Preston Jordan Lim (Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law) has posted The Originalism of F.R. Scott (Supreme Court Law Review (2d) vol 111 pp. 101-113 (2023)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Few figures have impacted 20th century Canadian history and thought as deeply as F.R. Scott. Although many remember Scott today as a socialist, nationalist, civil libertarian and poet, few remember him as an originalist. After defining various schools of originalism, I argue that Scott implicitly espoused two types of originalism: intentionalism and framework originalism. As an intentionalist, Scott treated the Framers’ purposes and objectives as paramount in interpreting the British North America Act of 1867. As a framework originalist, Scott contended that the Framers established a constitutional architecture fully capable of meeting the challenges of future centuries. Scott’s originalism contains broader lessons both for contemporary originalist theory and Canadian constitutional theory.