Dalhousie University
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Interveners’ Ideas as Influence: Revisiting \u3ci\u3eKtunaxa Nation\u3c/i\u3e
Get PDFWith the patriation of the Constitution in 1982, including the addition of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and provisions delineating the rights of Indigenous peoples, the Supreme Court of Canada inherited profound political powers. The number of non-governmental actors “intervening” in cases sharply increased. Judicial review produced a democratizing effect because a new “window of opportunity” for marginalized groups to enact social change through the Court was opened. However, several scholars suggest that in practice, the Constitution has led to “very few gains” for Indigenous peoples. To better understand the nature of Indigenous intervener participation, and to assess their potential to enact change through the courts, we conduct an in-depth analysis of intervener arguments in Ktunaxa Nation v British Columbia (Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations), 2017 SCC 54, a landmark Supreme Court of Canada decision on the duty to consult and Indigenous religious freedom. Specifically, we conduct a novel, qualitative content analysis that compares intervener submissions to the Court’s written decision to measure the extent to which intervener testimony is reflected in the Court’s ruling. We find that while Indigenous interveners contextualized their rights claims by explaining relevant spiritual and cultural practices, and the effects of enduring legacies of colonialism, the Supreme Court of Canada neglected to explicitly engage with this testimony in its written decision. In contrast, the Saskatchewan Attorney General’s arguments were reflected in the court’s reasoning. We conclude that intervener influence may go beyond what is explicitly presented by the Court in its written decisions.
Avec le rapatriement de la Constitution en 1982, à laquelle ont été ajoutées la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés et des dispositions définissant les droits des peuples autochtones, la Cour suprême du Canada a hérité de pouvoirs politiques importants. Le nombre d’acteurs non gouvernementaux « intervenant » dans les affaires judiciaires a nettement augmenté. Le contrôle judiciaire a eu un effet démocratisant, parce qu’il donne aux groupes marginalisés la possibilité d’opérer des changements sociaux par l’intermédiaire des tribunaux. Cependant, plusieurs chercheurs estiment qu’en pratique, la Constitution n’a apporté que « très peu de gains » aux peuples autochtones. Afin de mieux comprendre la nature de la participation des intervenants autochtones et d’évaluer leur potentiel de mise en oeuvre de changements par l’intermédiaire des tribunaux, nous effectuons une analyse approfondie des arguments des intervenants dans l’affaire Ktunaxa Nation c. British Columbia (Forests, Lands and Natural resource Operations), 2017 CSC 54, une décision historique de la Cour suprême du Canada concernant l’obligation de consulter et la liberté de religion des Autochtones. Plus précisément, nous faisons une analyse de contenu qualitative inédite qui compare les argumentations des intervenants à la décision écrite de la Cour afin d’évaluer la mesure dans laquelle les témoignages des intervenants sont pris en considération. Nous constatons que même si les intervenants autochtones ont contextualisé leurs revendications de droits en expliquant les pratiques spirituelles et culturelles pertinentes, ainsi que les séquelles permanentes du colonialisme, la Cour suprême du Canada a omis de tenir compte explicitement de ces témoignages dans sa décision écrite. En revanche, les arguments du procureur général de la Saskatchewan ont été pris en compte dans le raisonnement de la Cour. Nous concluons que l’influence des intervenants peut aller au-delà de ce qui est explicitement présenté par la Cour dans ses décisions écrites
Legal Ethics and the Attorney General: A Canadian Analysis
No full textIn Canada, the Attorney General holds a complex and unique role within the federal, provincial, and territorial governments. Despite this key position, there is relatively little knowledge and understanding of the role and professional responsibilities of the Attorney General among the public, the media, policymakers, and politicians – including at least some Attorney Generals themselves. Legal Ethics and the Attorney General adopts a doctrinal approach to examine and explain how legal ethics, and particularly the law of lawyering, applies to the Attorney General.
The book illustrates that, while the role of the Attorney General is unique, the individual occupying this position practises law and should be held to the same standards as any other lawyer. It addresses common misconceptions: that the Attorney General is not truly a lawyer, that actions deemed wrongful for other lawyers may not be considered wrongful for the Attorney General, or that the accountability measures appropriate for lawyers do not apply to the Attorney General.
