A trilogy of recent Canadian decisions raising standard of review issues have caught my eye. In each case, a standard of correctness is applied, but different reasons are given by each court. Indeed, it would be fair to say that each court follows a different analytical approach. Some more evidence, then, of confusion in this […] Read more

Yesterday, the Canadian government took the next step in its Senate reform process by appointing an advisory board, “an independent and non-partisan body whose mandate is to provide the Prime Minister with merit-based recommendations on Senate nominations”. I have blogged already about the new government’s use of mandate letters, issued to individual ministers, to impose […] Read more

The paper I prepared for the ‘Deference or Drift’ conference (that I was unfortunately unable to attend in person) focuses on several areas of administrative law doctrine in which Canadian courts have given the Crown special treatment that they do not give statutory decision-makers. Here is the first part… The Supreme Court of Canada has […] Read more

I have written before, somewhat sceptically, about the problem of ‘rebottling old wine’, updating the adjectival law of judicial review to take account of developments in the substantive law. Stratas J.A. had an interesting take on the question of the content of the record for judicial review in Bernard v. Canada (Revenue Agency), 2015 FCA […] Read more

A belated welcome to 2016. Normal post-holiday service should now resume. Some good news to begin the year. Administrative Law Matters won the 2015 Fodden Award for Best Canadian Law Blog. Here are the very kind and generous words of the judges: This was one of our toughest choices in years, thanks to the incredible […] Read more

The latest decision in Trinity Western University’s battle to have its law school accredited by Canadian law societies comes from British Columbia: Trinity Western University v. The Law Society of British Columbia, 2015 BCSC 2326. While the cases in other jurisdictions (Nova Scotia and Ontario) have considered grand constitutional questions, this one focused on traditional […] Read more

I have written before about whether a statutory tribunal sitting on “appeal” from another body can exercise a judicial review jurisdiction — and Francophiles can read in greater detail in the latest issue of the Canadian Bar Review. The issue continues to arise with frequency before Canadian courts. In two recent decisions, appellate judges have […] Read more

I have been quiet recently, in part because I have been working and travelling, but also because the last month of Supreme Court of Canada cases has been discouraging. While academics, practitioners and lower-court judges try to establish coherent frameworks to understand the general principles of judicial review, the Court resolves cases one-by-one without, with […] Read more

That time of year again! Here are my nominations for this year’s awards. Pierre Trudel, Journal de Montréal: my polyvalent colleague has been blogging on current legal affairs in an unlikely venue, the website of the blue-collar Journal de Montréal. His posts are excellent, accessible entrées into the legal issue du jour and deserve a […] Read more

Another week, another underwhelming standard-of-review decision from the Supreme Court of Canada — this time in Kanthasamy v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2015 SCC 61. At issue here was the scope of the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration’s authority to waive statutory conditions for “humanitarian or compassionate” reasons, an authority expressly conferred by s. 25(1) […] Read more