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...
It’s hard to believe that we’re nearly at the end of the academic year, and while that is a relief in many ways, it means that we have to confront the beast once more: finals. It’s time to scream at yourself for not having taken better notes in class, fire up the ol’ L&L database, and get to work. And so, I have compiled an ever-so-carefully curated playlist of classical music to...
A Recap of the 2021 NBA Trade Deadline The NBA trade deadline day has always been a nerve-wracking day for NBA fans waiting to see whether their favourite players will be traded. For Raptors fans, this year’s trade deadline had the potential to be franchise-altering with the possibility of trading both franchise star and GROAT (Greatest Raptor of All Time) Kyle Lowry and long-time Raptor Norman...
Staff Writer Luke Giffen Reflects on his NHL Predictions and Takes Us Back Through What’s Been a Truly Bizarre, One-of-a-Kind NHL Season As we move well past the halfway point of this strange NHL season, I thought it would be a good idea to look back on how my predictions stacked up from when the season first began. Also, I’ll recap the multitude of interesting stories that have popped up along...
Boxer Marvelous Marvin Hagler passed away on March 13, 2021. He had his name legally changed to “Marvelous” after announcers did not refer to his nickname. He was marvelous in the ring and was considered one of the “Four Kings” of his generation of boxers, which included Thomas Hearns, Roberto Durán, and Sugar Ray Leonard. I love the sport of boxing, and it’s taught me some transferrable skills...
Why we ought to give the future HOFer his flowers while he is still here As the adage goes, you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. For a brief moment in time, Raptors fans were given no choice but to stare into the unknown and envision a world without Kyle Lowry. The whirlwind of a nine-game losing streak, talks of a rebuild in the media, and rumours of a frugal real estate transaction...
Innovation has been the defining feature in equipping the international community to fight back against COVID-19. As the race for a vaccine shaped much of last year and as vaccinations continue to ramp up across the world this year, it has become increasingly vital to contextualize the strategy of the different players in the intellectual property and pharmaceutical patent scene. In particular...
The microeconomics and internal workings of our securities markets and exchanges are incredibly complex, and few know anything beyond that – even the most sophisticated of current investors. If the world of investing were isolated, then the obscurity of its nature would not be entirely concerning. But the reality is that much of society’s infrastructure – literally and figuratively – is tied up...
When families are unable to sort out their issues and take them to court, someone is going to win and the other will lose. Likely, the loser will be ordered to pay some amount in costs to the other party. This is what happened to Mr. Ryan Phelps in Phelps v Childs, 2021 ONSC 1468 when he tried to appeal an order from Abrams J. dated June 11, 2019. The Appellant, Mr. Phelps was ordered to return...
In the summer of 2019, the York Regional Police arrested approximately nine people with alleged links to the ‘Ndrangheta, an Italian mafia clan. In an operation called “Project Sindacato,” the police raided various locations seizing 27 homes, 23 sports cars, 11 gaming houses, gambling machines, luxury liquors, jewelry, and cash. By the time the raids came to an end, nearly $35 million in goods...
On February 24th, 2021, a German court sentenced Eyad al-Gharib, a former member of the Syrian regime’s intelligence service, to four and a half years in prison for aiding and abetting the torture of civilians. The court stated that the defendant had arrested at least 30 anti-government protestors at the beginning of the conflict in 2011, sending them to a facility where he knew torture takes...
will the Roaring 20’s lead to a burning of the next decades to come? According to Wall Street, Washington, and Ottawa economists, many consumers are sitting on piles of pandemic savings that is prompting the possible prospect of a post-covid boom. Even in the last few weeks, vaccine distribution has increased and retail sales have jumped. This is said to be a result of months of lockdown induced...