WCSCJAY FAQ

What is the "Which Canadian Supreme Court Justice are you?" quiz?

It consists of ten multiple-choice questions and some software to rate how close your answers come to the opinions of the nine actual Justices, using recent decisions and the Justices who made them as of early August 2008.

How can I take the quiz?

Visit http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/justices/ and follow the directions.

What about the earlier version?

There was an earlier version made in Summer 2004. It is still available and you can try it, but many of the links are broken because of ongoing updates and changes both on my site and the Supreme Court's. There have also been several judges retired and added since the last update of that code, so it would be difficult to put it in context with the current Court.

What's with the Santa suits?

Those are ceremonial robes of office. The Justices don't wear them for everyday events; the robes are mostly for official portraits and special occasions. Think of them as analogous to the caps and gowns of academics. Note that Canada claims territory all the way to the North Pole, and Santa Claus judges whether you're naughty or nice...

What does "puisne" mean?

A "puisne" (pronounced like "puny") Justice is a Justice in a superior court who is not the Chief Justice.

Doesn't it bias the results to identify the majority opinions?

The real Justices are subject to the same potential bias. They discuss their opinions in a group and know how each other are voting when they prepare their own choices. I identify the majority opinions to simulate that for the quiz-taker.

How did you choose the cases to include?

First of all, each case had to be one where there was a difference of opinion among the nine Justices. Many very interesting cases had to be left out because they were decided unanimously. I did stretch it to include cases where all Justices agreed on the final result, but gave different reasons. After that, I looked for a set of ten cases on which there would be at least two cases differentiating each pair of Justices. Within those limits, I looked for cases raising interesting issues, and covering as wide a range of topics as possible.

I'm less thrilled with the selection of cases in the current version than I was with the cases in the old one. I think that's partly the result of limiting the current selection to cases decided by the current court; I didn't expand it to "current or recently retired" as I did in 2004, with the exception of the Honourable Mr. Justice Michel Bastarache, who retired at the end of June 2008 and hasn't been replaced yet.

Where do the case and opinion summaries come from?

I wrote them myself. It was very difficult and time-consuming, partly because of the nature of how they are used in the quiz. I wanted to summarize the cases as accurately as possible, but also not push the reader in the direction of any particular decision, and include all the factual information that seemed necessary to support the actual decisions, but make it all understandable to people who aren't senior legal professionals. For the opinions, I tried to emphasize the differences among them, which are often subtle, again not make one sound better than another even when I actually agree or disagree strongly with some of the opinions, and also include all the most important reasons for why someone might choose one over another.

Describing the Justices themselves was even worse, because I had to figure out a unifying theme for each one's decisions and make it sound positive so that people who got that result would be pleased and want to post it in their Web logs. Sometimes it was a stretch. If the Justices ever read their own descriptions and take offence, I'll be leaning heavily on their decision in WIC Radio Ltd. v. Simpson about honest belief and fair comment.

What result do you, the quiz author, get?

The Honourable Mr. Justice Morris J. Fish, 95.2% match. WIC Radio is the only sample case on which my vote is different from his; I follow the Honourable Mr. Justice Louis LeBel's opinion, and LeBel is also the second-closest match to me overall.