Administrative Law
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For What It’s Worth
University of Toronto professor Richard Stacey recently released an article in the University of Toronto Law Journal (paywalled, which is truly unfortunate), arguing that (among other things) the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Vavilov “affirm[s]” the Supreme Court’s controversial decision in Doré (340; see also 351). To be specific, Stacey says (340-341): Read together,… Continue reading
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Overcoming Justice Abella’s Admin Law Legacy
On the occasion of her retirement, what can we learn from Justice Abella’s administrative law generation? Continue reading
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Ontario’s COVID-19 Discretion Tragedy
Ontarians watched with a mix of horror and confusion on Friday as Premier Ford and medical officials announced what could only be described as drastic measures to, apparently, curb the spread of COVID-19 and its related variants. While the government has flip flopped on these measures since, and it is unclear if further changes are… Continue reading
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An Oddity in Strom
In October, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal released its much-anticipated decision in Strom. Strom raised a number of important issues: “ “at the intersection between professional regulation, Ms. Strom’s private life, and the s.2(b) Charter guarantee of freedom of expression in the age of social media.” Strom was a registered nurse. Her grandfather tragically… Continue reading
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Neutrality in Legal Interpretation
Nowadays, it is unfashionable to say that legal rules, particularly rules of interpretation, should be “neutral.” Quite the opposite: now it is more fashionable to say that results in cases depend on the “politics” of a court on a particular day. Against this modern trend, not so long ago, it was Herbert Wechsler in his… Continue reading
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Linguistic Nihilism
One common line of attack against textualism—the idea that “the words of a governing text are of paramount concern, and what they convey, in their context, is what the text means (Scalia & Garner, at 56)—is that language is never clear, or put differently, hopelessly vague or ambiguous. Put this way, the task of interpretation… Continue reading
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What Needs to Be Said
Sometimes people say things that need to be said. These things may make us uncomfortable. They may force us to look in the mirror. They may ask us to really sit and think about our conduct. We might not like to hear these things, but they might start a discussion. Or maybe they will force… Continue reading
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On John Willis and the Pesky Politics of Administrative Law
John Willis was and is considered one of Canada’s most important administrative law academics. As a student of administrative law and the law of judicial review, one cannot skip Willis’ classic works, like his books “The Parliamentary Powers of English Government Departments” and “Canadian Boards at Work”—and his caustic papers, including his attack on the… Continue reading
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Vavilov in the Prisons
By now, Vavilov—the case in which the Supreme Court re-jigged Canada’s standard of review framework—has received sustained attention, including from yours truly. Over at Administrative Law Matters, Professor Daly has a running post outlining how Vavilov has been applied in some particular interesting cases. And on SSRN, Jamie Chai Yun Liew has an excellent article… Continue reading
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Unholy Trinity
Introducing a new article that makes the case against judicial deference to administrative applications of constitutional law Continue reading
Double Aspect 