Category Archives: Access to Justice

Furthering Expression in the Public Interest: SCC Provides Interpretation of Ontario’s Anti-SLAPP Legislation

By: Daniella Marchand and Nafisa Abdul Razak

PDF Version: Furthering Expression in the Public Interest: SCC Provides Interpretation of Ontario’s Anti-SLAPP Legislation 

Case Commented On: 1704604 Ontario Ltd. v Pointes Protection Association, 2020 SCC 22 (CanLII)

Last month, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) released their decision in the Pointes Protection case, dismissing 1704604 Ontario Ltd.’s appeal and upholding the Ontario Court of Appeal’s (ONCA) decision. This commentary follows up our first post regarding the ONCA’s decision on 1704604 Ontario Ltd v Pointes Protection Association, 2018 ONCA 685 (CanLII). In our previous post, we advocated for the enactment of a similar provision in Alberta as exists in Ontario, relying on the analysis set out by Justice David Doherty and the arguments made by various interveners as to the necessity of anti-SLAPP (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) legislation. For background on the previous proceedings, please see our other post titled “Is Now the Time to Consider Anti-SLAPP Legislation in Alberta? A Reflection on Pointes Protection”.

Here, we continue to recommend the introduction of similar anti-SLAPP legislation in Alberta. In Pointes Protection, the SCC provides a detailed analysis of Ontario’s anti-SLAPP legislation, perhaps expecting that this decision may guide the development of similar legislation in other provinces and territories. In this post, we will examine the test as interpreted by the SCC, and how this framework presents a novel opportunity for adoption of anti-SLAPP legislation to the Alberta legislature.

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R v Theriault: A Case of Epistemic Injustice

By: Brynne Harding

PDF Version: R v Theriault: A Case of Epistemic Injustice

Case Commented On: R v Theriault, 2020 ONSC 3317 (CanLII)

On the morning of Friday, June 26, 2020 – among more than 20,000 other people – I tuned into the YouTube live stream on which Ontario Superior Court Justice Joseph DiLuca gave his judgment in the criminal trials of Michael and Christian Theriault (R v Theriault, 2020 ONSC 3317 (CanLII)). The brothers, one of whom is a Toronto police officer, stood accused of assault and aggravated assault on Dafonte Miller, a young Black man, who lost his eye in their clash.

Const. Michael Theriault was acquitted of aggravated assault and attempting to obstruct justice in the case, and was convicted only of the lesser charge of simple assault. His brother Christian Theriault was acquitted of all charges. On August 6, 2020, it was announced that the Crown has appealed the acquittals.

The Theriault acquittals unsettled me – persistently, in the weeks to follow. The accused were acquitted of aggravated assault, despite strong Crown evidence, and fact findings of the court, that the two grown white men had gratuitously and violently beaten Miller, a Black teenager. Nearly as unsettling was the fact that the trial judge had insisted, capably, and with sophistication, that he understood what he called the “racialized context” of the encounter (at para 11). The objective of this post is to explore the apparent contradiction in Theriault between the verdicts, on one hand, and Justice DiLuca’s claim that he considered the racialized context, on the other. This post does not purport to be an appellate brief for the Crown, although some argument relates to potential legal and factual errors in Theriault.

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Right to Know Day: You Have the Right to Know That Access to Information in Alberta is Terrible

By: Drew Yewchuk

PDF Version: Right to Know Day: You Have the Right to Know That Access to Information in Alberta is Terrible

Statement Commented On: Right to Know Day: Minister Glubish, September 28, 2020 

Last Monday was apparently the beginning of ‘Right to Know Week’, “which aims to advance and celebrate the public’s right to access information from governments.” This is also the 25th anniversary of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, RSA 2000, c F-25 (FOIP). I have complained about the serious problems with FOIP before (here, here, here, and here). The timelines for record delivery are routinely ignored, absurdly high fees are charged for spurious reasons, the administrative review body is about a year behind, and the redactions are so vague and broadly worded that government bodies can hide almost whatever they want. In short, if the government wants to lie or cover something up, FOIP is an ineffective tool to stop them.

This post takes a lighter tone and discusses some of the hilarious abuses of FOIP I’ve seen from my work with the FOIP requests.

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The Expansion of Unconscionability – The Supreme Court’s Uber Reach

By: Jassmine Girgis

PDF Version: The Expansion of Unconscionability – The Supreme Court’s Uber Reach

Case Commented On: Uber Technologies Inc v Heller, 2020 SCC 16 (CanLII)

Contracts of adhesion, or standard form agreements (SFAs) are oftentimes unfair. They are drafted by the stronger parties. Their provisions are dense and difficult to understand. The party signing does not have a say in their contents – they are take-it-or-leave-it agreements. They are usually lengthy and cannot feasibly be read in the short time it takes the parties to transact. Some of the more onerous terms are deeply embedded (hidden?) in the document. The contracts more often than not limit the liability of the drafting party at the expense of the other party. They ensure occupiers are not liable for negligence, including their own. And the list goes on.

We are not powerless against these contracts – common law and equitable doctrines protect weaker parties from harsh or onerous provisions. Is this enough? Probably not. Certainly the Supreme Court of Canada thought more should be done to protect weaker parties against SFAs in the case of Uber Technologies Inc v Heller, 2020 SCC 16 (CanLII). But instead of leaving this job to the legislature, as it should have, it expanded the reach of the doctrine of unconscionability without providing any substantial guidance or principles, thereby furnishing lower courts with an enormously powerful weapon to use against SFAs.

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COVID-19, Domestic Violence, and Technology-Facilitated Abuse

By: Jennifer Koshan, Janet Mosher, and Wanda Wiegers

PDF Version: COVID-19, Domestic Violence, and Technology-Facilitated Abuse

On 27 May 2020, UN Women launched the “shadow pandemic” public awareness campaign, drawing attention to the global spike in domestic violence linked to COVID-19. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women, describes the idea of a shadow pandemic as follows: “Even before the [COVID-19] pandemic, violence against women was one of the most widespread violations of human rights. Since lockdown restrictions, domestic violence has multiplied, spreading across the world in a shadow pandemic.”

We are in the midst of a multi-year research project on domestic violence and access to justice across Canada, but decided to shift our attention this spring/summer to the legal and policy responses to domestic violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. One aspect of our research examines the responses of courts, including what sorts of matters they consider “urgent” enough to hear during the pandemic, and how urgent cases involving domestic violence are being dealt with on the merits. We found 67 relevant cases reported on Can LII between March 16 and June 1, 2020, with relevance meaning that the cases deal with domestic violence issues that were related to the pandemic in some way. These cases span the areas of family, child protection, criminal, and protection order law. One cross-cutting theme in the case law is surveillance and technology-facilitated abuse, which is the subject of this post. We also provide some comments on access to justice issues raised by our case law sample.

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