The Chicago native is back with a bang with his latest On 29 August 2021, Kanye West dropped his tenth studio album, Donda and it was not without controversy. The album, named after his late mother, came to fruition through three separate listening events in two of the largest venues in the United States. The events were also being live-streamed to millions all over the world. At one point in the...
With transfers occurring left and right after clubs loosened their purse strings, this season in the English top flight will prove to be exciting Last year’s Premier League season saw Manchester City win the league title with a few games to spare with a relatively paltry sum of eighty-six points. Although their devilish city neighbour’s form saw them only mathematically win their third league...
From Tom Brady to an additional game, the year promises to be an exciting one With the 102 season of the National Football League just underway, fans can look forward to the numerous intriguing storylines that are present in the league this year. Here are a few: “It’s a man! It’s a plane! No, it’s the GOAT!” Former First Take analyst Max Kellerman is famous for theorizing in 2016 that then-New...
As some 65,000 unmasked fans flooded the stands of Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay on Thursday, the National Football League (NFL) season kicked off with quite a bang. The classic Buccaneer cannons rang out with each touchdown scored — and there were a lot of them! In the end, the Bucs (and the refs) stole one in the dying seconds from a Cowboys team that gave it their all. Final score: 31-29...
The cost of hosting the famous Games grows more and more each iteration Every Winter or Summer Olympics, heartwarming sports moments flood our discourse. For the Tokyo 2020 Olympics this past summer, those heartwarming moments came again in full force. Two of my favourite moments were Andre De Grasse from my hometown of Markham, Ontario winning gold in the 200 m, and weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz...
Alternative Routes to Big Law [Editor’s Note: This article was previously published on Mondaq, on 8 April 2021] It is that time of year again, when Big Law firms can breathe after wrapping up another summer student recruit, and those students who were successful during the recruit can celebrate and start thinking about their “3LOL” year. However, while there is a lot...
Dear Osgoode — This issue is our last as co-editors-in-chief. We are excited to pass the baton to three of our senior editors: Tomislav Milos, Lauren Graham, and Alice Liu. They will be taking over the management of Obiter shortly, and we are confident that, in their hands, the paper will remain a forum for expression on issues that matter to the Osgoode community. We know, of course, that they...
I’ve been writing for Obiter for all of my three years at Osgoode, and I decided pretty early on that I would write like I was speaking to a friend, and not like I was trying to win a Pulitzer. For the most part, it’s been rewarding. For the most part, I feel like I’ve done what I said I would. While I’m sad that this is the last time you’ll need to see, read, or skip over...
In the first two Parts of this series we introduced the SPAC, explored some examples and highlighted some concerns. The very nature of the SPAC attracts private companies that either do not have the money or the time to access the public markets through the ordinary IPO process. But are such companies suitable for the public markets? Being a public company comes with its own sets of challenges...
NFTs continue to change the way the world views digital art and its economic sustainability. The explosion in internet usage of the last few decades has animated and expedited dissemination of information, but this benefit has also resulted in an increased tug-of-war between artists’ ability to protect their property rights in their work and the prevalence of piracy. Furthermore, the speed and...
In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic caused the regrettable cancellation of many oral advocacy competitions including moots and negotiations. In 2021, the organizers of these competitions regrouped and made the decision to conduct them virtually. While unprecedented, hosting moots online is akin to how many matters in the legal system are being conducted today. Fortunately, Osgoode rose to the...
Fellow Osgoode student Ali Imrie, a 4th year in the extended time program, has secured a clerkship with the Ontario Court of Appeal for 2022-2023. The path to clerking at Ontario’s highest court has not been an easy one for Ali, as there are a number of barriers in place for law students with disabilities. Ali explains that law students with disabilities face various barriers in academic...
Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) Laws In February 2015, the Supreme Court ruled that s. 241 (prohibiting physicians from assisting in ending life) and s. 14 of the Criminal Code infringed s. 7 of the Charter and were not justified under s. 1. They were held to be of no force and effect, to the extent that they “prohibit physician-assisted death for a competent adult person who (1) clearly...
