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Articles 1 - 30 of 96
Full-Text Articles in Law
A Historical Account Of The Orderly Payment Of Debts Act Reference: Limiting Provincial Efforts To Protect Insolvent Debtors, Thomas Gw Telfer, Virginia Torrie
A Historical Account Of The Orderly Payment Of Debts Act Reference: Limiting Provincial Efforts To Protect Insolvent Debtors, Thomas Gw Telfer, Virginia Torrie
Dalhousie Law Journal
This paper analyzes the history of the Alberta Orderly Payment of Debts Act and the constitutional controversy that followed. The legislation sought to protect debtors by imposing restrictions on creditors. In 1960, the Supreme Court of Canada in Reference re Validity of Orderly Payment of Debts Act, 1959 (Alberta) ruled that the legislation was ultra vires on the basis that it interfered with the federal bankruptcy and insolvency power. The Orderly Payment of Debts Act reference is the capstone in a trilogy of cases in which provincial legislation was invalidated for encroaching upon the federal bankruptcy and insolvency power. The …
Intervenors At The Supreme Court Of Canada, Geoffrey D. Callaghan
Intervenors At The Supreme Court Of Canada, Geoffrey D. Callaghan
Dalhousie Law Journal
My aim in this paper is to offer a normatively attractive and explanatorily sound interpretation of the Supreme Court of Canada’s approach to third party intervention. The crux of my interpretation is that the policy the Court has developed on intervenors allows it to strike a reasonable balance among a number of competing democratic considerations, all of which have value in the context of judicial decision making. In this respect, the Court should be commended for identifying a way to liberalize a practice that possesses many democratically-attractive features, but also the inherent capacity to undermine the democratic standing of the …
Once More Unto The Breach: Confronting The Standard Of Review (Again) And The Imperative Of Correctness Review When Interpreting The Scope Of Refugee Protection, Gerald Heckman, Amar Khoday
Once More Unto The Breach: Confronting The Standard Of Review (Again) And The Imperative Of Correctness Review When Interpreting The Scope Of Refugee Protection, Gerald Heckman, Amar Khoday
Dalhousie Law Journal
The Supreme Court of Canada’s standard of review jurisprudence has been marked by the ascendancy of reasonableness as the presumptive standard of review of decisions involving an administrative tribunal’s interpretation and application of its home statute. To the extent that this approach would lead to the reasonableness review of administrative decision-makers’ interpretation of the scope and meaning of provisions of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that implement the basic human rights conferred in international conventions to which Canada is a party, it must be changed. Interpretations of the scope of the Refugee Convention and Convention Against Torture raise questions …
A "Reasonable" Expectation Of Sexual Privacy Inthe Digital Age, Moira Aikenhead
A "Reasonable" Expectation Of Sexual Privacy Inthe Digital Age, Moira Aikenhead
Dalhousie Law Journal
Two Criminal Code offences, voyeurism, and the publication of intimate images without consent, were enacted toprotect Canadians' right to sexual privacy in light of invasive digital technologies. Women and girls are overwhelmingly targeted as victims for both of these offences, given the higher value placed on their non-consensual, sexualised images in an unequal society.Both offences require an analysis ofwhether the complainant was in circumstances giving rise to a reasonable expectation of privacy, and the use of this standard is potentially problematic both from a feminist standpoint and in light of the rapidly evolving technological realities of the digital age. This …
Duets, Not Solos: The Mclachlin Court's Co-Authorship Legacy, Peter Mccormick
Duets, Not Solos: The Mclachlin Court's Co-Authorship Legacy, Peter Mccormick
Dalhousie Law Journal
This article explores the recentphenomenon of the formal co-authorship of Supreme Court decisions. It begins with a short history of the practice, primarily in the closing years of the Lamer Court but expanding steadily under McLachlin. A closer investigation reveals two critically important dimensions: first, the practice is skewed toward the Court's more important decisions (measured in terms of subject matter legal complexity, interveners, and subsequent citation); and second, its diffusion across the Court's membership refutes the possibility that it simply reinforces persisting cleavages. This new practice represents a more overtly collegial format directed to the Court's more significant decisions. …
