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Narrating Dignity: Islamophobia, Racial Profiling, And National Security Before The Supreme Court Of Canada, Reem Bahdi Sep 2018

Narrating Dignity: Islamophobia, Racial Profiling, And National Security Before The Supreme Court Of Canada, Reem Bahdi

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Captain Javed Latif, a Muslim Canadian pilot from Pakistan, was denied pilot refresher training by Bombardier Aerospace Training Center in Canada based on information received from US national security officials. Almost 12 years after Captain Javed Latif’s ordeal began, the Supreme Court of Canada affirmed a decision by the Quebec Court of Appeal overturning a finding by a Quebec Human Rights Tribunal that Latif had been racially profiled. The Supreme Court of Canada’s decision ultimately exposes and perpetuates a deep unwillingness to challenge the stereotyping of Muslims as terrorists in Canada. In response, this commentary seeks to excavate Captain Latif’s …


Quebec V A And Taypotat: Unpacking The Supreme Court’S Latest Decisions On Section 15 Of The Charter, Alicja Puchta May 2018

Quebec V A And Taypotat: Unpacking The Supreme Court’S Latest Decisions On Section 15 Of The Charter, Alicja Puchta

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

The Supreme Court of Canada’s articulation for the test for discrimination under section 15 of the Charter has undergone numerous permutations over the past twenty-five years. The Supreme Court introduced its latest round of changes in its 2013 decision in Québec (Attorney General) v A and its 2015 decision in Kahkewistahaw First Nation v Taypotat. Together, these two decisions clarified that the appropriate approach to section 15 was not one focused strictly on stereotype and prejudice, but rather on all contextual factors that may inform whether an impugned law violates the norm of substantive equality. This paper critically analyzes the …


Renewing Human Rights Law In Canada, Dominique Clément Oct 2017

Renewing Human Rights Law In Canada, Dominique Clément

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Human rights law was one of the great legal innovations of the twentieth century. And yet human rights agencies and practitioners face a backlash that has resulted in regressive legislative reforms in recent years. These reforms have only succeeded in undermining some of the key pillars of the Canadian model for human rights law. The following article places the current backlash within historical context. The author argues that many recent reforms have replicated the deficiencies of past anti-discrimination laws. Commissions and policy-makers must respond by building on the strengths of the original Canadian model by improving public education, engaging with …


Sex, Race, And Motel Guests: Another Look At King V Barclay, Sarah E. Hamill Aug 2017

Sex, Race, And Motel Guests: Another Look At King V Barclay, Sarah E. Hamill

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

The 1961 case of King v Barclay is something of a footnote in the history of discrimination against Black Canadians. If it is cited at all, it is usually cited alongside the more famous racism cases, such as Christie v York, as proof of the widespread nature of racism in Canada. In this paper, I re-read the trial decision and examine the original case file to show that the facts of King and the racism in the case are more complex than usually realized. King emerged out of a series of errors from both King and Barclay’s Motel which resulted …


The Bunk House Rules: A Materialist Approach To Legal Consciousness In The Context Of Migrant Workers’ Housing In Ontario, Adrian Smith Jan 2016

The Bunk House Rules: A Materialist Approach To Legal Consciousness In The Context Of Migrant Workers’ Housing In Ontario, Adrian Smith

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

In this article, I tackle the controversy surrounding an application to convert an abandoned school into housing for migrant agricultural workers in Ontario. I examine how the written reactions of community residents to a proposed municipal zoning by-law amendment convey and invoke understandings of the legal regulation of temporary labour migration. Viewed through a legal consciousness analytical lens that has been reconstituted to attend to the material practices and contexts underpinning residents’ responses (a materialist approach to legal consciousness), the submissions intervene in the organization and regulation of agricultural labour. While rehearsing well-worn, racist colonial tropes, these responses (re)produce material …


No Refuge: Hungarian Romani Refugee Claimants In Canada, Sean Rehaag, Julianna Beaudoin, Jennifer Danch Jan 2016

No Refuge: Hungarian Romani Refugee Claimants In Canada, Sean Rehaag, Julianna Beaudoin, Jennifer Danch

