And the Many Different Ways We Will be Evaluated As we all know by now, exams are right around the corner. As a 1L, it was news to me that a final exam could have so many different forms. Papers, take homes, in-class closed book, and in-class open book, to name a few. Let’s take a look at these and see what’s particularly the most fair (or unfair). The final paper worth 80-100% of your mark is an...
On November 30th, the TTC will stop selling tickets, tokens and passes. “Not to worry,” their subway posters tell us, “PRESTO’s got you covered.” This cheerful reassurance hides the fact that this latest change to service is approaching the last step in a gradual process of de-anonymization: beginning with the introduction of PRESTO in 2009, accelerating with the extinction of the Metropass last...
Don Cherry finds himself off-side with the public, and his employer I already knew what was coming before the final notes of ‘Flame of Victory’ had faded into silence. In fact, wanting to hear Canada’s most controversial sports personality go off was the sole reason why I took a break from paper-writing, and tuned in to the last five minutes of the...
Representative Democracy protects us from runaway majoritarianism On the evening of election day November 7th, 2000, then-Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush won the White House by carrying 30 states and their 271 electoral college votes. His Democratic opponent, Al Gore, won only 20 states and their 266 electoral college votes – despite receiving over 500,000 more votes in the...
The LSO’s Statement of Principles Missed Its Mark At September’s convocation, the Law Society of Ontario (“LSO”) voted 28–20 (with two abstentions) to repeal the Statement of Principles (“SOP”), an oath that every licensee must adopt in their annual report “to promote equality, diversity and inclusion”, both generally and in one’s “behaviour towards colleagues, employees, clients and the public.”...
At the height of the SNC-Lavalin scandal in March, CTV News cited an anonymous source who said the relationship between former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau soured after she proposed Mantioba Justice Glenn Joyal to replace Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin on the Supreme Court of Canada. According to the source, Trudeau was disturbed by Wilson-Raybould’s...
Hong Kong in crisis – an on-the-ground perspective From merely urging for a withdrawal of a bill to presently calling for “five demands, not one less”, Hong Kongers have been through a tumultuous three months. The ability of the pro-democracy movement to regain its composure after the government’s military response to the protests can be seen as a signal that they will not repeat the same...
Thoughts on Our Constitutional Values Jack Letts was born and raised in England. He likes pasties and Dr. Who, speaks with a British accent, and looks like someone you’d call a regular bloke. But as of this summer, Jack Letts is no longer a citizen of the United Kingdom. After travelling to Syria in 2014 to join ISIL (where he admittedly fought against the Syrian army, trained child soldiers and...
Our imperfect political leaders represent an imperfect Canada ‘May you live in interesting times’, goes the purported ancient Chinese proverb; and considering the options available to Canadians casting a ballot in the upcoming federal election, interesting times we live in, indeed. The leader of the Liberal Party, our incumbent Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has recently been found to have had...
Uncertainty and apprehension froths in the air, signaling the end of the formal articling recruit and the beginning of fresh chaos. Ashy, sunken faces of third-year law students are starting to thaw and, sometimes, they imbue with colour. For most, the journey was rigorous and eventful. Had the first two years of law school aptly prepared students for this moment? Of course. Vigorous...
Click-Bait Journalism is Damaging the Industry’s Credibility Initially, the internet was supposed to save journalism. The internet provided journalists, and the newsrooms that employed them, what seemed like an effective counter-punch to the on-the-minute breaking stories found on cable news and talk radio, which had so wounded the relevance of print media through the 1980s and 90s. Yet...
The UFO Phenomenon Breaks Into the Mainstream Widespread contemporary interest in unidentified flying objects, popularly known as ‘UFOs’, is agreed to have been sparked by the 1947 Roswell incident, in which an object described by witnesses as looking like a ‘flying disc’, or ‘saucer’, is reported to have crashed at a ranch outside of the sleepy city of Roswell, New Mexico. This incident sparked...
The people of Hong Kong have been under some form of political subjugation since at least 1842, when Qing China formally ceded Hong Kong Island to the British Empire with the signing of the Treaty of Nanking. The Treaty — which came as a consequence of the Qing defeat in the First Opium War — formalized Hong Kong Island as a Crown colony “in perpetuity” and began an era of colonial control over...