Reassessing The Constitutional Foundation Of Delegated Legislation In Canada, Lorne Neudorf
Reassessing The Constitutional Foundation Of Delegated Legislation In Canada, Lorne Neudorf
Dalhousie Law Journal
This article assesses the constitutionalfoundation by which Parliament lends its lawmaking powers to the executive, which rests upon a century-old precedent established by the Supreme Court of Canada in a constitutional challenge to wartime legislation. While the case law demonstrates that courts have continued to follow this earlyprecedent to allow theparliamentary delegation of sweeping lawmaking powers to the executive, it is time for courts to reassess the constitutionality ofdelegation in light ofCanada's status as a liberal democracy embedded within a system of constitutional supremacy. Under the Constitution of Canada, Parliament is placed firmly at the centre ofpublic policymaking by being …
Case Comment: Heller V. Uber Technologies Inc., Peter Quon
Case Comment: Heller V. Uber Technologies Inc., Peter Quon
Dalhousie Law Journal
Canadian courts have accepted mandatory arbitration clauses as presumptively enforceable unless there is legislation that precludes their application. This position was confirmed by the Supreme Court in Seidel v. TEL US CommunicationsInc. In Heller v. Uber Technologies Inc., the Ontario Court of Appeal considered an arbitration clause in the context of legislation following the approach in Seidel, but the Court also undertook an unconscionability analysis. Reviewing a motion that was granted to stay a class action proceeding in favour of an arbitration clause, the Court unanimously held that the clause was invalid on two separate grounds. First, the arbitration clause …
The Intellectually Disabled Witness And The Requirement To Promise To Tell The Truth, Jonas-Sébastien Beaudry
The Intellectually Disabled Witness And The Requirement To Promise To Tell The Truth, Jonas-Sébastien Beaudry
Dalhousie Law Journal
Mentally disabled victims of sexual crimes may be prevented from acting as witnesses in a criminal trial if their mental capacity is challenged. They face an important obstacle to access justice if the case against their alleged aggressor mostly relies on their testimony In R. v. D.A.I., in 2012, the Supreme Court of Canada revisited the Canada Evidence Act's requirement of promising to tell the truth and lowered the previously ambiguous threshold of cognitive capacities required to satisfy this requirement. The Evidence Act has been amended in 2015 to reflect the Court's decision. While apparently facilitating people with mental disabilities' …
Informing The Future Of End-Of-Life Care In Canada: Lessons From The Quebec Legislative Experience, Michelle Giroux
Informing The Future Of End-Of-Life Care In Canada: Lessons From The Quebec Legislative Experience, Michelle Giroux
Dalhousie Law Journal
There have been numerous and challenging developments respecting endof-life care in Canada. In Quebec, political consensus and changes in public opinion led to the adoption of end-of-life care legislation. This paper discusses the context and foundation of that reform and reviews its content with the objective of informing the future of end-of-life care in Canada. In the first part of the paper I explore the balancing of the right to life and autonomy, with a focus on the approach chosen in Quebec by the Legal Experts Panel Report. In Part 11, I discuss Quebec's adoption of An Act Respecting End-of-Life …
Out Of The Black Hole: Toward A Fresh Approach To Tort Causation, Allan C. Hutchinson
Out Of The Black Hole: Toward A Fresh Approach To Tort Causation, Allan C. Hutchinson
Dalhousie Law Journal
The present state of Canadian doctrine on causation in tort law is in serious disarray Judges and jurists persist in thinking that it is a factual inquiry separate from policy concerns. This is made obvious in the recent Supreme Court decision in Clements and in the academic commentary around it. In contrast, I insist that the requirement of causation must be understood as being entirely part of the broader debate on the goals and policies of tort law generally Causation is a topic drenched with normative values and should be treated as such.
