In June 2025, Yuval Hoah Harari (Note 1) was interviewed by Poppy Harlow at the ‪@WSJNews Leadership Institute on AI and Human Evolution. It is a fascinating discussion and well worth 25 minutes to watch it.

While Harari acknowledges that AI has enormous positive potential he also warns of some dangerous issues affecting many areas of human life.

Highlights of Harari’s insights:

• AI is not just another tool. It is an agent capable of making decisions independently, generating new ideas, and learning without human input. A tool like the printing press cannot write a book by itself and decide

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) : Concernant la preuve extrinsèque de la déclaration extrajudiciaire faite devant une agente de la paix, le présent dossier, à la différence de la situation décrite dans l’arrêt Zakzuk Gaviria c. R. (C.A., 2023-03-09), 2023 QCCA 317, SOQUIJ AZ-51921044, 2023EXP-703, contient une preuve recevable permettant d’établir par prépondérance . . . [more]

As a supplement to our Sunday Summary each month, Supreme Advocacy LLP in Ottawa presents Supreme One-Liners, a super-short descriptive guide to the most recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers its more comprehensive weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, summarizing all Appeals, Oral Judgments and Leaves to Appeal granted.

Leaves to Appeal Granted

Airports: Official Languages
St. John’s International Airport Authority v. Thibodeau, 2024 FCA 197 (41651)

Official languages at airports. . . . [more]

In July, I was counsel in a voir dire in BC Supreme Court, where four police officers testified over three days. While the officers gave evidence, I took over 30-pages of handwritten notes. I could capture verbatim maybe 30 percent of what was said. The rest of the time — when answers went on for too long or counsel and the witness talked over one another — I got only the gist of it. Yet, precision was key.

At one point, we stood down for over an hour for the court clerk to go through the recording to find a . . . [more]

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

For this past month, the three most-consulted English-language decisions were:

1. R. v. Leclaire, 2025 ONSC 4203

[1] The Respondent, Joseph LeClaire, pleaded guilty to impaired operation of a conveyance and drive while disqualified. He had four prior convictions for impaired driving. The Crown gave Notice of Application for Increased Penalty under s. 727 of the Criminal Code. Section 320.19 of the Criminal . . . [more]

Lawyers develop and grow through the experiences they gain in practice. That’s why lawyers who have been practicing longer charge a higher hourly rate. More senior lawyers have more experiences to draw when helping clients solve problems. And it’s that experience that junior lawyers wish they could somehow bottle and consume to bypass the uncertainty and doubt that plagues them in their initial years of practice.

But what if we could jump start aspiring lawyers by helping them build a toolbox of experiences to draw on in their early years of practice? That’s where experiential learning comes in.

Learning by

I recently watched a series on Netflix, called Truth Be Told.

In one of the episodes, the main character tells a story about a time when she physically lost her voice due to trauma she experienced in foster care.

Losing one’s voice is something that is not new to those going through the system whether judicial or otherwise.

I have heard so many self represented litigants say that they don’t have a voice; that they are not being heard; that no matter how hard they prepare they are drowned out by the complicated and bureaucratic machine of the legal system. . . . [more]

One Sunday each month we bring you a summary from Supreme Advocacy LLP of recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers a weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, to which you may subscribe. It’s a summary of all Appeals, Oral Judgments and Leaves to Appeal granted from June 27 – August 27, 2025 inclusive.

Appeals

Civil Litigation/Private International Law: Jurisdiction
Sinclair v. Venezia Turismo, 2023 ONCA 142; 2025 SCC 27 (40696)

In cases where parties seek to establish jurisdiction simpliciter in a Canadian forum over a foreign dispute, it is critical that . . . [more]

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 juge de première instance, qui a déclaré l’accusé coupable de fraude à l’endroit de fidèles d’une communauté religieuse dont celui-ci était le pasteur, n’a pas erré dans l’analyse de l’actus reus et de la mens rea de l’infraction; l’accusé a dissimulé des faits importants aux . . . [more]

Welcome to my 100th and final column for Slaw. It all started innocently enough at the outset of 2008 when the late Simon Fodden, innovative founder of this venue, invited me to contribute a column on scholarly publishing issues. I first wrote of how the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) was now requiring those it funded to make the resulting research freely available, if after a 12-month delay (to appease publisher pushback). I called it at the time a “tipping point” in the growing efforts to secure public or open access to all research worldwide.

Now, some seventeen . . . [more]