Canada’s Constitution cannot be understood without a thorough foundation in the judicial interpretation of its provisions and principles. This collection of leading decisions by the relevant high courts – the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council until 1949 and the Supreme Court of Canada thereafter – provides that grounding.
The third edition of this seminal text is updated to include the most salient, enduring, and influential high court decisions to date. It introduces students to trends and nuances in jurisprudence affecting the major dimensions of the Canadian Constitution, including the federal division of powers, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Indigenous rights, and constitutional change. Each of the 58 decisions in this collection features an introductory essay and discussion questions . The book contains a comprehensive essay on the institutional and historical determinants of judicial interpretation of the Constitution and a bibliography for further reading. Readers will acquire an appreciation of both the legal and political influences on judicial interpretation, the complexity of our constitutional structures, and the influences of the personalities and predilections of Canada’s senior jurists.
Proceeding from the conviction that history and institutions matter, this collection will give readers a sophisticated understanding of the Constitution, the work of Canada’s courts, and the development of the Canadian liberal democratic regime.

Thomas M.J. Bateman is a professor of political science at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick.

Mark S. Harding is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Guelph.

Rainer Knopff is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Calgary.

Peter H. Russell, until his death in 2024, was University professor emeritus of political science at the University of Toronto.