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

From 2008 to 2012, thousands of Hungarian Roma sought asylum in Canada. Some political actors suggested that their claims were unfounded and demonstrated that Canada’s refugee processes were vulnerable to abuse. In contrast, advocates for refugees argued that persecution against Roma was rampant in Hungary and noted that hundreds of Hungarian Roma were granted refugee status in Canada. Much of this debate has occurred in an evidentiary vacuum. This article fills this vacuum through a qualitative and quantitative study of Hungarian Romani refugee claims. First, the context of the study is discussed. Then, the article explores the experiences of Hungarian …


Ps V Ontario: Rethinking The Role Of The Charter In Civil Commitment, Isabel Grant, Peter J. Carver Jan 2016

Ps V Ontario: Rethinking The Role Of The Charter In Civil Commitment, Isabel Grant, Peter J. Carver

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

In PS v Ontario, the Ontario Court of Appeal held that section 7 of the Charter requires that persons who are civilly committed for six months or more must have access to meaningful review over the conditions of their detention. In this paper, the authors argue that the decision has broad implications for provincial civil commitment regimes across the country. In particular, the Court’s analogy to the Criminal Code Review Board jurisprudence opens the door to a fuller recognition of the profound deprivation of liberty involved in civil commitments. An expanded role for civil review tribunals may be required, including …


Faithful Translations?: Cross-Cultural Communication In Canadian Religious Freedom Litigation, Howard Kislowicz Jan 2015

Faithful Translations?: Cross-Cultural Communication In Canadian Religious Freedom Litigation, Howard Kislowicz

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

In three religious freedom cases pursued to the Supreme Court of Canada—Amselem, Multani, and Huterrian Brethren of Wilson Colony—religious freedom claimants engaged in litigation over a religious practice particular to their group. Some have argued that cases like these can be seen as cross-cultural encounters. How did the religious freedom claimants seek to make their practices—the succah, the kirpan, and the prohibition on being photographed—understood to the courts? And how did the courts respond to these claims? In this article, I draw out two central values from the literature on crosscultural communication: respect and self-awareness. I then use these values …


Losing Relevance: Quebec And The Constitutional Politics Of Language, Emmanuelle Richez Jan 2015

Losing Relevance: Quebec And The Constitutional Politics Of Language, Emmanuelle Richez

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article asks whether Quebec has lost relevance in the constitutional politics of language. It proposes a doctrinal analysis of the Supreme Court’s Charter jurisprudence, with an emphasis on the most recent body of case law, and an assessment of its political consequences in the area of language policy in Quebec. The article argues that constitutional review has increasingly protected individual rights over Quebec’s collective right to maintain its language and culture. This can be explained by the move towards an implacable parallel constitutionalism and a redefinition of official minority linguistic rights in the jurisprudence, as well as by the …


Uncovering Women In Taxation: The Gender Impact Of Detaxation, Tax Expenditures, And Joint Tax/Benefit Units, Kathleen A. Lahey Jan 2015

Uncovering Women In Taxation: The Gender Impact Of Detaxation, Tax Expenditures, And Joint Tax/Benefit Units, Kathleen A. Lahey

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Women have made great progress in gaining individual civil and political rights since the 1800s. However, for nearly a century, the use of couple-based tax and benefit provisions has increased steadily, enshrouding women in new and extensive forms of fiscal coverture that run counter to democratic ideals of economic equality. While the pros and cons of joint taxation have been well-rehearsed, the reality is that between unequal distributions of new and old varieties of tax and benefit items to women and men and the continued expansion of joint tax and benefit items in recent decades, Canada’s tax and transfer system …


Substantive Equality As Equal Recognition: A New Theory Of Section 15 Of The Charter, Anthony Robert Sangiuliano Jan 2015

Substantive Equality As Equal Recognition: A New Theory Of Section 15 Of The Charter, Anthony Robert Sangiuliano

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article presents a novel theory of the concept of substantive equality under section 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms called Substantive Equality as Equal Recognition. This contribution is timely in light of the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent disagreement over the proper jurisprudential approach to interpreting section 15(1) in the 2013 case of Quebec v A. Substantive Equality as Equal Recognition holds that the purpose of section 15(1) is to ensure that the law’s application does not reflect, through its impact or effects, hierarchies of status that exist between citizens within Canadian society. The article argues …


