Asper Centre News and Blog

by: Chelsea Gordon and Daniel Kiesman For the first time in Canada, an appellate court has considered the implications of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (“Charter”) on climate change policy. In a decision released on October 17th, the ...

by Kate Shackleton  From working directly with young clients to arguing cases at the Supreme Court of Canada, Mary Birdsell has advocated on behalf of children and youth for more than 25 years.  This fall, she will share her knowledge of children ...

by Vlad Mirel, with Neil Abraham and Megan Stephens In a 5-4 split, the Supreme Court of Canada in Canada (Attorney General) v. Power held that damages may be awarded to those affected by Charter-violating laws. Although the threshold that must be ...

We are pleased to announce that Mary Birdsell has been selected as the Asper Centre’s new Constitutional Litigator in Residence for Fall 2024. Mary will be co-teaching the Asper Centre’s Clinic Course in the Fall 2024 term with our Executive ...

By Vlad Mirel and Kate Shackleton On May 29, 2024, academics, parliamentarians, and youth activists from across the globe gathered in Ottawa for Canada’s first-ever national Vote16 Summit. The event was organized by Vote16 Canada – a national ...

by Katherine Shackleton and Sarah Zaitlin On December 5th, 2023, Bill C-48 received royal assent in Parliament. Among other reforms to the Criminal Code, the bill expanded the reverse onus provision for offences involving intimate partner violence ...

On March 14, 2024 the Asper Centre hosted a panel event to celebrate the launch of “Improving Access to Abortion Services in Canada: A What We Heard Report.” The Asper Centre regularly convenes student working groups that prepare policy briefs, ...

In Memoriam The Asper Centre joins the University of Toronto in mourning the passing of Peter H. Russell, Professor Emeritus. An esteemed and prolific contributor to the University of Toronto community, Peter left a significant legacy in the fields ...

by Chelsea Gordon, Daniel Kiesman and Sang Park On January 15, 2024, the Asper Centre intervened before the Ontario Court of Appeal in Mathur v Ontario. The Asper Centre’s Constitutional Litigator in Residence Ewa Krajewska acted as counsel for the ...

On January 15, 2024, the Asper Centre will be intervening in the case of Mathur et al v His Majesty the King in Right of Ontario at the Ontario Court of Appeal, generously represented by our counsel and recent Constitutional Litigator in Residence ...

Jutta Brunnée, Faculty of Law Dean, University Professor and James Marshall Tory Dean’s Chair in conversation with Asper Centre Executive Director Cheryl Milne The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights celebrated 15 years at their special ...

by Carson Cook, Eva Boghosian and Hannah West As members of the 2023-2024 Environmental Rights Student Working Group at the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights, eleven first year students at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law have ...

by Emma Davies Ewa Krajewska, a civil litigator and partner at Henein Hutchison Robitaille LLP, is co-teaching the Asper Centre’s clinic course as the 2023 Constitutional Litigator in Residence. Over the summer, I sat down with Ms. Krajewska to ...

We are pleased to announce that Ewa Krajewska has been selected as the Asper Centre’s Constitutional Litigator in Residence for Fall 2023. Ewa will be co-teaching the Asper Centre’s Clinic Course in the Fall 2023 term with our Executive ...

by Daniel Kiesman In Mathur v Ontario[1] the Ontario Superior Court of Justice rejected the constitutional challenge to the greenhouse gas emissions target set by Government of Ontario under s. 3(1) of the Cap and Trade Cancellation Act (“CTCA”).[2] ...

by Kailyn Johnson In a 5-4 split, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the constitutionality of sections 742.1(c) and 742.1(e)(ii) of the Canadian Criminal Code (R v Sharma, 2022 SCC 39 at paras 2-4 [Sharma]). These sections of the Criminal Code, ...

Jessica Orkin has been selected as the Asper Centre Constitutional-Litigator-in-Residence for Fall 2022. Jessica Orkin is a partner at Goldblatt Partners LLP in Toronto and leads the firm’s Aboriginal law practice. She has a broad litigation ...

