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Toddling On
Double Aspect turns three today. An occasion for deep thoughts, I suppose. So here is one, stolen, as the best deep (and, for that matter, shallow) thoughts are ― specifically, from Douglas Adams’ description of the BBC’s reaction to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy back when it was a radio show. It was, Adams…
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A C-51 Amendment
OTTAWA, April 1, 2015. Double Aspect has learned that a little-noticed last-minute amendment has made it into the text of Bill C-51, the controversial anti-terrorism legislation supported by Stephen Harper’s government. The amendment will introduce, alongside the new offence of “advocating or promoting terrorism,” an additional offence to be known as “advocating or promoting spring”:…
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Cooperative, or competitive?
The critics of the Supreme Court’s decision in the long-gun registry case, Quebec (Attorney General) v. Canada (Attorney General), 2015 SCC 14, have lamented the majority’s failure to make good on what seemed like the promise of cooperative federalism in the Court’s recent jurisprudence. In La Presse + today, Jean Leclair argues that the judges in…
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How to Be Good Neighbours
Sometimes, the soundness of a position only becomes apparent by comparison with the alternative. So it has been, for me, in the gun registry litigation, which has finally concluded this morning with the Supreme Court’s decision in Quebec (Attorney General) v. Canada (Attorney General), 2015 SCC 14. The majority finds that contrary to Québec’s claims, the federal…
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Beavertail Western
Suppose you are the sheriff of a remote town in the Wild West. John, the man who used to run the town’s saloon ― the only saloon within a hundred-mile radius as it happens ― passed away, and left the saloon to a son of his, name of Steve. However, unlike John, who was never fewer…
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Public Interest in Litigation
I have already mentioned the lawsuit by Aniz Alani, who is trying to have the courts declare that the Prime Minister must advise the Governor General to appoint Senators, which the Prime Minster is refusing to do. The government has filed a motion to strike his application, which will be heard about a month from…
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Splitting a Baby
There came a Catholic school and a minister of education unto the Supreme Court, and stood before it. And the school said, “Oh my Lords and my Ladies, I am a private Catholic school, and am delivered of a programme for teaching a class on Ethics and Religious Culture through the prism of my Catholic faith.…
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Rule and Exemption
Here’s something that has been bothering me since I’ve recently re-read the Supreme Court’s decisions in R. v. Morgentaler, [1988] 1 S.C.R. 30 and in the Insite case, Canada (Attorney General) v. PHS Community Services Society, 2011 SCC 44, [2011] 3 S.C.R. 134. The two cases dealt with different topics: the former is about abortion; the latter,…
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Des fois, Boisvert a tort
J’avais beaucoup de respect, de l’admiration même, pour Yves Boisvert. Il est sans doute l’un des observateurs les plus perspicaces et les plus justes du système judiciaire et des enjeux reliés au droit dans les médias traditionnels. Il a fait preuve de sagesse et de respect pour la différence lors du débat sur la Charte de la…
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The Power of Google, Squared
I wrote, I while ago, about “the power of Google” and its role in the discussion surrounding the “right to be forgotten” ― a person’s right to force search engines to remove links to information about that person that is “inadequate, irrelevant or excessive,” whatever these things mean, even if factually true. Last week, the…
Double Aspect 