The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms can be interpreted in two ways regarding its relation with administrative law. First, as an alternative statutory remedy against government; second, as a general democratic mandate to reconsider the foundations of Canadian administrative law. Nevertheless, in spite of the entrenchment of the Charter, the former interpretation has prevailed. Indeed, since 1982, the Charter has developed as a distinct body of rights operating separately from administrative law remedies. / The interpretation of the Charter as a distinct statutory remedy has caused problems in both the definition of administrative power under the Charter and in the judicial review of administrative action. First, the interpretation of the Charter as autonomous remedy has polarized the definition of administrative power insofar as administrative authorities can either apply or not apply the Charter. However, both solutions are extreme: administrative authorities are not superior courts; conversely, the notwithstanding clause set aside, the power to give effect to the Charter cannot validly be withdrawn. Second, at the judicial level, even though it is part of the Constitution, the Charter has been treated as an autonomous cause of action against government, thus distinct from inherent judicial powers. This has prompted a separate regime of judicial power under the Charter, and separate constitutional and administrative law standards of review. / However, the autonomy of the Charter and administrative law, at both administrative and judicial levels, is being reconciled through the integration of the Charter into the process of statutory interpretation, thus minimizing the distinction between "administrative law" and the "law of the Charter".

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This thesis suggests that it is impossible to consider any administrative agency in the abstract without losing important elements of the nature of the legal environment within which the agency operates. There is a large gap between the theories of formal administrative law and the experience of practice in particular administrative settings. Drawing upon the work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, the thesis develops the concept of the legal administrative field as a means to approach this issue. The use of Bourdieu's concepts of field, habitus and capital help to articulate and give a theoretical structure to a process and series of practices that are otherwise hard to identify or study. Two Alberta farm marketing boards, and certain specific legal issues faced by each board, are examined in detail and analyzed in terms of the concept of the legal administrative field. It is shown that for each board, the realm of what was 'legally possible' shifted despite the fact that there were no changes in the formal administrative law and that legal practice in these fields involves far more than the application of the principles of formal administrative law. The intersection of the principles and habitus of formal administrative law, the structure provided by the legislative and regulatory framework, and the respective capital and habitus of all the individuals, agents and agencies within the field all interact and these complex interactions are what structure the legal administrative fields and shape the shifts which occur within them. In the struggles of interpretation which occur in these fields an attempt to make a clear demarcation between the practice of law by lawyers and the administration of the system by administrators is inadequate; it simplifies and renders invisible much of the complex series of interactions in which the legal practitioner is a participant and which create the field in which he or she practices. The conclusion is that the heuristic value of the legal administrative field in relation to the legal issues faced by the two marketing boards, and in relation to legal practice in the farm marketing area has been established and that this concept provides a useful perspective and a valuable supplement to a more traditional approach.

This thesis suggests that it is impossible to consider any administrative agency in the abstract without losing important elements of the nature of the legal environment within which the agency operates. There is a large gap between the theories of formal administrative law and the experience of practice in particular administrative settings. Drawing upon the work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, the thesis develops the concept of the legal administrative field as a means to approach this issue. The use of Bourdieu's concepts of field, habitus and capital help to articulate and give a theoretical structure to a process and series of practices that are otherwise hard to identify or study. Two Alberta farm marketing boards, and certain specific legal issues faced by each board, are examined in detail and analyzed in terms of the concept of the legal administrative field. It is shown that for each board, the realm of what was 'legally possible' shifted despite the fact that there were no changes in the formal administrative law and that legal practice in these fields involves far more than the application of the principles of formal administrative law. The intersection of the principles and habitus of formal administrative law, the structure provided by the legislative and regulatory framework, and the respective capital and habitus of all the individuals, agents and agencies within the field all interact and these complex interactions are what structure the legal administrative fields and shape the shifts which occur within them. In the struggles of interpretation which occur in these fields an attempt to make a clear demarcation between the practice of law by lawyers and the administration of the system by administrators is inadequate; it simplifies and renders invisible much of the complex series of interactions in which the legal practitioner is a participant and which create the field in which he or she practices. The conclusion is that the heuristic value of the legal administrative field in relation to the legal issues faced by the two marketing boards, and in relation to legal practice in the farm marketing area has been established and that this concept provides a useful perspective and a valuable supplement to a more traditional approach. / Law, Peter A. Allard School of / Graduate