By: Caitlin Salvino On June 23rd, 2022 the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) released its decision in R v J.J..[1] This 6–3 ruling upheld the constitutionality of recent amendments to the Criminal Code that remove barriers for complainants within the ...

by Caitlin Salvino On June 23rd, 2022 the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) released its decision in Attorney General of British Columbia v. Council of Canadians with Disabilities.[1] This ruling reaffirms the important role of public interest standing ...

by Caitlin Salvino In the Fall of 2022, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) will hear the case Canadian Council for Refugees, et al. v. Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, et al.[1] The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights, West Coast ...

by Caitlin Salvino In R v Bissonnette, released on May 27, 2022, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) ruled on the constitutionality of consecutive first degree murder sentences.[1] The SCC held that consecutive first degree murder sentences, ...

by Kathryn Mullins On May 13, 2022 the Supreme Court handed down its unanimous ruling in the related cases of R v Brown,[1] R v Sullivan[2] and R v Chan.[3] The Court declared that s. 33.1 of the Criminal Code, which barred the use of the defence of ...

Asper Centre Outlook Newsletter April 2022...

The Asper Centre has joined a number of civil society organizations across Canada to call for the public inquiry into the recent invocation of the Emergencies Act to have broad terms of reference and all the powers under Parts I & III of the ...

by: Bailey Fox Introduction In R v Morris, 2021 ONCA 680, the Ontario Court of Appeal (OCA) considered the impact and role of anti-Black racism in sentencing. The Asper Centre intervened in the appeal, specifically on the issue of whether an ...

TORONTO, Dec. 1, 2021 – A group of Canadian children and youth are set to make history, opening the possibility that they and their peers may be able to cast a ballot in the next federal election. The 13 young people range in age between 12 to 18 ...

by: Bailey Fox On Tuesday November 9, 2021 the Asper Centre hosted a constitutional roundtable panel on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in City of Toronto et al v Ontario, 2021 SCC 34. The Asper Centre intervened in the appeal at both the ...

by Bailey Fox Introduction On October 1, 2021, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) released its decision in Toronto (City) v Ontario (Attorney General), 2021 SCC 34 [City of Toronto]. In the 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court held that the legislation ...

In a deeply divided 5 to 4 decision released today, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the Better Local Government Act, 2018 as constitutional. This legislation was enacted by the newly elected Ford government in 2018, midway through an ongoing ...

About the Series  Charter: A Course is a podcast created by the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights (the Asper Centre) and hosted by the Asper Centre’s Executive Director Cheryl Milne. Charter: A Course focuses on Canadian constitutional law and......

  By Wei Yang On June 25, 2021, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) released its reasons for judgement in R v Chouhan,1 a case that the Asper Centre intervened in last year. Background Mr Chouhan was charged with first-degree murder and was thus ...

  By Leila Far Soares  Jonathan Rudin, program director at Aboriginal Legal Services and experienced litigator, will be co-teaching the Asper Centre’s Clinic course as the new Constitutional Litigator-in-Residence for Fall 2021. Mr. Rudin has ...

The Asper Centre is pleased to announce that Jonathan Rudin has been selected as its new Constitutional-Litigator-in-Residence and will be co-teaching the Asper Centre’s clinical course in the Fall of 2021. Mr. Rudin’s extensive ...

  71) We call upon all chief coroners and provincial vital statistics agencies that have not provided to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada their records on the deaths of Aboriginal children in the care of residential school ...

  The Asper Centre is excited to welcome eight new research assistants for Summer 2021, three of whom who are working directly through the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. This year’s research assistants will be taking on many new ...

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(via the Department of Canadian Heritage) The Department of Canadian Heritage is seeking individuals interested in serving on the Court Challenges Program’s Human Rights Expert Panel. The seven-member expert panel is responsible for making decisions ...

by Cameron Somerville On March 25th, 2021, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) upheld as constitutional the federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act (GGPPA), which sets a benchmark for pricing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across the country. In ...

by Teodora Pasca On February 11, 2021, the Court of Appeal for Ontario heard oral arguments in R v Morris, the long-anticipated appeal that is expected to determine how systemic anti-Black racism should factor into sentencing determinations. The ...

by Annie Chan Arising from the Honour of the Crown, the duty to consult is a central tool in the protection of Aboriginal rights and the promotion of Crown-Indigenous reconciliation in Canada. As summarized by Professor Kerry Wilkins, adjunct ...

The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights joins the constitutional law community in mourning the death of Joseph Arvay, O.C., O.B.C., Q.C. Joe Arvay offered his time to the Centre as our first constitutional litigator in residence. Indeed he ...

by Jeffrey Wang The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) recently released the decision of ON (Attorney General) v G. This case challenged the constitutionality of Christopher’s Law, an Ontario law that allowed some offenders who were convicted of sexual ...

