This morning, the Supreme Court of Canada released a landmark ruling that struck down a series of laws surrounding prostitution. The long-term implications remain to be seen, as the unanimous judgement has been suspended for a year in order to give parliament time to respond and (presumably) enact new legislation. Incidentally, there is a strong […]
General News
New AODA regulations coming into effect January 1st
For those of your who are interested in disability law and critical disability studies, it is worth pointing out that the latest round of Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) regulations will be coming into effect on January 1, 2014 (amazingly, less than two weeks away). AODA regulations are being gradually rolled out on […]
Journal of Open Access to Law
An exciting new initiative in open access to law debuted today with the publication of the first issue of the Journal of Open Access to Law. A peer-reviewed academic journal, the journal is pretty much as advertised in the title, as its ambit "is to promote international research on the topic of open access to law" […]
Exams already?!
It's that time of year when the nights get longer, the air gets colder, snow falls, and the holiday spirit descends upon Toronto... and law students can't enjoy any of it due to the end-of-term frenzy of caffeine, summaries, studying, and writing papers and, finally, exams. Last year I wrote a post trying to mitigate the […]
Senate Reform Déjà Vu
While much of the world's attention on Canadian politics has been focused on the bizarre scenes that have been unfolding in Toronto, the Senate scandal that dominated headlines prior to the Mayor's crack admission has continued apace. Much as in Toronto, the scandal has elicited popular hue and cry for something - anything! - by […]
Louis Riel Day - November 16 in Ontario
Louis Riel Day is a day to celebrate the life of the controversial Métis leader and the efforts he made for Métis rights and also to acknowledge Métis contributions to Canada. No doubt you will remember my blog about Louis Riel last year. This year I wanted to focus more on the Métis than Louis […]
Shooting fish in a barrel, pt. 2
Lo, those many months ago, before newspapers were reduced to printing articles about explaining crack to their children, Rob Ford, the Mayor of Toronto, was embroiled in what now seems to be a quaint conflict of interest issue. An Off the Shelf post, entitled "Shooting Fish in a Barrel" was written, and that was seemingly […]
Recent International Law Acquisitions
The library has been busy lately augmenting its International Law collection. The London Review of International Law is a brand new journal from Oxford (Volume 1 Issue 1 was published September 2013) to which we now have access. It is not available through the catalogue or eResources yet, but it will be. We have also […]
Sports injuries in the spotlight
Every first-year law student is taught the thin-skull principle, wherein the tortfeasor finds the victim as they find them, even if they have a pre-existing condition. I've been thinking about this over the past few weeks as I've been laid up at home recovering from a concussion and making the slow return to "normal" day-to-day […]
What Happened to CanLII?
On September 19, CanLII introduced its new user interface. Don’t be startled by the new homepage: you can either use the “everything” search box that initially appears for doing a keyword, citation, case name or statute name search, or you can click on the “+” to the left of that box to give yourself the […]