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Full-Text Articles in Law

Foreword, Michael Macdonald Oct 2017

Foreword, Michael Macdonald

Dalhousie Law Journal

No abstract provided.


The Story Of Law Reform In Nova Scotia: A Perilous Enterprise, Bill Charles Oct 2017

The Story Of Law Reform In Nova Scotia: A Perilous Enterprise, Bill Charles

Dalhousie Law Journal

The basic or overarching question addressed by the author is why institutional law reform in Nova Scotia has experienced such operational difficulties and challenges, particularly in relation to funding, to the point where it can be described as a perilous enterprise. In the process of searching for an answer to this question, the author examines the origins and development of organized law reform in Nova Scotia over the last 65 years, with special attention paid to the experience of Nova Scotia's two statutory commissions. As a backdrop to the discussion, the author examines the complicated process of law reform itself …


Social Membership: Animal Law Beyond The Property/Personhood Impasse, Will Kymlicka Apr 2017

Social Membership: Animal Law Beyond The Property/Personhood Impasse, Will Kymlicka

Dalhousie Law Journal

While animal law has been subject to frequent reform in Canada and abroad, the basic legal foundations of animal oppression are largely unchanged. There are many reasons for this impasse, but part of the explanation is that legal reforms are caught in what we might call the property/personhood dilemma. In most legal systems, domesticated animals are defined as property and so long as this remains true, reforms are likely to be marginal and ineffective. However the main alternative-to shift animals from the category of property to personhoodis politically unfeasible, particularly for the domesticated animals who are most intensively exploited in …


The Future Of Health Law: How Can Law Meet Emerging Health Challenges?, Colleen M. Flood, Lorian Hardcastle Oct 2016

The Future Of Health Law: How Can Law Meet Emerging Health Challenges?, Colleen M. Flood, Lorian Hardcastle

Dalhousie Law Journal

Canadians have often prided themselves on having one of the best health-care systems in the world, but in recent years our system has fallen to the bottom of relevant international comparisons. Incremental attempts to improve the system have not resulted in significant improvements and the reality is that our most pressing challenges can be addressed only through ambitious, systemic reforms. For example, it is well established that Canada's patchwork scheme for providing long-term care will not scale to meet growing needs as a quarter ofthe population enters retirement age over the next two decades.' As yet further examples, the Canadian …


Identity, Law, And The Right To A Dream?, Robert Leckey Oct 2015

Identity, Law, And The Right To A Dream?, Robert Leckey

Dalhousie Law Journal

This paper engages critically with the new orthodoxy holding that individuals have a "right" to know their genetic origins and that such knowledge is crucial to realizing their identities. It examines two case studies: the Pratten litigation under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms regarding anonymous donor conception and scholarship approving a reform to Quebec's adoption law. It addresses the supposed "identity gap" between those who are adopted or donor-conceived and those who are neither Arguments for law reform exaggerate that gap, opposing the incomplete, insecure identity of the adopted or donorconceived to the ostensibly complete, secure identity of …


A Defence Of The Principled Approach To Tax Settlements, Saul Templeton Apr 2015

A Defence Of The Principled Approach To Tax Settlements, Saul Templeton

Dalhousie Law Journal

The Canadian Minister of National Revenue is responsible for administering and enforcing the majority of tax legislation in Canada. Where disputes arise with particular taxpayers over the correct amount of tax owed, the taxpaying public ought to have confidence that the Minister has a principled basis in law for settling disputes for less than amounts previously assessed. Yet opponents of the principled basis for settlement consistently call for reform, arguing that compromise settlement should be permissible. This paper responds to arguments raised for compromise settlement by reconciling the jurisprudence on the authority of the Minister to settle tax disputes. It …


Keeping Up With The Joneses: A Model Systemic Risk Reporting Regime For The Canadian Hedge Fund Industry, Andrew Mcgarva Apr 2015

Keeping Up With The Joneses: A Model Systemic Risk Reporting Regime For The Canadian Hedge Fund Industry, Andrew Mcgarva

