A recent symposium at the Université Laval’s Faculty of Law brought to light significant challenges for the justiciability of socio-economic rights in Canada. A great deal of responsibility for this issue has been attributed to the Canadian courts, and there is support for a different approach to judicial interpretation and implementation of socio-economic rights. But the issue is not so simple. An examination of the relationship between the judiciary and other powers reveals a concern for the institutional balance that is enshrined in our fundamental constitutional principles, and which is also evidenced in the courts’ reticence to intervene in this area. While fundamental rights are in part a matter for the courts, they also belong to a sphere of action that is shared among the constituent elements of the state and Canadian society itself — responsibility for our fundamental constitutional instruments does not belong to the judiciary alone.