Ultimately, Legal Ethics and the Attorney General reveals the importance of the accountability of the Attorney General, especially to the provincial and territorial law societies that serve as regulators of the legal profession. This accountability is essential not only for upholding the rule of law but also for enabling these societies to fulfil their statutory mandates to regulate the legal profession in the public interest.https://digitalcommons.schulichlaw.dal.ca/faculty_books/1121/thumbnail.jp
Racial Capitalism, Neocolonial Wealth Transfer, and Canadian International Student Policy
Get PDFThis paper examines historical and contemporary trends in Canadian international student policy through the lens of racial capitalism, arguing that current policy facilitates a significant neocolonial wealth transfer from Global South families to Canada through processes of expropriation, exploitation, and expulsion. It argues that discriminatory tuition fees effectively function as “education head taxes”, which extract billions of dollars annually from international students. Meanwhile, “gauntlets” to permanent residency have emerged in an immigration landscape where working class migrants have narrower options to regularize, creating a system of labour exploitation where student-labourers face precarious conditions and structural indebtedness. Finally, the constant threat of expulsion through loss of status and deportation is used to discipline labour and enforce nationalist segregation of labour and education markets. Within all three of these processes, race-making and neocolonial relations play a central role in justifying differential treatment, curtailing solidarity, and limiting potential policy changes to curtail abuses.
Cet article examine les tendances historiques et contemporaines de la politique canadienne à l’égard des étudiants étrangers sous l’angle du capitalisme racial, en soutenant que la politique actuelle facilite un important transfert de richesse néocoloniale des familles du Sud vers le Canada par le biais de processus d’expropriation, d’exploitation et d’expulsion. Il affirme que les frais de scolarité discriminatoires fonctionnent effectivement comme des « taxes d’entrée sur l’éducation », qui soutirent des milliards de dollars par an aux étudiants internationaux. Dans le même temps, les « défis » que pose l’accès à la résidence permanente sont apparus dans un paysage de l’immigration où les migrants de la classe ouvrière ont des options de régularisation plus restreintes, créant un système d’exploitation du travail où les étudiants-travailleurs sont confrontés à des conditions précaires et à un endettement structurel. Enfin, la menace constante d’expulsion par la perte du statut et la déportation est utilisée pour discipliner le travail et renforcer la ségrégation nationaliste des marchés du travail et de l’éducation. Dans ces trois processus, les relations raciales et néocoloniales jouent un rôle central en justifiant les différences de traitement, en réduisant la solidarité et en limitant les changements politiques potentiels pour mettre fin aux abus
Locked Out: An Empirical Study of the Impacts of Technological Protection Measures on Digital Content Access in Canadian Academic Libraries
Get PDFThis report presents findings from a comprehensive empirical qualitative study involving interviews with Canadian academic librarians, copyright officers, and information professionals to examine how TPMs affect digital content access. The research reveals that TPMs are deeply embedded within the technology and licensing frameworks used by libraries, creating opaque barriers to lawful access. Practitioners often lack clarity on whether restrictions stem from TPMs or from contractual or platform design, complicating their ability to support fair dealing uses of works, preservation, and teaching. This ambiguity has increased substantially with the rise of controlled digital lending (CDL) and other access models that have accelerated since the COVID-19 pandemic. The study documents how this ambiguity leads to caution, workarounds, and self-censorship, even when legal rights exist. These findings highlight significant challenges in reforming content TPM policy within Canadian copyright law and underscore the need for legislative and regulatory clarity to support equitable access to scholarly and cultural materials.
Final report added 07/10/2025
The Use of AI in Canadian Courts
Get PDFLike many other fields, there has been growing discussion about the potential benefits of AI for the law. In light of the Federal Court’s interim principles and guidelines on the use of AI, this paper considers whether AI applications can assist the judiciary with its decision-making function. In doing so, it starts by considering the role that judges play in our legal system, finding that they are often called upon to consider and weigh information with human, emotional qualities and to assess the broader policy implications of their legal rulings. This paper concludes that the optimism of proponents of AI in the courtroom may be misplaced. The mathematical, mechanistic decision-making of AI applications does not replicate the kind of decisions judges are called upon to make. Moreover, it may be dangerous. Humans tend to defer to recommendations produced by algorithms, and AI applications are so complex that perhaps no one person—and certainly no one in the legal field—has the expertise necessary to understand how and why an AI application has reached a particular recommendation. Instead, the solution to lessening the burden on our legal system may be the more obvious, but less trendy question, of funding. More judges and more court staff may go much farther
A Framework for Interpreting Emojis in Legal Contexts