By Julia Nowicki “Urban agglomeration is amongst the most burning policy challenges of the twenty-first century”, says Ran Hirschl, professor of political science and law and fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. “The continued silence of ...

by Jeffrey Wang On October 16th, 2020, the Supreme Court of Canada released the landmark decision of Fraser v Canada, clarifying how adverse effect discrimination fits into the s. 15 framework. Adverse effect discrimination can be defined as when a ...

By Julia Nowicki Implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in Canadian law will not be without challenges, and will require both hard-work and great care, said Kerry Wilkins at the Asper Centre’s first ...

by Annie Chan The Asper Centre recently intervened in R v Chouhan, a case before the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) whose outcome has fundamental implications on the process of jury selection in criminal trials. Background For 150 years, two types of ...

by Ainslie Pierrynowski Does a provincial government have the authority to restrict interprovincial travel? Can limitations on mobility rights be justified in the name of public health? These timely issues were at the heart of Taylor v Newfoundland ...

By Amy Chen Nader Hasan, a partner at Stockwoods LLP and one of Canada’s leading appellate lawyers, will be co-teaching the Asper Centre’s clinic course this fall as the constitutional litigator-in-residence. He graciously sat down with me to ...

by Amy Chen On July 29, 2020, Lisa Austin, Andrea Slane, Vincent Chiao, and David Lie joined Director Cheryl Milne of the Asper Centre to discuss their collaborative research paper: Test, Trace, and Isolate: COVID-19 and the Canadian Constitution. ...

  A majority of the Ontario Court of Appeal has struck down Criminal Code provisions which made conditional sentences unavailable for certain offences. The ruling comes in response to Cheyenne Sharma’s constitutional challenge to these ...

By Amy Chen In late 2019, Ecojustice and Stockwoods LLP initiated a constitutional challenge (“the Application”) against Ontario’s greenhouse gas reduction target on behalf of seven young climate activists (the “Applicants”). Ontario responded with ...

  Unresolved Fault Lines Appear on the Normative Scope of Criminal Law Powers By Nicholas Buhite On July 10th, 2020, the Supreme Court of Canada released its judgment in Reference re Genetic Non-Discrimination Act (2020 SCC 17), a reference ...

The Supreme Court of Canada heard this appeal in Treaty One Territory (Winnipeg, Manitoba). This was the Court’s first time sitting outside of Ottawa.  by Amy Chen On June 12, 2020, the Supreme Court of Canada released its judgment on Conseil ...

The Asper Centre welcomes four new research assistants for the summer of 2020. Despite these unusual times, everyone is busy with exciting projects, including two interventions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Amy Jun Chen Amy received her Bachelors ...

On May 6th 2020, a group of child rights organizations, lawyers and advocates from across Canada, including Asper Centre ED Cheryl Milne, joined forces to advocate for the rights of children in detention during the Covid-19 pandemic. The group ...

  Ten years after Toronto hosted the G20 summit, a civil suit launched against the Toronto police has finally been resolved by the Ontario Court of Appeal. The decision—Stewart v. Toronto (Police Services Board)—represents a strong affirmation ...

Nader Hasan has been selected as the Asper Centre Constitutional-Litigator-in-Residence for Fall 2020. Nader’s wealth of constitutional litigation experience in areas ranging from search and seizure law to digital privacy law to protecting civil ...

by Cheryl Milne It seems like a lifetime ago that I last attended an in-person legal conference. It was only March 9th, and while the specter of COVID-19 was present (there were hand sanitizer dispensers at the elevator banks and we all used them), ...

  Dear Asper Centre Friends, We hope that you, your loved ones and colleagues are keeping safe and well during these challenging times. Shortly before the faculty of law closed due to COVID-19 earlier this month, the Asper Centre published its ...

by Adam LaRiviere On February 24th, 2020, the Alberta Court of Appeal (‘ABCA’) released its decision regarding the constitutional challenge of the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, SC 2018, c 12 (‘Act’). The case was decided 4-1 in favour of the ...

PDF version: Asper Centre Outlook March 2020  ...

