Resumen de Legal Modesty and Political Boldness: The Supreme Court of Canada's Decision in Chaoulli v. Quebec

Thomas M.J. Bateman

• When the Supreme Court of Canada decided in June 2005 to strike down Québec’s ban on private health insurance, the impression was quickly created that the Court effected a legal and political revolution. This article suggests that the impression is only partly correct. The Court applied a jurisprudentially modest and well-established interpretation of the right to personal security to dispose of the appeal in Chaoulli v. Quebec. It created a right neither to public health care nor to private health insurance. However, in applying the reasoning in R. v. Morgentaler to a complex area of social policy, it inserted itself into the public policy process and may well have contributed to basic changes in health care policy in Canada. Morgentaler secured the ability to operate private abortion clinics in 1988 – a curious legacy of that victory may be the increasing privatization of health care following Chaoulli.