Here is an interesting variant on the ‘reasonable decision but dodgy reasoning’ problem I have raised recently: what if an administrative decision-maker takes a decision that is supported by statutory authority, but fails to mention the statutory authority in question? This is the scenario in EllisDon Corporation v. Ontario Sheet Metal Workers’ and Roofers’ Conference […] Read more

Several years ago, in a review of Andrew Ross Sorkin’s excellent review of the 2008 financial crisis, Too Big To Fail, I suggested: Enough is now known about humans’ cognitive tics to start trying to tame them. What if the regulators of financial institutions were required to undergo intensive and ongoing training in behavioural economics […] Read more

My preoccupation with the internal standard of review issue has led me to wonder whether it would even be constitutionally permissible for a Canadian legislature to require an administrative body to conduct judicial reviews. The idea is not entirely far-fetched: the UK’s new tribunal system has just this feature, with the Upper Tribunal required on […] Read more

My post on Febles v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2014 SCC 68 has attracted many comments. Some readers are sympathetic to the Supreme Court of Canada. And, indeed, one may wonder what the practical effect is of standard-of-review discussions that sometimes border on the metaphysical. Should the Supreme Court of Canada not focus on resolving […] Read more

It seems to be, post-Forest Ethics Advocacy Association v. National Energy Board, 2014 FCA 245. First, the facts. The Board conditionally approved a major pipeline project to be completed by Enbridge. There are various challenges to the decision pending before the courts. This challenge concerned a number of matters that could fairly be described as […] Read more

Last calls for the year in review session Stratas J.A. and I are doing in Toronto next week. The event is close to a sell out, I am told, so register here if you are interested in coming along. If there are no seats left, or if you can’t make it to Toronto, there will […] Read more

[76]           Board hearings are not an open-line radio show where anyone can dial in and participate. Nor are they a drop-in center for anyone to raise anything, no matter how remote it may be to the Board’s task of regulating the construction and operation of oil and gas pipelines. So says Stratas […] Read more

* This is a second extract from a forthcoming essay of mine on the policy/operational distinction in Canadian tort law, “The Policy/Operational Distinction — A View from Administrative Law“. Download a draft here. See my first extract, a post on the Imperial Tobacco case, here * An administrative lawyer is comfortable in recommending that the […] Read more

In Canada, judicial review of administrative decision-makers for reasonableness has two aspects: the reasons must be understandable and the decision must fall within a range of reasonable outcomes. This gives rise to a problem. What should a court do where a decision is reasonable, but the reasons contain important inaccuracies or are incoherent? I addressed […] Read more

Matthew Groves passes on a very interesting decision from the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia: WZARH v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2014] FCAFC 137. The issue was simple. A refugee claimant went for an interview with an Independent Merits Reviewer whose task was to reassess a refusal to classify him […] Read more