Law Commons^™

Study Of The Underrepresentation Of Women And Women-Identifying Ip- Rights Holders, Company Founders And Senior Leadership: Final Report To Innovation Asset Collective, Myra Tawfik, Heather Pratt

Law Publications

In 2018 the Government of Canada (Industry, Science and Economic Development Canada) launched its National IP Strategy with a view to helping “Canadian businesses, creators, entrepreneurs and innovators understand, protect and access intellectual property (IP)” 1 Among its many policy initiatives, it identified the underrepresentation of women and womenidentifying2 and Indigenous entrepreneurs in the IP system as areas of concern.3 Encouraging greater success for these and other excluded groups necessarily means facilitating greater participation in generating, protecting and strategically leveraging their IP. In 2020, the Innovation Asset Collective (IAC), which was established pursuant to the National IP Strategy, issued a …

Struggling For Accommodation: Barriers To Accessibility Faced By Cognitively Disabled Self-Represented Litigants, Shannon Meikle, Silvia Battaglia,, Julie Macfarlane

National Self Represented Litigants Project

This Report examines the experiences of cognitively disabled self-represented litigants (SRLs) who have requested accommodations for their cognitive disabilities.

Cognitively disabled SRLs have increasingly reached out to the NSRLP detailing their frustrations with the accessibility of legal proceedings and the barriers they face in requesting accommodations for their disabilities. In response, we have sought to clarify the challenges faced by these individuals in order to make specific recommendations to Canadian Courts. A secondary goal of the study was to begin a preliminary investigation into the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on cognitively disabled SRLs’ ability to secure accommodations.

The 10 …

Tracking The Trends Of The Self-Represented Litigant Phenomenon: Data From The National Self-Represented Litigants Project, 2019-2021, Julie Macfarlane, Charlotte Sullivan

National Self Represented Litigants Project

The last report covering data collected by the National Self-Represented Litigants Project (NSRLP) (information shared by self-represented litigants between January 1, 2018 and June 30, 2019) was published in January 2020, a mere two months before courts across Canada were left scrambling to adapt to a new reality: the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly eighteen months later—after thousands of virtual hearings, new protocols, and public health challenges that both improved and destabilized access to justice in myriad different ways—the NSRLP is bringing forward its findings collected from SRLs from July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2021, from a total of 279 respondents

The Ila Study Group On The Role Of Cities In International Law City Report: Windsor, Christopher Waters

Law Publications

Windsor, Ontario is a border city. Windsor sits opposite Detroit, Michigan on the Detroit River, along the Canada-US boundary. Although this is a city report on Windsor, it is impossible to describe the border experience without the centrality of Detroit to Windsor’s self-perception or role in city diplomacy. The border region is integrated economically, culturally and through interpersonal relations. Despite these ties and the obvious potential for transnational sensibility, neither Windsor - nor its big cousin across the Detroit River - has sought a prominent role as international actors. The governance links between the cities are low-key and informal.

Windsor's Cycling History, Christopher Waters

Law Publications

There are several themes which recur in this account. The first is that Windsor has had a lengthy and ongoing cycling presence. Repeatedly there have been efforts to marginalize cycling -and indeed write cycling out of the transportation history of Canada’s “motor city”- but Windsor’s engagement with cycling has been significant and unbroken. Engagement with cycling racing has come close to falling off at times but cycling for utilitarian and recreational reasons never has. Another (near) constant in Windsor’s cycling history is unique to the City’s co-location with Detroit; Windsor’s cycling history has often been a cross-border cycling history. Excitingly, …

Contested Sovereignties: States, Media Platforms, Peoples, And The Regulation Of Media Content And Big Data In The Networked Society, Pascale Chapdelaine, Jaqueline Mcleod Rogers

Law Publications

This article examines the legal and normative foundations of media content regulation in the borderless networked society. We explore the extent to which internet undertakings should be subject to state regulation, in light of Canada’s ongoing debates and legislative reform. We bring a cross-disciplinary perspective (from the subject fields of law; communications studies, in particular McLuhan’s now classic probes; international relations; and technology studies) to enable both policy and language analysis. We apply the concept of sovereignty to states (national cultural and digital sovereignty), media platforms (transnational sovereignty), and citizens (autonomy and personal data sovereignty) to examine the competing dynamics …

Where Is Canada In The South Caucasus?, Christopher Waters

Law Publications

Canada had minimal presence or interest in Georgia—or the other countries of the South Caucasus, Armenia and Azerbaijan—in the waning days of the 20th century. Although having recognized all three countries after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, no Canadian embassies were established in the region, high-level diplomatic visits were rare, and economic or cultural outreach was minimal.

