On January 23, I attended a program organized by the Administrative Law Section of the Canadian Bar Association British Columbia. Hosted by counsel for several different intervenors in Auer v. Auer, 2024 SCC 36, the program discussed the impacts and unresolved issues of the case. Although I am only a few weeks into my administrative law course, the discussion enhanced my understanding of course material and referred to cases and concepts that I learned about in previous courses.
The Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Auer confirmed that the reasonableness standard from Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65, applies presumptively on judicial review of the legality of subordinate legislation, such as regulations, municipal by-laws, and rules. In my first-year civil procedure course, we had a brief introduction to Vavilov and the reasonableness standard, so it was interesting to learn how the Court reaffirmed and applied Vavilov in Auer. In an earlier case (Katz Group Canada Inc. v. Ontario, 2013 SCC 64), the Court had adopted an extremely deferential standard of review for subordinate legislation. Even though the Court rejected this standard in Auer in light of Vavilov, it held that several key principles from Katz still apply and should inform the reasonableness review of subordinate legislation.