Discriminatory legislation in Quebec met with a national shrug As Canadians, we are taught from a young age that we possess certain inalienable rights and freedoms, and that the governments we elect have the responsibility of upholding and protecting them. A few months ago, however, Quebec’s Premier, Francois Legault, awoke many Canadians to the harsh reality that those same governments are also...
Doug Ford’s gas pump stickers are meant to mislead There are different ways to be wrong, and the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario’s plan to mandate a ‘federal carbon tax notice’ on gas pumps across the province can lay claim to at least two of them: they’re misleading, and they’re unconstitutional. The simple, easy rebuke of these problematic sticky squares lies in their failure to...
Corey Robert LeBlanc – Opinions Editor When Obiter’s Editor-in-Chief asked each of us section editors to pen a welcome message to each of you for the 2019-20 school year, I admit that I found the exercise a bit hokey. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to introduce myself, or that I am uninterested in outlining my intentions for this section, but rather that I simply believe that it is a boring...
Growing up I loved Kool-Aid. I would drink that sugar water like there was no tomorrow. I would plead with my mother to get me the juice pouches and send me off with it with my packed school lunches. Whenever the iconic “Oh yeah!” would play on a commercial or on Family Guy (back when that show was good), I would get excited. Yet, as I grew up, the drink lost its charm and man oh man, how...
During the hectic times that dear ol’ Osgoode is experiencing, we tend to rely on our furry friends to give us comfort through this strike and exam season crunch. The therapy dogs that visit Osgoode, for instance, have endured many of my hugs. My own cats act like familiars more than pets but then again maybe I am secretly a witch lawyer-to-be? But that’s a thought for another article surely...
My mother and her partner flew into Toronto from Edmonton on February 28th. She was planning to visit me this spring, so I suggested that she come on the weekend coinciding with Bring Your Parents to Work Day, hosted by the First Generation Network, and also the Osgoode First Generation Family Day, hosted by the Student Success and Wellness team. Neither she nor my dad has university education...
Exploring new innovative models in family law Written on behalf of the Osgoode Hall Family Law Association I ask myself this question regularly. Technology now delivers countless essential services. Banking is automated. Dating apps are the norm. We Uber everywhere. But our legal system is stuck in the past. When it comes to technology, Ontario is approximately 20 to 25 years behind the US...
Modern love is a strange experience. Love used to involve sharing milkshakes at the local diner, bringing flowers on a first date, and defining when we were going steady. But now, the internet has introduced new social patterns for us to navigate. From trying to figure out why people keep texting me the eggplant emoji, to wondering why people keep complimenting my peach emoji, the world of...
Many of us consider pets as part of our families. We love them, and treat them like such. So, it is hard to imagine that a pet could be hurt without any consequences. A recent story in the news proved the contrary. Molly was a three-year-old Vietnamese potbelly pig who was rescued by the British Columbia SPCA, and nursed back to health. She was cared for by the SPCA staff just like...
It’s time to put the brakes on the idea of Ryerson Law and look at the negative effects of opening another law school in Toronto The Law Society of Ontario (LSO) recently approved Ryerson’s proposed new law school. I am sure that most of us have a similar response to this – enough is enough! You may think that I’m being self-interested in opposing Ryerson’s dreams of having a legal institution...
Since the day I arrived at Osgoode, it has been eminently clear to me that I am one of only a handful of visibly disabled students here. As someone who generally prefers to blend in, being one of the only students in a wheelchair has made me feel incredibly conspicuous whenever I am in the building, and I’m reminded daily that my experiences as a disabled law student are far from the norm...
Jordan B. Peterson’s Edict for Starting the Adventure of Sorting Yourself Out Jordan B. Peterson, Clinical Psychologist, and Professor at the University of Toronto with over 120 heavily cited publications in Academic Psychology Journals,[1] a YouTube audience with over half a million subscribers and nearly 30 million views,[2] and a 100% ‘would re-take’ score on “Rate My Professor”[3] is telling...