heard a total of 1,184 cases in the 16.5 years covered by this report - an average of 72 cases per year. The vast majority of cases originated from Provincial Courts of Appeal (87.2%), followed by the Federal Court of Appeal (11.8%). Cases largely originated from four provinces: Ontario (30.7%), Quebec (23.8%), British Columbia (20.3%), and Alberta (10.5%). A majority of cases involved either criminal law (35.5%) or constitutional issues (26.1%). Cases were often decided by very large margins: 36% of cases by 7 votes (8-1 or 7-0), and 27.4% of cases unanimously by 9 votes (9-0). The appellant (the party that brings the appeal) was most often an individual (47.6%), followed by a government entity (29.6%), a company (17.2%), and a nonprofit (5.2%). The respondent (the party responding to the appeal) was most often a government entity (47.1%), followed by an individual (28.4%), a company (14.9%), and a nonprofit (5.7%). An appeal was brought to the SCC as of right in 10.5% of cases. Appeals were dismissed in 53.7% of cases, allowed in 39.6% of cases, and allowed in part in 4.9% of cases. Chief Justice McLachlin took part in the verdict of the largest number of cases: 988 out of 1,184 (83.4%), followed by Justice Lebel: 927 out of 1,184 (78.3%), and Justice Binnie: 797 out of 1,184 (67.3%). This is not surprising as Chief Justice McLachlin sat on the court for the entire period covered by this report and is now the longest serving Chief Justice and third longest serving Justice in SCC history. Of the decisions Chief Justice McLachlin took part in, she joined the majority opinion in 91.5% of cases, concurred with the result but presented different reasoning in 2.6% of cases, dissented in whole in 5.4% of cases, and dissented in part in 0.5% of cases. 10

TRUE FREEDOM REQUIRES THE RULE OF LAW AND JUSTICE, AND A JUDICIAL SYSTEM IN WHICH THE RIGHTS OF SOME ARE NOT SECURED BY THE DENIAL OF RIGHTS TO OTHERS. - Jonathan Sacks 11

12 II. INTRODUCTION

The decisions that emerge from the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) constitute an expression and application of law that are binding on lower courts and that profoundly impact current and future government policies. While all cases are publicly accessible on the website of the Canadian Legal Information Institute, who provide a valuable public service, the format in which the information is presented is suited to looking up individual cases and doesn t lend itself to broader analysis. Transparency is not measured by the availability of public information, but rather by the ability to understand the data and by the capacity to draw one s own conclusions from it. Thus, the aim of the Court Tracker project is to take data coming from Canadian courts and present it in a useful and more easily understood format that enhances public knowledge. Extensive research of this kind has been conducted on the United States Supreme Court, including a project by Andrew Martin and Kevin Quinn that mapped out ideological leanings of U.S. Supreme Court Justices. Until now, however, only limited quantitative analysis has been conducted into the Supreme Court of Canada. Court Tracker takes this idea of statistical analysis of courts and combines it with a proven methodology adapted from the Manning Centre s existing Council Tracker project, which tracks the votes of councillors in cities across Canada. If proven a success, this project could easily expand to cover the entire history of the SCC, as well as lower federal and provincial courts. 13

14 III. METHODOLOGY

This report examines 1,184 official SCC cases, released between January 2000 and June 2016. The first case in this report is the first decision released in 2000, on January 13, 2000, and the last case is the decision released on June 30, 2016, that marks the halfway point for the year 2016. This report uses the database of SCC cases made publicly accessible by the Canadian Legal Information Institute, at www.canlii.org. Each case and each Justice s position was manually entered into a spreadsheet and classified according to a wide variety of criteria, including the type of appellant, type of respondent, result of appeal, origin of the case, type of law, and more. This database and accompanying analysis simply reports what has occurred in each SCC case and does not attempt to judge the merits of any decisions. These criteria were selected as they are available for every SCC decision and are objective, meaning no subjective interpretation was required. Occasionally, the type of law was not clearly indicated, but a perusal of the facts made the classification possible. In addition, the type of appellant and respondent were not explicitly included in the SCC decisions, but it was often very clear from looking at the names of the parties involved. The start and end dates for the term of a Justice do not always lead to a clear delineation between courts, creating occasional overlaps, but an effort was made to ensure court permutations use reasonable dates. As Chief Justice McLachlin has been on the SCC for the entire period of this report, it is possible to conduct a more in-depth analysis of her positions and how they have evolved over the course of her term. 15

