iTunes, Amazon.com, Puretracks.com, Rogers Music Store, Sympatico Music Store. For those music lovers who legally download music, these various websites are but a few examples of online sources for mp3 and AAC downloads. As part of the digital consumer experience and convenience of online shopping, previews of songs are provided: 30 second clips that allow [...]

Over the holidays, in a series of concurrently released decisions, the Supreme Court of Canada considered how a citizen could sue the Crown to financially recover on a wrong committed by an administrative decision maker. The question before the Court was whether one may bring the action directly, or did the lawfulness of the Crown’s [...]

What do you do when a foreign state knocks on your door requesting the extradition of individuals facing criminal charges back home? If Karlheinz Schreiber comes to mind, then your answer might be, “No sweat, send him packing.” But the fact that Jószef Németh and his wife, Jószefne Németh, were Roma refugees living in Canada [...]

The assertion of Crown sovereignty is a question that has never been resolved in Canadian constitutional jurisprudence. The mindset of original settlers was that Aboriginal peoples did not count as inhabitants of the land, so discovery applied in order to assert sovereignty. As Canada moves to an era of equality of all peoples, ignoring a [...]

The Supreme Court of Canada has denied leave to appeal from the Quebec appellate decision of Bellemare c. Lisio, 2010 QCCA 859 (French only), ending the well-publicized legal battle over the fate of a public inquest into the death of Michel Berniquez. Nearly eight years have passed since the night Mr. Berniquez died from cardiac [...]

On September 16, the Court of Appeal for Ontario delivered its reasons in Ontario (Disability Support Program) v. Tranchemontagne, 2010 ONCA 593. The appellate decision is the latest event in an ongoing legal battle — the case was previously litigated all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada to determine if the tribunal had [...]

In December of this year, the Supreme Court of Canada will hear the Attorney General of Canada and the Attorney General of Ontario appeal the Ontario Court of Appeal (OCA) decision, Mavi v. Canada (Attorney General), 2009 ONCA 794 [Mavi]. At issue in the OCA decision was how the government should behave when enforcing promises, [...]

The Tranchemontagne series of cases have received some previous attention on this site. In this note, however, I want to focus on one of the more significant, if understudied, aspects of the 2009 Ontario Disability Support Program v. Tranchemontagne Ontario Divisional Court decision. [1] In this decision the Court directly addresses a growing trend in [...]

The Federal Court of Appeal’s recent judgment in Hinzman v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2010 FCA 177 is a decisive, if transitory, victory for American Iraq war resisters seeking refuge in Canada. Transcending the narrow theme of conscientious objection, the decision simultaneously provides authoritative guidance on the standards expected of administrative decision-makers, the [...]

Last week the SCC released its decision in R. v. Conway, 2010 SCC 22. At issue was whether or not the Ontario Review Board (“ORB”) has the authority to grant remedies under s. 24(1) of the Charter. As noted by the SCC, the “wider issue [was] the relationship between the Charter, its remedial provisions and [...]