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Now you all know about Washington, so let me tell you a little bit about Ottawa. Ottawa is famously rumored to have been chosen as Canada’s capital city in 1857 by Queen Victoria during a game of pin the tail on the donkey on a map of Canada. After Her Majesty’s selection, the Amer- ican press reported that Ottawa was impossible to capture because even the most courageous soldiers would get lost in the woods trying to find it. Now, I understand that SCOTUS has similar regional requirements. Each of your justices must have lived at some point in either Cambridge, Massachusetts, or New Haven, Connecticut. Some think this leads to a certain narrowness of perspective. ON COURT LOCATIONS Both Courts, as you know, are in capital cities, although SCOTUS origi- nally sat in New York and then in Philadelphia, before moving to its per- manent home in Washington, D.C. You may be interested to know that in 2019, Ottawa earned the distinction of being named the coldest capital city in the world. Perhaps you under- stand now why it was necessary for the parliament of Canada to legislate a residency requirement for its Supreme Court of Canada judges to live in Ottawa. One retired judge noted that even when the justices do make the move to Ottawa, most take every opportunity to leave Ottawa. Let me pause here to sincerely thank you once again for inviting me to Florida. ON NOMINATIONS AND APPOINTMENT PROCESSES In Canada, appointments fall along regional lines. Three justices must be from the Province of Quebec and by con- vention, two are from the western provinces, one is from Atlantic Canada, and three are from Ontario. In 2009, Chief Justice Roberts defended the status quo, saying that “not all the justices went to elite institutions. Some of them went to Yale.” As is well known, the process for being appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court is long and invasive. The parliamen- tary hearing for a Supreme Court of Canada nominee, by contrast, is much less onerous. Again, it is a quintessen- tially Canadian affair. A couple of days after the Prime Minister announces the nominee, a group of Senators and Members of Parliament hold a hearing to politely ask the nominee questions for four minutes each. Parliament does not vote on the nominee, whose appointment re- mains the sole prerogative of the Prime Minister. SUMMER 2023 JOURNAL 18 18