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. Daniels v. Canada (Indian Affairs and Northern Development), 2016 SCC 12

[1] As the curtain opens wider and wider on the history of Canada’s relationship with its Indigenous peoples, inequities are increasingly revealed and remedies urgently sought. Many revelations have resulted in good faith policy and legislative responses, but the list of disadvantages remains robust. This case represents another chapter in the pursuit of reconciliation and redress in that relationship.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. R v Sargent, 2016 ABCA 104

[17] This Court has previously stated that smuggling drugs into a penal institution should be treated as an aggravating factor: R v Gargas, 2013 ABCA 245 (CanLII) at para 7. Even though the sentencing judge made passing reference to the fact that these drugs were smuggled into prison, the sentence he imposed simply did not reflect either the “gravity of the offence” nor “the degree of responsibility” of the respondent.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

3. Howard v. Benson Group Inc. (The Benson Group Inc.), 2016 ONCA 256

[44] In the absence of an enforceable contractual provision stipulating a fixed term of notice, or any other provision to the contrary, a fixed term employment contract obligates an employer to pay an employee to the end of the term, and that obligation will not be subject to mitigation. Just as parties who contract for a specified period of notice (or pay in lieu) are contracting out of the common law approach in Bardal v. Globe & Mail Ltd. (1960), 24 D.L.R. (3d) 140 (Ont. H.C.), so, too, are parties who contract for a fixed term without providing in an enforceable manner for any other specified period of notice (or pay in lieu).

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

The most-consulted French-language decision was R. c. Lloyd, 2016 CSC 13

[1] Le Parlement possède le pouvoir de tenir un acte pour criminel et de l’interdire, ainsi que de déterminer la sanction à infliger pour sa perpétration, et les tribunaux ont l’obligation d’appliquer les dispositions adoptées par le Parlement en matière de peines à infliger aux délinquants. Or, dans toute affaire dont un tribunal est saisi, le délinquant a le droit de se voir infliger, et le tribunal a l’obligation de lui infliger, une peine qui est constitutionnelle au vu des faits de l’espèce. Il arrive que l’obligation du tribunal d’appliquer une disposition prévoyant une peine minimale obligatoire aille à l’encontre de son obligation d’infliger une peine qui ne porte pas atteinte aux garanties de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés. Dans la présente affaire, la Cour se retrouve encore une fois aux prises avec la question de savoir comment l’infliction d’une peine minimale obligatoire peut se concilier avec la nécessité impérieuse que nul ne soit puni selon des modalités contraires à la Charte.

(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.