...but you can sense a certain critical distance in the Prime Minister's note of  -- tribute? Acknowledgement? -- on the death of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Antonio Lamer:

"KAMPALA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued the following statement today on the passing of former Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice the Rt. Honourable Antonio Lamer:

"'From his first days at the bar, through his years with the Law Reform Commission, and finally as a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada, Antonio Lamer brought his views on due process to bear on the reshaping of Canada's justice system. He tackled the great challenges of law reform without fear or hesitation. His rulings expanded the right to counsel, the law of search and seizure, and the scope of judicial review. His most important decisions, such as the Re Remuneration of Judges, even shifted the fundamental balance of judicial and legislative power in Canada.

"'The legacy of Justice Antonio Lamer is felt across the Canadian legal system today.

"'I offer my sympathies to the Lamer family and the late Justice's friends and colleagues.'"

People who write reviews for a living will recognize the work of a man who is trying hard not to say anything bad about the deceased, while being careful not to praise. This is the elegiac equivalent of "Only Paul Wells could have written a book like this:" It takes care not to address what a book like this is like.

This is because Stephen Harper and his chief of staff, Ian Brodie, are not great fans of the legacy of Antonio Lamer. The remuneration-of-judges case is a clue. Here is some background. The linked article is handy because it draws a connection between the PEI judges case and the rather more notorious Secession Reference, in which Lamer and his colleagues discovered an "obligation to negotiate" secession in a Constitution which contains neither the words "obligation to negotiate" nor "secession."

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INSTANT UPDATE: The day's most unsurprising news is that when you google "Antonio Lamer" and "Ian Brodie," you get an article from the early days of the National Post.
AND THEN A SECOND LATER: But I'm taking the long way round to things today, aren't I. What I want to google is "Antonio Lamer" and "Stephen Harper." Voilà.