For an overview of the legislative and judicial history of the case, please see the first installment of this contribution. In this second contribution, I focus my analysis on key takeaways relating to Goldstein J's holding that the PCEPA passes constitutional muster. Given the multiple thorny Charter issues arising out of the CASWLR decision, this […]
Canada’s self-defence laws, which were recently reformed to provide greater clarity for that defence, have stirred up new uncertainty. In R v Hodgson, 2022 NUCA 9, the Court of Appeal of Nunavut (“NUCA”) overturned an acquittal of a second degree murder charge stemming from an act of self-defence based on the multiple perceived legal errors […]
The Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) is set to hear an appeal out of the Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan (“SKCA”) on inmate discipline regimes in the case of John Howard Society of Saskatchewan v The Government of Saskatchewan (The Attorney General for Saskatchewan), 2022 SKCA 144 [JHS].
In Takuhikan c Procureur général du Québec, 2022 QCCA 1699, [Takuhikan], the Court of Appeal of Québec (“QCCA”) held that the governments of Canada and Québec breached their honour of the Crown obligations to a First Nation by knowingly underfunding the latter’s Indigenous police service and refusing to fund it to the same level as […]
In R. v. Johnston, 2021 BCCA 34 [Johnston], the British Columbia Court of Appeal (“BCCA”) quashed the convictions of both Matthew James Johnston and Cody Rae Haevischer on six counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. On December 2, 2021, the Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) granted leave for the […]
Last Monday, the Ontario Court of Appeal (“ONCA”) released two decisions back-to-back involving the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s (CBC) controversial investigative report on the chicken content of chicken sandwiches manufactured by Subway Franchise Systems of Canada Inc. This post focuses on Subway Franchise Systems of Canada Inc. v Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 2021 ONCA 25 [Subway]. The […]
An anonymous tip to Crime Stoppers points investigators toward a potential suspect that was involved in an armed robbery. However, what is the outcome when the robber was masked and the witnesses who testify are not, in the eyes of the trial judge, credible?
In July, the Federal Court released a long-awaited decision on the constitutionality of the Safe Third Country Agreement (“STCA”). Although the Federal Court (“FC”) found the STCA to be unconstitutional, the Canadian government has already filed an appeal to the Federal Court of Appeal (“FCA”), meaning that a final verdict on whether the STCA violates […]
Introduction It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them. – Mark Twain, Following the Equator What does harm to the reputation of a polarizing public figure entail? What is the […]
