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On Law and Music
What is the relationship, if any, between law and music? As a musician myself, I notice many commonalities between law and music. As a jazz musician, improvisation is what I spend a lot of time thinking about. To improvise over a tune, it helps to know the notes in the tune, the chords underneath it,
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Right Is Wrong
What an ordinary case can tell us about the problems of Canadian administrative law
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Tanstaafl
What do a libertarian society and its laws look like? Thoughts on Robert Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
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The Supreme Court―What Is It Good for?
The Supreme Court is deciding fewer cases; is this a sign of modesty, or boldness?
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Does This Kat(z) Have Nine Lives?
In Katz, the Supreme Court set out the approach to judicial review of regulations. The Katz approach is (or, maybe, was) a carve-out from the general law of judicial review. As Professor Daly notes, it grants a “hyperdeferential” margin of appreciation to those that promulgate regulations. The Katz approach, based on previous cases, simply asked
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The Supreme Court’s Leaves (Or Lack Thereof)
The Supreme Court has gone yet another week without granting leave to any cases. I am not an empiricist, and this is not something I’ve been tracking, but I gather that the Supreme Court has granted leave to less cases over time in general (not to suggest that this week is particularly representative of anything).
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The Disuse of Knowledge in the Administrative State
Regulation is not the right tool for intelligently dealing with complexity
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Post-Truth, Redux
A faithful application of Vavilov reasonableness review exposes the rot at the core of Canada’s administrative law
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Alexion: No Blank Cheques Here
In Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc v Canada (Attorney General), 2021 FCA 157, the Federal Court of Appeal clarified the law of judicial review post-Vavilov (particularly as it applies to reasonableness review) and set out an important reminder: administrators are not a law unto themselves. In order to make sure that this is the case, particularly in
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The Core of It: Quebec Reference and Section 96
At the end of June, the Supreme Court of Canada released its decision in the Court of Quebec case (what I call, unoriginally, the Quebec Reference). The main question in the case: does art. 35 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which grants the Court of Quebec exclusive jurisdiction over all civil disputes up to
Double Aspect 