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63 Alta. L. Rev. 1 (2025-2026)

handle is hein.journals/alblr63 and id is 1 raw text is: VAVILOVAT 5: PREFACE VAVILOVAT 5: LOOKING AHEAD WHILE LOOKING BACK PAUL DALY,* GERARD J. KENNEDY** & MARK MANCINI*** The Dunsmuir decade that sought to clarify the law of judicial review in Canada started with promise, only to lead to significant disagreement at the Supreme Court. Much like C. U.RE. v. New Brunswick Liquor Corp,1 Canada v. Southam,2 and Pushpanathan v. Canada,3 a rare clear thing about the law of judicial review was that it was not clear. One Federal Court of Appeal judge lamented that [o]ur administrative law is a never-ending construction site where one crew builds structures and then a later crew tears them down to build anew, seemingly without an overall plan.4 Justice Binnie's observation in Dunsmuir v. New Brunswick that [j]udicial review is an idea that has lately become unduly burdened with law office metaphysics was showing no signs of abating.' The December 2019 decision in Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov sought to resolve this state of affairs.6 With a compromise majority decision jointly written by seven judges,2 the Supreme Court not only prescribed a comprehensive framework for determining the standard of review - but also gave significant guidance on how it should be applied. In June 2025 in Edmonton, we brought together a group of scholars, judges, and lawyers from across Canada to analyze the first five years of this seminal decision at the Vavilov at 5 Conference. Recent decades have suggested that a leading administrative law case on substantive review is only to be leading for about ten years. Is this time going to be different? And, in any event, what have we learned? This volume represents the panelists' contributions, contributions that analyze the effects of this decision from many different angles. The first contributions of this volume concentrate on the framework for selecting the standard of review. Mary Liston, in the volume's opening piece, compares and contrasts Vavilov with Baker v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship of Immigration),8 Canada's leading University Research Chair in Administrative Law & Governance, Faculty of Law (Common Law Section), University of Ottawa. Associate Professor & Associate Dean Graduate Studies, Faculty of Law, University of Alberta. *** Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Thompson Rivers University. 1 Canadian Union ofPublic Employees Local 963 v New BrunswickLiquor Corp, 1979 CanLII 23 (SCC). 2 Canada (Director ofInvestigation and Research) v Southam Inc, 1997 CanLII 385 (SCC). 3 Pushpanathan v Canada (Minister ofCitizenship and Immigration), 1998 CanLII 778 (SCC). 4 David Stratas, The Canadian Law of Judicial Review: A Plea for Doctrinal Coherence and Consistency (2016) 42:1 Queen's LJ 27 at 29. 5 2008 SCC 9 at para 122 [Dunsmuir]. 6 2019 SCC 65 [Vavilov]. 7 Paul Daly, A Consensus, If You Can Keep It: Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 (20 December 2019), online (blog): [perma.cc/332V-MBBM]. 8 1999 CanLII 699 (SCC). T wis work is licensed under a Authors retain copyright oftheir work, with e first publication rights granted to the Alberta Law Review. 1