Democracy And The Right To Vote: Rethinking Democratic Rights Under The Charter, Yasmin Dawood Oct 2013

Democracy And The Right To Vote: Rethinking Democratic Rights Under The Charter, Yasmin Dawood

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article addresses the Supreme Court of Canada’s theory of democracy and the right to vote. After setting forth the Court’s general approach to democracy, I develop a new conceptual framework for the Court’s approach to democratic rights. First, I argue that the Court has adopted a “bundle of democratic rights” approach to the right to vote. By this I mean that the Court has interpreted the right to vote as consisting of multiple democratic rights, each of which is concerned with a particular facet of democratic governance. Second, I claim that the democratic rights recognized by the Court are …


Do Bills Of Rights Matter?: An Examination Of Court Change, Judicial Ideology, And The Support Structure For Rights In Canada, Donald R. Songer, Susan W. Johnson, Jennifer Barnes Bowie Oct 2013

Do Bills Of Rights Matter?: An Examination Of Court Change, Judicial Ideology, And The Support Structure For Rights In Canada, Donald R. Songer, Susan W. Johnson, Jennifer Barnes Bowie

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Competing theories regarding the development of a “rights revolution” in Canada have appeared in the judicial and constitutional literature in recent years. On the one hand, scholars argue that the profound effects often attributed to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms are substantially overstated, and conventional analyses have overlooked the more important role of changes in what is called the “support structure” for rights. Others have advanced a competing theory that the Charter created an expansion of civil liberties. We take advantage of an extensive dataset on the decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada to provide a more systematic …


Inclusion, Voice, And Process-Based Constitutionalism, Colleen Sheppard Jan 2013

Inclusion, Voice, And Process-Based Constitutionalism, Colleen Sheppard

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article explores a growing emphasis on process issues in the elaboration of constitutional rights and freedoms, focusing on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In a diverse range of contexts, judges are framing constitutional rights and freedoms in terms of the processes and practices they require, rather than in terms of specific constitutionally mandated substantive outcomes. Thus, constitutional rights have been interpreted to require a duty to negotiate, a duty to consult, a duty to accommodate, and entitlements to participate in democratic governance. The growing emphasis on processes and practices is positive to the extent that it resonates …


Spectacles Of Emancipation: Reading Rights Differently In India's Legal Discourse, Oishik Sircar Apr 2012

Spectacles Of Emancipation: Reading Rights Differently In India's Legal Discourse, Oishik Sircar

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

How does neo-liberalism change the way we understand rights, law, and justice? With postcolonial and post-liberalization India as its focal point, this article attempts to disrupt the linear, progressive equation that holds that more laws equals more rights equals more justice. This is an equation that has informed and been informed by fundamental rights jurisprudence and law reform, the enactment of legislation to guarantee socio-economic rights, and many of the strategies of social movement activism in contemporary India. This article argues that while these developments have indeed proliferated a public culture of rights, they have simultaneously been accompanied by the …


Bail, Global Justice, And The Limits Of Dissent, Jackie Esmonde Apr 2003

Bail, Global Justice, And The Limits Of Dissent, Jackie Esmonde

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article examines the ways in which the law of bail has been used to criminalize dissent in Canada. Three case studies are analyzed to demonstrate how the law of bail has been applied to those arrested at global justice demonstrations associated with militant civil disobedience. The first case study examines the bail conditions imposed on protesters arrested at anti-APEC demonstrations in Vancouver 1997. These bail conditions were intentionally designed to prevent those arrested from attending the protests. The second case study focuses on the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), with an analysis of how the bail system has been …


The Origins Of Political Policing In Canada: Class, Law, And The Burden Of Empire, Andrew Parnaby, Gregory S. Kealey Apr 2003

The Origins Of Political Policing In Canada: Class, Law, And The Burden Of Empire, Andrew Parnaby, Gregory S. Kealey

