Seite - 218 - in VULNERABLE - The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19

VULNERABLE218 cause limits to be read into legislative responses to the emergency and judges may take a dim view at trial of the validity of tickets issued by officious municipal officers. Important as such judicial activity would be, it would occur at the margins, as judges are singularly unlikely in the current context to invalidate legislation that empowers ministers and other officials to take emergency action to combat a public health crisis. Dominium Government power to enter into contracts and distribute largesse is subject to few limits. The ordinary rules of contract, property, tort law and so on apply, but the principles of public law—reasonable- ness and procedural fairness—backed up by remedies that invalidate government action are unlikely to extend to the exercise of dominium in response to COVID-19. Governments can rely on broad statutory and inherent powers in responding to the economic fallout from the pandemic. Section 60.3(1) of Bill C-13 empowers the Minister of Finance to establish and capi- talize a Crown corporation where, in his opinion “It is necessary to promote the stability or maintain the efficiency of the financial sys- tem in Canada.” Any such corporation is exempt from the usual rules relating to the management and oversight of Crown corporations.28 Rather, under subsections 4-8, the Minister may issue directives to the corporation which, in turn, its directors must follow, make regulations concerning the corporation’s operations, and set out terms and con- ditions relating to transactions in which the corporation can engage. This legislative grant of almost unconstrained power is not especially anomalous. The Crown—that is, the federal and provincial govern- ments—“enjoys a general capacity to contract in accordance with the rule of ordinary law.”29 Once monies have been lawfully appropri- ated, governments can put them to use in the pursuit of their policy objectives.30 Given that “the Crown has the capacities and powers of a 28. These are contained in the Financial Administration Act, RSC 1985, c F-11, Part X but excluded by s 60.3(3) of Bill C-13, An  Act  respecting  certain  measures  in  response  to  COVID-19, 1st Sess, 42nd Parl, 2020 (assented to 25 March 2020), SC 2020, c 5. 29. Attorney  General  of  Quebec  v  Labrecque, [1980] SCR 1057 at 1082, 125 DLR (3d) 545. 30. See e.g. Pharmaceutical  Manufacturers  Assn  of  Canada  v  British  Columbia  (Attorney  General) (1997), 149 DLR (4th) 613, [1998] 1 WWR 702; Canadian  Doctors  for  Refugee  Care  v  Canada  (Attorney  General), 2014 FC 651.