16 IV. CASES

The Supreme Court heard a total of 1,184 cases in 16.5 years or, on average, 72 cases per year. The Court took on the greatest number of cases in the year 2001 (94 cases) and the fewest number in the year 2007 (54 cases). Even though the 2016 figure represents only half a year, it is still lower than expected. Based on the years 2000 to 2015, the average number of cases that had been heard by the end of June was 40, yet only 26 cases had been heard by the end of June 2016. Figure 1 Total number of cases per year (2000 to mid-2016) # OF CASES PER YEAR 26 54 59 62 69 69 67 66 65 75 75 73 77 86 82 85 94 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 17

The average decision length, excluding headnotes, consisted of 11,036 words, or about 24.5 pages. The shortest decision length was 82 words or about 0.2 of a page, while the longest was 77,601 words or about 172.4 pages. The length of cases was unusually low for 2016, and because these figures represent averages, this is relevant despite the figure representing only half a year. The average decision length for a case between January and June in 2016 was 7,529 words, or 16.7 pages, which is significantly lower (by 35%) from the average length of 11,121 words, or 24.7 pages, in the previous 16 years. Figure 2 Average length (words) of decisions per year (2000 to mid-2016) AVERAGE WORDS 7,529 10,054 11,077 13,545 10,407 9,343 9,681 10,831 10,413 12,178 10,969 11,308 9,558 11,527 9,406 13,425 15,334 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 18

Cases originated from a Provincial Court of Appeal 87.2% of the time, from the Federal Court of Appeal 11.8% of the time, from the Martial Appeal Court of Canada 0.3% of the time, and from the Superior Court of Canada 0.1% of the time. The court origin was unknown (not listed) 0.6% of the time. There was no significant change in the breakdown of the origins of cases over the 16.5 years covered by this report. Figure 3 Total number of cases per court origin (2000 to mid-2016) TOTAL # 3 1 7 140 1033 Federal Court of Appeal Provincial Court of Appeal Martial Appeal Court of Canada Superior Court of Justice Unknown 19

Perhaps unsurprisingly, cases largely originated from the four largest provinces. Cases originated in Ontario 30.7% of the time, Quebec 23.8% of the time, British Columbia 20.3% of the time, and Alberta 10.5% of the time. 14 cases had two location origins and 1 case had four location origins - these cases were added to multiple locations, so totals are not exact. Figure 4 - Total number of cases per province (2000 to mid-2016) # OF CASES PER PROVINCE 5 6 3 1 40 40 21 41 31 124 240 282 363 BC AB SK MB ON QC NB NS PE NL YT NT NU 20

There was a reasonable amount of variation in the number of cases originating in the four largest provinces over the course of the 16 complete years included in this report. However, there was not enough data available for the other provinces and territories, or for the first half of 2016, to be able to include them in this analysis. Figure 5 Number of cases per year for Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec (2000-2015) 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 AB BC ON QC 21

An appeal as of right means that the appellant does not need to obtain permission from a panel of Supreme Court Justices to have the case heard, unlike a leave to appeal where this procedure is necessary. Appeals as of right pertain to certain criminal cases, as well as appeals from opinions pronounced by courts of appeal on matters referred to them by a provincial government. 10.5% of the cases heard by the SCC were appeals as of right. Figure 6 - Number of appeals as of right (2000 to mid-2016) N/A, 2, 0% No, 1058, 89% Yes, 124, 11% 22

On average, cases concerned criminal law 35.5% of the time and constitutional matters 26.1% of the time. There was quite a bit of variation between years for these types of law. In 2000, 56.5% of cases concerned criminal law, while in 2007 only 27.8% of cases involved this type of law. In 2015, 40% of cases concerned constitutional matters, while in 2006 only 16.9% of cases involved this type of law. While Other is the most common category in this group, it represents a very large number of different types of cases, such as administrative law, public and private international law, family law, etc., each with relatively few cases. Figure 7 Number of cases per type of law (2000 to mid-2016) # OF CASES PER TYPE OF LAW 20 6 11 20 44 47 46 45 79 81 309 468 487 23

