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Full-Text Articles in Law
Let’S Talk About Sexual Assault: Survivor Stories And The Law In The Jian Ghomeshi Media Discourse, Dana Phillips
Let’S Talk About Sexual Assault: Survivor Stories And The Law In The Jian Ghomeshi Media Discourse, Dana Phillips
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
The recent allegations against former Canadian radio host Jian Ghomeshi catalyzed an exceptional moment of public discourse on sexual assault in Canada. Following public revelations from several women who described being attacked by Ghomeshi, many others came forward with accounts of sexual violence in their own lives. Affirming feminist critiques of sexual assault law reform, many survivors drew on their experiences to expose the criminal justice system’s ongoing flaws in processing sexual assault cases. While some held out hope for the criminal law’s role in addressing sexual violence, most rejected its individualizing and retributive aspects. Instead, survivors emphasized the need …
Unreasonable Disagreement?: Judicial–Executive Exchanges About Charter Reasonableness In The Harper Era, Matthew A. Hennigar
Unreasonable Disagreement?: Judicial–Executive Exchanges About Charter Reasonableness In The Harper Era, Matthew A. Hennigar
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
Assessments of “reasonableness” are central to adjudicating claims under several Charter rights and the section 1 “reasonable limits” clause. By comparing Supreme Court of Canada rulings to facta submitted by the Attorney General of Canada to the Court, this article examines the federal government’s success under Prime Minister Harper at persuading the Supreme Court of Canada that its Charter infringements in the area of criminal justice policy are reasonable, and when they fail to do so, on what grounds. The evidence reveals that the Conservative government adopted a consistently defensive posture in court, never conceding that a law was unreasonable, …
The Wastelander Life: Living Before And After The Release Of Daniels V Canada, Signa A. Daum Shanks
The Wastelander Life: Living Before And After The Release Of Daniels V Canada, Signa A. Daum Shanks
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
The difficulties of entering the Canadian legal system for Indigenous peoples often includes the challenge of using the tools that have a history of harming those same peoples in the first place. Such a reality means the pursuit of recognition in Canadian law will not always be a positive experience—even when a decision supposedly represents a ‘win.’ Here, the author considers some of the effects that have developed from the release of Daniels v Canada. As with other Supreme Court of Canada releases, it inspires observations about colonialism, the modern plight of Indigenous peoples, and the rule of law.
Tension And Reconciliation In Canadian Contract Law Casebooks, David Sandomierski
Tension And Reconciliation In Canadian Contract Law Casebooks, David Sandomierski
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
Canadian common law contract law casebooks are beset with a tension. On the one hand, they all reveal a sustained commitment to the “wholesale assault on the jurisprudence of forms, concepts, and rules” that typifies American Legal Realism and its intellectual descendants. Concern with underlying values, functional reasoning, social realities, and policy thinking pervades the explicit messages of Canadian contract law casebooks and their editors’ related writings. On the other hand, the two casebooks most frequently assigned embody an allegiance to rules and courts that has a close kinship with the classical attitudes purportedly rejected. They convey a monolithic image …
Renewing Human Rights Law In Canada, Dominique Clément
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 …
The Shifting Frontiers Of Law: Access To Justice And Underemployment In The Legal Profession, Nandini Ramanujam, Alexander Agnello
The Shifting Frontiers Of Law: Access To Justice And Underemployment In The Legal Profession, Nandini Ramanujam, Alexander Agnello
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
The article examines two interrelated issues attracting attention from the legal academy, the profession, and policy makers: i) the crisis of access to justice among ordinary Canadians, and ii) the increasing number of qualified and underemployed lawyers. This article sets out to understand the interrelated factors underlying these two trends, and explores long-term, accessible solutions to address the misalignment between the supply of underemployed law graduates and a demand for affordable legal services. In response to these twin problems, we examine how legislative reform, open source networks, and the automation of legal work can allow lawyers to create more cost-effective …
Canada’S First Malpractice Crisis: Medical Negligence In The Late Nineteenth Century, R. Blake Brown
Canada’S First Malpractice Crisis: Medical Negligence In The Late Nineteenth Century, R. Blake Brown
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
This article describes and explains the first Canadian medical malpractice crisis. While malpractice had emerged as a prominent legal issue in the United States by the mid nineteenth century, Canadian doctors first began to express concerns with a growth in malpractice litigation in the late nineteenth century. Physicians claimed that lawsuits damaged reputations and forced them to spend lavishly on defending themselves. Doctors blamed lawyers for drumming up spurious lawsuits and argued that ignorant or malicious jurors tended to side with plaintiffs. Evidence, however, points to additional factors that contributed to litigation. Medical professionals in rural areas sometimes avoided lengthy …
Sex, Race, And Motel Guests: Another Look At King V Barclay, Sarah E. Hamill
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 …
When Wage Theft Was A Crime In Canada, 1935-1955: The Challenge Of Using The Master’S Tools Against The Master, Eric Tucker
When Wage Theft Was A Crime In Canada, 1935-1955: The Challenge Of Using The Master’S Tools Against The Master, Eric Tucker
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