Get PDFIn the 2023 case of South West Terminal Ltd. v. Achter Land & Cattle Ltd., a Saskatchewan court found that a thumbs-up emoji, as a standalone item of communication, constituted the acceptance of a contract between a buyer and seller. The trial judge noted that such communication was “the new reality in Canadian society” for which courts should be prepared to interpret novel units of language arising in the digital age. However, an analysis of recent Canadian cases involving emojis shows that courts have not been prepared, with inconsistencies in how emojis are represented in evidence, how they are analysed, how much interpretive weight they are given, or whether they are dismissed as decorative and without linguistic value. This paper argues that while emojis are not a standardized form of communication, they hold linguistic value which makes them critical to the interpretation of evidence. Part I reviews how the field of linguistics has studied emojis. Part II explains how a corpus of English-language Canadian case law was built and analysed to map patterns and inconsistencies in Canadian courts’ emoji interpretation. It also argues that the South West analysis of the emoji in question provides a skeleton for an interpretive framework for emoji. Part III outlines how such a framework could be realized, drawing from both linguistics and jurisprudence. The paper concludes with a caution against courts’ downplaying the communicative value and function of emojis and argues that a structured interpretive approach could help courts more accurately infer meaning from typed communication in evidence
Triggering Change in Child Protection Law: A Case Study of Firearms and Domestic Violence in Nova Scotia, Manitoba, and Ontario
Get PDFThe intertwining complexities of child protection, domestic violence, and firearms pose profound challenges for families and the legal system. This paper examines their interplay, focusing on how these issues can subject children to harm, with a specific focus on case law and relevant legislation from Nova Scotia, Manitoba, and Ontario. These three provinces have been selected due to: i) the locality and inherent relevance of Nova Scotia’s jurisdiction given the location of the Schulich School of Law, ii) the high number of reported court decisions in Ontario, and the unique protections created through amending the Child, Youth, and Family Services Act, and iii) the relevance of Manitoba in this analysis as it has seen a stark increase (+103%) in firearm-related crimes over the last few years. While legislative reforms address the recognition of domestic violence, additional measures are necessary to mitigate the potential harm posed by firearms in abusive environments, which will ultimately safeguard the welfare of children
Lawyers and Public Service: Duty, Faith, and the \u27Good Republican\u27 in The West Wing
Get PDFPopular culture reveals much about the perceived role of lawyers in contemporary life. In this article, I draw lessons from the portrayal of lawyers in Aaron Sorkin\u27s classic television series, The West Wing. As a drama centred around a Democratic presidential administration, Republicans often provide the foil. From time to time, however, the show lionizes what might be termed ‘the good Republican’. That ‘good Republican’ is most often a practicing lawyer whose desire to serve is grounded in duty or faith. In this essay, I use a trio of these characters to explore the role of lawyers in public service. At first glance, these lawyers may seem to achieve goodness through a readiness to abandon their political views, particularly Republican views – suggesting that lawyers’ beliefs are malleable if not mercenary. At a deeper level, however, these characters and their experiences vividly convey idealized but worthwhile ideals of public service as a valuable and honourable career choice, particularly for lawyers
Tracy Anne Cloud & Kerry Lee Morris-Cormier: Implementing Indigenous Protected Conservation Areas
No full textJoin student writer, Rachel, for a discussion of Indigenous Protected Conservation Areas (IPCA) with two members from the Trilateral Team, Tracy Anne Cloud and Kerry Lee Morris-Cormier, at Mi’gmawe’l Tplu’taqnn Incorporated (MTI). Rachel speaks with Tracy Anne and Kerry Lee about what it looks like to implement an IPCA here in the Maritimes and motivations behind it. Rachel, Tracy Anne and Kerry Lee discuss challenges and critiques of IPCAs and finish with some advice for Indigenous nations and organizations that are wanting to develop their own IPCAs
The Unfulfilled Promise of Confédération des Syndicats Nationaux: A Case Study on the Reconciliation of Equality and Freedom of Association
No full textThe evolution of the protection of collective bargaining rights in Canada has been marked by a tension between freedom of association (section 2(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, “the Charter”) and equality (section 15(1) of the Charter). In most cases before the Supreme Court of Canada (“the SCC”), the SCC has examined both rights separately. More recently, the SCC has treated equality as a value (rather than a right), using the value of equality to inform its interpretation of freedom of association. Both these approaches (the “Siloed Approach” and the “Charter Values” approach) fail to fully examine how equality and freedom of association exist bidirectionally. This article uses a 2008 case from the Quebec Superior Court as a case study of how equality can inform our understanding of association and how association can remedy inequality.
L’évolution de la protection des droits à la négociation collective au Canada est marquée par une tension entre la liberté d’association (article 2(d) de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés, « la Charte ») et l’égalité (article 15(1) de la Charte). Dans la plupart des affaires dont elle a été saisie, la Cour suprême du Canada (CSC) a examiné ces deux droits séparément. Récemment, la CSC a traité l’égalité comme une valeur (plutôt que comme un droit), en utilisant la valeur de l’égalité pour éclairer son interprétation de la liberté d’association. Les deux approches (l’approche « soit/soit » et l’approche des « valeurs de la Charte ») ne permettent pas d’examiner pleinement comment l’égalité et la liberté d’association existent de manière bidirectionnelle. Le présent article utilise un jugement rendu en 2008 par la Cour supérieure du Québec comme étude de cas pour montrer comment l’égalité peut éclairer notre compréhension de l’association et comment l’association peut remédier à l’inégalité