The Individual is Not the Institution: The Flawed Logic of the New Brunswick Court of Queen’s Bench Decision in Acadian Society of New Brunswick v Right Honourable Prime Minister of Canada

Abstract

In 2021, the Acadian Society of New Brunswick brought an application to the New Brunswick Court of Queen’s Bench seeking a declaration that the appointment of a unilingual anglophone as the Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick was unconstitutional. Specifically, the Acadian Society claimed that the appointment of Brenda Murphy as New Brunswick’s lieutenant governor in 2019 violated the guarantees in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms of the equal status of English and French in New Brunswick. On April 14, 2022, the Chief Justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench, Tracey deWare, decided that the appointment of Ms Murphy as New Brunswick’s lieutenant governor was, indeed, in violation of the Charter. Yet, despite this conclusion, the Chief Justice also decided that it was appropriate to leave the question of what the implications of this determination should be to the executive branch of the Government of Canada.