Ontario Court of Appeal Says Housing Rights Case Can’t Proceed: Tanudjaja v...
Ontario housing activists were disappointed by a December ruling from the Ontario Court of Appeal. In a 2-1 decision, the court decided that the pleadings in Tanudjaja v Canada, 2014 ONCA 852...
View ArticleMinority Language Schools Don’t Have to Be Perfect: NWT v Association des...
Minority language rights were at the centre of a recent case heard by the Northwest Territories Court of Appeal (“NWTCA”), with the court ruling that equality does not mean perfect schooling...
View ArticleHigh School Students Successfully Challenge Mandatory Breathalyser for Prom...
In Simon Gillies et al v Toronto District School Board, 2015 ONSC 1038, Justice Himel of the Superior Court of Ontario held that a mandatory breathalyser test for high school prom attendees violated...
View ArticleStrategizing in the Shadow of Precedent: Another look at Henry v British...
An earlier post provided a summary of Henry v British Columbia, 2015 SCC 24 [Henry]. Unanimously overturning a decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeal (“BCCA”), the Supreme Court of Canada...
View ArticleA Web of Instinct: Kahkewistahaw First Nation v Taypotat
Kahkewistahaw First Nation v Taypotat, 2015 SCC 30, is the Supreme Court of Canada’s (“SCC”) most recent decision on equality. Coming in at a brief 35 paragraphs, this decision does not alter the law...
View ArticleCanada (Attorney General) v Cold Lake First Nations: Transparency is Not a...
First Nations and the Harper Government First Nations in Canada have reason to be hopeful in light of national and legal developments this past week. In the federal election on 19 October 2015, some...
View ArticleR v Smith: Removing Arbitrariness in the Regulation of Medical Marihuana
Introduction The regulation of medical marihuana has been a hot topic for quite some time now. More recently, the issue of how much regulation should be required went up to the Supreme Court of Canada...
View ArticleCrouch v Snell or: How Adults Ruined It for the Kids
The tragic suicide of Rahtaeh Parsons as a result of relentless cyber-bullying in 2013 elicited the sympathy and concern of not just Canadians but also the international community. Only three weeks...
View ArticleRemedying Hypothetical Charter Breaches: Lessons from R v Appulonappa
The newest member in the illustrious “class of section seven” Charter jurisprudence is R v Appulonappa, 2015 SCC 59 [Appulonappa], a recent Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) ruling on the...
View ArticleA Brief Look at Osgoode’s 2015 Constitutional Cases Conference
Osgoode’s Constitutional Cases Conference is the leading constitutional law conference in Canada and a much anticipated annual event. The Conference, now in its 19th year, brings together...
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R v Marakah: Sending Text Messages & The Reasonable Expectation of Privacy
** Author’s Note: This post is the product of a conversation I had with an expert on the case. I am humbled by and indebted to that person for their incredible kindness and for the time they took out...
View ArticleConférence des juges de paix magistrats du Québec v Quebec (Attorney...
This guest post was contributed by Deanna Cristovao and Talvinder Singh. Both Deanna and Talvinder are 2019 J.D. Candidates at Osgoode Hall Law School. Judicial independence is a fundamental aspect of...
View ArticleThe Return of the Court Challenges Program: Timely, Critical & Deficient
It is an uncanny convenience that immediately following Prime Minister Trudeau’s abandonment of his electoral reform promise, the announcement of a revamped Court Challenges Program emerges. The...
View ArticleThompson v Ontario : ONCA Dismisses Charter Challenge of Involuntary Civil...
This is the first of a two-part post on Thompson v Ontario. Part 1 discusses (1) the section 7 Charter analysis undertaken by Belobaba J of the Ontario Superior Court and accepted by the Ontario Court...
View ArticleThompson v Ontario : Lessons for Future Charter Challenges to Provincial and...
This is the second of a two-part post on Thompson v Ontario. Part I discussed (1) the section 7 Charter analysis undertaken by Belobaba J of the Ontario Superior Court and accepted by the Ontario Court...
View ArticleCanada’s Longest Recent Sentences and the Questions and Controversies of...
On February 17, 2017, Justice Gates of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench handed down what is being referred to as the “harshest” sentence in recent Canadian history, tied with Christien Bourque’s...
View ArticleR v Antic: Making way for a more efficient bail system
In the recent R v Antic, 2017 SCC 27 [Antic] decision, the Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) provides a much-needed reminder for bail courts across the country to uphold the accused’s right to a...
View ArticleTran v Canada (Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness) : Bringing Cohesion...
In Tran v Canada (Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness) 2017 SCC 50 [Tran], the Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) applied principles of statutory interpretation to answer two questions: First, does a...
View ArticleE.T. v Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board: ONCA Continues to Debate...
The dialogue over the role that Charter values should play in administrative and judicial reasoning continues to expand and evolve. In one of my entries for TheCourt.ca last year, I assessed how the...
View ArticleReturn to Sender: Reasonable Expectations of Privacy in R v Marakah
How private are your private messages? Can the police read the texts you send to others? This post explores R v Marakah, 2017 SCC 59, in which the Supreme Court of Canada found that a sender can have a...
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