“True enough, the country is calm. Calm as a morgue or a grave, would you not say? -Vaclav Havel I recall an era where progressive politics in Canada was both exciting and a little bit dangerous for the wealthy elite and the power brokers. One of the first politicians who engaged my interest … [Read more...]
Privacy Rights of Children
Introduction There is an ever-increasing concern for privacy rights of children. Privacy has many different dimensions and involves many different actors. The Oxford dictionary describes it as: “a state in which one is not observed or disturbed by other people”. Privacy may be sought from the … [Read more...]
Privacy in Judicial Decisions
Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity. – Lord Acton (1834-1902) Introduction The legal protection of personal information that is collected and held by government is a relatively recent … [Read more...]
Citizens in the West should care about discriminatory immigration policies
An executive order banning citizens from several Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States ushered in the first major policy conflict of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration. Demonstrations quickly spread across airports as prominent Democrats, some Republicans and … [Read more...]
Refugee Protection and the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement
The right to be protected from persecution is an international human right. Under Canada’s immigration laws, a person in Canada can claim status as a Convention Refugee or as a Person in Need of Protection. Article 1(2) of the United Nations 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (the … [Read more...]
Governments’ use of AI in immigration and refugee system needs oversight
In an effort to bring innovations to its immigration and refugee system, Canada has begun using automated decision-making to help make determinations about people’s applications. A report released in September 2018 by the University of Toronto’s International Human Rights Program and the Citizen … [Read more...]
43-4: Protecting Privacy
Full PDF of this issue Volume 43-4 Mar/April 2019 Table of Contents Featured Articles: Protecting Privacy Special Report: Immigration Law Departments Columns Canadians worry a lot about protecting their privacy. This issue of LawNow examines some of these … [Read more...]
Alternatives to Court: The Collaborative Process
John-Paul Boyd explained why people might want to find an alternative to court to reach a resolution about their family law disputes in the November/December 2018 issue of LawNow. One alternative to court is the Collaborative process. Many processes, such a negotiation or mediation, can be … [Read more...]
A Significant Human Rights Event for the Lubicon People
In 1899, Treaty 8 was negotiated with several First Nations groups in Northern Alberta—North East Saskatchewan, Southwest parts of the Northwest Territories and later Eastern British Columbia—resulting in land surrender to the Crown. However, members of the Lubicon Lake Band were left out of the … [Read more...]
No Judicial Role in Religious Disputes: Jehovah’s Witnesses v Wall
Introduction A perennial criticism of the Canadian judiciary is its excessive activism. Many think that the courts have helped fashion Canada into a nanny state and the Supreme Court of Canada is the most interventionist of the nanny courts. The recent case of Highwood Congregation of Jehovah’s … [Read more...]
