La Cour suprême et les communications

On November 30th, 1977, the Supreme Court rendered two important decisions which put an end to the provincial claims for jurisdiction on cable distribution undertakings. On January 19, 1978, the Supreme Court rendered a third judgment dealing with provincial consumer protection legislation affecting broadcasting undertakings. These three judgments although flowing from unrelated matters, must be read together. They confirm that the federal power over radiocommunications is exclusive. Any service which is connected thereto such as the distribution of programming by means of cables form and integral part of the broadcasting system and, as a result, falls under the federal power. The fact that the cable distribution service is owned and operated by a different person and that it has its own infrastructure is immaterial. The question is : what is the service being rendered. If, as the Court found in the case, the service is mainly to facilitate the public's assess to broadcasting, then it is an integral part thereof. The Court found, however, that a province could control advertising even where it was destined for broadcasting so long as the regulation was directed at the manufacturer and not the broadcaster. It is unclear, however, whether this power would survive the adoption by Parliament of conflicting legislation on the same subject matter

L'application des règles d'interprétation constitutionnelle

With the advent of the Charter of Rights, the field of Constitutional Law is no longer reserved to a few scholars. The fundamentals at least of the art of constitutional interpretation must be part of the daily arsenal of every lawyer. Constitutional interpretation is by no means mechanical. Constitutional enactments must develop and grow like a living tree. They must be read and applied with a degree of political sensitivity, historical perspective and a good deal of common sense. We must draw on the wealth of constitutional precedents and authorities gathered since 1867 especially for the first stage of Charter interpretations where the content of the rights intended for protection is analysed. New rules are being developed for the second stage where an attempt is made to save conflicting laws on the basis of a section 1 "reasonable limit (...) demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.