In late March of this year, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) held a hearing for Febles v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration). The case will determine how Article 1F(b) of the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (the Convention), July 28, 1951, [1969] Can. T.S. No 6 should be interpreted […]
The recently-released decision of the United States' Board of Immigration Appeals ("the Board") in the Matter of A-R-C-G et al., ("Matter of A-R-C-G"), 26 I&N Dec. 388 (BIA 2014) may signal the United States' growing openness to granting asylum to women who flee from domestic abuse. While the decision itself may be considered overdue, its reasoning takes a strong critical […]
Wal-Mart’s historically combative relationship with unions most recently became an issue at the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) in the case of United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 503 v Wal-Mart Canada Corp., 2014 SCC 45. In this case, the question before the Court was whether s. 59 of the Quebec Labour Code, c 27 (“the Code”) […]
In Addison & Leyen Ltd v Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP, 2014 ABCA 230 [Addison & Leyen], the Alberta Court of Appeal ("ABCA") handed down a short but significant decision. Fraser Milner Casgrain was forced to defend an action predicated on a legal opinion drafted in 1989 by a predecessor firm. According to the plaintiffs, the […]
In 2003, Mr. Caron was issued a traffic ticket for making an illegal left hand turn. Rather than simply paying the fine, Mr. Caron sought to challenge the ticket on the ground that the ticket was issued in English only, and thus violated the province of Alberta’s constitutional obligation to publish its legislation in both […]
Earlier this year, in late March, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) sent a resounding message to federal prison wardens across the country that inmates' freedoms cannot be limited lightly. In Mission Institution v Khela, 2014 SCC 24, a unanimous ruling of eight judges, the SCC made it clear that if you decide to further […]
In R v Safarzadeh-Markhali, 2014 ONCA 627, the Court of Appeal for Ontario struck down the legislative scheme surrounding sentencing and the credits granted for pre-sentence custody.
It has been nearly two years since the Supreme Court of Canada ("SCC") released its unanimous decision in Moore v British Columbia (Ministry of Education), [2012] 3 SCR 360 [Moore]. That decision considered the applicability of human rights legislation within the context of public services delivered to students with disabilities. At the time, commentators questioned the extent to […]
In R v Taylor, 2014 SCC 50, Abella J. declared that section 10(b) Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms had been violated, which resulted in Jamie Kenneth Taylor’s “inability to exercise a meaningful and informed choice as to whether he should or should not consent to the taking of blood samples at the hospital” (at […]
R v Hart, 2014 SCC 52 [Hart], is about the admissibility of confessions elicited during “Mr. Big” operations, a relatively common sting tactic used by police across the country. The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) found that confessions given during such operations are often unreliable and introduced a stringent new test for their admissibility as […]