Death To Semelhago!, Bruce Ziff
Death To Semelhago!, Bruce Ziff
Dalhousie Law Journal
In the 1996 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Semelhago v. Paramadevan, Justice John Sopinka stated that it is no longer appropriate to assume that specific performance will issue as a matter of course to enforce a contract for the sale of land. Before performance will be ordered, it must be proven (and not assumed) that common law damages for breach of contract will not suffice to do justice. In this article, Semel hago and the case law generated in its aftermath will be reviewed, and the policy arguments pertaining to the current law addressed. In short, it …
Of Lodestars And Lawyers: Incorporating The Duty Of Loyalty Into The Model Code Of Conduct, Colin Jackson, Richard Devlin, Brent Cotter
Of Lodestars And Lawyers: Incorporating The Duty Of Loyalty Into The Model Code Of Conduct, Colin Jackson, Richard Devlin, Brent Cotter
Dalhousie Law Journal
The "conflicts quartet" ofcases decided by the Supreme Court of Canada can be understood as part of a long-standing tension in Anglo-Canadian jurisprudence between two competing conceptions of a lawyer's professional identity In the most recent of these cases, C.N. Railway v. McKercher, the Supreme Court conclusively preferred the loyalty-centred conception of the practice of law over the entrepreneurial conception. While the Federation of Law Societies of Canada amended its Model Code of Professional Conduct in 2014 in response to the Supreme Court's decision in McKercher, this article argues that those amendments did not go far enough. The authors propose …
Nom De Plume: Who Writes The Supreme Court's "By The Court" Judgments?, Peter Mccormick
Nom De Plume: Who Writes The Supreme Court's "By The Court" Judgments?, Peter Mccormick
Dalhousie Law Journal
For several dozen of its major decisions, the Supreme Court in recent decades has adopted an unusual judgment style-the unanimous and anonymous "By the Court" format. Unlike judgments attributed to specific justices, "By the Court" presents an unusual and impersonal institutionalist face. But what is happening behind the fagade? Are these deeply collegial products with the actual drafting divided between some (or most, or all) of the justices? Is it "business as usual" which for major judgments involves rotation between the senior judges? Or is it simply a pseudonym for the Chief Justice writing alone in an unusually emphatic way? …
Canadian Perspectives On Animals And The Law, Sabrina Tremblay-Huet
Canadian Perspectives On Animals And The Law, Sabrina Tremblay-Huet
Dalhousie Law Journal
It is commonplace to affirm that animal law is much more developed in the United States than in Canada; animal abuser registries are being implemented,' animal law degrees are offered,2 and prosecutions ofanimal abusers occur frequently,3 for example. However, the tide is changing in Canada as well, the legal norms and case law becoming increasingly aligned with the social norms surrounding the treatment of animals. An example ofthis is the recent adoption by Quebec ofa new status for animals in its Civil Code, the Loi visant 1'amiliorationde la situationjuridiquede l'animal, adopted on December 4th, 2015.' There are also new challenges …
Inequality And Identity At Work, Jennifer Koshan
Inequality And Identity At Work, Jennifer Koshan
Dalhousie Law Journal
A clinic at the University of Calgary law school in 2014 worked with unions and workers'rights groups to develop constitutionalchallenges to the historic exclusion of farm workers from labour and employment legislation in Alberta. After exploring arguments under sections 2(d), 7 and 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we concluded that, based on the existing jurisprudence, the equality rights arguments under section 15 were the weakest. This article explores what is lost when we fail to recognize the identity-based harms that flow from government violations of equality rights. It considers the nature of these harms, why they …
The Contract Of Employment At The Supreme Court Of Canada: Employee Protection And The Presumption Of Employer Freedom, Gillian Demeyere
The Contract Of Employment At The Supreme Court Of Canada: Employee Protection And The Presumption Of Employer Freedom, Gillian Demeyere
Dalhousie Law Journal
