Please find below a preliminary program.
CPD Hours: This conference consists of 6h (Substantive) with the Law Society of Ontario (LSO).
8:30 AM - 9:00 AM
Registration & Refreshments
9:00 AM - 9:15 AM
Conference Opening
Welcome Remarks from Dean Trevor Farrow (Osgoode Hall Law School).
Chairs: Benjamin L. Berger, Emily Kidd White and Sonia Lawrence (Osgoode Hall Law School)
9:15 AM - 10:00 AM
Opening Address
A Review of the Supreme Court’s 2024 Constitutional Jurisprudence
Speakers: Sonia Lawrence and Benjamin L. Berger (Osgoode Hall Law School)
15-Minute Break
10:15 AM - 11:45 AM
Plenary I
Indigenous Governance and the Canadian Constitution
The Supreme Court in 2024 examined a series of pressing matters involving intersections between the Canadian Constitution and various facets of Indigenous Self-Governance. This included a case concerning the application of the Charter’s s.15 equality rights to a residency requirement in a self-governing Indigenous community (and, more broadly, the relation between s.15 and the Aboriginal, Treaty and other Rights and Freedoms that pertain to the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada under s. 25 of the Charter) (Dickson), and the landmark Reference re An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families that concerned Parliament’s ability under the constitutional division of powers to enact a statute establishing national standards to protect Indigenous children and affirm Indigenous peoples’ inherent right of self‑government in relation to child and family services.
Panelists
Kerry Wilkins (Adjunct Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School and University of Toronto Faculty of Law) - Brief overview on new developments regarding Indigenous Self-Governance and the Canadian Constitution
Karen Drake (Osgoode Hall Law School) - Dickson v. Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, 2024 SCC 10
Margot Young (Allard School of Law, UBC) - Dickson v. Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, 2024 SCC 10
Hadley Friedland (Faculty of Law, University of Alberta) - Reference re An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families, 2024 SCC 5
Chair: Emily Kidd White (Osgoode Hall Law School)
15-Minute Break
12:00 PM - 12:45 PM
The Laskin Lecture 2025 with the Honourable Justice Mary T. Moreau
Supreme Court of Canada
Co-sponsored with the York Centre for Public Law and Public Policy
12:45 PM - 1:30 PM Lunch
1:30 PM - 3:15 PM
PLENARY II
The Constitutional Structure of Criminal Justice
This plenary session will examine a set of cases from the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2024 jurisprudence that raise, in various ways, questions about structural dimensions of constitutional rights and remedies in Canadian criminal justice. Panellists will consider the implications of constitutional structure for Charter remedies (R v Power), what section 11(d) says about the structure of military justice (R v Edwards), the internal structure of the legal rights and its implications for standing and remedies (R v Brunelle), and the Court’s ongoing wrestling with the analytic structure of section 8 (R v Bykovets; R v Campbell).
Panelists:
Vanessa MacDonnell (Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa) - Canada (AG) v Power, 2024 SCC 26
Preston Lim (School of Law, Villanova University and Faculty of Law, University of Toronto) - R v Edwards, 2024 SCC 15
Micah Rankin, KC (BC Ministry of Attorney General) - R v Brunelle, 2024 SCC 3
Pauline Lachance (Counsel with the Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales) - R v Bykovets, 2024 SCC 6; R v Campbell, 2024 SCC 42
Francois Tanguay-Renaud (Osgoode Hall Law School) - R v Bykovets, 2024 SCC 6; R v Campbell, 2024 SCC 42
Chair: Benjamin L. Berger (Osgoode Hall Law School)
15-Minute Break
3:30 PM - 4:45 PM
PLENARY III
Reasonableness, Rights, and Review: Administrative Law at the Supreme Court
This panel will take on some of the administrative law cases decided by the Supreme Court in 2024: Yatar v TD Insurance Meloche Monnex, 2024 SCC 8, York Region District School Board v. Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, 2024 SCC 22, Commission scolaire francophone des Territoires du Nord-Ouest v. Northwest Territories (Education, Culture and Employment), 2023 SCC 31 and Auer v. Auer, 2024 SCC 36. Across varied contexts, the Supreme Court considered a variety of critical admin law questions, from the discretion to hear applications for judicial review in Yatar, the Charter values analysis in Commission Scolaire, the reasonableness standard set in Vavilov for reviewing the vires of subordinate legislation in Auer, and the reasonableness review of an arbitral decision where a Charter section 8 right was raised in York Region. These cases together and separately offer opportunities to consider the development and application of the framework set out in Vavilov (and Doré ). They also help with understanding the broader context and spirit of the Supreme Court's view of the place of administrative decision making in Canada's constitutional framework.
Panelists:
Kate Glover Berger (Osgoode Hall Law School)
Matthew Horner (Ontario Human Rights Commission)
Martine Valois (University of Montreal)
Chair: Sonia Lawrence (Osgoode Hall Law School)