Procedure and House Affairs committee  The test is when there is no credible argument supporting the constitutionality.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't know if they were good, but I did give arguments on both sides.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's correct. It's interesting. In terms of having the last word on something, and in terms of questions not always being clear, administrative law as a field of law recognizes that, for many legal questions, there may be more than one possible answer. It has been stated sometimes that the court that gets it right is really the court that has the last word, because you have appeals, and you can overturn it.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think your description is consistent with what the Federal Court of Appeal found. It said that the executive is not limited to proposing measures that are: ...certain to be constitutional or likely to be constitutional. Rather, as a constitutional matter, in the words of the Federal Court...it is entitled to put forward proposed legislation that, after a “robust review of the clauses in draft legislation” is “defendable in Court.”

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think it may be that you would have to report on many more bills, because the consequence for the Minister of Justice is that they have to present a report. It doesn't mean the bill doesn't go forward. It's a different consequence here. With this committee, the consequence is that the bill is not votable.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's correct.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's right, they were 1984 and 1988.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The Nguyen case was 2007, if memory serves. I'll just confirm the date: December 2008.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's correct.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It was the Devine case.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The issue there was the proper interpretation to give to the minister's interpretation of her obligation to provide a report to the House. The appellant, Edgar Schmidt, who is a former drafter with the Department of Justice, was arguing that the standard should be a stricter standard and that you would have to really be satisfied that there is a strong argument or credible argument of constitutionality and that would provide further charter protection.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would agree with that. I think that's really the issue. Are you going to require that you feel it's more likely than not that this is going to be upheld, or are you going to find that there's no credible argument? It's not exactly the same, but it's the same idea.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  They do not. They do that for government bills.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I tried to anticipate some of the dilemma and analysis. I would look at the arguments that could be made in favour of there being a violation and arguments that could be made to say that there is no violation. To argue that there's a violation of section 20, the argument would be, as you suggest, Mr.