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This essay examines the origins of the Canadian secret service from the 1860s to the Great War. During this time, the Canadian government faced political challenges from Irish republicans and South Asian radicals. Both groups sought to liberate their home countries-Ireland and India-from British rule by promoting the idea of independence and the necessity of militant tactics amongst their respective immigrant communities in North America. Faced with this subversive activity, which had both domestic and international implications, the government created a secret service to gather political intelligence. Significantly, the government's political response was shaped decisively by its status as an …


No Exit: Racial Profiling And Canada's War Against Terrorism, Reem Bahdi Apr 2003

No Exit: Racial Profiling And Canada's War Against Terrorism, Reem Bahdi

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

After September 11, 2001, some scholars and policy-makers promoted the racial profiling of Arabs and Muslims as a means towards greater national security. While racial profiling has not been officially sanctioned in Canada, it attracts popular support and undeniably takes place. The first part of this article identifies three different categories of racial profiling in the context of Canada's War against Terrorism. The second part identifies the problems associated with racial profiling. It argues that racial profiling undermines national security while also heightening the vulnerability and exclusion of Arabs, Muslims, and other racialized groups in Canada.


The Right To Civil Disobedience, Vinit Haksar Apr 2003

The Right To Civil Disobedience, Vinit Haksar

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article compares and contrasts the way Gandhi understands the right to civil disobedience with the way this right is understood by some contemporary liberals. Some of the implications of the right to civil disobedience are also discussed. The right to civil disobedience implies that the authorities should extend some tolerance to civil disobedients not only when they are correct, but also when they are reasonably mistaken in their views. Tolerance here does not involve preventing civil disobedients from breaking the law, and implies that when civil disobedients break the law, they have a claim not to be punished or …


Social Resistance And The Disturbing Of The Peace, John Clarke Apr 2003

Social Resistance And The Disturbing Of The Peace, John Clarke

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Argues that preserving the Peace maintains injustice, and that it is morally just and historically necessary to challenge it with acts of social resistance.


When The Law Breaks Down: Aboriginal Peoples In Canada And Governmental Defiance Of The Rule Of Law, Andrew J. Orkin Apr 2003

When The Law Breaks Down: Aboriginal Peoples In Canada And Governmental Defiance Of The Rule Of Law, Andrew J. Orkin

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Comments on Aboriginal peoples, governmental defiance, and the breakdown of law and the balance between law's roles and limits.


Civil Resistance And The Diversity Of Tactics In The Anti-Globalization Movement: Problems Of Violence, Silence, And Solidarity In Activist Politics, Janet Conway Apr 2003

Civil Resistance And The Diversity Of Tactics In The Anti-Globalization Movement: Problems Of Violence, Silence, And Solidarity In Activist Politics, Janet Conway

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article examines the (re)emergence of large-scale civil disobedience and the accompanying debates about violence and non-violence in the contemporary anti-globalization movement. Rooted in the Canadian movement but in conversation with wider debates, the article tracks movement practices and debates from the Battle of Seattle through to the Quebec Summit. The debate took a new turn in Genoa, with massive police brutality and the killing of a protester, and again following the events of September 11, 2001. The central argument of the article is that the new forms of civil resistance embody a critique of prevailing forms of organization, participation, …


Reflections On Civil Liberties In An Age Of Counterterrorism, Conor Gearty Apr 2003

Reflections On Civil Liberties In An Age Of Counterterrorism, Conor Gearty

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article examines the historical origins of civil liberties and shows their importance to systems of government rooted in the principles of representative democracy. It argues that the subject of civil liberties needs to be distinguished from issues related to criminal justice and human rights, and that too broad a deployment of the language of civil liberties can lead to the importance of civil liberties being underappreciated by the wider public. The article considers how the integrity of the language of civil liberties and the representative system of democracy as a whole can be preserved in the face of the …


Legal Responses To Mass Protest Actions: The Dramatic Role Of Solidarity In Obtaining Generous Plea Bargains, Frances Olsen Apr 2003

Legal Responses To Mass Protest Actions: The Dramatic Role Of Solidarity In Obtaining Generous Plea Bargains, Frances Olsen

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Comments on police and other government officials attempts to control protest activities by limiting parade permits and instigating confrontations with demonstrators. Focuses on WTO meeting in Seattle, Washington in November, 1999; the World Bank meeting in Washington, D.C. in April, 2000; and the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, California in 2000.


