On October 23, alongside my colleagues Konstantia Koutouki of University of Montreal, as well as Safie Diallo and Alexandra Lorange, I partook in a discussion initiated by the McGill Runnymede Society, on the criticism of cultural appropriation in the arts and literature. In preparation for this discussion, I discovered more problems with the notion of cultural appropriation than time would ...

All readers of ARL are warmly invited to attend the 2018 Law and Freedom conference, presented by the Runnymede Society. Join the Runnymede Society for some lively debate and discussion about the most important issues in Canadian constitutional law today — and how they impact freedom, policy, and society. Until December 1st, 2017, the code EARLYBIRD will entitle you to ...

The Law Society of Upper Canada (soon to be renamed something less historic), prepares to require its members ― of whom I am one ― to supply it with individual Statement[s] of Principles that acknowledge[] [our] obligation to promote equality, diversity and inclusion generally, and in [our] behaviour towards colleagues, employees, clients and the public. Bruce Pardy has written an ...

This summer, the Ontario government conducted consultations regarding its plan to enact “safe access zones legislation” (SAZL) modeled on British Columbia’s. I’ll give a brief background on B.C.’s law before diving into a division of powers argument against enacting such a law in Ontario. In short, I will argue that just as a province cannot enact a penal prohibition on ...

The Court of Appeal for Ontario recently delivered a noteworthy decision regarding the scope and limits of the constitutional protection for freedom of expression, Bracken v Town of Fort Erie, 2017 ONCA 668. The decision, written by Justice Miller for a unanimous court, breaks no new ground, but contains clear and cogent reminders of two elementary principles that, sadly, may ...

Can you get a little bit pregnant? Of course not. But recently, in BC FIPA, the Supreme Court of Canada held that it matters whether the government infringes constitutional rights by a little or a lot. The difference will determine the strength of evidence the government will need to adduce to justify a rights infringement under section 1 of the ...

In the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris, freedom of expression is coming back to centre stage. This week, the National Post reported that Humanist Canada and Centre for Inquiry- two organizations dedicated to promoting secularism – will ask the Department of Justice to abolish section 296 of the Criminal Code, which prohibits “blasphemous libel.” Section 296 was enacted well ...