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Rearguard Or Vanguard? A New Look At Canada’S Constitutional Act Of 1791, Philip Girard Dec 2021

Rearguard Or Vanguard? A New Look At Canada’S Constitutional Act Of 1791, Philip Girard

Articles & Book Chapters

The Constitutional Act 1791, which provided representative governments to Upper and Lower Canada, has often been regarded as a reactionary document. Here, a comparison with the constitutions of the eastern colonies of British North America as well as the pre-revolutionary constitutions of the Thirteen Colonies reveals a variety of ways in which the 1791 Act was more liberal and more committed to the popular element of the constitution than its comparators. The significance of the statutory form of the 1791 Act is emphasised and contrasted with the much less secure position of the popular element under prerogative constitutions. Significant concessions …


Intergenerational Environmental Justice And The Climate Crisis: Thinking With And Beyond The Charter, Dayna Scott, Garance Malivel Apr 2021

Intergenerational Environmental Justice And The Climate Crisis: Thinking With And Beyond The Charter, Dayna Scott, Garance Malivel

Articles & Book Chapters

Inspired by the analysis developed in the article “Coming of Age in a Warming World: The Charter’s Section 15 Equality Guarantee and Youth-Led Climate Litigation,” by Nathalie Chalifour, Jessica Earle, and Laura Macintyre, this commentary explores the concept of intergenerational environmental justice in the climate crisis. Our central contribution is to advance a relational conception of intergenerational environmental justice, which we argue can overcome some common objections to thinking about justice and rights in “generational” terms. This analysis supports climate litigation efforts on Charter grounds, best conceived in our view as discrimination against young and future generations. Yet it also …


Toronto’S 2018 Municipal Election, Rights Of Democratic Participation, And Section 2(B) Of The Charter, Jamie Cameron, Bailey Fox Mar 2021

Toronto’S 2018 Municipal Election, Rights Of Democratic Participation, And Section 2(B) Of The Charter, Jamie Cameron, Bailey Fox

Articles & Book Chapters

In 2018, the City of Toronto’s municipal election overlapped with a provincial election that brought a new government to office. While the municipal election ran for a protracted period from May 1 to October 22, the provincial election began on May 9 and ended about four weeks later, on June 7.On July 27, after only a few weeks in office, the provincial government tabled the Better Local Government Act (BLGA) and proclaimed the Bill into law on August 14.The BLGA reduced Toronto City Council from 47 to 25 wards and reset the electoral process, mandating that the election proceed under …


Introduction – 2019 Constitutional Cases At The Supreme Court: Up Close And In Person, Sonia Lawrence Feb 2021

Introduction – 2019 Constitutional Cases At The Supreme Court: Up Close And In Person, Sonia Lawrence

Articles & Book Chapters

From the vantage point of Summer 2020, 2019 seems almost a mirage. The conditions created across Canada by government and individual responses to COVID-19 were all but unimaginable when 2019 drew to a close, and the legal issues that preoccupy those interested in constitutional and public law now revolve around rapidly evolving rules and policies designed to protect public goods like health and health care. Questions of profound significance to constitutional lawyers, such as the location of limits on state powers, the appropriate roles and relative competencies of courts and governments, the place of state law in creating the good …


Book Review - The Tenth Justice: Judicial Appointments, Marc Nadon, And The Supreme Court Act Reference By Carissima Mathen & Michael Plaxton, Jamie Cameron Jan 2021

Book Review - The Tenth Justice: Judicial Appointments, Marc Nadon, And The Supreme Court Act Reference By Carissima Mathen & Michael Plaxton, Jamie Cameron

Articles & Book Chapters

This short book review discusses The Tenth Justice: Judicial Appointments, Marc Nadon, and the Supreme Court Act Reference, by Professors Mathen and Plaxton. The “tenth justice” is Justice Marc Nadon, who was appointed from the Federal Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. The appointment inspired the Supreme Court Reference and conclusion by a majority of the Court that their colleague – as Nadon was already sworn in – was not eligible to be appointed to one of Quebec’s three positions on the Court. The Tenth Justice offers an excellent, high-level primer on Justice Nadon’s appointment and …


A Plumber With Words: Seeking Constitutional Responsibility And An End To The Little Sisters Problem, Alison M. Latimer, Benjamin L. Berger Jan 2021

A Plumber With Words: Seeking Constitutional Responsibility And An End To The Little Sisters Problem, Alison M. Latimer, Benjamin L. Berger

Articles & Book Chapters

Joe Arvay sometimes described his work as a lawyer as being a “plumber with words”. We think what he meant was that he strived to offer tangible solutions to concrete problems. In other words, while it’s good to know what the law says, and what legal enthusiasts think about how the law operates, Charterbreaches affect real people, most of them not lawyers. It is the lived experience of the law that ultimately ought to draw our concern, energy, and talents.If you want to bend the law towards justice, you need to focus remedial attention on what the law actually …


Debating Diya: Indirect Rule And The Transformation Of Islamic Law In British Colonial Northern Nigeria, Rabiat Akande Jan 2021

Debating Diya: Indirect Rule And The Transformation Of Islamic Law In British Colonial Northern Nigeria, Rabiat Akande

All Papers

Leading academic authority on British imperial governance, Dame Margery Perham famously made the above remark on the workings of indirect rule in Northern Nigeria—the colonial state resulting from the 1903 British conquest of the West African Sokoto Caliphate. First emerging on the heels of the 1857 mutiny in British India, British colonial indirect rule had a long and checkered history predating its arrival in Nigeria. The dominant understanding of the Indian rebellion was that of a revolt against empire’s anglicizing project with the consequence that it spurred the colonial state to turn to governing colonial populations through native institutions within …


Canada’S Amendment Rules: A Window Into The Soul Of A Constitution - Review Essay Of Richard Albert, Constitutional Amendments: Making, Breaking, And Changing Constitutions, Jamie Cameron Jan 2021

Canada’S Amendment Rules: A Window Into The Soul Of A Constitution - Review Essay Of Richard Albert, Constitutional Amendments: Making, Breaking, And Changing Constitutions, Jamie Cameron

Articles & Book Chapters

This Review Essay forms part of a special issue of the Manitoba Law Journal (forthcoming) dedicated to Richard Albert, Constitutional Amendments: Making, Breaking, and Changing Constitutions. Years in the making, Constitutional Amendments explains how amendment rules define a constitution’s integrity, ensuring its longevity by allowing and even inviting formal changes to its text. Albert’s work is prodigious and monumental, connecting abstract issues of textual design to the follies of constitutional amendment over diverse variables of time and place. This Review focuses selectively on Constitutional Amendments and its implications for Canadian amendment constitutionalism, exploring Albert’s view that amendment rules expose …