The Ontario Court of Appeal recently held in its decision in R. v. White [2015] O.J. No. 3563 that police officers do not have unrestricted access to enter common areas in residential buildings to gather evidence against an individual. The police had suspected that Mr. White was dealing drugs … [Read more...]
Aboriginal Offenders
Much has been written about the alarmingly high numbers of aboriginal Canadians who spend time in our jails and penitentiaries. Hundreds of thousands of pages of texts, court decisions, reports and inquiries have been published about why so many indigenous Canadians end up in custody, and what … [Read more...]
The Peterloo Massacre and Shelley’s Great Poem The Mask of Anarchy
I note that The Guardian newspaper features an interview with Mike Leigh, director of a number of superb films like High Hopes, Vera Drake, and Mr Turner, indicating that his next project will be a dramatization of the infamous 1819 Manchester massacre, a traumatic event in British history. The … [Read more...]
Prisoners and Work
Several years ago, the Alberta government and other provincial governments considered the introduction of Alabama-style chain gangs as a form of employment for prisoners. This action reflected a North American trend towards making the prison experience harsher, with the view that this would … [Read more...]
The “no gifts to non-qualified donees” rule
The registered charities provisions of the Income Tax Act (ITA) feature a number of obscure terms. That makes registered charities vulnerable to inadvertent non-compliance. It means prudent organizations need to keep a keen eye on regulatory trends and emerging issues. Looming regulatory concerns … [Read more...]
Human Rights Protection Added for Transgender Identity
A trans-identified, transgender or transsexual person is someone who feels they were born in the wrong body (for example, someone born either with female anatomy who feels male, or with male anatomy who feels female, on a deep, psychological and emotional level) and therefore has a gender identity … [Read more...]
Litigating Death in Care Cases in Alberta
Legislation and Cases Commented On: Fatal Accidents Act, RSA 2000, c F-8, Argent v Gray, 2015 ABQB 292, FRN v Alberta, 2014 ABQB 375, SM v Alberta, 2014 ABQB 376 More than 775 children with some involvement with child protective services in Alberta have died since 1999. This past year alone, … [Read more...]
Solitary Confinement
On July 17, 2015, Globe and Mail reporter Sean Fine wrote an article about Christopher Brazeau, a 34-year-old prisoner at Edmonton Institution, who is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence. Brazeau became the focus of media attention this past summer for being at the centre of a class-action … [Read more...]
Signs of Safety
Signs of Safety is a child protection casework practice model currently being rolled out by Child & Family Services in Alberta. It was developed in the 1990s in Australia by Andrew Turnell and Steve Edwards in response to the question: “Is there a better way of doing child protection casework?” … [Read more...]
The Law of Leafleting and Picketing
Introduction Distributing leaflets to people and picketing are longstanding forms of employee expression, commonly to protest or draw attention to employment disputes. Primary picketing is attending at a place of business or employment with an object of persuasion, usually to dissuade others from … [Read more...]
