CategoryEditorial

With Privilege Comes Duty

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White Privilege Exists: Do Something Good With It On 7 September 2017, a video emerged of a woman heckling NDP leadership hopeful Jagmeet Singh at an event in Brampton. Heckling is putting it mildly, since she spent about two minutes shouting at Mr. Singh from a distance of about four inches. When staffers and crowd members tried to calm her or otherwise dissuade her, she threatened to have them...

Ten Tips for First Year Law Students

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Candid Advice from the Editor-in-Chief   So you’ve made it to law school. Let me start by congratulating you and apologizing for how quickly you may find yourself in over your head. Getting into law school is a lot like having kids; people will talk about how great an experience it is before you start, and then laugh at you for ruining your life when it’s too late to turn back. This is not...

An Open Letter to Activists

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Please, Pick Your Battles   I can’t say I had particularly high hopes for 2017. It pretty much started with the US electing a creature who built an empire on narcissism, lies, and shady business practices, yet somehow, it looks like it’s just going to get worse. It also feels like the political left and right have been having incredibly violent sex on a self-destruct button, and the only...

Too Much, Too Little, and Everything in Between

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In Defense of Feeling Feelings   I have struggled with how strongly I feel things for a long time. A plan falling through sometimes feels like the end of the world; I translate constructive criticism to, “you will never be good at this, give up.” When I acknowledge the feelings, they come swiftly and relentlessly. When I refuse to acknowledge them, I enter a thought swirl that almost always...

People are Better than their Religious Beliefs

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An Atheist’s Argument for Why Most of Us Should be Able to Get Along   A Christian, a Muslim, and an atheist walk into a bar, and they all get along because none of them are jerks who need to argue about religion.   I know, it’s a bad joke. Fine, it’s a terrible joke. A stale premise, the dull thud of a punchline, and I can only use the classic “X, Y, and Z walk into a...

Great Start, but Still Just a Start

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Downstream Emissions in Canada’s New Environmental Assessment “Climate Test”    In late January 2016, Canada’s federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna, and Minister of Natural Resources, Jim Carr, announced interim changes to environmental assessment processes as part of “efforts to restore public trust.” One of the changes is to assess “[d]irect and upstream...

Don’t Cut Ties with People Over Politics

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You’re bound to disagree with someone on something     I wish to address a growing trend in social and political discourse that’s troubling, if not disturbing. I should begin by noting that the internet’s good for a great number of things: news, research, sports scores, cute animal photos, discrete hook-ups, and humourous videos of people getting injured attempting something...

You are Not Alone 2

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As Managing Editor of Obiter Dicta, I am apparently obligated to write an editorial for every third issue of our publication. Considering I editorialize so often that the words I heard most growing up were “don’t editorialize”—my parents are both intellectuals and I had an extensive vocabulary even as a child—I could probably just write one of my usual articles and no one would notice. Draft...

There is no I in Law

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A plea for collaboration Whether you’re just starting out at Osgoode, entering 2L, 3LOLing or an LLM student, one thing is almost certainly clear to you by now: law school is competitive. Most classes are graded on a bell curve, there’s some kind of articling crisis happening, and there are only so many spots in club executives, moot teams and clinics/intensives. It’s a zero sum game right...

Welcome (back) to Osgoode!

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The long weekend has come and gone, and somehow classes have already begun! As hard as it is to dust of the books and return to the land of 8:30am classes, we are excited to see the halls of Osgoode filled with so many people again – and L&L is here to ease the transition!   The Legal & Literary Society (or L&L for short) is your primary student government at Osgoode. We deal in...

Started as a writer now I’m here

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Some FAQs with your Editor-in-Chief Hello Osgoode!  My name is Erin and it is my honour to introduce myself as the Obiter Dicta’s Editor-in-Chief for the 2016-2017 year. From my humble beginnings as a Staff Writer in 1L to running the editing cycle as the Managing Editor last year, I have come to love the Obiter and I am so excited to now be at the helm.   I’d like to take this opportunity...

Reflections on the Pursuit of Perfection

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It all begins with four years of political science, economics, engineering, or maybe even art and design. At this stage, we stand out from those around us. Earning straight-A’s comes easily and most of us graduate at the top of our class with a 4.0 GPA. Some might immediately turn their attention toward the LSAT while others might pursue higher education, and others still might spend several...

CBA Legal Futures Initiative Takes a Leap Forward with ‘Do Law Differently’

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Of the many opportunities I’ve had over three years with the Obiter Dicta, last week provided me with what will undoubtedly be the highlight. The launch of the Canadian Bar Association’s ‘Do Law Differently’ guide, held at the MaRS Discovery District through the invitation of Legal X, was an amazing look at the intersection of the traditional legal institutions with the future of the industry. It...