This article critically examines the Supreme Court of Canada's treatment of the contract of employment in its wrongful dismissal jurisprudence over the last 25 years, with the aim of challenging the view that only by exempting the contract of employment from the ordinary workings of contract doctrine or by resorting to public policy considerations can the common law of dismissal provide adequate protection for employees. The Court's jurisprudence reveals a commitment to what this paper calls the presumption of employer freedom, a view of the contract of employment which has its origins in the status-based master and servant relationship and …
Environmental Assessment As Planning And Disclosure Tool: Greenpeace Canada V. Canada (Attorney General), Martin Zp Olszynski
Environmental Assessment As Planning And Disclosure Tool: Greenpeace Canada V. Canada (Attorney General), Martin Zp Olszynski
Dalhousie Law Journal
In Greenpeace Canada v. Canada (2014), the applicants successfully challenged the adequacy of the environmental assessment report prepared in relation to a proposed nuclear power plant. In assessing that report, the Federal Court described environmental assessment as an "evidence-based and democratically accountable" decision-making process. In this comment I suggest that this characterization represents the most significant-if perhaps also long overdue development in Canadian environmental assessment law since the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Friends of the Oldman River Society v. Canada. I also discuss some of the implications of this characterization, including the extent to which environmental effects must be …
Judgment And Opportunity: Decision Assignment On The Mclachlin Court, Peter Mccormick
Judgment And Opportunity: Decision Assignment On The Mclachlin Court, Peter Mccormick
Dalhousie Law Journal
The workload of the Supreme Court of Canada is shared among the Court's nine members, but is this sharing equal with respect to the writing of judgments? A simple count does not provide an answer because not all cases are equally important. This paper develops an objective measure of case importance-the Legal Complexity Index-and applies it to the cases decided by the McLachlin Court. It demonstrates that judgment-delivery opportunities for significant cases have not been shared equally, either overall or with respect to any of the major subdivisions of the caseload. Some judges enjoy the spotlight, while others are relegated …
Thin-Skull Plaintiffs, Socio-Cultural "Abnormalities" And The Dangers Of An Objective Test For Hypersensitivity, Eugene C. Lim
Thin-Skull Plaintiffs, Socio-Cultural "Abnormalities" And The Dangers Of An Objective Test For Hypersensitivity, Eugene C. Lim
Dalhousie Law Journal
The extent to which "hypersensitivity" can serve as a legal basis for demanding additional compensation has always been a controversial issue in tort law. A key challenge facing courts lies in determining how the "thin-skull rule," traditionally related to physical conditions that predispose an individual to additional injury, can be applied to claims from "hypersensitive" plaintiffs citing personality-linked vulnerabilities of a religious, socio-cultural, or psychiatric nature. This article critically evaluates the viability of the "ordinary-fortitude test" adopted by the Supreme Court of Canada in Mustapha v. Culligan, and discusses the relative merits of a "multi-factorial test" in determining the admissibility …
Twu Law: A Reply To Proponents Of Approval, Elaine Craig
Twu Law: A Reply To Proponents Of Approval, Elaine Craig
Dalhousie Law Journal
Trinity Western University has a Community Covenant that only permits sexual minorities to attend at considerable personal cost to their dignity and sense of self-worth. All student and staff applicants to TWU are required to sign this covenant, pledging not to engage in same-sex intimacy. The purpose of this article is to offer a reply to the arguments advanced by proponents of granting law society accreditation to TWUs proposed program. The paper rejects six of the central claims that proponents ofapproval have advanced. First it responds to the claim that TWU does not actually discriminate against the LGBTQ community. Second …
Searching And Seizing After 9/11: Developing And Applying Empirical Methodology To Measure Judicial Output Inthe Supreme Court's Section 8 Jurisprudence, Richard Jochelson, Michael Weinrath, Melaine Janelle Murchison
