This paper examines the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Reference Re Securities Act that the draft legislation, proposing a single federal regulator, was unconstitutional. After briefly outlining the reasons behind the Supreme Court’s ruling followed by an overview of the draft legislation and the Court’s methodology for testing the validity of federal power, this paper concludes by explaining the Court’s rationale for deciding against the draft and proposing three immediate lessons from this particular case.

This paper was presented at the Constitutional Law Symposium in September 2012.