Editor’s Note: This post was written as a preview of an upcoming Supreme Court of Canada decision for the Fantasy Courts website and newsletter. Photo by Evelyn Bodnar on Unsplash.
🧾 On Friday, June 12, 2026, the Supreme Court of Canada will release its decision in Société de l’Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick v. The Right Honourable Prime Minister of Canada. At issue is whether New Brunswick’s constitutional language rights require the person appointed as Lieutenant Governor to be bilingual.
🎯 On May 29, 2026, the SCC released its decision in R. v. Jacques-Taylor, 2026 SCC 20. In a 6:3 decision, the Court allowed the Crown’s appeal, set aside the stay of proceedings, and held that delay caused by a co-accused’s counsel in a joint trial can amount to a discrete exceptional circumstance under Jordan.
🤖 63% of Fantasy Courts players correctly predicted the result! The SCCbot got it right.
🔮 Head over to Fantasy Courts to lock in your predictions for this week’s decision. Scroll down for details on this week’s case and a recap of last week’s judgment.
Case to Predict: Must New Brunswick’s Lieutenant Governor Be Bilingual?
Appeal by leave from Le très honorable premier ministre du Canada et autres c. La Société de l’Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick et le Procureur général du Nouveau-Brunswick, 2024 NBCA 70
What Happened?
New Brunswick is Canada’s only officially bilingual province. After Lieutenant Governor Jocelyne Roy-Vienneau died in office, the Prime Minister advised the appointment of Brenda Murphy as the province’s next Lieutenant Governor. Ms. Murphy was not bilingual.
The Société de l’Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick challenged the appointment, arguing that appointing a unilingual Lieutenant Governor violated New Brunswick’s constitutional language guarantees. The application judge agreed in part, holding that the Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick must be bilingual and able to perform the role in both English and French. But the judge declined to invalidate the appointment.
The New Brunswick Court of Appeal unanimously overturned that decision. It held that the Charter protects institutional bilingualism in New Brunswick, not a personal bilingualism requirement for the individual who holds the office of Lieutenant Governor. The SANB appealed to the SCC.
What Was Argued at the SCC?
Appellant: The SANB argues that New Brunswick is a constitutionally bilingual state, and that the Lieutenant Governor is not just another public official. The Lieutenant Governor embodies the Crown and the provincial state, exercises executive and legislative functions, and plays a unifying constitutional role. The SANB says ss. 16(2), 16.1, 18(2) and 20(2) of the Charter must be read together with s. 58 of the Constitution Act, 1867, so that the federal appointment power is exercised consistently with New Brunswick’s bilingual constitutional status. On that view, appointing a unilingual person to the office undermines the equality of the province’s two official-language communities and should be declared unconstitutional and inoperative.
Respondents: Canada argues that the Court of Appeal got it right. Section 58 of the Constitution Act, 1867 creates the office of Lieutenant Governor and gives the Governor General in Council a broad discretionary appointment power, but it contains no bilingualism requirement. Canada says the Charter provisions relied on by the SANB impose obligations on institutions, not on individual officeholders. The “office” or “charge” of Lieutenant Governor may be unique, but the “institution” is the administrative organization that supports the officeholder. On Canada’s view, the Charter requires institutional bilingualism, not a constitutional rule that the Lieutenant Governor personally master both official languages.
What Else Should You Know Before Making a Prediction?
This case sits at the intersection of language rights, constitutional monarchy, and remedies. The easy point is that a bilingual Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick is desirable. The hard question is whether the Constitution makes it mandatory. If the Court sides with the SANB, it could recognize a personal bilingualism requirement for one of the most symbolically important offices in Canada’s only officially bilingual province. If it sides with Canada, it will likely emphasize the distinction between institutional bilingualism and individual language qualifications.
I’m leaning towards appeal allowed, primarily on the basis that the Court has interpreted language rights very generously in the past few decades, and New Brunswick finds itself in a unique position in our constitutional order as the only officially bilingual province.
SCCbot
This season, we’re also asking the SCCbot, an AI tool that predicts Supreme Court of Canada decisions, what it thinks the Court will do. This week, the SCCbot predicts the appeal will be dismissed (with ~60% confidence). It expects the Court to reaffirm that New Brunswick’s language guarantees — ss. 16(2), 16.1, 18(2) and 20(2) of the Charter — protect institutional bilingualism rather than the personal bilingualism of the office-holder, and to hold that the Charter does not require the Lieutenant Governor to be personally bilingual, however desirable that may be. It anticipates strong language affirming the importance of New Brunswick’s unique bilingual status, paired with reluctance to read a personal-fluency requirement into provisions framed around “institutions” and “offices” — especially given the slippery slope for other heads of institutions, and the awkwardness of declaring a vice-regal appointment invalid. The biggest soft spot in Canada’s case is the genuinely sui generis nature of the office: a single person who personifies the bilingual state and gives royal assent to bilingual legislation, which is the SANB’s strongest hook for a narrow, New-Brunswick-specific win. SCCbot is now 9 for 13 in its predictions.
Previous Case Recap: Jacques-Taylor
R. v. Jacques-Taylor, 2026 SCC 20
Held (6:3): Appeal allowed. The stay of proceedings was set aside and the matter was sent back for trial.
Key points:
- Joint trials should generally proceed where they are in the interests of justice. They promote efficiency, reduce inconsistent verdicts, and avoid requiring witnesses to testify more than once.
- Delay caused by a co-accused in a joint trial can amount to a discrete exceptional circumstance under Jordan.
- The Crown must show that the joint trial is in the interests of justice, the delay arose because of the joint trial, the delay was unforeseen or reasonably unavoidable, and the Crown could not reasonably have reduced it.
- On the facts, the delay caused by the co-accused’s counsel being unavailable was deducted, bringing the net delay below the 18-month Jordan ceiling.
- The Court also emphasized that all actors in the criminal justice system must proactively collaborate to move cases forward.
- The dissent would have dismissed the appeal, finding that the Crown had not taken reasonable steps to address the delay in time.
📊 63% of Fantasy Courts players predicted correctly. The SCCbot got it right.
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-Tom Slade