Allow me to open this article with a rather trite statement: judges and courts play an important role in the development of the common law. Their interpretations have wide-reaching influence, from determining the approach of lower courts in the future, to affecting how lawyers advise their clients. This effect is amplified in the Supreme Court of Canada, where only a relatively small number of...
And the countdown begins. A few days of classes remain. Then two weeks of sheer stress await. Of course, I am talking about exam-related stress, but only partially. There are the other kinds of stress, namely, Christmas-shopping stress. Naturally, as a busy law student, you will not have time to start until after exams are done. Panic will strike when you look at the list of people you have to...
Last week, Robyn Schleihauf published an article in the Obiter, condemning Trinity Western University’s (TWU) highly politicized application for accreditation of what could become BC’s fourth law school. She describes TWU’s Community Covenant as a “national disgrace,” proponents of which ignore “an underlying misconception: that requiring gay people to suppress their sexuality is not...
After another week of ridicule and embarrassment, Rob Ford is, whether in practice or name only, still our mayor. His resilience is, if nothing else, interesting. A man who has managed to morally and politically divide the city of Toronto’s population through actions that have next to nothing to do with his actual policies or political decisions, Ford has put all of Toronto in a unique and...
Many of you will have heard that the Federation of Law Societies has accredited Trinity Western University, a privately funded Christian university operating out of the Fraser Valley in British Columbia, to run a law school. Trinity teaches through a Christian lens and requires all of its students and faculty to sign a “Community Covenant Agreement” and abide by certain community standards...
There is a certain kind of rivalry among siblings that is hard to describe. Perhaps it takes having siblings to truly understand experiencing un-vocalized love and very-vocalized competition, especially when your siblings make it to “high” places. So my dad and I often joke that he is the family’s parish priest, whose brothers have been made cardinals. While the priest has his ear to the ground...
At first, I was somewhat ambivalent about my stance on the Quebec Charter of Values.
Nicholas Banerd <Contributor>
I have always fervently supported the idea of a secular state. The Parti Quebecois’ ban on religious symbols would only apply to state-workers, and citizens seeking government services.
We need to talk about it. Why is mental health such a taboo topic, especially among law students? The fact is, many of us are going through the same thing, so we should talk about it. So, let’s have the talk.
What is it about law school that makes law students believe they do not belong? Why do so many of us feel that we got in by fluke? What are the pressures that law students are facing?
As we enter into Mental Health Awareness Week, I can’t help but observe that, while well-intentioned, it does nothing to solve the underlying problems law students face when it comes to combatting stress and anxiety, and optimizing their learning. How could it? But if this is all the institution we pay tens of thousands of dollars to each year can muster up, it leaves me feeling uneasy that our...
ALEXANDRA ILIC <Contributor> How do you interpret international news that you watch on TV or read in the newspaper? Yes, of course, you do interpret them, even though it may be unconscious. Even journalists interpret the facts before informing the world about them. Thinking about journalists as independent may be utopic, even though I like to believe that some actually are. One needs to...
ANGIE SHEEP <Arts & Culture Editor> My night class, which should have ended at 10pm, ended nearly half an hour late. As people quickly filtered out of the room, eager to get home, I stood up and marched out slowly; my bus had already departed and it was uncertain when the next one would be. This meant that I wouldn’t arrive home until 11:30pm since I live downtown. On the entire way...
CASS DA RE
<Editor-in-Chief>
Some of you might be too young (or too old) to remember the 2003 angsty-pop single by Michelle Branch, titled “Are you happy now?”
SARA HANSON
<Contributor>
You’ve probably heard the debate by now, or maybe you have participated in it.
ANGIE SHEEP
<Arts & Culture Editor>
This week’s article may be a little morbid to read as I am writing about the top regrets of the dying.
GEOFF GOODSON <Staff Writer> The enthusiasm has waned and the dinner-party has returned home, back to our cozy social circles and comfortable silences. Yet, there is still fruit left on the table, which tends to ripen and rot when left uneaten. I direct my article towards this degradation while, undeniably, admitting my own complicit role in its dissipating rot. For, in a corner, just...
KYLIE THOMAS
<Contributor>
I intend to be as polite as possible in responding to your incredibly discourteous email you felt the need to forward to the entire class.
TRAVIS WEAGANT
<Editor-in-Chief>
Last year, I wrote an editorial after Québec’s provincial election
ANGIE SHEEP
<Arts & Culture Editor>
In this issue I have decided to deviate from my usual fashion focus and speak to something that had concerned me all last year
SAM MICHAELS
<Contributor>
With only two weeks of law school behind me, and the recoil of this seemingly monumental career leap still reverberating, I thought now would be a good time to take a stab at the question which has so clearly dominated my time at Osgoode so far.
BRITT GUNN
<Contributor>
Since the August 21 sarin gas attack outside Damascus, international headlines on the civil war that has been raging in Syria for two and a half years have been dominated by the deal brokered by the United States and Russia to dismantle the Syrian regime’s stock of chemical weapons.
GEOFF GOODSON <Contributor> Law school starts in three days. There are prostitutes around me– I give them some cigarettes and ask if I can sit in their corner, which is strewn with clothing, garbage and discarded needles. They fidget and banter, fidget and banter. I hug my knees drunkenly against the barrier, watching them crush up crack and inject it into their feet. I don’t know...
TRAVIS WEAGANT
<Editor-in-Chief>
1Ls and other incoming students arrived on August 29th this year, earlier than last.
CITLALLY MACIEL
<News Editor>
This piece is for you 1Ls.
MICHAEL CAPITANO
<Staff Writer>
NADIA GUO
<Staff Writer>
It’s a bad time to be studying law.