BCCA
SCC Dismisses BC Government’s Appeal and Secures Legal Win for Trans Mountain
On January 16, a reference panel of Supreme Court Justices dismissed the appeal of the British Columbia Court of Appeal’s (“BCCA”) decision in Reference re Environmental Management Act, 2019 BCCA 181 [BCCA Reference]. The SCC found that the BC government’s proposed amendments to the BC Environmental Management Act [EMA], which would have barred an entity […]
Catch & Release: Redefining Hearsay Admissibility in R v Bradshaw
In June 2017, the Supreme Court of Canada (“the SCC”) ruled in R v Bradshaw that the test for using corroborative evidence to establish substantive reliability of hearsay evidence is a strict one. If it is being used to establish the reliability of a hearsay statement, the corroborative evidence must (a) go to the material […]
Aboriginal Dangerous Offenders and Sentencing
This month the British Columbia Court of Appeal (“BCCA”) handed down a decision in the case of an Aboriginal offender, David Jennings. The accused in R v Jennings, 2016 BCCA 127 had a violent criminal history involving repeated sexual offenses against children over the course of nearly 30 years. Central to the appeal was the […]