Law Commons^™

Equal, But Only Conceptually: Explaining The Phenomenon Of Religious Losses In Contemporary Canadian Constitutional Cases Involving Conflicting Rights, Mike Madden

Dalhousie Law Journal

If there is no hierarchy of rights in Canada, then why does freedom of religion so often seem to lose in cases of conflicts with other rights? This article discusses five recent Canadian cases (involving same-sex marriages, controversial medical practices, the wearing of a niqab, and a Christian university’s sexual conduct policy) in order to expose how the courts regularly characterize freedom of religion as being conceptually equal to other rights, before ruling against freedom of religion on the facts of the particular cases. This phenomenon within Canadian rights jurisprudence is then justified within the article by reference to a …

Divine Intervention, Part Ii: Narratives Of Norm Entrepreneurship In Canadian Religious Freedom Litigation, Kathryn Chan, Howard Kislowicz

Dalhousie Law Journal

Constitutional litigation has become a central arena for debate about human rights. Groups from all points on the political spectrum have turned to legal advocacy, “intervening” in judicial proceedings in an effort to advance their preferred interpretations of particular rights.

Judges and scholars remain divided on whether and how interveners are valuable. This paper evaluates a main rationale for intervention: interveners improve adjudication by enriching courts’ understandings of the issues before them. We use qualitative analysis to examine the extent to which interveners in Canada have succeeded in contributing to judicial pronouncements on the scope and meaning of religious freedom. …

Call For Action: Provinces And Territories Must Protect Our Genetic Information, Leah Hutt, Elaine Gibson, Erin Kennedy

Dalhousie Law Journal

The Genetic Non-Discrimination Act (GNDA), passed by Parliament in 2017, seeks to protect Canadians’ genetic information. The GNDA establishes certain criminal prohibitions to the use of genetic information and also amends federal employment and human rights legislation to protect against genetic discrimination. However, we argue that the GNDA alone is insufficient to protect Canadians given constitutional limitations on the powers of the federal government. Areas of profound importance relating to genetic discrimination are governed by the provinces and territories. We identify three key areas of provincial/territorial jurisdiction relevant to protection against genetic discrimination and outline the applicable legislative environments. We …