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“Arrogance for Cruelty”: What Builds Exclusion into the Canada Disability Benefit
Get PDFThe vision animating the Canada Disability Benefit exemplifies “arrogance for cruelty” in public policymaking. What could be the start of doing so much is just the end of doing so little—something is done, so nothing more will need to be done. Dangling hopes and then crushing them is cruel. What perpetuates such policymaking cruelty is a manifest complacency, asserting that what is usually done is what should be done, and so it is the best that can be done. Deifying such inertia, which fortifies inadequacies despite what the disability community has to say, is arrogant. Using the limited amount of aggregated data on persons with disabilities released into the public domain by Statistics Canada, this short article offers in part a response to—and in part a coping mechanism for—the policymaking melancholy
Council of Canadians with Disabilities: Another Reminder to Resolve Cases on the Merits
Get PDFIn British Columbia (Attorney General) v. Council of Canadians with Disabilities, Wagner C.J.C., for a unanimous Supreme Court of Canada, granted public interest standing to the Council of Canadians with Disabilities to challenge the constitutionality of provisions of British Columbia statutes that authorize physicians to subject patients with mental disabilities to psychiatric treatment without their consent or the consent of a substitute decision-maker. In many ways, the decision is simply a doubling-down on Cromwell J.’s unanimous decision a decade earlier in Canada (Attorney General) v. Downtown Eastside Sex Workers United Against Violence Society. This paper explains the holdings in Council of Canadians with Disabilities and how litigants can use the case in the future. It then notes how the decision is in many ways a helpful, if unfortunately necessary, reminder of sensible precedent as much as it is breaking any new doctrinal ground. It is then argued that this case is part of a trend that is not only about standing: it is about using principles of civil procedure to resolve cases on their merits. There should be no expectation that such uses will necessarily result in victories for claimants whose standing is “public interest”. But there should be an expectation that merits-based resolution of civil claims will be the norm. After querying the costs analysis, it is ultimately posited that Council of Canadians with Disabilities is normatively satisfying and accords with the purposes of civil procedure
Why a Feminist Agenda for Intellectual Property?
No full textThe Introduction to this book reflects on why there is a need for a volume exploring intellectual property (IP) vis-à-vis gender and thinking about a feminist agenda for IP, as well as what such an agenda might look like. It highlights how the book offers multiple entry points to various methods, approaches and questions to think about IP with respect to gender and feminist perspectives. The authors of the Introduction agree that a diversity of methods and approaches are required to show that feminist perspectives are core IP perspectives, and to improve the material lives of women vis-à-vis IP
Pt 4B Advising First Nations and Govt - His Brilliant Legacy: A Conference in Honour of Peter Hogg
No full textHis Brilliant Legacy: A Conference in Honour of Peter W. Hogg was held on January 10, 2024 at Osgoode Professional Development and co-hosted by Osgoode Hall Law School and Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP.
This session includes: Advising First Nations and Government
This panel considers Peter Hogg\u27s contributions to public life, from his influence on the New Zealand Bill of Rights, to his role as an advisor to First Nations, to the Governor General of Canada, to the federal judicial appointments process, and to the process of constitutional reform.
Chair: Jamie Cameron, Professor Emerita, Osgoode Hall Law School
Speakers: Professor Erin Crandall, Political Science Department, Acadia University, Mr. Dave Joe, Legal Advisor, Yukon, BC, and NWT First Nations, Professor Emmett Macfarlane, Political Science, University of Waterloo, Professor Emeritus Kenneth Keith, Victoria University of Wellington Te Herenga Wak
Pt 5 The Legend of Two Textbooks - His Brilliant Legacy: A Conference in Honour of Peter W. Hogg
No full textHis Brilliant Legacy: A Conference in Honour of Peter W. Hogg was held on January 10, 2024 at Osgoode Professional Development and co-hosted by Osgoode Hall Law School and Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP.
This session includes: Peter and the Legend of Two Textbooks Peter Hogg\u27s textbooks have been studied and relied on by students and all branches of the legal profession, including courts. Speakers on this panel will examine two of his principal texts - Constitutional Law and Taxation Law, considering their role, impact, and significance over time.
Chair: Professor Emily Kidd White, Osgoode Hall Law School
Speakers: Professor Adam Dodek, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, Professor Jinyan Li, Osgoode Hall Law School and Mr. Scott Wilkie, Blakes LLP, Professor Bruce Ryder, Osgoode Hall Law School, Professor Wade Wright, Western La
Constitutional Cases 2024 (Pt 2) | Environmental Regulation and the Constitution
No full textAs recognized by the Supreme Court, environmental protection is one of the most pressing challenges of our times. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court recently declared ultra vires the majority of the most comprehensive federal impact assessment scheme developed to date. Panelists will analyze the Reference re Impact Assessment Act, and the possibility of robust environmental impact assessment policy under the current division of powers jurisprudence. Panelists will discuss the social and reconciliation-based aspects of environmental assessment that formed part of the federal scheme, and the relationship between this Reference and the GGPPA.
