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Whatever
On Thursday, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Kanthasamy v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2015 SCC 61, an immigration law case. Paul Daly expertly discusses takes apart the majority opinion from the administrative law perspective. For my part, I will deal with the substance of the decision. While I’m not an immigration law aficionado, I do have…
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Platonic Guardians 2.0?
The New York Times has published an essay by Eric Schmidt, the Chairman of Google, about the role of the Internet, and especially, of the exchange of ideas and information that the Internet enables, in both contributing to and addressing the challenges the world faces. The essay is thoroughly upbeat, concluding that it is “within…
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Blessing Hypocrisy
After somewhat of a hiatus, I am back to blogging for the CBA National Blog. In a post they have just published, I come back to the issue of people smuggling, on which the Supreme Court delivered two decisions last week, which I summarized here. As I have already explained here and here, I believe that the…
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The Scope of Smuggling
On Friday, the Supreme Court issued a pair of decisions clarifying the scope of the provisions of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA, among friends) relative to “people smuggling” ― the transportation to or across international borders of consenting individuals who lack the authorization to cross the borders in question. In B010 v. Canada (Citizenship…
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How to do Originalism
In my last post, I summarized the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Caron v. Alberta, 2015 SCC 56, which held that Alberta is not under a constitutional obligation to enact legislation in French as well as English. There was, you will recall, a majority opinion by Justices Cromwell and Karakatsanis, who were joined by four of…
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What Did They Mean?
Must the laws of Alberta ― like those of Manitoba (as well as Québec, New Brunswick, and of course Parliament itself) be enacted and published in both French and English? The answer to this question, which the Supreme Court addressed in Caron v. Alberta, 2015 SCC 56, decided on Friday, turns on the meaning of a short…
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Not too Broad
In a decision delivered this morning, the Supreme Court of Canada has upheld the constitutionality of subjecting the members of the Canadian armed forces to the military justice system for all almost offences against acts of Parliament. In R. v. Moriarity, 2015 SCC 55, it ruled that the provisions of the National Defence Act pursuant to which…
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Conflict and Frustration
Last Friday, the Supreme Court issued decisions in three cases dealing with the federal paramountcy doctrine, which holds that when both a federal and a provincial statutes are applicable to a situation, the federal one prevails, and the provincial one is rendered inoperative, to the extent ― if any ― of the conflict between them.…
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N’importe quoi
Les partis d’opposition à l’Assemblée nationale n’aiment pas le lieutenant-gouverneur du Québec. Peut-être pas personnellement, mais la fonction, qui, selon eux, ne devrait pas exister. Et la CAQ pense avoir trouvé une solution au problème que serait l’existence même de cette fonction dans notre ordre constitutionnel (j’expliquerai ci-dessous où exactement la CAQ a fait cette…
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Why Codify (Encore)
In connection with yesterday’s post, in which I discussed the reasons for the codification of the civil law of Lower Canada that were expressed in the preamble of the statute which set up the commission responsible for the codification, my friend Alastair C.F. Gillespie pointed me to some speeches by Sir George-Étienne Cartier who was…
Double Aspect 