Rights and Parliamentary Systems in Canada and Beyond brings together political scientists and legal scholars to explore rights and their limitations, along with the governmental and legislative processes affecting them, within Canada's parliamentary system. It also examines how these elements shape broader institutional relationships under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and in comparative perspective.
This interdisciplinary volume offers valuable, in-depth analyses of timely issues, cases, and controversies involving rights and institutional dynamics. The book employs an array of methods, including legal analysis, qualitative case studies, content analysis, legal theory, research interviews, and policy analysis.
With a forward-looking perspective, Rights and Parliamentary Systems in Canada and Beyond investigates how rights-based processes influence specific policies and offers new insights into the framing of rights, including administrative law and Aboriginal treaty rights during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also explores how aspects of parliamentary democracy affect governments, legislators, and the public. The book ultimately reveals how the institutional relationships at stake operate to protect – or fail to protect – rights in relation to government policy objectives.

"Rights and Parliamentary Systems in Canada and Beyond is an excellent collection, and the contributors are well versed in the relevant literatures. The volume features an excellent mix of established and early-career scholars, along with students doing interesting work alongside faculty. I particularly liked how the volume pushes the idea of rights-based review into new territory as well as the more empirically-oriented chapters. These essays, and the volume as a whole, represent significant additions to the literature." -- Matthew Hennigar, Associate Professor of Political Science, Brock University
"Rights and Parliamentary Systems in Canada and Beyond is an excellent volume that will make a mark. All of the chapters are of an exceptionally high standard, and the volume as a whole serves as a remarkable reference on the relationship between courts, political institutions, and constitutional bills of rights. The volume’s contribution stems in no small part from its ability to provide a range of theoretical and empirical studies on the role and contestation of rights in Parliamentary democracies, with a particular focus on Canada." -- Robert Schertzer, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Toronto

Emmett Macfarlane is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Waterloo.