HomeTag Archives: Charter (page 2)

Tag Archives: Charter

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, ...

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The Vital Importance of Due Process

What do Hewlett Packard and MP Scott Andrews have in common? As Conrad Black writes in today’s National Post, both are being denied their right to due process.  In Lord Black’s opinion, the penalizing of Canadian corporations for their alleged (but unproven) conduct in other countries and the allegations of sexual harassment being levelled against MPs are all part of the ...

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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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Looking for Rights in the All the Wrong Places: A Troubling Decision from the Supreme Court

Earlier this month this Supreme Court of Canada held that there is a blanket constitutional right to access the civil courts. The decision in Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia v. British Columbia (Attorney General) did not make huge headlines when it was released on October 2, but it probably should have. The Supreme Court has done something truly unprecedented in ...

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The Living Fiction: Reclaiming Originalism for Canada

This Article was published in the Autumn 2014 edition of the Advocates’ Quarterly1   Eighty-five years ago this October, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council handed down its decision in Edwards v. Attorney-General for Canada, in which it held that “The British North America Act planted in Canada a living tree capable of growth and expansion within its natural ...

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