Kevin O’Leary’s recent comments on about how half the world living in poverty as “fantastic news” are disconcerting to say the least. According to O’Leary, “It gets them motivation to look up to the one percent and say I want to become one of those people. I am going to fight hard to get up to the top.” “I celebrate capitalism,” he said. You can see the video here. Let’s just take a work at what...
It is a widely held belief that addiction and pleasure make for poor bed fellows. Addicts are portrayed as wretched and joyless creatures: they are pale-faced and sunken-eyed hungry ghosts, stalking the urban landscape, wholly preoccupied with the addiction before them, deriving no pleasure from its fleeting abeyance. The architects of this paradigm are the medical authorities, who tell us that...
What are the costs of providing civil justice to Canadians? What are the costs of not providing access to civil justice for Canadians? These two questions are at the heart of one of the exciting projects underway at the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice (CFCJ). “The Cost of Justice: Weighing the Cost of Fair and Effective Resolution to Legal Problems” is a 5-year, SSHRC funded, interdisciplinary...
The legal world seems to be something of a paradox. Without missing a beat law societies and legal theory espouse lofty statements of morality, while at the same time encouraging lawyers to be nothing more than “amoral technicians”. The message is lawyers are the valiant vanguards of justice and right…unless the client just wants you to help increase the value of their stock, then do that. The...
Though every year seems to bring its own theme of revolution and social change, arguably 2014 can best be spent sewing our past hopes into our future aspirations. Perhaps it is time to put our current conception of “revolution” to rest, to build a new, more lasting, understanding of the idea. Since crossing into the age of majority, and being an avid news follower, I have found myself repeatedly...
And so a new year and a new semester have begun. Hopefully everyone had a fun but relaxing break. As promised, I did some leisure reading and finished watching season one of House of Cards (among other shows that I had neglected because of…well you know, law school). Surely, there is no need to describe the plot. Suffice to say that House of Cards is, generally put, a political drama. It is a...
It’s not just the nature of practising law – the habits and beliefs which make lawyers miserable are instilled right here in law school. 3L should be a time of celebration. Most of us have completed at least 7 years of post-secondary education, sometimes a lot more. We’ve been assessed and prodded more thoroughly than even the finest steak. We’ve beaten the odds again, and again, and again...
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