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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. NOTE: Starting in January 2014, the Hot on CanLII cases will be evaluated differently. In order to maximize the relevance of this feature for our readers, we will start measuring the total amount of time spent on the pages rather than total number of hits, as this gauges impact and legal interest better. Because of the large number of repeated cases, a case will not be included in the list for three months after it has first appeared. Finally the cases listed will now be pulled for the previous week running from Monday to Sunday.

For this last week:

  1. Canada (Superintendent of Bankruptcy) v. 407 ETR Concession Company Limited 2013 ONCA 769

    [3] By operation of s. 22(4) of the 407 Act, toll debt owing to ETR may be enforced against a discharged bankrupt through the suspension of his or her vehicle permit by Ontario’s Registrar of Motor Vehicles. The appellant, the Superintendent of Bankruptcy (the “Superintendent”), argues that the doctrine of federal paramountcy renders s. 22(4) inoperative with respect to a discharged bankrupt for two reasons. First, s. 22(4) conflicts with the operation of s. 178(2) of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. B-3 (“BIA”), which provides that a discharge releases a bankrupt from all claims provable in bankruptcy. Second, s. 22(4) frustrates the purposes of the bankruptcy and insolvency system.
    [4] This appeal addresses whether these two statutory schemes can co-exist in the limited context of a discharged bankrupt. For the reasons that follow, I am of the view that they cannot.

  2. Canada (Attorney General) v. Bedford 2013 SCC 72

    [1] It is not a crime in Canada to sell sex for money. However, it is a crime to keep a bawdy-house, to live on the avails of prostitution or to communicate in public with respect to a proposed act of prostitution. It is argued that these restrictions on prostitution put the safety and lives of prostitutes at risk, and are therefore unconstitutional.

    [2] These appeals and the cross-appeal are not about whether prostitution should be legal or not. They are about whether the laws Parliament has enacted on how prostitution may be carried out pass constitutional muster. I conclude that they do not. I would therefore make a suspended declaration of invalidity, returning the question of how to deal with prostitution to Parliament.

  3. R. v. Carroll 2014 ONCA 2

    [1] Late one night, two blasts from a shotgun ended a lovers’ relationship in a remote camp north of Sudbury. One victim, Carolyn Carroll, was the estranged wife of Reg Carroll (the appellant). The other victim, Tony Comeau, had recently returned to the Sudbury area after an absence of about two decades.
    [2] Nobody saw the appellant shoot the victims. No forensic evidence linked him to the killings. Investigators never found the shotgun.

The most-consulted French-language decision was Zrig c. Canada (Citoyenneté et de l’immigration) 2009 CF 629 (CanLII) [An English version of the judgment, which received a lot of interest from Tunisia, is available here.]

[1] Il s’agit d’une demande de contrôle judiciaire en vertu du paragraphe 72(1) de la Loi sur l’immigration et la protection des réfugiés, L.C. 2001, c. 27 (la Loi), à la suite d’une décision de l’agente d’immigration Nicole Léveillé (l’agente Léveillé), rendue le 29 mars 2007. L’agente a refusé d’octroyer le statut de résident permanent au demandeur à la suite de sa demande de résidence permanente (DRP) pour considérations humanitaires.
[2] Le 24 juillet 2008, le défendeur a présenté une requête en rétractation d’un aveu visant à obtenir l’autorisation de la Cour pour rétracter un aveu contenu dans son mémoire du 21 juin 2007 au paragraphe 20b) de même que l’intertitre entre les paragraphes 29 et 30 selon lequel « le demandeur ne fut pas informé par CIC [Citoyenneté et Immigration Canada] de la décision positive de Mme Dostie, avant que Mme Léveillé rende sa décision ». Le défendeur désire aussi rétracter l’aveu dans son mémoire supplémentaire du 17 décembre 2007 au paragraphe 15b) et à l’intertitre entre les paragraphes 25 et 26 selon lequel « le demandeur ne fut pas formellement informé par CIC de la décision positive de Mme Dostie, avant que Mme Léveillé ne prenne sa décision ». Il veut aussi rétracter son aveu oral dans le même sens lors de l’audience devant la Cour le 29 avril 2008.

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