Dalhousie Law Journal

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a regulatory model by which Canadian securities regulators may monitor the systemic risk contributed to by the Canadian hedge fundindustry The bases for this modelare recent regulatory reform initiatives adopted in the U.S. and Europe. There, securities regulators have adopted Form PF and AIFMD, respectively, to monitor the systemic risk contributed to by hedge funds. However, the features of those regimes are not necessarily appropriate for the Canadian industry. The appropriateness ofthe features of Form PFandAIFMD for the Canadian hedge fund industry is evaluated on two criteria: the average industry fund size, …


R' Blake Brown, A Trying Question: The Jury In Nineteenth-Century Canada, Mary Stokes Oct 2009

R' Blake Brown, A Trying Question: The Jury In Nineteenth-Century Canada, Mary Stokes

Dalhousie Law Journal

In a 1984 review essay on the inter-relationship(s) oflaw and society in English criminal law historiography, Doug Hay observed that "in history, there is no 'background,"" His point was that there are an infinite number ofbackgrounds, all of which are moving and changing, often in non-linear fashion, at different paces, either in counter-point or direct dialogue with the foreground which is the immediate subject ofexposition. Legal historians who put their topics "in context" by treating the background as static are now fortunately few, at least when this background is conceived of as social or economic. But as Hay observed, the …


Canadian Graduate Legal Education: Past, Present And Future, Sanjeev S. Anand Apr 2004

Canadian Graduate Legal Education: Past, Present And Future, Sanjeev S. Anand

Dalhousie Law Journal

Canadian graduate legal education has seldom been the subject of scholarly inquiry This article seeks to fill the vacuum by describing and evaluating various features associated with master s and doctoral programs offered by the nation s /ao schools. A number of criteria are used in this analysis, some of which have been garnered from the broader literature on higher education The article concludes with a series of specific programmatic and policy reform proposals aimed at strengthening the state of graduate legal education in this country


Need Intellectual Property Be Everywhere? Against Ubiquity And Uniformity, David Vaver Apr 2002

Need Intellectual Property Be Everywhere? Against Ubiquity And Uniformity, David Vaver

Dalhousie Law Journal

Intellectual property is more prevalent in every corner of our working and leisure lives. International pressure, through both bilateral treaties and multilateral treaties is causing intellectual property law to standardize at high levels throughout the world. Legal standardization may be beneficial in general but is not so for intellectual property in either the developed or the developing world. The law in developed countries is currently incoherent and itself requires major reconsideration. The imposition of such a defective law on the developing world is helpful to neither side. The paper argues that current intensification and harmonization trends are therefore undesirable, and …


Independence And The Director Of Public Prosecutions: The Marshall Inquiry And Beyond, Philip C. Stenning Oct 2000

Independence And The Director Of Public Prosecutions: The Marshall Inquiry And Beyond, Philip C. Stenning

Dalhousie Law Journal

The author describes the reforms to the prosecution system in Nova Scotia which were recommended by the Marshall Inquiry in its 1989 report, and reviews the extent to which they have been effectively implemented during the ensuing decade. He concludes that many of the objectives originally identified by the Marshall Inquiry in this respect have been substantially met, but that in some areas there is still room for improvement. Finally, he notes the absence of systematic evaluations of prosecutorial institutions and practices in Canadian jurisdictions, and that because of this, it is difficult to say whether the Marshall Inquiry's objectives …


Balancing Regional Government Health Mandateswith Federal Economic Imperatives: Perspectives Fromnova Scotia And Illinois, John Blum Oct 1997

Balancing Regional Government Health Mandateswith Federal Economic Imperatives: Perspectives Fromnova Scotia And Illinois, John Blum

Dalhousie Law Journal

This article focuses on current health policy changes in Canada and the United States at the federal and regionallevels. The Canadian discussion centres on the integrity of the Canada Health Act in the era of the Canada Health and Social Transfer, and the strategies that provincial governments have pursued to cope with persistent funding constraints. On the American side, the article examines the role of private sector managed care plans in filling a health policy void resulting from the demise of the Clinton Health Security Act. Two specific regional government health reform initiatives in Nova Scotia and Illinois are discussed …


Managed Competition Reform In The Netherlandsand Its Lessons For Canada, Frederik T. Schut, Herbert Egm Hermans Oct 1997

Managed Competition Reform In The Netherlandsand Its Lessons For Canada, Frederik T. Schut, Herbert Egm Hermans

