Clarence Bennett is the Managing Partner, Saint John and Fredericton, of Stewart McKelvey LLP Having been cited almost fifteen thousand times and continuing to generate academic debate, it is easy to overlook the fact that Dunsmuir v. New Brunswick[1] is a case that, arguably, should not have involved an administrative decision.  In normal circumstances, the […] Read more

Janina Boughey is a Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales Faculty of Law The most significant aspect of Dunsmuir is, of course, the majority’s recalibration of the methodology Canadian courts use to afford deference to administrative bodies. It is therefore thoroughly unsurprising that initially Dunsmuir attracted little attention in Australia. The High […] Read more

Gerald Heckman is an Associate Professor at the University of Manitoba Faculty of Law (with thanks to Amar Khoday for discussion) What standard of review should apply to questions of law that arise in decision-making under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act[1]? In the decade following Dunsmuir v New Brunswick,[2] the Supreme Court decided six […] Read more

Lauren J. Wihak (@lauren_wihak) is an Associate at McDougall Gauley LLP in Regina Dunsmuir v. New Brunswick (“Dunsmuir”) was intended to simplify and clarify the question of the standard of review used to review administrative action, making this issue more predictable to litigants.  I have been invited to comment on Dunsmuir and correctness review or, […] Read more

Mary Liston is an Assistant Professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia What might Canadian administrative law look like if Professor David Dyzenhaus’s chapter “The Politics of Deference: Judicial Review and Democracy,” had better informed the structure and spirit of ‘deference as respect’ in Dunsmuir? For this blog post, […] Read more

Dr. Eddie Clark, Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington I am, in general, a fan of the instinct that drove Dunsmuir.  The notion that that some administrative decisions might require stricter scrutiny than others is a good one.  The idea to make the calibration of this level of scrutiny an explicit part of the […] Read more

The Honourable Joseph T. Robertson, Q.C., formerly of the Federal Court of Appeal (1992-2000), the New Brunswick Court of Appeal (2000-2014) and Jurist-in-Residence with the Faculty of Law, University of New Brunswick (2014-2017). This digital symposium marks the 10th Anniversary of Dunsmuir v New Brunswick.[1] Undoubtedly, attention will focus on whether this “transformative” decision has […] Read more

Nicolas Lambert, Faculté de droit, Université de Moncton If two administrative lawyers met in a bar, chances are they would succeed in having a conversation in which no one but them would understand what is being discussed. Another likely possibility is that even if they agreed with each other politically and morally, their ways of […] Read more

Andrew Green is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto In Dunsmuir v. New Brunswick[i], the Supreme Court of Canada attempted to re-structure administrative law to more fully recognize legislative supremacy, maintain the court’s role in ensuring legality and, at the same time, reduce the costs of making administrative law decisions.  […] Read more

I smiled as I read the email from Léonid Sirota. Why not, he asked, mark the 10th anniversary of Dunsmuir v. New Brunswick, with a series of blog posts running up to March 9, 2018? Why not, indeed? Standard of review has an addictive quality and a good part of Canada’s legal community has long […] Read more