At 9:45 AM today, the Supreme Court began their 2008 term and rendered judgment in 26 applications for leave to appeal. The justices dismissed all 26 applications. The following criminal cases were all appealed from unanimous panels at the provincial level, and therefore were all required to seek leave: Michael Seifert v Attorney General of […]
With the winter session starting at the Supreme Court of Canada ("SCC") on January 21, 2008, I’ve decided to review a decision that was handed down by the Canadian Transportation Agency on Thursday, January 10, 2008, which echoes the March 2007 SCC decision in Council of Canadians with Disabilities v VIA Rail, 2007 SCC 15 [VIA Rail]. The […]
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court of Canada ("SCC") concurrently released judgments in Madsen Estate v Saylor, 2007 SCC 18 [Madsen Estate], and Pecore v Pecore, 2007 SCC 17 [Pecore], a pair of cases regarding the disposition of monies from joint bank and investment accounts shared by a parent with an adult child. Through these two cases, the SCC clarified the […]
Abortion, affirmative action, race-based quotas in public schools; these are a few issues that presently divide the U.S. Supreme Court. One of the reasons why the the US court so often finds itself in the media spotlight is because the divisiveness of issues such as these extend well beyond the bench. Indeed, they often (as […]
Unions - stalwart defenders of workers' rights that they are - seldom find themselves defendants in wrongful dismissal matters, much less defendants in front of the Supreme Court of Canada. Nevertheless, the Yukon-based Local 31 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters will have that dubious distinction when Canada's highest court hears Evans v Teamsters Local […]
The Supreme Court of Canada ("SCC") recently released its decision in R v Daley, 2007 SCC 53 [Daley]. Though the majority and dissenting camps agreed upon the content of an appropriate jury instruction for the defence of intoxication, the two sides differed sharply when judging whether or not the trial judge delivered a fair and balanced […]
Before 2007 fades too quickly in the rearview mirror, there is still time to stop and briefly visit the last Supreme Court of Canada ("SCC") decision of the previous year. On Dec. 20, 2007, the SCC released their unanimous decision in Jedfro Investments (USA) Ltd v Jacyk, 2007 SCC 55. We first looked at this case […]
In September 2006, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced that the minority Conservative government was cutting over $1 billion in funding from programs funded by the National Treasury. The Conservatives did this by stripping the funding from what they referred to as "wasteful programs." One of these allegedly wasteful programs was the Court Challenges Program – […]
[Editor's note: On January 28, 1988, the Supreme Court handed down its landmark judgment in R v Morgentaler. To mark this month's twentieth anniversary, The Court.ca has commissioned contributions from some of those involved in the case. Today, journalist and former National Action Committee on the Status of Women president Judy Rebick describes how the […]