Dalhousie Law Journal

This article provides an economic and legal perspective on the managed competition reforms within the Netherlands. After an examination of the rationale and the main features of the reforms, a number of problems and dilemmas that were encountered during the implementation process will be highlighted. The authors conclude that although the logic of the managed competition model is appealing, its implementation is quite complicated and requires a strong government with a continued commitment to set and enforce the rules of competition. If these preconditions are not met, the prospects of a successful introduction of managed competition are bleak. Despite its …


In Search Of Universality, Equity, Comprehensivenessand Competition: Health Care Reform And Managedcompetition In Israel, Carmel Shalev, David Chinitz Oct 1997

In Search Of Universality, Equity, Comprehensivenessand Competition: Health Care Reform And Managedcompetition In Israel, Carmel Shalev, David Chinitz

Dalhousie Law Journal

Israel's ongoing health reform provides lessons regarding attempts to combine universal coverage under national health insurance with a version of managed competition. Based on principles of 'justice, equality and mutual aid," Israel's National Health Insurance Law, 1994 guarantees access to a broad basket of basic services to be provided by four competing sick funds, and the availability of resources adequate to finance the basket. The new rights of citizens to universal coverage and to move freely among sick funds constituted a major policy breakthrough. However, successive amendments to the Law reflect continuing controversy over the amount of resources required to …


"Cinderella" Services In The Nhs Internal Market:Does Contracting Make A Difference?, David Hughes, Siobhan Mcclelland, Lesley Griffiths Oct 1997

"Cinderella" Services In The Nhs Internal Market:Does Contracting Make A Difference?, David Hughes, Siobhan Mcclelland, Lesley Griffiths

Dalhousie Law Journal

This paper examines the impact of the NHS internal market reforms on an aspect of equity in the British system that features little in recent policy commentary: the allocation of resources between acute services for the entire population and nonacute services for the elderly, the mentally ill, and the disabled (the so-called "Cinderella" services). The authors' research on health planning and contracting in the NHS in Wales suggests that patterns of services have remained largely unchanged, and that pressures in the reformed system, such as the Patient's Charter initiative, prevent any major reallocation of resources away from the acute sector. …


Accountability Of Health Service Providers:Comparing Internal Markets And Managedcompetition Reform Models, Colleen M. Flood Oct 1997

Accountability Of Health Service Providers:Comparing Internal Markets And Managedcompetition Reform Models, Colleen M. Flood

Dalhousie Law Journal

A numberof countries, including the U.K., NewZealand, the Netherlands, and the U.S., have attempted to reform their health care systems using "internal market" or "managed competition" reform models. These models signal a departure from reliance on passive indemnity payers or insurers and require proactive purchasers to intervene actively and manage allocation decisions made by physicians. The author explores how these models will ensure the accountability of these new decision-makers to the citizens and patients they ultimately represent. Neither model is found to address accountability issues sufficiently. However, the managed competition model offers the promise of tailoring market (exit), political (voice) …


A Comparative Analysis Of The Reforms In Europeanhealth Care Systems, Thomas Rathwell Oct 1997

A Comparative Analysis Of The Reforms In Europeanhealth Care Systems, Thomas Rathwell

Dalhousie Law Journal

Most countries in Europe are at various stages in the process of reforming their health care systems. Instead of different and more diverse systems emerging, the health reform process has resulted in a convergence on "managed competition" as the only acceptable means for delivering health care. After briefly describing the historical context, this paper examines the nature and scope of the reform process in Europe. The major features of the reforms are cost-containment and a reduction in the role of the state. There have been few systematic attempts to measure the extent to which expectations are being realized. The paper …


Lessons From Away:An Interdisciplinary Collectionof Studies Exploring Whatcanada May Learn From Othercountries' Experiences Withhealth Care Reforms, Colleen M. Flood Oct 1997

Lessons From Away:An Interdisciplinary Collectionof Studies Exploring Whatcanada May Learn From Othercountries' Experiences Withhealth Care Reforms, Colleen M. Flood

Dalhousie Law Journal

The Canadian health care system is considered a shining example of what it is to be Canadian: to aspire to social justice goals and to achieve those goals at a reasonable cost.' Canadians take great pride in that, by any measure, their health care system is superior to the piece-meal, expensive, and unjust U.S. health care system.