By Jeffrey Wang As a clinic student this term, I had the opportunity to hear the Asper Centre’s oral arguments in its intervention at the Supreme Court of Canada in the appeal of Ontario v. G, which took place on February 20, 2020. The appeal ...

by Kylie de Chastelain Many students are fascinated by the constitutional issues they engage with in the classroom and the Asper Centre regularly receives questions about how to work towards a career in Constitutional law. To help address these ...

  by Mashoka Maimona On January 22, 2020, the Asper Centre hosted three lawyers involved in two cases before the Ontario Court of Appeal (ONCA) in which the Asper Centre intervened — R v Morris and R v Sharma — which consider how historical and ...

By Kylie de Chastelain The Asper Centre recently hosted Professor Carissima Mathen, author of Courts Without Cases: The Law and Politics of Advisory Opinions (2019), for a dynamic Constitutional Roundtable about her new book, with Professor Lorraine ...

Back row (left to right): Mackenzie Cumberland; Clara Pencer; Leah Kelley; and Florian Nagy. Front row (left to right): Madeleine Carswell; Keely Kinley; and Yara Willox. Members not pictured: Madeleine Andrew-Gee; Adam LaRiviere; Leora Chapman; ...

via UofT Faculty of Law News: https://www.law.utoronto.ca//news/students-call-ontario-and-federal-governments-act-air-pollution Monday, November 18, 2019   Today, November 18th, is the Student Law Clinic Global Day of Action for Climate ...

Toronto, November 14, 2019 — In partnership with several child rights organizations, Justice for Children and Youth (JFCY) and the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights (Asper Centre) have secured case development funding from the Court ...

by Karen Chen, Shelby Rooney and Anju Xing Dozens gathered in front of the Federal Court in Toronto this Monday, Nov. 4 to chant along in support of a legal challenge against the United States’ designation as a “safe country” under the Safe Third ...

by Kylie de Chastelain On October 28, 2019, the Indigenous Initiatives Office at the Faculty of Law hosted lawyers Maggie Wente and Sinead Charbonneau from Olthius Kleer Townshend LLP for a presentation entitled: First Nations Child Welfare Practice ...

by Kylie de Chastelain On Wednesday, October 2nd, 2019 the Asper Centre hosted Professor Brandon Garrett for a Constitutional Roundtable titled “Wealth, Equal Protection and Due Process.” Professor Garrett presented work from a recent paper ...

The Asper Centre is intervening in the upcoming Supreme Court of Canada case of Conseil scolaire francophone de la Colombie Britannique v British Columbia (Éducation) relating to whether British Columbia failed to adequately fund and support French ...

by Keely Kinley On September 19, 2019, the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed the City of Toronto’s legal challenge against the Province of Ontario for making unilateral changes to the size and structure of Toronto’s city council midway through last ...

By Teodora Pasca This fall, the Asper Centre is intervening in two cases before the Ontario Court of Appeal (ONCA) whose outcomes could significantly impact the province’s approach to sentencing marginalized people. In R v Morris, the ONCA will ...

by Jeffrey Wang On June 21, 2019, the Federal government announced its intentions to criminalize conversion therapy in a letter to provincial premiers. While this is undoubtedly a positive step for LGBT+ rights, the constitutionality of this ban has ...

by Jeffrey Wang On April 20th, 2017, Justice Layh of the Saskatchewan Queen’s Bench released the decision of Good Spirit School Division No. 204 v. Christ the Teacher Roman Catholic Separate School Division No. 212, ruling that public funding for ...

by Jeffrey Wang On June 16th, 2019, Quebec passed An Act respecting the laicity of the State (Bill 21). This bill was controversial for banning the wearing of religious symbols, such as hijabs, niqabs, turbans and kippahs, for some public employees, ...

by Paniz Khosroshahy This summer I have been working at Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) as an Asper Centre Summer Fellow. LEAF works to advance women’s substantive equality rights through litigation, law reform, and public education, ...

By Keely Kinley The Supreme Court released its highly anticipated decision in R v Barton on May 24, 2019. In 2011, Cindy Gladue was found deceased in the bathtub of Bradley Barton’s hotel room with a fatal 11-cm gash in her vaginal wall. Barton ...