Searching And Seizing After 9/11: Developing And Applying Empirical Methodology To Measure Judicial Output Inthe Supreme Court's Section 8 Jurisprudence, Richard Jochelson, Michael Weinrath, Melaine Janelle Murchison
Dalhousie Law Journal
In 2005, Margit Cohn and Mordechai Kremnitzer created a multidimensional model to measure judicial discourse inherent in the decision making of constitutional courts. Their model set out multiple indicia bywhich to measure whether the court acted within proper constitutional constraints in order to determine the extent to which a court rendered a decision that was activist or restrained. This study attempts to operationalize that model. We use this model to analyze changes in interpretation of search and seizure law under section 8 after the enactment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms at the Supreme Court of Canada. The …
Assessing Exclusion Clauses: The Supreme Court Of Canada's Three Issue Framework In Tercon Contractors Ltd V British Columbia (Transportation And Highways), Shannon O'Byrne
Dalhousie Law Journal
The Supreme Court of Canada's 2010 decision in Tercon Contractors Ltd v British Columbia (Transportation and Highways) concerned the enforceability of a broadly drafted exclusion clause in the context of public procurement tendering. It is noteworthy for several reasons. First, the decision unanimously articulated a three-issue framework for determining the enforceability of exclusion clauses. Second, and on a more theoretical front, Tercon offered competing visions as to how contracts are to be interpreted. Though the Supreme Court was unanimous that parties to a contract should-of course-generally be bound by its terms, the majority and dissent followed significantly different paths for …
"Academic Concerns"-Caring About Conversation In Canadian Common Law, Karen Crawley, Shauna Van Praagh
"Academic Concerns"-Caring About Conversation In Canadian Common Law, Karen Crawley, Shauna Van Praagh
Dalhousie Law Journal
The Supreme Court of Canada, in its 2001 decision in Cooper v Hobart, refined the test in Canadian common law for establishing a duty of care in the tort of negligence. Although aware of the complexities and ongoing challenges of the "duty of care" concept, the Supreme Court openly labelled these concerns as "academic." This article confirms these concerns as "academic," but insists that this label underlines their centrality not only to an understanding of the tort of negligence but to the nature and form of common law reasoning. By pointing to errors in the Supreme Court of Canada's judgment-errors …
Collective Bargaining In The Shadow Of The Charter Cathedral: Union Strategies In A Post B.C. Health World, Michael Macneil
Collective Bargaining In The Shadow Of The Charter Cathedral: Union Strategies In A Post B.C. Health World, Michael Macneil
Dalhousie Law Journal
For the first twenty-five years after the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enacted, it appeared that it would have little impact on Canadian labour laws. The Supreme Court of Canada took the view that the guarantee of freedom of association in the Charter did not include a right to strike and did notprovide protection for collective bargaining. Common law rules regulating picketing did not come within the scope of the Charter's rules on freedom of expression. Academic commentators were divided on whether this was a good or a bad thing, some espousing the hope that the Charter could …
Wrongful Termination Claims In The Supreme Court Of Canada: Coming Up Short, Dianne Pothier
Wrongful Termination Claims In The Supreme Court Of Canada: Coming Up Short, Dianne Pothier
Dalhousie Law Journal
The author concludes that the Supreme Court of Canada's narrow interpretations in Wal-Mart and Honda undermine the purposes of collective bargaining and human rights legislation, respectively Wal-Mart involves an unfair labour practice complaint following the closing of a store in Jonquibre, Quebec. The author contests the analysis of the Supreme Court of Canada, as being far removed from the context of the real difficulties in dealing with determined anti-union employers, instead facilitating statutory evasion. Honda involves a claim for wrongful dismissal, where the issue at the Supreme Court of Canada level is one of remedy, premised on the dismissal amounting …
Sharing The Spotlight: Co-Authored Reasons On The Modern Supreme Court Of Canada, Peter J. Maccormick
