Author Archives: Admin

Announcing Oil and Gas Contracts: An ABlawg ebook

Editor’s Note

ABlawg is pleased to announce the launch of the first in a series of ebooks which we will put together from time to time when we have a critical mass of posts in a particular area. Our first ebook, compiled by Nigel Bankes, concerns oil and gas contracts. Other ebooks that are currently planned will cover oil and gas leases, the Alberta Energy Regulator, Charter equality rights, standing, and carbon law and policy.

Our ebooks will be accessible from a new tab at the top of the ABlawg website, and each ebook will be introduced with a post that will go out by email, RSS feed, and Twitter to our subscribers. Each ebook will have a table of contents with hyperlinks to the collected posts and will be fully searchable.

If readers have ideas for ebooks in particular areas or other feedback on this initiative we would be pleased to hear from you.

The introduction to our first ebook happens to be Nigel Bankes’ 200th post for ABlawg, and we congratulate him for being the first ABlawgger to reach this milestone. We also thank Evelyn Tang (JD 2016) for her hard work in producing the ebook.

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ABlawg’s New Look

Readers will notice that ABlawg has a new look this morning. After seven years with the header created by our first student coordinator, Brian Milne, we thought it was time for a change – call it the seven year itch. Our current student coordinator, Evelyn Tang, gets the credit for shifting us from the prairies to the mountains (Lake Louise to be exact), and has incorporated the University of Calgary crest and colours into our new header. We have also made it easier for readers to tweet posts. We hope you like the new look and features, and welcome your comments (and your tweets, Facebook likes, etc).

To subscribe to ABlawg by email or RSS feed, please go to https://ablawg.ca

Open Letter to Parliament on Bill C-51

Editor’s Note: Several Faculty members signed this letter, the full version of which is available here.

An open letter to members of Parliament on Bill C-51

Dear Members of Parliament,

Please accept this collective open letter as an expression of the signatories’ deep concern that Bill C-51 (which the government is calling the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015) is a dangerous piece of legislation in terms of its potential impacts on the rule of law, on constitutionally and internationally protected rights, and on the health of Canada’s democracy.

Beyond that, we note with concern that knowledgeable analysts have made cogent arguments not only that Bill C-51 may turn out to be ineffective in countering terrorism by virtue of what is omitted from the bill, but also that Bill C-51 could actually be counter-productive in that it could easily get in the way of effective policing, intelligence-gathering and prosecutorial activity. In this respect, we wish it to be clear that we are neither “extremists” (as the Prime Minister has recently labelled the Official Opposition for its resistance to Bill C-51) nor dismissive of the real threats to Canadians’ security that government and Parliament have a duty to protect. Rather, we believe that terrorism must be countered in ways that are fully consistent with core values (that include liberty, non-discrimination, and the rule of law), that are evidence-based, and that are likely to be effective.

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ABlawg a Runner up for 2014 Clawbie

The Canadian Law Blog Awards (Clawbies) for 2014 were announced this morning, and ABlawg is very pleased to have been recognized as a runner up in the category of Best Law School/Law Professor Blog. One of ABlawg’s nominees, Paul Daly’s Administrative Law Matters, took the top spot in the category this year. Our colleague Lisa Silver, who teaches criminal law, was also a runner up in the category for her Ideablawg. And, our colleague John Paul Boyd from the Canadian Research Institute on Law and the Family – also one of our nominees – was recognized in the category of Best New Blogs for his blog Access To Justice in Canada.

We extend our thanks to all of our nominators and the Clawbies selection committee, and our congratulations to all the winners, runners up and nominees.

ABlawg looks forward to continued engagement with our readers in 2015. Happy New Year!

To subscribe to ABlawg by email or RSS feed, please go to https://ablawg.ca

ABlawg: The Year in Review

PDF Version: ABlawg: The Year in Review

It is the time of year for making lists, and at ABlawg we have decided to put together a compilation of our highlights from 2014. It is also the season for the Canadian Law Blog Awards (Clawbies), and we have included a list of some of our favourite blogs as well.

A Series of Series

In 2014 ABlawg ran several series of posts on important judicial decisions and legislative developments in Alberta and Canada more broadly. These series provided an opportunity for the authors to discuss the nuances and impacts of these developments and to share that dialogue with ABlawg readers. Our series covered the following:

April / May 2014: Students in Law 696: Constitutional Clinical wrote a series of posts on the constitutionality of the exclusion of Alberta farm workers from the Employment Standards Code; Labour Relations Code; Occupational Health and Safety Act; and Workers’ Compensation Act. The posts gained attention from the media (see e.g. here and here), other blogs, opposition parties and the PC leadership candidates.

July / August 2014: Posts by Nigel Bankes, Jennifer Hocking, Jennifer Koshan, Kirk Lambrecht, Q.C., Sharon Mascher, Martin Olszynski, and Jonnette Watson Hamilton on Tsilhqot’in Nation v British Columbia, 2014 SCC 44 and Grassy Narrows First Nation v Ontario (Natural Resources), 2014 SCC 48 covered issues including the scope of Aboriginal title, treaty rights, and the duty to consult, and the demise of the interjurisdictional immunity doctrine and the “lands reserved” head of section 91(24) of the Constitution Act 1867. Faculty, students, research associates and guests discussed this commentary and the underlying decisions in a roundtable discussion in July.

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