Désobéissance Civile, Libertés Civiques, Et Résistance Civile: Rôle Et Limites Du Droit, Judy Fudge, Harry J. Glasbeek Apr 2003

Désobéissance Civile, Libertés Civiques, Et Résistance Civile: Rôle Et Limites Du Droit, Judy Fudge, Harry J. Glasbeek

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Les contributions à cette collection proviennent des activités d’un projet de deux ans. Son but consistait à inviter les étudiants, la faculté, tous les membres de la communauté d'Osgoode et de la communauté juridique dans leur ensemble, à s'associer à un débat permanent sur la nature et les limites du droit, vues à travers le prisme de la conduite de désobéissance civile dans une politie juridique qui avait de longue date développé des institutions démocratiques et propagé les libertés civiques. À cette fin, divers panels, séminaires et conférences ont été organisés dès l'automne 2001. Ils sont évoqués dans le curriculum …


Civil Disobedience, Civil Liberties, And Civil Resistance: Law's Role And Limits, Judy Fudge, Harry J. Glasbeek Apr 2003

Civil Disobedience, Civil Liberties, And Civil Resistance: Law's Role And Limits, Judy Fudge, Harry J. Glasbeek

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Based on a two-year project launched by the Journal. Its goal was to engage students, faculty, and all members of the wider Osgoode and professional communities in an ongoing discussion about the nature and limits of law, seen through the lens of civil disobedient conduct in a legal polity that had developed mature democratic and civil liberty enhancing institutions. To this end, a variety of panels, seminars, and lectures were organized, beginning in the Fall of 2001. They were interpellated into the law school's curriculum. A culminating event was a conference in the Fall of 2002, to which a select …


Civil Disobedience And Academic Freedom, Leslie Green Apr 2003

Civil Disobedience And Academic Freedom, Leslie Green

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

What is the relation between the forms of principled law-breaking that we know as civil disobedience and the special rights of teachers and students that comprise academic freedom? It is argued that academic freedom does not give them a right to engage in civil disobedience, not even on campus. At the same time, however, academic freedom does protect them in studying, discussing, assessing, and even recommending civil disobedience--even when their opinions and recommendations are misguided or wrong. The subject is discussed in light of some recent cases.


What's Law Got To Do With It?: Historical Considerations On Class Struggle, Boundaries Of Constraint, And Capitalist Authority, Bryan D. Palmer Apr 2003

What's Law Got To Do With It?: Historical Considerations On Class Struggle, Boundaries Of Constraint, And Capitalist Authority, Bryan D. Palmer

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article offers a preliminary theoretical statement on the law as a set of boundaries constraining class struggle in the interests of capitalist authority. But those boundaries are not forever fixed, and are constantly evolving through the pressures exerted on them by active working-class resistance, some of which takes the form of overt civil disobedience. To illustrate this process, the author explores the ways in which specific moments of labour upheaval in 1886, 1919, 1937, and 1946 conditioned the eventual making of industrial legality. When this legality unravelled in the post-World War II period, workers were left vulnerable and their …


Civil Disobedience And The Law: The Role Of Legal Professionals, James Macpherson Apr 2003

Civil Disobedience And The Law: The Role Of Legal Professionals, James Macpherson

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Discusses the role of judges when cases of civil disobedience are brought before the court.


From Civil Disobedience To Obedient Consumerism: Influences Of Market-Based Activism And Eco-Certification On Forest Governance, Emily Walter Apr 2003

From Civil Disobedience To Obedient Consumerism: Influences Of Market-Based Activism And Eco-Certification On Forest Governance, Emily Walter

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article looks at the implicit politics of eco-certification as an activist strategy. Drawing on the example of the Forest Stewardship Council and forestry activism in British Columbia during the 1990s, this article considers underlying norms of the certification approach, the inherent limitations of its institutional setting, and the empowering and disempowering implications for participants in forest policy debates. These implicit politics may have a disciplining influence on public debate regarding the future of environmental regulation, and governance more generally, at a time when wider experimentation with alternative approaches is both necessary and otherwise timely. The analysis draws attention to …