City of Toronto v. Attorney General of Ontario et al On September 10, 2018, Ontario Superior Court Judge Edward Belobaba in City of Toronto et al v. Ontario (Attorney General), 2018 ONSC 5151 declared that the province of Ontario had “substantially ...

by Delia Luca and Jacob Webster The final panel of the Asper Centre Immigration Detention Symposium held on March 15, 2019 focused on the Immigration Detention Toolkit (Toolkit) recently launched by the Canadian Association of Refugee Laywers (CARL) ...

  by Mashoka Maimona and Renuka Koilpillai The “Habeas Corpus Best Practices” panel was one of the highlights of the Asper Centre’s Immigration Detention Symposium, held on March 15, 2019. The panellists were immigration and refugee lawyers ...

  by Olivia Martin and Adrian Ling The first session of the Asper Center’s Immigration Detention Symposium, held on March 15, 2019 at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, featured a panel discussing the 2018 Immigration and Refugee Board’s ...

  by Cheryl Milne Devastating and short-sighted. These are the words that immediately come to mind in response to last week’s announcement that the Legal Aid Ontario budget would be cut by approximately 30% starting with the immediate end ...

via @UTLaw: https://www.law.utoronto.ca/news/students-call-on-canada Thursday, April 4, 2019 By Karen Chen and Mackenzie Claggett Canada presents itself to the world as a place where “those fleeing persecution, terror and war” are welcome. It is a ...

  by Hannah Goddard-Rebstein and Arjun Gandhi On Thursday, March 21st, the Asper Centre held a panel on Indigenous rights and family law, using the case of Beaver v Hill as a focal point for the discussion. The panel was convened by the Asper ...

by Teodora Pasca Years ago, Corporal R. P. Beaudry was charged with sexual assault causing bodily harm, an offence under s 272 of the Criminal Code carrying a maximum penalty of 14 years’ imprisonment. Beaudry, a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, ...

https://issuu.com/facultyoflawnexusmagazine/docs/2019_asper_centre_outlook_final   CLICK HERE for a PDF version of this Newsletter....

by Michelle Huang and Jeffrey Wang On Thursday, February 28, the Asper Centre hosted Professor Y. Y. Brandon Chen for a Constitutional Roundtable titled “Toward a Substantive Understanding of Citizenship in the Canadian Charter of Rights and ...

The Asper Centre’s Executive Director Cheryl Milne is among the 2019 recipients of the Law Society of Ontario Medal, which recognizes and lauds “exceptional career achievements and contributions to their communities.” Cheryl Milne’s citation ...

By Leslie Anne St. Amour In my opinion, to call the court’s decision dismissing the case against the Ontario government in respect to the repeal and replacement of the sex ed curriculum disappointing would be an understatement. I would consider ...

The Asper Centre is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a Law Foundation of Ontario responsive grant to develop online guides to the police oversight procedures in Ontario. This forms part of our ongoing work developing national online ...

by Sahil Kesar Spencer Bird (“Bird”), a long-term offender, was charged with breaching the conditions of a community supervision order prescribed by the Parole Board. At the criminal proceeding, he sought to use the defence that the order which ...

By: Jasmit De Saffel The Asper Centre’s first Constitutional Roundtable of the year transported the room two years ahead into a hypothetical future where the Democrats have won the U.S. 2020 election. In a world where the Democrats control Congress ...

By: Sahil Kesar and Jasmit De Saffel On January 11, 2019 the Supreme Court issued its decision on the constitutional challenge to provisions of the Canada Elections Act detailing residence requirements for voting in federal elections. The provisions ...

By: Leslie Anne St. Amour Now that the Constitutional challenge to the Ford government’s repeal of the 2015 sex-ed curriculum has been heard by the court, I am reflecting on why I wanted to work on this project as an Asper Centre Clinic student last ...

by Jasmit de Saffel In its first decision of the year, the Supreme Court of Canada sided with Canadian ex-pats in a case about their voting rights. Chief Justice Wagner held that “citizenship, not residence, defines our political community and ...

by Catherine Ma Earlier this month, the Supreme Court of Canada heard the appeals in Minister of Citizenship and Immigration v Alexander Vavilov, Bell Canada et al v Attorney General of Canada, and National Football League et al v Attorney General ...

by Jasmit de Saffel On November 19, 2018, the Asper Centre filed submissions to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security in regards to the use of administrative segregation in Canadian correctional facilities and the proposed ...

On Friday November 23, 2018, the Asper Centre’s Executive Director Cheryl Milne will take part in a panel about reconciling children’s rights and donors’ rights as part of a HEALTH LAW, POLICY AND ETHICS IN CANADA interdisciplinary ...