Abstract:In 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected the federal government's Senate reform agenda. This article focuses on the Court's response to the government'sproposal for consultative (non-binding) elections, which would have had the prime minister consider recommending an electorate's preferred candidate for nomination by the governor general. The Court rejected the government's argument that the proposal was consistent with the legally unenforceable parliamentary conventions of responsible government. The Court characterized the proposal as a break in Canada's 'constitutional architecture.' I ask: how is it that Canada's constitutional architecture has become unconventional? My answer lies in the Court's theorization of what the Constitution is and how it may be amended. I trace a shift in the Court'smetaphorical reasoning, from the 1981 Patriation Reference's Constitution as dynamic machine where conventions are its 'operative force' to the 1998 Secession and 2014 Senate Reform References, where a static and aesthetically coherent Constitution as architecture emerges. I argue that, in its architectural understanding, the Court understates the role of conventions in constitutional amendment and finally casts conventions as the saboteurs of a unified constitutional design.

中文翻译：

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加拿大参议院改革中最高法院的建筑隐喻与政治惯例的衰落参考

摘要：2014年，加拿大最高法院否决了联邦政府的参议院改革议程。本文重点关注法院对政府提议的协商（非约束性）选举的回应，该提议本应让总理考虑推荐选民的首选候选人以供总督提名。法院驳回了政府的论点，即该提案符合负责任政府在法律上无法执行的议会公约。法院称该提案打破了加拿大的“宪法架构”。我问：加拿大的宪法架构是如何变得非常规的？我的答案在于法院对宪法是什么以及如何修改宪法的理论化。我追溯了法院隐喻推理的转变，从 1981 年爱国参考的宪法作为动态机器，其中公约是其“执行力”到 1998 年分离派和 2014 年参议院改革参考，其中出现了静态和美学连贯的宪法作为建筑。我认为，在其架构理解中，法院低估了公约在宪法修正案中的作用，并最终将公约视为统一宪法设计的破坏者。