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Yearly Archives: 2015

“Clear and Definitive”: The Offence of Bestiality and the Rules of Statutory Interpretation

Last month, the Supreme Court of Canada heard oral arguments in the case R. v. D.L.W.  The issue for appeal is not exactly garden variety. The Supreme Court has been asked to determine whether the offence of “bestiality” in the Criminal Code requires penetration.   Background The facts are not in dispute and are disturbing to say the least. The accused respondent ...

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A “Progressive” Result from the Rule of Law

Lawyers, scholars and judges who promote judicial restraint and the rule of law are frequently called “conservative.” Justice Grant Huscroft of the Ontario Court of Appeal is often cited as an example of a judge whose judicial philosophy is a thinly veiled guise for his conservative predispositions. But is this really the case? In his recent decision in Michela v. ...

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The People Need Their Say on Electoral Reform

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised during the recent campaign that 2015 would be the last federal election to employ “first-past-the-post.” This is the electoral system familiar to  Canadians, in which the candidate who wins a plurality of votes in each riding is elected to Parliament. In its place we would see the introduction of a more “representative” system, most likely ...

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Judicial Restraint Lives to Fight Another Day

If laws are supposed to be legislated by the legislature, and interpreted by the judiciary, what happens when the judiciary is of the view that the legislature is dropping the ball? This philosophical conundrum was implicitly considered by two different levels of court in Ontario, with different results. In Ernst & Young Inc. v. Chartis Insurance Co. of Canada, [2014] ...

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Parliament Can Still Criminalize Assisted Suicide

Earlier this year, Canada’s Supreme Court struck down the Criminal Code prohibition on assisted suicide in its landmark Carter v. Canada ruling. Parliament’s only option now, many believe, is either to implement a circumscribed “right to die” or invoke the Charter’s notwithstanding clause. But the actual legal reasoning underlying the Court’s invalidation of the law makes possible another path. The ...

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Banning “Hate Speech” is Beyond Provincial Power

Hate speech is back in the news. The Quebec government has recently tabled Bill 59, which, among other things, would prohibit “hate speech” – a term that is not defined. Anyone who “engages in or disseminates” hate speech is liable to be fined up to $10,000 for the first utterance and $20,000 for the second.   The Bill would also ...

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The Hard Truth – “the contract said what it said”

MacQuarrie v. National Bank Life Insurance Company is a noteworthy decision for those interested in the “textualist” debate – namely, whether words reduced to writing, whether it be in the form of a policy of insurance, a statute, a commercial contract, or otherwise – should be interpreted according to their plain and ordinary meaning. In MacQuarrie, an insured sought payment ...

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In Defence of Constitutional Originalism

The Globe and Mail recently reported that Bradley Miller, a former Western University law professor and a judge on Ontario’s Superior Court, had been appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal. The Globe’s report drew attention to the following: 1. Miller has criticized gay marriage; 2. Miller has only six months’ experience as a judge; and 3. Miller is an ...

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The True American Import to Canada is the Living Tree, not Originalism

Old Supreme Court

Constitutional originalism, which holds that the meaning of the Constitution remains constant with the passage of time, does not enjoy a great deal of support Canada. It is dismissed as an American phenomenon, and a distastefully conservative one at that. The Canadian Constitution, we are told, is a “living tree” and it is therefore the responsibility of judges to rediscover ...

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Reaffirming Magna Carta

Magna Carta turned 800 this week. After eight centuries, it remains the foundational text of Anglo-American law. Borne out of a bitter dispute between King John and his aggrieved barons in the spring of 1215, the “Great Charter” scarcely resembles any modern human rights instrument. It did not grant freedom of expression and religion, or even life, liberty and the ...

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