This is the first part of a two-part series on the Supreme Court’s decision in R v Lacasse. Part 1 discusses how the majority decision in Lacasse raises the standard for appellate review on sentencing decisions. Part 2 highlights two problematic aspects of Lacasse: the majority’s unconvincing reasoning in justifying a high standard of review and […]
There exists within the territory of the Yukon only one French-language school, École Émilie-Tremblay, which is governed by the only school board in the Yukon, the Francophone School Board (“Board”). In 2009, this lone Board sued the Yukon government for what it claimed were deficiencies in the provision of minority language education. In 2015, the […]
The newest member in the illustrious “class of section seven” Charter jurisprudence is R v Appulonappa, 2015 SCC 59 [Appulonappa], a recent Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) ruling on the constitutionality of a federal human smuggling offence. The decision is not only noteworthy for its political significance (stemming from a refugee controversy taking place several […]
Throughout the years, various offences have been enacted, both in the Criminal Code and under provincial regulation, to deal with a matter of grave public apprehension in Canada: impaired driving. One attempt to address this concern has been through the automatic roadside driving prohibition scheme (the “ARP regime” or “ARP scheme”) that has been used […]
In White Burgess Langille Inman v Abbott and Haliburton Co, 2015 SCC 23 [Burgess], the Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) established a test for assessing the impartiality of expert witnesses. The issue arose when shareholders of a company obtained a new accounting firm, Grant Thornton LLP, which discovered errors in the previous auditors’ work. The shareholders […]
Kahkewistahaw First Nation v Taypotat, 2015 SCC 30, is the Supreme Court of Canada’s ("SCC") most recent decision on equality. Coming in at a brief 35 paragraphs, this decision does not alter the law of section 15 of the Charter in any substantial way. Using the test laid out in Quebec v A, [2013] 1 SCR 61, Justice Abella […]
An earlier post provided a summary of Henry v British Columbia, 2015 SCC 24 [Henry]. Unanimously overturning a decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeal (“BCCA”), the Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”), held that the plaintiff, who was wrongfully convicted and consequently spent twenty seven years in prison for crimes he did not commit, […]
The Supreme Court of Canada has declared a new common law duty that will affect contract law in all the common law jurisdictions of Canada. In a December ruling, Bhasin v Hrynew, 2014 SCC 71, the Court declared a new common law duty of honest performance and also recognized a general organizing principle of contractual […]
This past March, the Supreme Court of Canada ("SCC") issued a unanimous 8-0 decision on Canada (Attorney General) v Whaling, [2014] 1 SCR 392. This ruling upholds the Charter right of prisoners not to be punished twice for the same offence. History In 1992, Parliament brought in a simplified process for accelerated parole review (“APR”) that […]
In 2009, the Conservative government introduced legislation called the Truth in Sentencing Act, SC 2009, c 29 (the "Act"). The Act, which came into force in 2010, amended the Criminal Code by capping the amount of credit judges were allowed to give prisoners for time served before the prisoners' trials. While it had been routine for judges to […]