The Manitoba Language Rights Reference and the Doctrine of Mandatory and Directory Provisions

In the Manitoba Language Rights Reference the Supreme Court of Canada determined that although there exists in Anglo-Canadian law a doctrine that makes a distinction between statutory provisions that are mandatory, in the sense that failure to comply with them will lead to invalidity of the act in question, and those that are directory, in the sense that failure to comply will not necessarily lead to such invalidity, the doctrine should not be applied when the constitutionality of legislation is in issue.\u27 I propose to examine the rejection of the doctrine in Canada, to contrast the Court\u27s reasoning with examples of the application of the doctrine in Australia and New Zealand when the constitutionality of legislation was in issue, and to suggest why its rejection in Canada was unwise and unnecessary