PRECEDENT AND NATIONALISM IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CANADA

This article employs literature on federalism to explore the ways in which national Canadian interest groups develop federative structures in order to conduct advocacy work within Québec. It first identifies institutional reasons for the development of federalist structures for Canadian groups, and it then explores asymmetries between the treatment of Québec chapters of these groups and of chapters elsewhere in Canada. Drawing on interviews with the political directors of groups active at the national level in Canada, this article shows that the degree to which groups grant power to their provincial or Québec subunits varies according to the benefits sought by groups.