Canadian Judicial Nomination Processes and the Press: ‘Interesting, in a Sleepy Sort of Way’

Most of the recent appointees to the Supreme Court of Canada have participated in a new Canadian judicial nomination process initiated by the current Conservative government. As originally formulated in early policy platforms, the process was intended to mimic features of US Senate judicial confirmation hearings and so would highlight the distinction (popular in US political discourse) between ‘applying’ and ‘making’ law. This led to widespread fears that any new public process would politicize judicial appointments and functions at the Supreme Court. The process turned out to be much more tepid than anticipated and so raises questions about what Canadians may have learned as a consequence of this new nomination process. This paper undertakes a qualitative analysis of reporting of four nomination processes from a select number of Canadian newspapers. The main object is to determine the degree to which readers might have been alerted to the distinction between law and politics or, put another way, between judicial activism and restraint. It turns out that this framing was not dominant in the coverage and that, instead, distinctive Canadian political preoccupations, like language politics, got channeled through this new political opportunity structure. The press, nevertheless, for the most part liked what they saw. Simply by focusing their gaze on the court and its nominees, the press reinforced the law’s power and allure.