In recent years the term “wage theft” has been widely used to describe the phenomenon of employers not paying their workers the wages they are owed. While the term has great normative weight, it is rarely accompanied by calls for employers literally to be prosecuted under the criminal law. However, it is a little known fact that in 1935, Canada enacted a criminal wage theft law, which remained on the books until 1955. This article provides an historical account of the wage theft law, including the role of the Royal Commission on Price Spreads, the legislative debates and amendments that …
Promises Of Law: The Unlawful Dispossession Of Japanese Canadians, Eric M. Adams, Jordan Stanger-Ross
Promises Of Law: The Unlawful Dispossession Of Japanese Canadians, Eric M. Adams, Jordan Stanger-Ross
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
This article is about the origins, betrayal, and litigation of a promise of law. In 1942, while it ordered the internment of over twenty-one thousand Canadians of Japanese descent, the Canadian government enacted orders in council authorizing the Custodian of Enemy Property to seize all real and personal property owned by Japanese Canadians living within coastal British Columbia. Demands from the Japanese-Canadian community and concern from within the corridors of government resulted in amendments to those orders stipulating that the Custodian held that property as a “protective” trust and would return it to Japanese Canadians at the conclusion of the …
Land Regime Choice In Close-Knit Communities: The Case Of The First Nations Land Management Act, Malcolm Lavoie, Moira Lavoie
Land Regime Choice In Close-Knit Communities: The Case Of The First Nations Land Management Act, Malcolm Lavoie, Moira Lavoie
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
Land interests on Canadian First Nations reserves have long been governed by the rigid and paternalistic provisions of the federal Indian Act, which require the permission of the federal Minister of Indigenous Affairs for even relatively minor land transactions. Yet an increasing number of First Nations have taken advantage of the 1999 First Nations Land Management Act (FNLMA), which allows First Nations to adopt a custom land code that replaces most of the reserve land provisions of the Indian Act in their community. This paper seeks to examine how First Nation communities have chosen to exercise their powers under this …
Coordination And Monitoring In Changes Of Control: The Controversial Role Of “Wolf Packs” In Capital Markets, Anita Anand, Andrew Mihalik
Coordination And Monitoring In Changes Of Control: The Controversial Role Of “Wolf Packs” In Capital Markets, Anita Anand, Andrew Mihalik
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
Given recent empirical work suggesting that Canada is one of two countries in which outcomes favourable to shareholder activists are more likely than in the United States, one might wonder whether shareholders in Canadian public companies have become too empowered. This concern takes on particular significance in light of controversies arising from the emergence of “wolf packs”: loose networks of parallel-minded shareholders (typically hedge funds) that act together to effect change in a given corporation without disclosing their collective interest. This article analogizes the role of wolf packs in the corporation to that of a blockholder. It isolates certain conditions …
Dialogue: Clarified And Reconsidered, Rainer Knopff, Rhonda Evans, Dennis Baker, Dave Snow
Dialogue: Clarified And Reconsidered, Rainer Knopff, Rhonda Evans, Dennis Baker, Dave Snow
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
Controversies about constitutional “dialogue” often stem from disagreement over the concept itself. The metaphor’s meaning and attendant consequences differ depending on whether it reflects the assumptions of judicial interpretive supremacy or coordinate interpretation. By combining that distinction with the contrast between weak-form and strong-form rights review, this article creates an integrated framework for clarifying dialogic variation across such jurisdictions as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia. We apply this framework most intensely to the Canadian case and bring differences between several dialogic forms—especially the difference between “clarification dialogue” and “reconsideration dialogue”—into sharper relief than is …
Encountering Settler Colonialism Through Legal Objects: A Painted Drum And Handwritten Treaty From Manitoulin Island, Ruth Buchanan, Jeffery G. Hewitt
Encountering Settler Colonialism Through Legal Objects: A Painted Drum And Handwritten Treaty From Manitoulin Island, Ruth Buchanan, Jeffery G. Hewitt
Articles & Book Chapters
The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries generated a trove of objects documenting the encounter between the Anishinaabe of the Great Lakes region and the British. Two such objects, a drum painted with Anishinaabe imagery and a treaty, handwritten by a British treaty commissioner, were created in close proximity in both time and location. This paper explores the encounter between the Anishinaabe and the British through a parallel engagement with both drum and treaty; placing them in conversation with each other. We consider the divergent paths taken by these objects by comparing the material, legal and sensory landscapes in which they were …
Legitimate Expectations In Canada: Soft Law And Tax Administration, Sas Ansari, Lorne Sossin
Legitimate Expectations In Canada: Soft Law And Tax Administration, Sas Ansari, Lorne Sossin
Articles & Book Chapters
This chapter examines the relationship between legitimate expectations and soft law. In what circumstances can an agency’s guidelines create law — or at least legally enforceable expectations? At first glance, the answer would appear obvious. The key reason for developing soft law is to provide guidance and transparency as to the process (and sometimes the substance) of administrative action. Soft law by its nature gives rise to expectations. Whether those expectations, in turn, give rise to legal effects is decidedly less clear. In fact, this question has vexed Canadian administrative law. Nowhere are questions of soft law and legitimate expectations …