An appeal was allowed 39.6% of the time, with the Court majority ruling in favor of the appellant. An appeal was dismissed 53.7% of the time, with the Court majority ruling in favor of the respondent. An appeal was allowed in part 4.9% of the time, with the Court majority ruling in favor of the appellant for one or more of the issues but not all or not in full. Figure 8 Number of cases per type of final judgment (2000 to mid-2016) FINAL JUDGMENT 3 12 1 5 58 469 636 24 Allowed Allowed in part Dismissed Quashed Special Adjourned Unknown

The vote margin represents the number of Justices in dissent subtracted from the number of Justices in favor of the result. Cases were often decided by large margins, with the greatest number of cases (36%) having a vote margin of 7, which corresponds to an 8-1 or 7-0 ruling. The next most common result was a vote margin of 9 (27.4%), which indicates a unanimous decision of 9-0. Overall, a majority of cases were decided by more than 7 votes. Figure 9 Number of cases per vote margin (2000 to mid-2016) # OF CASES PER VOTE MARGIN 3 3 5 11 24 115 102 170 325 426 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 25

The appellant is the party that brings the appeal. The appellant was most often an individual (47.6%), followed by a government entity (29.6%), a company (17.2%), and a nonprofit (5.2%). There was no significant change in the breakdown of the type of appellant over the 16.5 years covered by this report. Figure 10 Number of cases per appellant type (2000 to mid-2016) # OF CASES PER TYPE OF APPELLANT 1 2 1 62 204 350 564 Company Foreign Entity Government Individual Nonprofit School Unknown 26

The respondent is the party that responds to the appeal. The respondent was most often a government entity (47.1%), followed by an individual (28.4%), a company (14.9%), and a nonprofit (5.7%). There was no significant change in the breakdown of the type of respondent over the 16.5 years covered by this report. Figure 11 Number of cases per respondent type (2000 to mid-2016) # OF CASES PER TYPE OF APPELLANT 7 3 5 68 177 366 558 Company Foreign Entity Government Individual Nonprofit School Unknown 27

28 V. JUSTICES

To take part in a case means that the Justice heard the respective case and participated in the final decision, regardless of their position. This graph represents the number of cases that each Justice adjudicated during their respective terms on the Bench. Primarily, these numbers simply reflect the amount of time that each Justice was a member on the Bench during the studied period of time. Chief Justice McLachlin took part in the verdict of the largest number of cases: 988 out of 1,184 (83.4%). This is not surprising as Chief Justice McLachlin sat on the court for the entire period covered by this report and is now the longest serving Chief Justice, and third longest serving Justice, in SCC history. Figure 12 Number of cases each Justice took part in (2000 to mid-2016) TOTAL 6 77 47 24 176 274 323 326 258 255 194 420 423 413 576 621 611 546 685 797 988 926 29

Being In favor means that the Justice agreed with the ultimate result of the case (either to allow or to dismiss the appeal) and agreed with the reasoning provided for the respective verdict. Being In favor (different reasoning) means that the Justice agreed with the ultimate result of the case (either to allow or to dismiss the appeal), however, the Justice provided a different justification for the verdict. Figure 13 Number of cases in favor of the result or in favor of the result but presented different reasoning (2000 to mid-2016) 26 5 7 7 3 3 10 10 3 19 13 12 11 4 12 8 6 8 4 2 38 1 21 73 14 3 18 0 249 304 298 241 233 388 395 371 502 542 521 493 605 722 8 17 904 In favor In favor (different reasoning) 30

Dissenting means that the Justice did not agree with the rendered decision (either to allow or to dismiss the appeal) and that they did not agree with the reasoning provided for that verdict. Dissenting (in part) means that the Justice disagreed with the rendered decision (either to allow or to dismiss the appeal), however, the Justice may have agreed with particular aspects of the majority s position, such as certain answers provided in response to the questions featured in the case. Figure 14 Number of cases dissenting or dissenting in part (2000 to mid-2016) 1 3 2 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 1 2 5 6 5 6 6 5 5 5 6 13 11 10 13 16 19 9 23 23 28 29 40 53 58 60 60 64 73 79 Dissenting Dissenting (in part) 31

The pie charts below represent the breakdowns of each Justice s voting patterns over the period studied by this report. For each chart, the number and percentage of times each Justice voted In favor, In favor (different reasoning), Dissenting, and Dissenting (in part), is shown. The charts further demonstrate the point that the vast majority of cases are decided by very large vote margins, though some moderate differences between Justices are discernible. Figure 15 Justice decision breakdowns McLachlin Lamer In favor, 904, 91% In favor - different reasoning, 26, 3% In favor, 5, 83% Dissenting, 53, 5% Dissenting, 1, 17% Dissenting - in part, 5, 1% L'Heureux-Dubé Gonthier In favor, 143, 81% In favor - different reasoning, 7, 4% In favor, 249, 91% In favor - different reasoning, 7, 2% Dissenting, 23, 13% Dissenting, 16, 6% Dissenting - in part, 3, 2% Dissenting - in part, 2, 1% 32

