If you’re thinking about applying for an intensive or clinical program for next year, learn why alumni can’t say enough good things about their experience in the Poverty Law Intensive If you’ve ever talked to alumni of the Poverty Law Intensive, you’ll have noticed that we are almost cultishly enthusiastic about our experience in the program. The Poverty Law Intensive places students at...
The Supreme Court of Canada is currently penning the final chapter in Trinity Western University’s law school saga – a legal drama that has wound its way up to the top court from Ontario and B.C. over the past 4 years. In their reasons, the justices are expected to deliver a landmark ruling on the balance of equality and religious freedom rights in Canada. In doing so, they could...
Your Osgoode Health Law Association: Let us introduce ourselves… Hello from your Osgoode Health Law Association (HLA)! The HLA interrogates the area of health law, raises awareness of important health law issues, helps students explore the many career paths in health law, and fosters interdisciplinary collaborations and dialogue between students and health law professionals. We are excited to...
Police Brutality in Jamaica I suspect it is common for all of us to have heard about police brutality in the United States, especially against black males. The powerful Black Lives Matter movement has pushed most news outlets to report these crimes and this has a strong effect on society. When unwarranted police brutality is made public and discussed, it exposes offenders and forces...
Paradise Papers Shed New Light on Offshore Tax Havens Recently, a massive cache of over thirteen million financial documents was leaked to several European newspapers. Referred to as the Paradise Papers, this collection of documents shed new light on the financial practices of the world’s wealthiest individuals and corporations. More specifically, they provided insight on the controversial...
(Author’s note: “This article was written before Justice Perell’s ruling on November 1, 2017 dismissing the certification motion. The decision can be accessed here“) In 2009, Tamara Broomfield was criminally convicted for a drug-related offence. This conviction was partially due to hair-strand testing conducted by the Motherisk Drug Testing Lab at the Hospital for Sick...
“If children will grow without any hopes, without any prospects of future, without any sense of being able to make any sense out of their lives, then they will become vulnerable to all sorts of exploitation including .” At age 60, he travelled to 23 countries shooting the myriad of miseries of those who had fled religious persecution, famine, war and violence from around the world to arrive in...
Are you interested in learning about family law matters without having to take a whole course on it? Want to avoid reading lengthy cases and just get to the basics of a concept? Are you not married, living with someone, and want to know if they are considered your spouse for legal purposes? I present to you a Family Law Factoid as it pertains to your love life. While it may not be the most...
“We live in a world where the risk of nuclear weapons being used is greater than it has been for a long time.” Berit Reiss-Andersen, the leader of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, made this statement to justify giving the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) the Nobel Peace Prize in early October. ICAN officially launched in Vienna in 2007 after its start in Australia...
The reality of a future Kexit (Kurdish separation from Iraq) seemed all but certain when, on September 25, residents of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence from Iraq. More than 92% answered ‘yes’ to the question: Do you want the Kurdistan Region and the Kurdistani areas outside the region’s administration to become an...
At Old City Hall, just a few days ago, RJ’s name filled up the afternoon docket. Over a period of 10 years RJ had accumulated thousands of dollars in fines for provincial offences. With the assistance of his representative from the Fair Change Legal Clinic, RJ was appealing to the court for a more compassionate sentence than had already been imposed. Although the fines came from different pieces...
Negotiations Underway to Overhaul Free Trade in North America The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a longstanding trade agreement between Canada, Mexico, and the United States, is being renegotiated. Enacted in 1994, NAFTA was introduced to facilitate greater economic activity between the signatories through the elimination of tariffs on agricultural and manufacturing goods, removal...
By: Lily MacLeod on behalf of the Osgoode Hall Family Law Association Canada’s Economic and Social Context In Canada, 1 in 6 adults live with a disability. Compared to their able-bodied counterparts, adults with a disability are more likely to lack a post-secondary education, be unemployed, and live in poverty. The overall Canadian poverty rate is approximately 10%. However, over 14% of those...
On September 25, the United Nations ushered in the Sustainable Development Goals (“SDGs”), a fifteen-year plan to end poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation. Titled “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” the SDGs came into effect on January 2016 and replaced the Millennium Development Goals (“MDGs”) that expired in 2015. Notably, the SDGS form an...
On September 25 residents living in KRG-controlled areas will vote on whether Iraqi Kurdistan should sever itself from Baghdad and become an independent state. For now, we can assume that at least Israel will support the Kurds seizing the reins over their own destiny. This unique amity is the fruit of a mutual apprehension of an imploding Arab world and the security threats posed by Turkey and...
The Effect of Trump’s Travel Ban One of the most controversial policies enacted by President Trump’s administration involves his travel ban, which was enacted shortly after his inauguration. The Executive Order barred refugees from entering the country for 120 days, and banned citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen for ninety days. According to some estimates...
Has there been any progress with Pharmacare? In 1964, the Royal Commission on Health Services, or “Hall Commission,” named after Supreme Court Justice Emmett Hall, produced recommendations for a universal, public Pharmacare program for Canada, following Canada’s introduction of Medicare. Justice Hall argued that access to necessary medicines should be introduced as an additional benefit of...
The Science Community’s Movement Against Trump During President Trump’s first week in office, his administration has already started affecting the United States’ stance on climate change, including an examination of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to determine which information will remain on their website. As part of the examination, EPA employees have also been instructed not...
An Interdisciplinary Approach Canada has a drug problem. In many parts of the country, fatal drug overdoses are higher than deaths caused by motor vehicle accidents. In Ontario, opioid-related deaths increased from 127 in 1991, to 550 in 2010, to over 700 in 2014. Between 2011 and 2014, the nation’s spending on drugs to treat opioid addiction rose by sixty percent.[1] The...
Desperate borrowers were paying 59.99% interest to local lender, but actuaries found the “true” interest rate in high risk lending can often be much higher After a Toronto Star investigation last October into a series of judgements against people in debt to private lenders, it was announced today that judges of the Small Claims Courts of Ontario will receive training in how to effectively...
The issue of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) superbugs, wherein pathogens such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi develop ways to resist different drug treatments, is rapidly becoming an issue on the international stage. In 2016, the United Nations General Assembly met to discuss the issue of AMR and the G20 meeting included AMR in its closing communique, placing strong emphasis on the need to both...
What is happening with Vanessa’s Law? On 6 December 2013, Conservative Member of Parliament for Oakville, Terence Young, introduced the Protecting Canadians from Unsafe Drugs Act (Vanessa’s Law) in order to provide Canadians with a more stringent drug-monitoring system. Without dissent from any of Canada’s federal political parties, Vanessa’s Law received Royal Assent and became Canadian...
According to the most recent World Justice Project Rule of Law Index, Canada ranks twelfth overall out of 113 countries included in the survey. Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands rank first to fifth, respectively. Canada’s overall index score of 0.81 is tied with the UK and Australia. The US ranks eighteenth overall. Ranking twelfth out of 113 puts Canada near the top of the...
Reporting Terror in the Social Media Age The international community experienced a series of tragic attacks over the holiday break, striking fear and paranoia during a time of celebration. On December 19, Anis Amri crashed a truck into a Berlin Christmas market, killing twelve and injuring fifty-six people. Also on December 19, Mevlut Mert Altintas assassinated Andrei Karlov, the Russian...
Salvaging the Two-State Solution “If the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or democratic, it cannot be both and won’t ever live in peace.” – John Kerry In 1947 the United Nations passed Resolution 181, authorizing the division of Palestine into two states: thirty-five percent for the Arabs and fifty-five percent for the Israelis. The remaining portion, Jerusalem, was to be...