Sharing The Spotlight: Co-Authored Reasons On The Modern Supreme Court Of Canada, Peter J. Maccormick
Dalhousie Law Journal
When the Supreme Court of Canada delivers its reasons forjudgment, the normal expectation (the rare "By the Court" decision aside) is that the judgment of the Court-unanimous or majority or even plurality-will be designated as having been delivered by one specific judge. ("The reasons of A, B, C and D were delivered by B.") But in recent decades, the practice has developed for two or more judges to share this formal designation; co-authorships currently account for one judgment (and, for that matter one set of minority reasons) in every ten. This article explores this practice, unusual among comparable national high …
Employee Pension Rights And The False Promise Of Trust Law, Elizabeth Shilton
Employee Pension Rights And The False Promise Of Trust Law, Elizabeth Shilton
Dalhousie Law Journal
This article explores the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Canada on employment pension trusts. I argue that the Court's 1994 decision in Schmidt v. Air Products, which embraced trust law as a tool for resolving pension surplus ownership disputes, held out the promise that courts would use fiduciary principles to shape pension rights for employees and protect those rights against employer self-interest. That promise has failed to bear much fruit. Since Schmidt, the Court has moved away from a conception of trust law as a fetter on employer power towards a flexible conception in which employer trust obligations are …
Why The Right-Freedom Distinction Matters To Labour Lawyers-And To All Canadians, Brian Langille
Why The Right-Freedom Distinction Matters To Labour Lawyers-And To All Canadians, Brian Langille
Dalhousie Law Journal
This lecture is about very basic legal ideas such as rights, freedoms, and the distinction between them. It makes the argument that clear thinking about these basic ideas is required and that when these ideas are neglected we have a recipe for real legal confusion. More than that, a failure to attend to these basic concepts and their relationship can produce, as it has in recent Supreme Court of Canada Charter cases on "Freedom of Association," a real threat to the fundamental freedoms of all Canadians
Non-Majority Union Representation Conforms To Ilo Freedom Of Association Principles And (Potentially) Promotes Inter-Union Collaboration: New Zealand Lessons For Canada, Mark Harcourt, Helen Lam
Non-Majority Union Representation Conforms To Ilo Freedom Of Association Principles And (Potentially) Promotes Inter-Union Collaboration: New Zealand Lessons For Canada, Mark Harcourt, Helen Lam
Dalhousie Law Journal
North American union certification violates workers' freedom of association, a fundamental human right well established by the International Labour Organization (ILO); by denying workers the right to be represented when a majority of their co-workers does not favour a union. In Canada, the Supreme Court has drawn on ILO standards to recognize a constitutional right to bargain collectively and organize as part of freedom of association under section 2(d) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, such recognition of the ILO principles has, as yet, to translate into legislation that would provide non-exclusive, non-majority union representation, at least in …
A Reply To Professor Pothier's Review Of Power Without Law: The Supreme Court Of Canada, The Marshall Decisions And The Failure Of Judicial Activism, Alex M. Cameron
A Reply To Professor Pothier's Review Of Power Without Law: The Supreme Court Of Canada, The Marshall Decisions And The Failure Of Judicial Activism, Alex M. Cameron
Dalhousie Law Journal
The Spring 2010 edition of the Dalhousie Law Journal contains an article by Professor Dianne Pothier, discussing my book, Power Without Law: The Supreme Court of Canada, The Marshall Decisions and the Failure of JudicialActivism. In the review, Professor Pothier strongly disagrees with the book's critique of the Supreme Court of Canada's majority decision in R. v. Marshall. In particular, she disagrees with the argument that the alleged treaty right of aboriginals to hunt, fish, gather and trade for necessaries, described in Justice Binnie's majority decision, is constitutionally flawed. Professor Pothier also suggests that the argument is the central thesis …