An interesting dispute is afoot in the province of Quebec that involves the Charter, language, politics, commerce, and the market. Quebec’s Office Québécois de la langue française ("OQFL"), the watchdog agency responsible for ensuring compliance with the Charter of the French Language, CQLR c C-11 [Charter of the French Language] (s. 159), recently launched a microsite insisting […]
A number of major multinational retailers operating in Quebec will be taking the province to court this week with the hopes of amending language laws that require business names be posted in French. Section 63 of the French Language Charter states that "The name of an enterprise must be in French." Many violations are tracked […]
On November 8th, the British Columbia Court of Appeal ("BCCA") released its decision in Friedmann v MacGarvie, 2012 BCCA 445 [Friedmann], stating that sexual harassment constitutes sex discrimination. While one might assume that this would be an obvious conclusion, the case is thought-provoking because of the role played by “differential treatment” in the discrimination analysis. The […]
On 2 November 2012, the Supreme Court of Canada ("SCC") upheld the bulk of Parliament’s amendments to the “over 80” (ie., over .08 milligrams) drunk driving law in R v St-Onge Lamoureux, [2012] 3 SCR 187 [St-Onge]. Even before the 2008 amendments, s. 258 of the Criminal Code, RSC, 1985, c C-46 [Code] provided that breathalyzer results are presumed to […]
The Supreme Court released its unanimous judgment on Teva v Pfizer, 2012 SCC 60 on November 8, creating a very strong precedent for registering patents and the type of disclosure that is necessary. At issue in the decision was Pfizer’s patent for Viagra, its sildenafil-based drug used to treat erectile dysfunction. Due to expire in […]
Conrad Black has had a difficult year. The newspaper tycoon and former head of Hollinger International Inc recently finished serving a prison sentence in the United States for convictions of fraud and obstruction of justice. Having renounced Canadian citizenship in order to become a British Lord in 2001, Black returned to Canada this past May […]
Does an authorization to intercept an individual’s private communications include the ability to intercept text messages? The Ontario Court of Appeal recently considered this question in the case of R v Doroslovac, 2012 ONCA 680 [Doroslovac], which arose from an authorization to intercept the telephone calls of Doroslovac’s acquaintance, Ilic. After intercepting several text messages between […]
On October 25th, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) granted leave to appeal in United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 401 v Alberta (Attorney General) 2012 ABCA 130. The case involves striking union workers who had videotaped people crossing a picket line and then threatened to post the images online. The issue before the SCC […]
In a unanimous decision, the New Brunswick Court of Appeal in LeBlanc v Doucet and the New Brunswick Power Corporation, 2012 NBCA 88 held in favour of a plaintiff’s ability to recover interest on a loan used to pay for legal fees in a personal injury claim. On September 23, 2004, Francis LeBlanc was seriously injured […]
The concept of freedom is one of the most perplexing issues that modern courts are forced to grapple with. Freedom is the glue that holds liberal democracies together; yet, in the age of terror, restrictions on freedom have become more commonplace as a means to preserve that very concept. The idea that we, as a […]