Following the decisions by the Ontario and Saskatchewan Court of Appeal over the constitutionality of the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, the Supreme Court of Canada is expected to hear their appeals on Sept. 22-23, 2020.

The provinces did not wait for the courts to resolve this matter entirely, and in Ontario, the Minister of Finance at the time protested loudly on April 11, 2019 in the legislature,

Mr. Speaker, while our government takes deliberate steps to make Ontario open for business and open for jobs, the federal government is taking deliberate steps to make the cost of nearly

Every week we present the summary of a decision handed down by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and considered to be of interest to our readers throughout Canada. SOQUIJ is attached to the Québec Department of Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : Le droit de l’avocat de déposer une plainte criminelle à l’endroit de l’avocat de l’autre partie et l’intérêt de la société à la conduite d’une enquête criminelle l’emportent sur le droit de cette partie d’assurer la confidentialité des discussions dans le but de conclure un règlement.

Intitulé . . . [more]

Most of us watch politics in the United States with alarm. Falsehoods are routinely offered as if truth no longer matters. Genuine expertise is devalued in favour of unfounded opinion and conspiracy theory. Candidates espousing bizarre conspiracy theories have gained political traction. Calls for hatred and division have become normalized. Shame no longer seems to constrain.

Canadian political culture has not descended to the same depths but there is reason for concern. On social media and elsewhere, trolling, derision and contempt are commonplace. While it would be naïve to think that there were halcyon times of good faith public debate, . . . [more]

Executive orders are in the headlines again. As every child in the US is taught in school, the federal government is made up of three branches, the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judiciary. This arrangement was designed as part of an intricate system of checks and balances intended to avoid giving too much power to any part of the government. In recent years there has been much debate over the limits of executive orders, particularly those executive orders relating to immigration, and this debate has been brought to the fore in recent weeks because of executive orders signed by the . . . [more]

Periodically on Thursdays, we present a significant excerpt, usually from a recently published book or journal article. In every case the proper permissions have been obtained. If you are a publisher who would like to participate in this feature, please let us know via the site’s contact form.

The Justice Crisis: The Cost and Value of Accessing Law

Editors: Trevor C.W. Farrow & Lesley A. Jacobs

ISBN: 9780774863575
Publisher: UBC Press
Page Count: 368
Publication Date: September 1, 2020

Regular Price: $89.95 (Hardcover)

Excerpt: from the Introduction: “Taking Meaningful Access to Justice in Canada Seriously” [Citations omitted]

Access to justice . . . [more]

Bloomberg Law recently announced that lawyer jobs are down 15% in 6 months. Recovery is predicted to take years. “Lawyer employment information is hard to come by. But when we analyze the data we have, we find that lawyers have taken the brunt of legal industry job cuts in 2020.”

Interestingly, Bloomberg reports that 2020 employment favours non-lawyers over lawyers. In the United States, “lawyers lost more than 150,000 jobs in the first quarter of 2020, and the decline continued in the second quarter. The result is a lawyer employment level not seen since 2017.”

Bloomberg law predicts that lawyer . . . [more]

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. AVI v MHVB, 2020 ABQB 489 (CanLII)

[2] Pseudolaw is typically employed by conspiratorial, fringe, criminal, and dissident minorities who claim pseudolaw replaces or displaces conventional law. These groups attempt to gain advantage, authority, and other benefits via this false law. In Meads v Meads, 2012 ABQB 571 [Meads], Associate Chief Justice Rooke reviewed many forms of and . . . [more]

When I was articling, eons ago, I came across a judge who smoked in court, made off-hand comments affecting his decisions without any evidentiary basis (“everyone knows what a second hand Lincoln costs”) and made sexist comments towards me (“bring this young lady into my chambers”). He was well-known in the particular legal community (I was merely “visiting” on a discovery issue) and no one thought there was a way to contain him. Indeed, as I sat in the courtroom waiting my turn, I was warned about him. I think of this judge as an “outlier”, beyond the reach of . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on practice, research, writing and technology.

Research & Writing

More Miscellaneous Misuses
Neil Guthrie

Small things to watch for and avoid. Any questions, please contact X. We’ve all seen this, and we all know what it is intended to mean. Interpreted literally, it means the questions themselves are being directed to contact X. … . . . [more]

In these extraordinary times of the pandemic, unusual steps must be taken to protect the public interest. On March 25, 2020, the Government of Canada’s sweeping COVID-19 Emergency Response Act received royal assent. Among its many measures is a compulsory licensing clause for patents that enables the Government “to make, construct, use and sell a patented invention to the extent necessary to respond to a public health emergency that is a matter of national concern.” This suspension of patent rights is not to be without recompense for the patent holder, but that, too, was framed in unusual ways on behalf . . . [more]

I was recently invited to participate in a Runnymede Society debate against Asher Honickman—a co-founder of the Society—on “the future of legal education and curriculum.” I paused. I consulted. I reflected. And now, I am declining that invitation. But I want to explain why.

As a former debater and mooter, I love to argue. But as a legal scholar—and especially, a scholar of critical race theory—I am mindful of power and its inseverability from the conversations we engage in. Thinking about power, and its particular dynamics within the context of this proposed Runnymede Society debate, is ultimately what led me . . . [more]