After the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling in R. v Jordan, 2016 SCC 27, which clarifies and streamlines the Charter of Rights and Freedoms delay of proceedings applications pursuant to section 11(b), “Jordan issues” in the courtroom are still alive as ever. Crown Attorneys, judges and court staff … [Read more...]
Important Concepts in Environmental Law – The “Precautionary Principle”.
Last issue we talked about sustainable development. This time the topic is the precautionary principle. Most human activity has risk. When we are deciding whether we should do something, we balance the risks against the possible rewards. Risk has two parts. First, there is the probability that … [Read more...]
Important Concepts in Environmental Law – the Idea of “Sustainable Development”
In the next few columns I am going to talk about some concepts that are important to understanding environmental law. The first is the idea of sustainable development. A quick search of the CANLII website shows the phrase appears in Canadian federal and provincial legislation 359 times and in … [Read more...]
Effects of the Notwithstanding Clause on Human Rights
Recently, there has been much discussion of the use of the notwithstanding clause, which is section 33(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Charter). Section 33(1) reads: Parliament or the legislature of a province may expressly declare in an Act of Parliament or of the legislature, … [Read more...]
Resolving Family Law Disputes: Alternatives to Court
When adults leave a serious relationship, they have a lot of decisions to make. Sometimes these are small decisions, about who can keep the dishes or the books, but more often they are big decisions. Things like where the children should mostly live, how their time will be divided, who should pay … [Read more...]
Back to the Future on Registered Charities and Political Activities
Regulation of registered charities' "political activities" has long been a bugbear of both the sector and governments. My last column dealt with an Ontario Superior Court decision that ruled parts of the current Income Tax Act (ITA) provisions governing charities' political activities … [Read more...]
Words Matter
Introduction Several decades ago, in my first summer job during university, I washed dishes and performed other unskilled labours in the kitchen of a large government seniors’ nursing home in rural Alberta. While the work itself was not particularly memorable, I observed in that workplace of 15 … [Read more...]
The Book That Didn’t Bark: Forster’s Maurice
You have no doubt heard the expression “the dog that didn’t bark – a wonderful phrase emanating from an old Sherlock Holmes story by Arthur Conan Doyle. I would like to conduct a little touch of literary sleuthing and ask why E.M Forster, eminent English novelist, declined decade after decade to … [Read more...]
Housing Affordability in Canada: The Vancouver and Toronto Experience
Introduction These days, you’re bound to come across the issue of housing affordability in Canada, especially in Vancouver or Toronto. You have probably also heard about how housing affordability is especially difficult for Canadian millennials. Millennials, which are younger adults between the … [Read more...]
One’s Trash May be Police Treasure: R v Patrick
“Location is not the litmus test for determining the expectation of privacy.” R v Patrick, 2009 SCC 17, para 6 Introduction In Canada, our home is our castle, at least in legal terms. We enjoy the greatest constitutional protection of privacy in our homes. What happens when our private … [Read more...]