Panelists:
Dayna N. Scott (Osgoode Hall Law School)
Deborah Curran (University of Victoria)
Anna Johnston (West Coast Environmental Law)
Nathalie Chalifour (University of Ottawa)
Chair: Emily Kidd White (Osgoode Hall Law School)
The 27th iteration of the Constitutional Cases conference was held on Friday, April 12, 2024. Osgoode Hall Law School’s Annual Constitutional Cases Conference, recognized as the leading constitutional law conference in Canada, brings together many highly respected constitutional scholars, lawyers, students, and experts for an insightful and practical analysis of the Supreme Court’s significant constitutional judgments of the past year
Constitutional Cases 2024 (Pt 5) | The Criminal Law Power and the Evolution of Federalism
No full textSince confederation, the federal criminal law power has been central to both the vision and operation of the Canadian constitutional order. It is arguably the true “plenary” federal power and has always — since early debates about its nature and purpose — had a rights-adjacent character. As we watch the Court preside over a significant evolution in the nature of contemporary federalism, this Panel takes the Court’s decision in Murray-Hall as a touchstone for reflecting on the role and future of the criminal law power.
Panelists:
Asha Kaushal (Peter A Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia) and Robert Danay (Ministry of Attorney General of British Columbia)
Benjamin Perryman (Faculty of Law, University of New Brunswick)
Yashoda Ranganathan (Crown Law Office – Constitutional)
Colton Fehr (College of Law, University of Saskatchewan)
Chair: Vanessa MacDonnell (Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa)
The 27th iteration of the Constitutional Cases conference was held on Friday, April 12, 2024. Osgoode Hall Law School’s Annual Constitutional Cases Conference, recognized as the leading constitutional law conference in Canada, brings together many highly respected constitutional scholars, lawyers, students, and experts for an insightful and practical analysis of the Supreme Court’s significant constitutional judgments of the past year
An Examination of the Framing of Canada’s Copyright Exclusive Rights and Exceptions From a Human Rights Perspective
Get PDFThis paper examines the intersection of the framing of copyright law in Canada from the perspective of human rights. The study seeks to reconcile the rights of creators with public access to content. Asserting that copyright law is not a human right but a means to uphold the inherent human rights of both creators and the public. This study explores the legal instruments that articulate a copyright framework that aims to achieve the reconciliation of the rights of creators and the public. The discussion begins with the roots of copyright in Canada, tracing back to the Statute of Anne, and moves through its evolution to the present day. The core argument centers on the essential human rights that copyright law impacts, proposing an approach that prioritizes the public interest as well as acknowledging that creators deserve reward for their creativity. Through an analysis divided into six sections, the paper delves into the concept and progression of copyright in Canada, scrutinizes the purpose and scope of exclusive rights and exceptions, reviews copyright within the human rights context, and suggests a reconciliation of the divergent interests of creators, and the public. The conclusion synthesizes these discussions, offering insights into the framing of copyright law grounded in upholding the rights of both the creators and the public
Making and Breaking Settler Space: Five Centuries of Colonization in North America by Adam J. Barker
Get PDFMAKING AND BREAKING SETTLER SPACE: Five Centuries of Colonization (“Making and Breaking Settler Space”) is a powerful piece published in the area of Indigenous studies and embodies a spatially focussed synthesis of settler colonial literature. The book offers an innovative account of the ways space, power, and identity are produced in settler colonial societies and identifies the cracks, flows, and failures that expose the fragility of the settler colonial assemblage. Adam J. Barker’s work provides theoretical and practical ideas on how to confront and dismantle the settler colonial project through these cracks, which ultimately becomes the text’s raison d’être
The Bank of the People, 1835-1840: Law and Money in Upper Canada
Get PDFIn Upper Canada, money and banking were viscerally political issues, considered central to the broader legal order. Faced with a chronic shortage of coin, the British flooded the colony with publicly issued bills to fund the War of 1812. By the 1830s, this monetary issue was fully redeemed and replaced with notes issued by the colony’s first three chartered banks. Upper Canada’s Reformers saw those banks as public agents, playing a public role, but without democratic accountability. After several failed attempts to modify that system, they turned to establishing their own institution, named the Bank of the People. In doing so, they saw themselves not as merely engaging in private commerce, but as directly contesting this fundamental public provision. This article provides a legal-political history of that early contest over Canadian money and sovereignty, and explores how the Reformers put forth a critique of bank-issued money that remains relevant today