OTTAWA – Having written their last judgement and heard their final appeal for the year, the nine honourable members of Canada’s highest court spent last week preparing to enter their annual state of hibernation.
“Supreme Court Judges exert themselves a great deal during the fall hearing charter challenges and reviewing appellate court decisions, so when the recess arrives, they enter into a 2-month long dormant state to conserve energy and store up fat for the next session,” said famed nature documentarian David Attenborough, who is currently shooting a documentary on the subject.
“Only by slowing down their metabolic rate and reducing their core body temperatures are the judges able to properly deliberate on the provisions of the Income Tax Act without collapsing from boredom. Hibernation is a vital part of the supreme court justice development process,” Attenborough added.
The court’s preparation was already well underway by the time Attenborough’s crew arrived to film. Justice Louis Lebel had recently secured several months’ worth of salmon from the shores of the Ottawa river, and Marie Deschamps had almost finished burying all the nuts she would need for the cold months ahead. Safety was a top priority of many of the justices, as they hoped to use hibernation to avoid hunting season. Supreme Court Justice robes are currently trading at record setting prices on the Chinese black market.
Attenborough’s documentary crew was even able to discover that, in keeping with their varied judicial philosophies, each judge had their own particular means to hibernate. Recently appointed judge Michael Moldaver spends the months in a state-of-the-art hyperbaric chamber built to his specifications, while the more traditional chief justice Beverley McLachlin prefers to retire to a cave in northern Alberta where she lives with a family of grizzlies she has affectionately named the royal tenenbears.
