Administrative Law
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You’re Fired!
Earlier this month, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal issued a decision which, if legally predictable, offers us a useful opportunity to think about some serious questions in Canadian administrative law. At issue in Saskatchewan Federation of Labour v. Government of Saskatchewan, 2013 SKCA 61, was the constitutionality of s. 20 of Saskatchewan’s Interpretation Act, 1995, which… Continue reading
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Not So Great Expectations
Whatever his other merits and demerits, Conrad Black has made some noticeable contributions to the development of the law of justiciability in Canada. The latest came this week, in the form of a judgment of the Federal Court of Canada, in Black v. Advisory Council for the Order of Canada, 2012 FC 1234. The first… Continue reading
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Operation Dismantle at the Olympics
Citizens concerned that the deployment of a weapons system in their place of residence will expose them to an increased risk of a devastating attack turn to the courts to try to block the deployment. They fail. To a Canadian constitutional law junkie, that’s the short story of Operation Dismantle v. The Queen, [1985] 1 S.C.R.… Continue reading
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En Français S.V.P./In English Please
In 2008, the Township of Russel, just outside Ottawa, passed a by-law requiring any new commercial sign to be bilingual. An angry activist and a shopkeeper challenged the validity of the by-law. The Court of Appeal for Ontario has rejected their challenge, in Galganov v. Russel (Township), 2012 ONCA 409, released last Friday. Before getting… Continue reading
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A Reasonable Opinion
The Supreme Court delivered an interesting decision in Halifax (Regional Municipality) v. Canada (Public Works and Government Services), 2012 SCC 29, yesterday. On the surface, it is a rather dull, or at least purely technical, case about the proper method of assessing the value of land occupied by a historical monument. But it has much broader implications,… Continue reading
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Federal Court Roulette
Professor Sean Rehaag of Osgoode Hall has recently posted on SSRN a disturbing statistical analysis of the Federal Court of Canada’s decisions on applications for judicial review of refugee protection determinations by the Immigration and Refugee Board. His main conclusion, based on a study of more than 20,000 cases filed between 2006 and 2010, is… Continue reading
Double Aspect 