Canadian Lawyer

24 M A r C h 2 0 1 5 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m niz Alani says he's "just a guy with a credit card and some vacation time." So why isn't the 33-year-old husband and father taking his young family off to Dis- ney World? Wouldn't that be an easier way to spend his free time and money — certainly more fun, than say, taking the prime minister to court? For most Canadians, even most law- yers, the choice would be obvious. But for Alani, challenging Stephen Harper in Fed- eral Court, on his own dime and in his own time, is perfectly normal behaviour. "It's very much in character for Aniz," says Geoff Moysa, a former law school classmate who now practises with McMillan in Toronto. "I figured it was only a matter of time before Aniz got involved in a pursuit like this." In December, Alani leapt from obscu- rity from his post as an in-house counsel in Vancouver onto the national stage — garnering headlines for launching a legal action against what he calls the prime minister's "deliberate failure" to fill empty seats in the Senate. A former Davis LLP associate, Alani now makes his living as an in-house liti- gator for a British Columbia Crown cor- poration, which, he makes clear, has noth- ing to do with his Harper-Senate crusade. Alani was disturbed by comments made in early December by Harper that he had no interest in appointing new senators — even though there were 16 vacancies at the time in the 105-seat Senate. As political pundits have explained, the last thing Harper wants ahead of an upcoming 2015 election is to be more closely associated with the unpopular, scandal-plagued Senate. By February, Harper hadn't made a Senate appointment since March 2013. And with a Conser- vative majority already secure in the up- per chamber, why would Harper change course now? Because, says Alani — the Constitution requires it. e Constitution Act, 1867, gives provinces specific numbers of Senate seats to provide for equal representation in Parliament for each of the country's four major regions (plus additional seats for the Territories and Newfoundland and Labrador). By refusing to advise the gov- ernor general to fill vacant seats within a C r o s s E x A M I N E D KiM stallKnect Taking on the big guns Vancouver's Aniz Alani believes in the power of the Constitution and is willing to take on the PM about it. By Richard Foot A

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