Remote work and school have been the new normal for a year. We have all adjusted to doing pretty much anything social via Zoom. Classes, moots, OCI’s, exams and even Mock Trial have all moved to the online world. Even courts have had to adjust to trials via Zoom. This new reliance on Zoom has created a new anxiety – forgetting to mute. Most of us have accidentally un-muted during a Zoom...
As International Women’s Day passed, I found myself reflecting on my positionality in the male-dominated legal field as a woman; a white passing, biracial woman, to be precise. I will preface this opinion piece by stating I do not share the same experiences as a BIPOC woman, and I am not trying to speak on behalf of women (if you need to be reminded, no one is the spokesperson for women, in...
Two issues ago, I wrote in Obiter Dicta about the unprecedented risk of nuclear Armageddon. In this issue, I want to talk about something slightly more insidious and not quite as sexy – the impending end of humanity through reproductive failure. Many readers will be familiar with P.D. James’ timeless novel “Children of Men” in which reproductive failure in human males leads to global chaos...
[I’m very grateful to Heidi Young for raising the questions and concerns set out in this article. Following the publication of the article, Jeffery Sperling and I met with Heidi and other students to discuss these issues. Over the summer, we will work on addressing these issues, and in September, Heidi and I plan to co-author an article for Obiter Dicta setting out the resolutions and...
As a result of climate change, extreme weather events and natural disasters will worsen which can add to the threats that force people to flee across international borders. Furthermore, desertification, drought, land degradation and erratic rainfall will increase as temperatures rise and put pressure on people’s livelihoods leading to forced migration. In 2018, there were 28 million...
Two Systems, One Ignored Well, it’s finally happened, folks. As of March 13th, Dominic Raab, Foreign Secretary for the United Kingdom, now considers the People’s Republic of China to be in a “state of ongoing non-compliance” with the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984, after the “third breach in nine months”. Does this change a lot? Not necessarily. As many may already know, the Joint...
The third anniversary of Maxime Bernier’s exit from the Conservative Party of Canada is approaching. Following his firing from Andrew Scheer’s shadow cabinet and subsequent involvement in a media firestorm surrounding his comments on diversity and multiculturalism, he decided to quit the party and form his own. Dubbing it the People’s Party of Canada (PPC), Bernier claimed that his new party...
In one of the largest university settlement cases, the University of Southern California (USC) has agreed to an $852 million USD settlement in addition to their previous $215 million settlement approved by the federal court. The total settlement is even larger than many of the settlements that followed the child sex abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church. Ironically, both are closely related...
Growing up, Luke didn’t feel Indigenous at all. Most of his family lived on or near the reserve on Scugog Island quite close to Lindsay, Ontario, where he was born. “We’d go out to res very often, but it never felt like an Indigenous community, it was just my family,” he tells me as we sit on opposite sides of a picnic bench on a cold November morning in front of his studio in downtown Kitchener...
Almost every aspect of law school is tough: building your summaries, studying for exams, job recruits, and having to balance all that with your extracurricular and volunteer activities. Plus, you have to deal with it all in a virtual environment where you’re stuck inside watching the seasons pass you by. That is precisely why it’s so important to watch a show with a main character that exudes...
It’s safe to say that this year has been one of the most challenging school years I’ve had, and I’ve definitely found myself turning to “feel-good” entertainment more and more. I love turning on an episode of “Parks and Recreation”, re-reading Lord of the Rings, or making a matcha latte as a reward for getting through another long day of working from home. As exam season approaches and stress...
The music of Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) is some of the most exquisitely crafted in the classical repertoire. The composer’s perfectionism is evinced by his small output. There are basically a handful or two of major works, and many of the orchestral pieces are simply arrangements of compositions for piano. But there are few, if any, duds. Take, for example, the String Quartet (1903). It is easy to...