Anna Lund

Matter Commented On: Edmonton’s Encampment Litigation

PDF Version: Edmonton’s Encampment Litigation: A View from the Inside

In the autumn of 2023, the Coalition for Justice and Human Rights sued the City of Edmonton to limit when and how it forcibly evicts unhoused people from encampments. The Coalition argued that the City’s approach to displacing encampments violated the human rights of encampment residents, as protected by Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. A court dismissed the Coalition’s claim on a preliminary ground, deciding that the lawsuit should be brought by someone else, and thus the Court did not decide whether the City’s displacement policies infringed the Charter. The case illustrates the difficulties of vindicating the rights of marginalized persons through the courts, raising the troubling prospect that our unhoused neighbours may in theory have the same fundamental rights as the rest of Canadians, but in practice are unable to exercise them.

By: Koren Lightning-Earle, Hadley Friedland, Anna Lund, Sarah N Kriekle, Heather (Hero) Laird

Matter commented on: Notice of a Special Meeting of the Law Society of Alberta dated January 26, 2023

PDF Version: Law Society of Alberta to Hold a Special Meeting to Debate its Power to Mandate Indigenous Cultural Competency Training

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from our colleagues at the University of Alberta and in the legal profession in Alberta. A number of members of the University of Calgary Faculty of Law have signed the open letter referenced later in this post, a copy of which can be found here.

This post provides background information about the Special Meeting of the Law Society of Alberta, which will be held on Monday February 6, 2023. At Monday’s meeting, practicing lawyers in the Province of Alberta will be asked to vote on whether their self-governing organization should be able to mandate training on specific topics to ensure that lawyers in the province are minimally competent.

Author: Anna Lund

Edmonton’s Encampment Litigation: A View from the Inside

Law Society of Alberta to Hold a Special Meeting to Debate its Power to Mandate Indigenous Cultural Competency Training