8:30 AM - 9:00 AM
Registration & Refreshments
9:00 AM - 9:15 AM
Conference Opening
Welcome Remarks from Dean Trevor Farrow (Osgoode Hall Law School).
Chairs: Benjamin L. Berger, Emily Kidd White and Sonia Lawrence (Osgoode Hall Law School)
9:15 AM - 10:00 AM
Opening Address
A Review of the Supreme Court’s 2025 Constitutional Jurisprudence
Speaker: Jeffery Hewitt (Osgoode Hall Law School)
10:00 AM - 10:15 AM
Break
10:15 AM - 11:30 AM
Criminal Law Plenary
This session will explore a set of cases from the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2025 jurisprudence that raise fundamental questions surrounding police and prosecutorial powers, trial procedure, and standards of proof in various dimensions of the criminal process. Panelists will examine key new cases related to section 9 and the power of arrest (R v Carignan, R v Wilson), the intersection of prosecutorial discretion and section 11(b) (R v Varenes), the constitutional status of a presumption of diminished blameworthiness in youth justice (R v IM), and the place of the presumption of innocence and section 11(d) in the prison setting (John Howard).
Chair: Lisa Dufraimont (Osgoode Hall Law School)
Panelists:
Michelle Biddulph (Greenspan Humphrey Makepeace LLP)
Matthew Gourlay (Henein Hutchinson Robitaille LLP)
Lisa Kelly (Faculty of Law, Queen’s University)
Palma Paciocco (Osgoode Hall Law School)
11:30 AM - 11:45 AM
Break
11:45 AM - 12:45 PM
Federalism’s Frontiers: Still Watertight?
The Supreme Court’s decision in Opsis Airport Services Inc. v. Quebec (Attorney General) largely confirmed the existing caselaw on interjurisdictional immunity. However, this jurisprudence is certainly something of an outlier in the era of cooperative federalism. Our panelists will consider the historical development of the interjurisdictional immunity doctrine, and the looming possibility of future application of the doctrine to protect provincial heads of power.
Chair: TBA
Speakers:
Josh Hunter, Ravi Amarnath and Hera Evans (Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General)
Patricia McMahon (Osgoode Hall Law School)
12:45 AM - 1:30 PM
Lunch
1:30 PM - 2:15 PM
The Laskin Lecture
Delivered by: Jeremy Waldron (New York University School of Law)
2:15 PM - 2:30 PM
Break
2:30 PM - 3:30 PM
Text, Liberty, and Constitutional Method After R. v. Kloubakov, 2025 SCC 25
In R. v. Kloubakov, 2025 SCC 25, the Supreme Court upheld key provisions of the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA). The appeal was largely resolved through statutory interpretation. Although framed as purpose-driven, the Court’s reasoning reflects a potentially new emphasis on text as the anchor of interpretation. This discussion will also consider, although the Court declined to do so, liberty-based claims to sell sexual services, and how these have developed in past case law and currently ongoing litigation.
Chair: Sonia Lawrence (Osgoode Hall Law School)
Speakers:
Sandrine Ampleforth-Tremblay (University of Alberta Faculty of Law)
John Provart & Joseph Cheng (Department of Justice Canada)
3:30 PM - 3:45 PM
Break
3:45 PM - 4:45 PM
Constitutional Protections for Political Speech
In the much anticipated Ontario (Attorney General) v. Working Families Coalition (Canada) Inc. decision, the Supreme Court of Canada split 5-4 in finding the provisions in Ontario’s Election Finance Act that limit “third party” spending for political advertising in violation of section 3 of the Charter, and insufficiently tailored to be justified in a free and democratic society. The case touches on several timely constitutional issues including the effective participation of citizens in the electoral process, the participation of political parties, unions, civil society organizations, and corporate interests in the information environment surrounding an election, broader questions concerning access to information in a democracy, the status of s.3 in relation to the notwithstanding clause, and the expressive and informational dimensions of political speech.
Chair: Bruce Ryder (Osgoode Hall Law School)
Speakers:
Jamie Cameron (Osgoode Hall Law School)
Michael Pal (University of Ottawa Faculty of Law)