Yesterday I switched on—for the first time—the TV that’s in the furnished Edmonton apartment I somehow managed to get, and I saw a guy in a robe and a wing collar with tabs standing at a podium and talking about a statute. In a few moments there was a cut to a another camera, which revealed that this guy was talking to a panel of nine people who were also in robes and special collars. Of the nine on the panel, four were women, including the person in the middle seat. It was the Supreme Court of Canada, of course.

And it turned out that I was watching CPAC, the cable channel that is to Canada what C-SPAN is to the U.S. Through its “Jurisprudence” program, CPAC broadcasts most Supreme Court proceedings, to cable subscribers in Canada and to web users worldwide. From some cursory web research, it doesn’t look like the case that I saw yesterday, Her Majesty the Queen v. Public Service Alliance of Canada, had all that much relative significance; in fact, the Court issued an oral judgment after hearing only one side of the argument.

But in the U.S., no part of even the most significant U.S. Supreme Court proceedings are permitted to be televised. Although for some years the Court has released audio of oral arguments and other proceedings after each term, and with Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board in 2000 began immediately releasing audio of argument in some major cases, cameras are still strictly prohibited from the courtroom. Microphones are banned too, and only members of the credentialed press and Supreme Court bar may even take notes during proceedings. Brian Lamb, C-SPAN’s president and CEO, has fought for decades to get permission to televise the Court and has gotten basically nowhere. A pair of bills introduced in Congress last fall would force the Court to open its doors to cameras, but both appear to be stalled right now.

Now, the arguments for and against televised appellate proceedings open an expanse of issues that I’m not willing to discuss right here right now. My gut reaction has always been that it’s a bit ridiculous that video is completely forbidden, even to be released after the term (as most audio is), and my growing sense is that the members of the judiciary who strongly oppose cameras in courtrooms are more scared of change than of anything else. The Supreme Court of Canada’s proceedings have been broadcast since 1993, and since then that Court has apparently sought to balance the “clashing titans” of fair trial and free press rights.

I can say, interestingly, that I experienced a palpable sense of evaporating majesty when I realized that I was seeing the Supreme Court of Canada on TV. I turned the TV off with a feeling that the Court was just another part of the Canadian government, doing an important job but not an unapproachable one. The U.S. Supreme Court is still surrounded, in my mind, by a veil of secrecy and mystery. Both Courts are doing the same thing: making decisions that affect people throughout North America and the world. And, having seen a high court both ways, I think I prefer them with the veil off.