Romancing Reasonableness: An Aspirational Account of the Canadian Case Law on Judicial Review of Substantive Administrative Decisions since C.U.P.E. v. N.B. Liquor Corporation

This thesis surveys the last three decades of Canadian jurisprudence on the standards of review applicable to judicial review of substantive administrative decisions, with a focus on the guidance that is or is not forthcoming on the significance and practical application of reasonableness (deferential) review. My argument is that the doctrinal developments I survey trace out a burgeoning understanding of the purposes of substantive review which is at the same time a particular understanding of administrative state legitimacy. I refer to an account of legitimacy, or the legitimacy proper to law, that conceives of law as an aspirational project aimed at fostering relationships of reciprocity as between legal subjects and legal authorities. On this account (advanced in the work of David Dyzenhaus, and others), common law administrative law principles of procedural fairness and substantive reasonableness function as co-ordinate mechanisms for grounding administrative decision-making in a “culture of justification”.MAS