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Wednesday: What’s Hot on CanLII

Each Wednesday we tell you which three English-language cases and which French-language case have been the most viewed* on CanLII and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about.

For this last week:

1. Ryerson University v Ryerson Faculty Association, 2018 CanLII 58446 (ON LA)

According to the evidence, which was largely uncontested, and which came in the form of expert testimony and peer reviewed publications, numerous factors, especially personal characteristics – and this is just a partial list – such as race, gender, accent, age and “attractiveness” skew SET results. It is almost impossible to adjust for bias and stereotypes. Student and faculty gender affects outcomes, as does grade expectation. Other systemic problems were identified by the experts, and in the literature. One example, and there were many, is the reliability of SETs completed on line versus those completed in class. There are differences between the results of absent students who complete SETs online and those who complete the forms in class. These differences need to be understood. Overall response rates also need to be considered: the lower the response rate the less reliable the results. There is certainly no reason to believe that the views of responders can be extrapolated and applied to non-responders.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. R. v. Duncan, 2013 ONCJ 160

5. At heart, Mr. Duncan’s case was unremarkable. A minor alleged Highway Traffic Act offence led to a police-citizen interaction in the parking lot of Mr. Duncan’s apartment building in the wee hours of the morning. A request that Mr. Duncan produce his licence led to an alleged refusal, which led to an attempt to arrest him, which led to a struggle, which was captured on a very poor quality video taken on a mobile phone, at the end of which Mr. Duncan found himself being placed under arrest for allegedly assaulting a police officer. Nothing unusual in all that. The bread and butter of provincial court.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

3. Dunsmuir v. New Brunswick, [2008] 1 SCR 190, 2008 SCC 9

[1] This appeal calls on the Court to consider, once again, the troubling question of the approach to be taken in judicial review of decisions of administrative tribunals. The recent history of judicial review in Canada has been marked by ebbs and flows of deference, confounding tests and new words for old problems, but no solutions that provide real guidance for litigants, counsel, administrative decision makers or judicial review judges. The time has arrived for a reassessment of the question.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

The most-consulted French-language decision was Lorraine (Ville) c. 2646‑8926 Québec inc., 2018 CSC 35

[1] La notion d’expropriation réfère au pouvoir, pour une autorité publique, de priver un propriétaire de la jouissance des attributs de son droit de propriété sur un bien. Compte tenu de l’importance accordée à la propriété privée dans les démocraties libérales, l’exercice du pouvoir d’exproprier est strictement encadré afin de veiller à ce que les expropriations soient accomplies pour des fins publiques légitimes et moyennant une juste indemnité. Au Québec, la Loi sur l’expropriation, RLRQ, c. E-24, limite l’exercice de ce pouvoir et édicte la procédure à suivre à cet égard.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

* As of January 2014 we measure the total amount of time spent on the pages rather than simply the number of hits; as well, a case once mentioned won’t appear again for three months.

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