The Impact Of The Purchaser Provider Funding Model Inthe U.K. On The Independence Of Persons With Disabilities:Implications For Canada, Sandra G. Leggat, Gaétan S. Tardif Oct 1997

The Impact Of The Purchaser Provider Funding Model Inthe U.K. On The Independence Of Persons With Disabilities:Implications For Canada, Sandra G. Leggat, Gaétan S. Tardif

Dalhousie Law Journal

Through large-scale system restructuring, a number of jurisdictions around the world have adopted a purchaserprovider approach to the funding and delivery of health care services. In this model, a decision-making body, such as a regional board, is provided with a budget to purchase health care services on behalf of, and in response to the identified needs of a defined population. This paper reviews the purchaser provider funding model of the United Kingdom and comments on the impact of this system on the health needs of individuals with disabilities. Generally, the purchaser provider split in the U.K. appears to have resulted …


Reservation Geography And The Restoration Of Native Self-Government, Robert White-Harvey Oct 1994

Reservation Geography And The Restoration Of Native Self-Government, Robert White-Harvey

Dalhousie Law Journal

Recognition of the spatial aspects of Indian settlement on reserves is vital to understanding the potential for Native self-government. In particular, the number and size of reserves, as well as the remoteness, accessibility and dispersal of Native land holdings must be considered. They can impact on the viability and cost of Native courts and institutions, the solidarity of bands, and the economic livelihood of reserve residents. As Native self-government is fleshed out in constitutional reform talks and experiments in limited self-government, it is not widely known that all of the reserves in every province of Canada combined would not cover …


"Running Hard To Stand Still": The Paradox Of Family Law Reform, Mary Jane Mossman Apr 1994

"Running Hard To Stand Still": The Paradox Of Family Law Reform, Mary Jane Mossman

Dalhousie Law Journal

This essay explores the paradox of family law reform in common law Canada, focusing particularly on reforms relating to family property and inter-spousal support in the decades after the first federal Divorce Act of 1968. The paradox of this law reform activity is well-expressed in Carol Smart's colourful phrase about the (lack of) impact of law reform for women in the United Kingdom. In her view, while it is inaccurate to say that nothing has been done to improve the position of women, it is equally impossible to demonstrate that there has been any linear development of progressive legislation; in …


Tort Liability For Psychiatric Damage, Mitchell Mcinnes Oct 1993

Tort Liability For Psychiatric Damage, Mitchell Mcinnes

Dalhousie Law Journal

One of tort law's great failures is its treatment of claims for psychiatric damage (or, to use a misleading but more popular term, nervous shock'). While a great deal of progress has been made since the days when liability would lie only if a plaintiff also suffered physical injury', or at least reasonably feared for her personal safety3 , the law remains largely unsatisfactory and in need of reform. Illogical and arbitrary rules abound with the result that worthy claimants are often denied compensation. Recent attempts at clarification and rationalization by the House of Lords4 and the High Court of …


The Constitution And Immigration: The Impact Of The Proposed Changes To The Immigration Power Under The Constitution Act, 1867, Davies Bagambiire Oct 1992

The Constitution And Immigration: The Impact Of The Proposed Changes To The Immigration Power Under The Constitution Act, 1867, Davies Bagambiire

Dalhousie Law Journal

This article examines the impact that the suggested changes would have on the immigration power as presently set forth in sections 95 and 91(25) of the Constitution Act, 1867, and on Canadian immigration policy generally. First, it discusses how the present immigration power is allocated as between the federal government and the provinces, how it has been exercised or attempted to be exercisedby the two levels of government and how it has evolved and been interpreted by the Courts. Secondly, it looks at the problems that could arise as a result of the federal government transferring some of its immigration …


Aboriginal Peoples And Criminal Justice: A Special Report Of The Law Reform Commission Of Canada, Bruce P. Archibald Oct 1992

Aboriginal Peoples And Criminal Justice: A Special Report Of The Law Reform Commission Of Canada, Bruce P. Archibald

Dalhousie Law Journal

Canada's criminal justice system has been shaken out of its stolid complacency in recent years by demonstrated instances of unfair treatment of religious, ethnic and racial minorities, and in particular our Aboriginal peoples.' Faced with a hue and cry directed at the justice system, the federal Minister of Justice asked the Law Reform Commission of Canada to study "as a matter of special priority, the Criminal Code and related statutes and to examine the extent to which those laws ensure that Aboriginal persons and persons who are members of cultural or religious minorities have equal access to justice and are …