The Annotated Accessible Canada Act - Complete Text, Laverne Jacobs, Martin Anderson, Rachel Rohr, Tom Perry

Law Publications

An accessible MS Word version of this document as well as related tables are available for download at the bottom of this screen under "Additional files".

The Act to ensure a barrier-free Canada, S.C. 2019, c. 10, which is commonly known as the Accessible Canada Act (ACA) came into force on July 11, 2019. It is Canada’s first piece of federal legislation focusing on accessibility for persons with disabilities.

As a piece of federal legislation, the ACA regulates accessibility for those sectors of the economy that fall under federal jurisdiction pursuant to s. 91 of the Constitution Act …

Fair Dealing For The Purpose Of Education: York University V The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, Pascale Chapdelaine

Law Publications

In York University v The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (2020), the Federal Court of Appeal was confronted with two issues at the heart of ongoing debates in Canadian copyright law. First, whether tariffs of copyright collective societies are mandatory. Second, and the main focus of this case comment, how should the fair dealing doctrine be interpreted with respect to the purpose of education. The Federal Court of Appeal upheld the Federal Court decision that York University Fair dealing Guidelines did not meet the fair dealing requirements in copyright law. This case comment highlights how the Federal Court and Federal Court …

Pintea V Johns: An Updated Commentary, Anjanee Naidu, Julie Macfarlane

National Self Represented Litigants Project

Almost 4 years have passed since the Supreme Court of Canada rendered its judgment in Pintea v. Johns. The National Self-Represented Litigants Project (NSRLP) published a report in October 2018 which examined the first 18 months of caselaw following this landmark decision. The 2018 report examined the courts’ application of Pintea, cases that distinguished Pintea, and the limitations on the Pintea decisions. Since 2018, the Westlaw database shows that there have been an additional 65 cases citing Pintea. This updated report aims to clarify the limitations on Pintea, and will also examine broad trends in how the courts have both …

Good Enough For Government Work? Life-Evaluation And Public Policy, Noel Semple

Law Publications

A life-evaluation question asks a person to quantify his or her overall satisfaction with life, at the time when the question is asked. If public policy seeks to make individuals’ lives better, does it follow that changes in aggregate life-evaluations track policy success? This paper argues that life-evaluation is a practical and philosophically sound way to measure and predict welfare for the purpose of analyzing policy options. This is illustrated by the successful argument for expanding state-funded mental health services in the United Kingdom. However, life-evaluations sometimes fail to adequately measure individual welfare. Policy analysts therefore must sometimes inquire into …

Indigenous Environmental Rights And Sustainable Development: Lessons From Totonicapán In Guatemala, Patricia Galvao-Ferreira, Mario Mancilla

Law Publications

The chapter argues that in order to contribute to a more comprehensive theoretical understanding of the many nuances of the social dimension of sustainable development, IEL scholars should engage more systematically with emerging national and international research on Indigenous alternative perspectives on environmental governance. The approach highlighted here is distinct from existing discussions related to environmental justice and Indigenous peoples, which highlights the disproportionate environmental impacts Indigenous peoples suffer as a racialized social group, because of their close cultural and existential interaction with the environment. The aim is to move from treating Indigenous peoples as victims of environmental racism, to …

Climate Change Class Actions In Canada, Jasminka Kalajdzic

Law Publications

Climate justice activists are increasingly looking to litigation to produce the policy changes that have eluded them in the political process. Without a codified right to a clean environment, litigants in jurisdictions like Canada must use a human rights framework to advance their cause. Recent successes in Charter class actions suggest that it is now possible to pursue constitutional damages for climate change harms. As Canadian advocates join with their international counterparts in deploying a litigation strategy, Canada's robust class action procedure may be a useful addition in the pursuit of collective climate justice. This article proceeds in four parts. …

A Modern Copyright Framework For The Internet Of Things (Iot): Intellectual Property Scholars' Joint Submission To The Canadian Government Consultation, Pascale Chapdelaine, Anthony D. Rosborough, Aaron Perzanowski, Bita Amani, Sara Bannerman, Carys J. Craig, Lucie Guibault, Cameron J. Hutchison, Ariel Katz, Alexandra Mogyoros, Graham J. Reynolds, Teresa Scassa, Myra Tawfik

Law Publications

In response to the Canadian government consultation process on the modernization of the copyright framework launched in the summer 2021, we hereby present our analysis and recommendations concerning the interaction between copyright and the Internet of Things (IoT). The recommendations herein reflect the shared opinion of the intellectual property scholars who are signatories to this brief. They are informed by many combined decades of study, teaching, and practice in Canadian, US, and international intellectual property law.

In what follows, we explain:

•The importance of approaching the questions raised in the consultation with a firm commitment to maintaining the appropriate balance …