Perhaps unsurprisingly media coverage of the Charbonneau Commission report (see my previous post) has focused on facts. Who was blamed — or not blamed — and why not? Why did Renaud Lachance disagree with France Charbonneau’s conclusion that there was a link between political party financing and the awarding of public contracts? Posing these questions […] Read more

From Michael Jackson and Philippe Lagassé: May I draw to your attention that registration is currently being accepted for the conference “The Crown in the 21st Century:  Deference or Drift?” to be held at Government House in Victoria, BC, 14-16 January 2016.  This will bring together leading authorities on the Crown from Canada, Australia, New […] Read more

Although B010 v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2015 SCC 58 was billed in the initial summary as an administrative law case, there is precious little discussion of the general principles of standard of review in McLachlin C.J.’s decision for a unanimous Supreme Court of Canada. At issue was the interpretation of legislation designed to discourage […] Read more

There are lots of things on my to-blog list, which I hope to start striking items off soon, but until then here is the last installment of my draft paper on section 96 of the Constitution Act. Comments very welcome! Alternative methods of dispute resolution – alternative, that is, to the ideal-type of adversarial trials […] Read more

Another copyright decision from the Supreme Court of Canada, another discussion of the standard of review — the “prodigal child” of Canadian law (at para. 185)* — and, again, sharp disagreement between Rothstein and Abella JJ: Canadian Broadcasting Corp. v. SODRAC 2003 Inc., 2015 SCC 57. At issue was the application of the principle of […] Read more

There will be plenty of coverage in the coming days of the final report of the Charbonneau Commission, released this morning. This is the culmination of a lengthy inquiry into Quebec’s construction industry, which extended its tentacles to other spheres of public life. I had a miniscule part in the report. One of the 60 […] Read more

The High Court of Australia unanimously dismissed the appeal in Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v WZARH [2015] HCA 40. I posted previously on the decision of the Full Federal Court. Readers will recall the issue: a refugee claimant was interviewed by one Reviewer and was told that this Reviewer would make a recommendation, […] Read more

Another volley of thoughts on section 96….In previous posts I set out the Supreme Court’s view of the importance of the “core” jurisdiction of the superior courts but then noted the need to make some qualifications to this view. In this post, I set out some serious qualifications that the Supreme Court’s own jurisprudence has […] Read more

I have written before about the constitutionality of Prime Minister Trudeau’s plan to reinvigorate the Canadian Senate. I commented that one of the odd consequences of the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Reference re Senate Reform, [2014] 1 S.C.R. 704 is that measures that “are not placed on a statutory footing are less likely […] Read more

* I have been working on this post for a couple of weeks now, since the decision was handed down on October 30. It has only now been published * Sometimes one may wonder whether administrative law doctrine really matters — and, moreover, whether my regular complaints are well-placed. Are things really all that bad? […] Read more