Madame Justice Wilson: Trailblazer For Justice, Brian Dickson Jul 1992

Madame Justice Wilson: Trailblazer For Justice, Brian Dickson

Dalhousie Law Journal

Mr. Dean, Mme Justice Wilson, Mrs. Read, other distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen: May I say first of all that I am deeply honoured to have been invited to give the Horace E. Read Memorial Lecture for 1991, inaugurated in memory of the distinguished Dean of Dalhousie Law School who served in that capacity from 1950 to 1964. Dean Read's contribution to legal education and to legal scholarship in general was a massive one, encompassing as it did law reform, legislation and the legislative process, conflict of laws, labour law and legal education. Horace Read acquired an enviable international reputation …


Morguard Investments Limited: Reforming Federalism From The Top, Peter Finkle, Simon Coakeley Oct 1991

Morguard Investments Limited: Reforming Federalism From The Top, Peter Finkle, Simon Coakeley

Dalhousie Law Journal

Nations are not only unified markets, but usually they are at least that. In most discussions about national unity, adequate account is taken of the importance of the free movement of goods, capital and people. Rarely, though, does the discussion encompass the necessity of legally assuring such movement in the domestic marketplace through the practical modality of secure remedies for breaches of obligations in contracts and tort. De Savoye v. Morguard Investments Ltd is a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of Canada that considers the extent of jurisdiction that provincial courts may exercise and the associated concern with the …


Liability For Provincial Offences: Fault, Penalty And The Principles Of Fundamental Justice In Canada (A Review Of Law Reform Proposals From Ontario, Saskatchewan And Alberta), Bruce P. Archibald May 1991

Liability For Provincial Offences: Fault, Penalty And The Principles Of Fundamental Justice In Canada (A Review Of Law Reform Proposals From Ontario, Saskatchewan And Alberta), Bruce P. Archibald

Dalhousie Law Journal

While the Canadian Criminal Code is presently in the process of thorough going reform by the federal government, one should not lose sight of the important reforms being proposed in several Canadian provinces to the legal regimes governing provincial offences. A need for reform to provincial offence regimes is evident in relation to both substance and procedure, although the approaches to solving problems in both spheres has traditionally differed from province to province. At the level of procedure, some provinces have been content to enforce their provincial offences through the expedient of adopting by reference the procedures found in Part …


The Genesis Of The Canadian Criminal Code Of 1892, Keith Jobson May 1991

The Genesis Of The Canadian Criminal Code Of 1892, Keith Jobson

Dalhousie Law Journal

Brown gives an interesting and readable account of the background of the 1892 Code and its genesis in the politics of the day. His preface and six short chapters are followed by an epilogue, a short biographical note and footnotes. Chapter One deals with the ambiguity of the term "code". Clearly, the 1892 Code was not a codification in the civilian tradition as exemplified, for example, in the Napoleonic Code, nor was it even a code such as Bentham might have drafted. It was a "code" only in the loose sense in which.the word was used by English and Canadian …


Home Rule For Women: Power-Sharing Between Men And Women, Christine Boyle Oct 1983

Home Rule For Women: Power-Sharing Between Men And Women, Christine Boyle

Dalhousie Law Journal

This paper is about the Canadian electoral system and the need for reform of its constituent units. Canadian politics have been remarkable for the comparative lack of interest that has been displayed in this aspect of the system, an aspect that is of great importance in any democratic society. In 1949, a speaker at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association in Halifax summed up the situation as follows: The basic units of representation . . . the constituencies, are thus conceived in the darkness of a legislative committee, and born to blush unseen on an electoral map …


Legal Education In China Today, R. St. J. Macdonald Nov 1980

Legal Education In China Today, R. St. J. Macdonald

Dalhousie Law Journal

Two developmerits in China since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 are of particular interest to the legal profession in Canada: the revival of legal education and the reform of the legal system. Legal education in China today has entered its most exciting period since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949. During the academic year 1980-81, China's four institutes of political science and law, and law faculties at eight universities and colleges, enrolled over 2,000 new students in four more law institutes and faculties than in 1965, the year before the Cultural Revolution. The present enrollment …