Misogyny, Music, Malaise

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Free Kesha To be honest, this isn’t the editorial I planned to write this issue. Rather than a riveting ride through the necessity defence and illegal environmental activism (stay tuned!), I felt compelled to write about Kesha and what’s happening to her. In case you’re unaware—after being under contract with Dr. Luke as part of since 2005, Kesha filed a suit against him in 2014, alleging he...

Let’s Talk About Lifting the Cloak of Secrecy

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This past Wednesday marked the sixth annual Bell Let’s Talk Day, a public awareness campaign designed to break the silence around mental illness across Canada. This leads me to speak of several recent student submissions to the Obiter. We received powerful and deeply personal stories about mental illness whose authors requested that their names not be published. As a result, a number of...

A Brave New Obiter Dicta

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Checking in at the mid-way point of my term as Editor-in-Chief to review the year so far, and look ahead to the upcoming semester. When I started at Osgoode in 2013, I was drawn to the Obiter Dicta because it offered an open and inviting opportunity both for writing, and as a student organization to be involved with. Now approaching the end of 3L, my time with the Obiter has met and exceeded all...

Circumventing Geo-blocks

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Using TPM Protections to Label Consumers as Thieves The first battle cry was heard this past summer when Bell Media president Mary Ann Turcke announced that “it has to become socially unacceptable to admit to another human being that you are VPNing into U.S. Netflix.” And with that bold proclamation, a gauntlet had been thrown down and Big Media had declared war on those who it deemed to be...

The Roots of Legal-Hate

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In law school, there is no shortage of attention dedicated to the problems with the legal system. There are students, lawyers, and faculty working on access to justice, legal innovation, legal system reform, and legal aid projects. Ample opportunities exist to hear speakers, engage in workshops, and participate in conferences all aimed at improving the legal system. And yet, despite all these...

Climate Change Litigation in Canada

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Probable or not, possible or not, the mere possibility is something powerful In the worlds of environmentalism, environmental law, and particularly climate change advocacy, Roger Cox is currently quite the celebrity. This past June, he won a suit brought by environmental NGO Urgenda and 886 Dutch citizens against the Dutch government. To oversimplify, the plaintiffs successfully argued the Dutch...

Walking into Court

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Is “Physical” Access to Justice Attainable? If you’ve ever been to 47 Sheppard Avenue East, you’ll know the point of this article well before I reach it. 47 Sheppard is a Toronto courthouse primarily used for small claims matters, a location I first entered as a wide-eyed caseworker starting the Parkdale intensive. The building is ominous and grey, accessible only from a side entrance, with no...

Life is short.

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Have an affair. Compromise your privacy. Face professional misconduct charges. To the incoming class of 2018, let the Obiter Dicta be one of many to welcome you to Osgoode! Today you take the first step on a journey of a thousand miles. Your introduction to the practice of law begins with what is referred to simultaneously as the most and least relevant class of the JD program: Ethical Lawyering...

We’re All Working on the Edge

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My Thoughts on the Launch of the “Still Working on the Edge: Rebuilding Decent Work from the Ground Up” Report on Precarious Labour in Ontario On 31 March 2015, I had the opportunity to attend the launch of Ontario’s foremost report on precarious labour. “Still Working on the Edge: Rebuilding Decent Work from the Ground Up,” is the follow-up to a landmark report drafted in 2007 by labour rights...

Stress Less

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Editorial Note: Karolina and Kendall were on such a roll after their Mock Trial review, he decided to join her as a co-writer for this issue’s editorial. So read on, Ozzies, for double the fun and none of the stress. Returning to school after a sumptuous break (or even worse, a dreadfully stressful one, replete with hours spent preparing summaries or participating in job interviews) is...

Great Expectations

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Managing the aspirational gap between what is and what you expect Many of us go through our lives setting what we like to label “goals” and “objectives” for ourselves. And for the most part this seems to be a healthy and productive thing to do. Though sometimes these aspirations morph into expectations, very high ones at that, and it is when this happens that we set ourselves up for potential...

Some Thoughts on Some Thoughts on Charlie Hebdo

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The recent terror attacks in France have, apparently, opened the floodgates for opinions from both sides of the political spectrum on the values and risks of freedom of speech. Across countries and continents, Twitter trolls and Facebook stalkers alike have begun to self-identify as either a French cartoonist, or not-a-French-cartoonist. I find the whole exercise extremely unnerving given the...

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