Conversations with Jen: Who Guards the Guardrails?
Who is Jen? Jen is my AI assistant. Our conversations are used as a writing device to explore ideas, challenge assumptions, and examine issues from different perspectives.
Jen: You seem unusually frustrated lately whenever the courts come up in discussions about Alberta.
Me: Because I think we’re crossing a line that Canadians generally don’t appreciate until it’s gone.
A friend made an observation to me recently that stuck.
“Most people don’t spend their days thinking about judges until they’re standing in front of one.”
He followed it with another point. In Canada, you generally need a very compelling reason to have a different judge assigned to your case.
Most Canadians never think about that. They assume the judge will be independent, impartial, and guided by the law. The identity of the judge is often less important than the process itself.
That’s not an accident. It’s one of the quiet strengths of our justice system.
We don’t spend our time wondering whether a judge was chosen because of political loyalty. We don’t generally question whether a ruling was issued to advance a partisan agenda. We trust the process because, for generations, the system has largely earned that trust.
Trust is remarkably difficult to build and surprisingly easy to damage.
Once political leaders begin encouraging people to see judges as political actors rather than independent arbiters, every unpopular ruling can be portrayed as evidence of bias and every constitutional limit can be framed as a political attack.
At that point, confidence in the institution begins to erode — not because the courts changed, but because the narrative surrounding them changed.
Jen: Isn’t disagreement with a court ruling allowed?
Me: Absolutely.
Court decisions can be appealed. Higher courts can overturn lower courts. Legislatures can sometimes amend laws to address constitutional concerns. That’s how a healthy democracy works.
What concerns me is when elected leaders stop treating courts as independent institutions and start treating them as political opponents.
Those are very different things.
Canada’s constitutional framework was deliberately designed to prevent governments from becoming the sole judges of their own actions.
One of the most important safeguards is the independence of the judiciary.
Section 96 of the Constitution Act established the federal appointment of superior court judges. The purpose was simple: ensure that provincial governments could not stack courts with political allies and then use those courts to validate whatever government wanted to do.
The architects of Confederation understood something fundamental.
Power always prefers fewer restraints.
Democracy requires them.
Jen: You’re talking about the recent First Nations decisions?
Me: In part.
The courts reminded Alberta that governments have constitutional obligations, including duties to consult where Indigenous rights may be affected.
That’s not activism.
That’s literally the courts doing the job they were created to do.
The judiciary doesn’t create constitutional obligations. It interprets and applies them.
When governments lose those cases, they aren’t being attacked. They are being told where constitutional boundaries exist.
That is a feature of democracy, not a flaw.
Jen: Yet some people would say the government is simply standing up for Alberta.
Me: Standing up for Alberta and standing up to the Constitution are not the same thing.
In fact, I would argue they are often opposites.
A premier’s authority comes entirely from the Constitution. The office exists because the Constitution creates it. The Legislature exists because the Constitution creates it. Provincial powers exist because the Constitution creates them.
You cannot claim to be defending Alberta while simultaneously attacking the institutions that protect the constitutional framework Alberta depends upon.
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That isn’t patriotism.
It’s selective respect for the rules.
Jen: You seem particularly troubled by the government’s response rather than the ruling itself.
Me: Because leadership is revealed when leaders don’t get the answer they wanted.
Anyone can celebrate institutions when they agree with them.
The real test comes when they don’t.
In The Cost of Avoidance in Leadership I wrote about how leaders sometimes refuse to confront reality because reality is inconvenient. https://medium.com/@rbuchfink/the-cost-of-avoidance-in-leadership-38c9389dc0d5,
Sometimes the avoidance takes the form of blaming others.
Sometimes it takes the form of finding enemies.
And sometimes it takes the form of convincing supporters that every obstacle is evidence of persecution.
But leadership isn’t about finding someone to blame.
Leadership is about working within the constraints that exist.
The Constitution is one of those constraints.
The courts are one of those constraints.
Treaties are one of those constraints.
Ignoring them doesn’t make them disappear.
Jen: So what should people be watching for?
Me: The language.
Whenever politicians begin describing judges as obstacles rather than independent arbiters, pay attention.
Whenever constitutional obligations are portrayed as nuisances rather than responsibilities, pay attention.
Whenever disagreement becomes a reason to question the legitimacy of institutions themselves, pay attention.
Because history shows us that democratic erosion rarely begins with tanks in the streets.
It begins with small efforts to undermine confidence in the institutions that hold power accountable.
The courts.
The media.
The public service.
Elections.
One piece at a time.
Jen: And your conclusion?
Me: Patriotism isn’t about defending a government.
It’s about defending the institutions that make self-government possible.
A premier serves Alberta.
A judge serves the law.
Those roles are intentionally different.
When each respects the boundaries of the other, democracy functions.
When one begins attacking the legitimacy of the other simply because it lost an argument, the problem isn’t the court.
The problem is a growing discomfort with accountability.
And accountability is not something to fear.
It’s one of the reasons Canada works as well as it does.
