Summer is fast approaching and, in keeping with that season’s custom (though not yet a convention), I thought it best to engage Leonid Sirota in constitutional debate. Last year, we went a few rounds on section 7 of the Charter. This year, the hot topic is s.33 of the Charter, otherwise known as the “notwithstanding clause,” which states that Parliament or ...

Marijuana legalization has officially been announced by Health Minister Jane Philpott for spring of 2017 and the expected outcome, for now at least, is a federally-led initiative. This is the case because section 91(27) of the Constitution Act, 1867 provides Parliament with the power to legislate on issues coming within the purview of the criminal law. That said, if Parliament’s goal is to make marijuana accessible and remove it from the Controlled Drugs ...

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 ...