The controversy over the Senate reform proposals by the Harper government and the recent historically embarrassing ruling for Harper in the Supreme Court over the appointment of Justice Marc Nadon are raising serious concerns about the Conservative government's respect for the essential features of Canada's constitutional order.The Senate reform proposals by the Harper government in Bill C-7 was designed to do an end run around the amending formula of the 1982 Constitution by proposing a federal framework for provincial Senate elections and nine year term limits. With the majority that his government has, Harper could have pushed through the controversial bill long before the Senate expenses scandal broke that is now being used by Harper to either get approval for his reforms from the Supreme Court or trigger some kind of process to get public approval for abolition of the Senate. This could well be a referendum timed just before the 2015 election after the Supreme Court rules against the proposed reforms. Harper can then campaign against both the Senate and the Supreme Court event though he is primarily responsible for the scandals emanating primarily from his former star appointees Duffy, Wallin and his own prized chief of staff, Nigel Wright. Perhaps the goal of Harper from the outset was not to pass his reform package, but use it as election fodder to cement his base in 2015, especially in the West who are keenest on Senate reform. Ironically, it would be the West who would suffer the most if the reforms were passed as it would entrench the under-representation of the West permanently and increase the legislative power of Central and Atlantic Canada in a far more democratically legitimate Senate. Harper knew that and was playing the Conservative base.Likewise, in the surprise appointment of Marc Nadon as one of the three Supreme Court justices from Quebec had been a member of the Quebec bar before becoming a federal court justice for 20 years at 64 had become a supernumerary justice of the Court which many in legal profession would regard as semi-retired. His limited contacts with Quebec's civil law for all that time while a federal court judge and the fact that he would be significantly down the list of the most qualified judges or jurists that the Quebec legal establishment would have proposed was probably well known to Harper. The Prime Minister was also aware that the express wording of section 6 of the Supreme Court Act most relevant to the appointment of one of the three judges from Quebec was that the appointee either had to be a judge from the Superior Court or the Appeal Court of Quebec or an advocate from that province. Arguments by the Quebec government lawyer in the Supreme Court on the latter requirement argued it meant more than just being a member of Quebec bar two decades ago. The Supreme Court handed down a historic ruling emphasising that section 6 had to be applied purposively to protect not only the civil law traditions of Quebec, but also its social values to  make Nadon' s appointment void ab initio.Another part of the historic ruling in the Nadon decision was that the quick Harper fix in passing retroactive legislation to make Nadon eligible was unconstitutional as changing section 6 and therefore the composition of the Court required a constitutional amendment requiring constitutional amendment entailing unanimous consent of all the provinces. The ruling thereby entrenches the most important features of our top court against Harper type quick unconstitutional fixes for all time. This part of the Nadon ruling gives a likely indication of how the Court will rule in the Senate Reference.So yet again, the Harper government's attempt at a possible end run around the Constitution has failed. In the defence of this attempt to circumvent the constitution, a supporting opinion by former Supreme Court justice, Ian Binnie, and also supported by two other jurists was produced by the Harper government that asserted that another more general section of Supreme Court Act that only required membership of a provincial bar for ten years for appointment of any jurist to the Supreme Court even to replace a retired Quebec justice of the Court. No opinion from the Quebec government or a top jurist from the province seemed to have been sought. The dissenting judge in the Supreme Court, Justice Moldaver, also provided another technical defence for the Nadon appointment, pointing out that Harper could just appoint Nadon to the Quebec Superior Court for one day and then make him eligible for the top court based on its ruling. This dissent seems to undervalue the national unity dimensions of the majority's ruling.Whatever the political motivation of the Prime Minister to appoint Justice Nadon, the real damage to “peace, order and good governance” in Canada is the undermining of long standing legal and constitutional frameworks involving this critical institution of Canadian constitutional democracy.These two constitutionally suspect actions by the Harper government demonstrates one of the defining features of the tenure of this majority government. Both show the tendency of the Prime Minister to regard the most fundamental documents of our democracy as mere legalities that can be manipulated for long or short term political objectives ignoring the potential for very long term damage to the most important institutions of Canada.Errol P. Mendes is a professor of constitutional and international law at the University of Ottawa and is Editor-in-Chief of the National Journal of Constitutional Law and a former Visiting Fellow of Harvard Law School. He is also the co-editor of the 2013 5th edition of the landmark bilingual text on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms published by LexisNexis celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Charter.