Figure 15 Justice decision breakdowns Iacobucci Major In favor, 304, 94% In favor - different reasoning, 3, 1% In favor, 388, 92% In favor - different reasoning, 3, 1% Dissenting, 13, 4% Dissenting, 28, 7% Dissenting - in part, 3, 1% Dissenting - in part, 1, 0% Bastarache Binnie In favor, 502, 87% In favor - different reasoning, 10, 2% Dissenting, 58, 10% In favor, 722, 91% In favor - different reasoning, 10, 1% Dissenting, 60, 7% Dissenting - in part, 6, 1% Dissenting - in part, 5, 1% Arbour LeBel In favor, 298, 91% In favor - different reasoning, 3, 1% In favor, 817, 88% In favor - different reasoning, 19, 2% Dissenting, 19, 6% Dissenting, 79, 9% Dissenting - in part, 6, 2% Dissenting - in part, 11, 1% 33

Figure 15 Justice decision breakdowns Deschamps Fish In favor, 542, 87% In favor - different reasoning, 13, 2% In favor, 521, 85% In favor - different reasoning, 12, 2% Dissenting, 60, 10% Dissenting, 73, 12% Dissenting - in part, 6, 1% Dissenting - in part, 5, 1% Abella Charron In favor, 605, 88% In favor - different reasoning, 11, 2% In favor, 395, 93% In favor - different reasoning, 4, 1% Dissenting, 64, 9% Dissenting, 23, 6% Dissenting - in part, 5, 1% Dissenting - in part, 1, 0% Rothstein Cromwell In favor, 493, 90% In favor - different reasoning, 12, 2% In favor, 371, 90% In favor - different reasoning, 8, 2% Dissenting, 40, 8% Dissenting, 29, 7% Dissenting - in part, 1, 0% Dissenting - in part, 5, 1% 34

Figure 15 Justice decision breakdowns Moldaver Karakatsanis In favor, 241, 94% In favor - different reasoning, 6, 2% In favor, 233, 91% In favor - different reasoning, 8, 3% Dissenting, 10, 4% Dissenting, 13, 5% Dissenting - in part, 1, 0% Dissenting - in part, 1, 1% Wagner Gascon In favor, 180, 93% In favor - different reasoning, 4, 2% In favor, 73, 95% Dissenting, 9, 5% Dissenting, 3, 4% Dissenting - in part, 1, 0% Dissenting - in part, 1, 1% Côté Brown In favor, 38, 81% In favor - different reasoning, 2, 4% In favor, 21, 88% In favor - different reasoning, 1, 4% Dissenting, 6, 13% Dissenting - in part, 1, 2% Dissenting - in part, 2, 8% 35

36 VI. COALITIONS

While the role of a Justice is a non-partisan position, in reality, organic coalitions of Justices are quite common in courts around the world. Coalitions can be based on a large number of factors, not just political opinion and can change over time, so determining true groupings of Justices can be challenging. Rather than trying to subjectively determine organic coalitions on the SCC, this report uses an objective statistical approach to the problem. The matrix in Figure 16 clearly displays pairings of Justices who vote the same way 100% of the time (green), 50% of the time (yellow), or 0% of the time (red). Justices who did not serve on the SCC at the same time cannot be compared to each other, and so their pairings are empty. With the data from Figure 16, multidimensional scaling (MDS) can be used to build a visual representation of the distances among a set of objects (in this case, Justices), and plot them on a map, as shown in Figure 17. MDS plots each Justice on the map such that those Justices that agree often are placed near each other, and those Justices that rarely agree, are placed far away from each other on the map. Looking at the data this way offers extra insight into potential organic coalitions on the SCC. Figures 18 to 41 show more in-depth matricies and MDS plots for each permutation of Justices that has occured on the court in the last 16.5 years, as one Justice has replaced another. When two Justices were appointed to the SCC in a very short time span, this change was combined into one combination. As always, Justices and combinations that heard more cases provide a larger sample size, which leads to a more robust statistical analysis. 37

