If a decision were made to follow the recommendation made by the Canadian Bar Association, the main question would have to deal specifically with the constitutionality of Bills C-19 and C-20. If the questions were to be too abstract, there would be a risk that the Supreme Court might decide not to make a ruling. That is exactly what happened in the 1980 reference, when the Supreme Court refused to reply to a series of questions that it considered too abstract, and for which some factual evidence seemed to be lacking. In my opinion, the reference should deal more specifically with these specific bills.
On April 30th, 2008. See this statement in context.