Does anyone in Canada care about the Constitution?

Runnymede would not be tilting at windmills. The drift of Canada’s legal culture toward progressive orthodoxy only calcified. University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson faced intense backlash in fall 2016 over his opposition to Bill C-16’s compelled use of preferred pronouns—a controversy that became an early defining Runnymede debate at Queen’s Law. In 2018, the Supreme Court released Trinity Western, finding that the B.C. Law Society was justified in denying accreditation to graduates of a Christian law school on the basis that its community covenant conflicted with LGBTQ rights. That same year, the Law Society of Ontario unveiled its Statement of Principles policy—a flagrant instance of compelled speech requiring Ontario lawyers to author statements enunciating how they would promote diversity, equity, and inclusion principles in their practices. It continues to be provocative in Canada to assert that all legal controversies warrant rigorous debate that includes all perspectives held by reasonable people of goodwill—even those that cause some to feel repulsed. Yet the last decade has shown widespread appetite in the legal community for what Runnymede offers. Many of Canada’s finest legal minds have accepted invitations to speak to Runnymede audiences. In the 2024-25 academic year alone, three Supreme Court judges spoke at Runnymede student chapter events. Runnymede volunteers are regularly selected for judicial clerkships at the Supreme Court and other appellate courts. To serve students with an academic bent, Runnymede has launched fellowships for graduate students in law, with recipients serving as senior editors on the A.V. Dicey Law Review, launched in 2020 in partnership with Advocates for the Rule of Law. It was at Runnymede forums that courageous judicial speakers ventured arguments for judicial restraint—cautiously, at first, but enough to signal a challenge to what felt unchallengeable. Federal Court of Appeal Justice David Stratas delivered a keynote at Runnymede’s February 2025 conference titled “Doctrine Ain’t Dead Yet,” celebrating a revival of constrained judicial decision-making over the past decade. It is not an exaggeration to state that mainstays of Runnymede circles—lawyers, scholars, and jurists—were instrumental in bringing about this revival. Good ideas with intellectual rigour spread, even through the legal culture’s sometimes stuffy corridors. Yet several important debates in Canadian law remain stifled by taboo. These include the compelled speech issues raised in Runnymede’s early days, with Bill C-16 having passed and translated into consequences for everyday Canadians. Job postings at Canadian universities routinely require statements of allegiance to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The 2024 Emo Township decision is illustrative: the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal personally fined a mayor $5,000 for voting against a request that town council declare a “Pride Month” and display an LGBTQ2 flag, after he reasoned aloud that the town does not, as general policy, fly flags based on sexual orientation. Runnymede Society members understand we are not chasing controversy for its own sake. Our guiding principles are constitutionalism, the rule of law, and fundamental freedoms. We explore and test those principles based on the belief that they can serve as a foundation for a free society. Indeed, another round of early warning signs is discernible among our neighbours to the south. An emerging “woke Right” is committed to very different notions of justice from progressives, but the movements are comparable in their disinterest in being questioned. This demonstrates the various forms through which orthodoxy and the illusion of having discovered a perfect vision of justice can undermine our constitutional order. Only time will tell whether and how this will make its way to Canada. We can say with confidence, though, that Runnymede will continue to offer a home for those who value good faith dialogue in service to liberty and the rule of law.