38 Figure 16 - Justice pairings (2000 to mid-2016)

-0.120-0.080-0.040 0.000 0.040 0.080 0.120 0.150 Abella 0.100 Figure 17 - MDS arrangement (2000 to mid-2016) Deschamps L'Heureux-Dubé Bastarache Moldaver Karakatsanis Gonthier Rothstein Cromwell Charron Wagner Brown Arbour Major Iacobucci Gascon Lamer Côté Fish LeBel 0.050 0.000-0.050 Binnie -0.100 McLachlin -0.150 39

Figures 18/19 - Combination 1-20 Cases Justices McLachlin, Lamer, L Heureux-Dubé, Gonthier, Iacobucci, Major, Bastarache, Binnie, Arbour -0.250-0.200-0.150 Bastarache -0.100-0.050 0.000 0.050 0.100 Binnie L'Heureux-Dubé McLachlin Gonthier Major Arbour Iacobucci 0.150 0.200 Lamer 0.250 0.150 0.100 0.050 0.000-0.050-0.100-0.150 Figures 20/21 - Combination 2-226 Cases Justices McLachlin, L Heureux-Dubé, Gonthier, Iacobucci, Major, Bastarache, Binnie, Arbour, LeBel -0.100-0.080 Bastarache -0.060-0.040-0.020 0.000 Major Binnie McLachlin Gonthier L'Heureux- Dubé 0.020 0.040 0.060 0.080 0.100 0.150 0.100 Iacobucci Arbour LeBel 0.050 0.000-0.050-0.100-0.150 40

-0.150-0.100-0.050 0.000 0.050 0.100 0.150 0.150 Figures 22/23 - Combination 3-79 Cases Justices McLachlin, Gonthier, Iacobucci, Major, Bastarache, Binnie, Arbour, LeBel, Deschamps LeBel McLachlin Gonthier Binnie Bastarache Iacobucci Major Arbour Deschamps 0.100 0.050 0.000-0.050-0.100-0.150-0.150-0.100-0.050 0.000 0.050 0.100 0.150 0.200 Figures 24/25 - Combination 4-68 Cases Justices McLachlin, Iacobucci, Major, Bastarache, Binnie, Arbour, LeBel, Deschamps, Fish Binnie Fish LeBel McLachlin Major Deschamps Iacobucci Bastarache Arbour 0.100 0.000-0.100-0.200 41

-0.150-0.100-0.050 0.000 0.050 0.100 0.150 0.150 Figures 26/27 - Combination 5-123 Cases Justices McLachlin, Major, Bastarache, Binnie, LeBel, Deschamps, Fish, Abella, Charron LeBel Deschamps Fish Bastarache Abella Binnie Charron Major McLachlin 0.100 0.050 0.000-0.050-0.100-0.150-0.200-0.150-0.100-0.050 0.000 0.050 0.100 0.150 0.200 0.150 Figures 28/29 - Combination 6-158 Cases Justices McLachlin, Bastarache, Binnie, LeBel, Deschamps, Fish, Abella, Charron, Rothstein Deschamps Rothstein Charron Bastarache Binnie McLachlin Fish LeBel Abella 0.100 0.050 0.000-0.050-0.100-0.150 42

-0.100-0.080-0.060-0.040-0.020 0.000 0.020 0.040 0.060 0.080 0.100 0.150 Figures 30/31 - Combination 7-200 Cases Justices McLachlin, Binnie, LeBel, Deschamps, Fish, Abella, Charron, Rothstein, Cromwell Abella Deschamps LeBel Rothstein Charron Cromwell McLachlin Binnie 0.100 0.050 0.000-0.050-0.100 Fish -0.150 Figures 32/33 - Combination 8-70 Cases Justices McLachlin, LeBel, Deschamps, Fish, Abella, Rothstein, Cromwell, Moldaver, Karakatsanis -0.150-0.100 Cromwell -0.050 Rothstein LeBel 0.000 0.050 Deschamps Fish Abella Moldaver Karakatsanis McLachlin 0.100 0.150 0.200 0.100 0.000-0.100-0.200 43

