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 ...

The imbroglio with the Ontario legislature’s enactment of Bill 5 to restructure the Toronto City Council a couple of months before an upcoming election, the Superior Court’s declaration of that legislation unconstitutional, the threatened invocation of the “notwithstanding clause” to override that declaration, and the Court of Appeal’s restoration of what little sanity could still be restored by reversing the Superior ...

The notwithstanding clause saga brought about by the Ford government is difficult for those born and bred on Supreme Court precedent. Law students are presented with an idea of the courts as benevolent actors of the public trust, hemming in cavalier legislatures acting on the passions of citizens. The saga, though, forces us to reckon with another sort of control ...

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 ...

Recently, I had the pleasure of discussing and debating human rights law with Professor Bruce Pardy of my alma mater, Queen’s Law. The topic of the debate was Parliament’s Bill C-16, which amended the Canada Human Rights Act and Criminal Code, along with recent amendments to the Ontario Human Rights Code. The relevant amendments in both human rights statutes concern ...

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 ...

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 ...