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“There are very few issues on which all members of the legal community spontaneously agree,” the organization asserted in a statement.

“The unanimous condemnation of the government’s statements regarding Chief Justice McLachlin reflects our shared sentiment that this is an unfortunate and unprecedented attack on one of the most important institutions of Canada’s constitutional democracy.”

But to Mr. Harper and many of his fellow conservative travellers, the court has never been lionized as anything like an “important institution” of democracy; quite the opposite: a foe of democracy, routinely usurping the supremacy of Parliament and the people’s will. This latest assault is hardly unprecedented; it is the awakening of entrenched animosities that Canadian conservatives have long held toward the court, well before they enjoyed the platform of power.

Conservatism — and western conservatism in particular — has remained skeptical and, sometimes, outright hostile to the “judicial activism” the courts have displayed since the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enacted in 1982. Part of this anger was fuelled by social conservatism, particularly on issues of abortion and gay rights. Part of it, also, was rooted in the fact that the Charter gave the courts unprecedented power to overturn Parliamentary legislation.

Much of this antipathy to the judiciary may have lain dormant until recently. Though Conservatives were finally in power, Judge McLachlin’s court had not, till recently, proved particularly bothersome, having toned down some of the perceived excessive activism of decades past. Yet among those who share Mr. Harper’s ideological leanings, the Supreme Court has never been seen as apolitical or beyond reproach.