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. City of Toronto et al v. Ontario (Attorney General), 2018 ONSC 5151

[70] Here, there is no evidence that any other options or approaches were considered or that any consultation ever took place. It appears that Bill 5 was hurriedly enacted to take effect in the middle of the City’s election without much thought at all, more out of pique than principle.

[71] In any event, the constitutional problem here is two-fold: (i) there is no evidence (other than anecdotal evidence) that a 47-seat City Council is in fact “dysfunctional” or that more effective representation can be achieved by moving from a 47-ward to a 25-ward structure; and (ii) even if there was such evidence, there is no evidence of any urgency that required Bill 5 to take effect in the middle of the City’s election.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. R. v. Fearon, 2014 SCC 77

[1] The police have a common law power to search incident to a lawful arrest. Does this power permit the search of cell phones and similar devices found on the suspect? That is the main question raised by this appeal.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

3. Enterprise Rent-A-Car Canada Company v. Bryan, 2018 ONSC 5203

33. Paragraph 7 of the rental agreement as outline earlier provides that a renter would owe, in the event of the theft of the vehicle determined to be salvage by the owner, the fair market value being the retail value of the vehicle immediately preceding the loss. In this case, the only evidence presented is that the retail value of the vehicle was in the range of $38,000 to $49,000. The repair costs for the vehicle was estimated to be $32,339.06. The plaintiff used only the repair amount for this motion. The claim by the plaintiff is not excessive.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

The most-consulted French-language decision was R. c. Nguyen, 2018 QCCQ 6443

[47] Cela dit, le respect aveugle du protocole entraîne des résultats absurdes et totalement déraisonnables pour la protection de la société, et ce, surtout lorsqu’on tient compte du fléau que représente la conduite d’un véhicule avec les capacités affaiblies par l’alcool ou une drogue. En effet, la preuve démontre que lorsqu’aucun AERD de la Sûreté du Québec n’est disponible pour procéder à une évaluation, les policiers qui détiennent un prévenu pour lequel ils possèdent pourtant des motifs raisonnables de croire qu’il a conduit sous l’effet d’une drogue, sont invités à simplement le « libérer », sans aucune mise en accusation[60]. Pourtant, tous les corps de police ont pour mission de prévenir et de réprimer le crime, et d’en rechercher les auteurs[61].

(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.