Ontario Court of Appeal Justices Miller and Lauwers recently critiqued the nebulous concept of “Charter values” in a written judgement and urged judges to avoid invoking Charter values as much as possible. The case, in Gehl v Canada (AG), 2017 ONCA 319, is worth reading, but I’ll summarize it for you here. The issue in Gehl was whether the appellant, ...
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A Questionable Ruling on Aboriginal Rights
As has been widely reported, an Ontario court has ruled that native parents have a right to deny their children life-saving medical treatment. The case of Hamilton Health Sciences Corporation v. D.H. concerned an 11-year-old child, J.J., who was diagnosed with leukemia in August 2014. Her treatment team determined that she had a 90%-95% chance of being cured with chemotherapy, ...
Read More »Lawsuit Claims Individual Rights Trump Cultural Preservation
Seven members of the Kahnawake Mohawk band have brought a lawsuit, alleging that they were evicted from their homes on the reserve for having married non-natives. The plaintiffs each claim damages of $50,000 and also seek a declaration that “non Native spouses are entitled to reside within Kahnawake with their spouses and children, and that the children retain native status ...
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