Figures 34/35 - Combination 9-131 Cases Justices McLachlin, LeBel, Fish, Abella, Rothstein, Cromwell, Moldaver, Karakatsanis, Wagner -0.100-0.080-0.060 Abella -0.040 Rothstein Wagner Karakatsanis -0.020 Moldaver 0.000 0.020 LeBel 0.040 0.060 McLachlin Cromwell 0.080 0.100 0.150 0.100 0.050 0.000-0.050-0.100 Fish -0.150 Figures 36/37 - Combination 10-33 Cases Justices McLachlin, LeBel, Abella, Rothstein, Cromwell, Moldaver, Karakatsanis, Wagner, Gascon -0.200-0.150-0.100-0.050 0.000 Karakatsanis LeBel Abella Cromwell Gascon 0.050 McLachlin 0.100 0.150 0.200 0.300 0.200 0.100 Wagner Moldaver Rothstein 0.000-0.100-0.200-0.300 44

-0.150-0.100-0.050 0.000 0.050 0.100 0.150 0.100 Figures 38/39 - Combination 11-41 Cases Justices McLachlin, Abella, Rothstein, Cromwell, Moldaver, Karakatsanis, Wagner, Gascon, Côté Gascon Moldaver Karakatsanis McLachlin Rothstein Cromwell Wagner Abella Côté 0.050 0.000-0.050-0.100-0.150-0.100-0.050 0.000 0.050 0.100 0.150 0.200 Figures 40/41 - Combination 12-35 Cases Justices McLachlin, Abella, Cromwell, Moldaver, Karakatsanis, Wagner, Gascon, Côté, Brown Côté Karakatsanis Abella Wagner Gascon Brown Cromwell Moldaver McLachlin 0.100 0.000-0.100-0.200 45

46 VII. CONCLUSION

An essential part of government accountability and transparency is the ability of the public to follow, understand, and assess the decisions made by agents of the state, such as Supreme Court Justices. In one year, the SCC may hear seventy or more cases, some of which will make news, but many will not receive much public attention at all. Transparency is not measured by the availability of public information, but rather by the ability to understand the data and by the capacity to draw one s own conclusions from it. Thus, the aim of the Court Tracker project is to take data coming from Canadian courts and present it in a useful and more easily understood format that enhances public knowledge. The specific insights and findings contained in this report reflect only a small snapshot of the potential analysis that could be derived from the raw data collected during this project. Researchers are invited to use this raw data in novel ways that have not been considered in this report, and to come to their own conclusions, in the hope that overall public knowledge will ultimately be enhanced. Furthermore, the data captured in this report covers only one SCC Chief Justice s term. If this report proves popular, future versions of the Court Tracker could explore all the preceding Chief Justices terms, extending across the history of the Court. Moreover, a similar methodology could easily be applied to other judicial bodies, such as lower federal and provincial courts. Feedback and input into what a future version of Court Tracker might look like is welcome, and future research into Canada s Supreme Court is encouraged as part of a continued discussion about the importance of court decisions that impact all members of society. 47

48 VIII. NOTES

1. The Manning Centre firmly believes in open data. For more information, including a database of all the court decisions and the source data used to build each of the figures comprising this report, please visit our website: http://www.manningcentre.ca/research 2. Thank you to Preston Manning, Founder of the Manning Centre, for the opportunity to intern at the Manning Centre and for his support throughout the completion of this project. 3. The author credits Jeromy Farkas, former Manning Centre Research Fellow, whose Council Tracker project this report was modeled after, and whose guidance and insight helped develop the ideas behind this report. 4. Peter McCaffrey, Director of Research at the Manning Centre, is recognized for supervising and reviewing the project - his continual assistance was fundamental to the progression and completion of the project. 5. Finally, thank you to Howard Anglin and Derek From at the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) for peer reviewing the report and recommending many refinements that have improved the overall end result. 49

6. References: Makin, Kirk. Meet Beverley McLachlin, Canada s longest-serving chief justice. The Globe and Mail, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/meet-canadaslongest-serving-chief- justice/article12585502/ Martin, Andrew D., and Quinn, Kevin M. Martin-Quinn Scores. BerkleyLaw, http://mqscores.berkeley.edu/ Payton, Laura. Marc Nadon appointment rejected by Supreme Court. CBC News, http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/marc-nadon- appointmentrejected-by-supreme-court-1.2581388. Role of the Court. Supreme Court of Canada, http://www.scc-csc.ca/court-cour/role-eng.aspx Supreme Court of Canada Canada (Federal). CanLII, http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/ Supreme Court of Canada Judges. Parliament of Canada, http://www.lop.parl.gc.ca/parlinfo/compilations/supremecourt. aspx 50

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