The Three Pillars of the Canadian Constitutional Order

Abstract

and/or superficial way. The mandate of the Macdonald Commission was almost impossibly broad and, at least so far as its institutional analysis is concerned, the Final Report showed that the Commissioners had no disposition to make this more manageable. Thus the Report makes judgments on matters as divergent, complex and contentious as the division of the Northwest Territories, reform of the Senate and the House of Commons, the appointment of judges, the institutions and processes of executive federalism, aboriginal self-government, provincialmunicipal relations, the relation between elected and appointed executive officials and so on. It would have been better, and I believe consistent with the Commission's Terms of Reference, to exclude some matters which are discussed in a superficial way. For example, the reform of political parties occupies less than a page of the Report. The Commissioners wrote that party reform 'is primarily a matter for the parties themselves to undertake' (Vol. One, p.81) in disregard of the circumstance that th re is an ongoing process of legal recognition of the parties and that some of this, most importantly legislation related to party finance, directly influences the structures and operations of these organizations (Courtney, 1977:1). The Commissioners also make the important judgment that the links between federal and provincial parties should be strengthened without any reasons for this view. Other such examples of superficiality could easily be given. The style of the Report is measured and discursive, most of the important conclusions give some account of the view or views which were rejected. A unwary reader could thus be persudaded that the Commissioners were both omniscient and exceedingly judicious. A more critical view would be that this discursiveness was the result of a complex log-rolling process involving the Commissioners and their senior research staff and that