This article critiques the failure to adopt and enforce procedural norms in Canadian public policy making and suggests that the failure of legislatures and courts to require appropriate procedure prior to the elaboration and implementation of regulatory policy undermines the democratic and substantive legitimacy of that policy. It supports this position through analysis of current approaches to policy making in Canada and the United States, through application of theories of deliberative democracy to policy making and, ultimately, through consideration of what appropriate procedures for policy making should look like.