Verdicts & Voices

Canada is a country of immigrants, but the rules and procedures of our immigration system are complex, ever-changing, and often poorly understood. In a context of shrinking federal targets, growing backlogs, and controversial new legislation, two immigration lawyers discuss how they and their clients are managing the uncertainty. Christine Beltempo is an immigration lawyer at McCarthy Tetrault in...

The challenges women can face at traditional law firms are well known: pay gaps, burnout, glass ceilings. But what happens when women decide to build something different? And what can all lawyers learn from their experiences?  Grace Cleveland chairs the Canadian Bar Association’s Women Lawyers Forum ; she’s a partner specializing in wills, estates and trusts at Cleveland Doan LLP in White Roc...

In July 1933, two Halifax boys were found dead by the train tracks. Daniel Perry Sampson, a Black WWI veteran, was hanged for their murder. Almost a century later, his great-great-grandson – a celebrated musical artist – is fighting to clear his name. Lance Sampson, aka Aquakultre , won the 2018 CBC Searchlight competition and has been nominated for three Polaris awards. His lawyer David Steeves i...

On October 19, Albertans will answer questions on complex topics including immigration, judicial appointments, voting rights, and whether to remain in Canada. How did the province get here? How likely is this process to result in clear mandates for the provincial government? And will any of it lead to substantive change?   The trio of experts for this discussion: Gerard Kennedy, Associate Dea...

Friend of the pod Nadia Effendi returns to talk us through the fall agenda of Canada’s top court. Topics include online gambling, price-fixing, religious freedom, prison lockdowns, the Ontario Place redevelopment, the federal assault weapons ban, and the theft of the Winston Churchill portrait from Ottawa’s Château Laurier. Nadia is a partner at BLG in Toronto and a member of the CBA’s Federal Cou...

When the Supreme Court of Canada created a new tort of intimate-partner violence in May 2026, family lawyers Shelley Hounsell and Vanessa Lam joined us to contemplate its likely effects. Four months later, we check in to see how things are working out. Among the questions on the agenda: Is this proving to be merely a remedy for rich people? What is the role of expert witnesses? And should these cl...

As artificial intelligence keeps evolving, so do the ways of using and misusing it in the courts. To kick off our new season, University of Ottawa expert Amy Salyzyn joins the show to explain everything from prompt injection attacks to shadow AI, and how the human beings who work in Canada’s justice system are handling the challenge. For more on AI and the law, listen to past episodes about halluc...

How should Canadian courts incorporate Indigenous cultural and legal practices? Why might some judges be reluctant to do so? And are we moving toward a tri-jural system in which Indigenous legal orders exist alongside civil and common law? To mark National Indigenous Peoples Day, we’re replaying a discussion from June 2025 with two chief justices for whom these questions are front and centre: Leon...

In this final episode of the spring, three law students discuss their reasons for studying law, their first forays into law firms, and their impressions of a changing profession and a tumultuous world. See you in September! Maria Kalapurayil  just graduated from the University of Alberta. Sophie Poitras  has one year under her belt at the Université de Moncton. And with one year to go at the Unive...

In 1976, when Harvey Brownstone  told his mother he was gay, she became “volcanic” and kicked him out of the house. He spent five years on welfare, without stealing – much. Somehow, though, he got a law degree from Queens, clerked for a young Rosalie Abella, and became Canada’s first openly gay judge in 1995. Now, in retirement, his celebrity interview show has 70 000 YouTube subscribers, and the...

The Supreme Court of Canada issued a landmark decision earlier this month that created a new tort of family violence. This means people who have suffered harm due to intimate partner violence will be able to seek damages. The 6-3 decision in Ahluwalia v. Ahluwalia was more than a year in the making. What will it mean for victims and legal professionals?     Shelley Hounsell is a family law lawyer...

Since the Supreme Court’s 1999 Gladue decision , sentencing judges in Canada are supposed to consider the “unique systemic or background factors” that bring Indigenous people in contact with the law. The idea is to reduce Indigenous overincarceration and promote alternative sanctions. But how does this work in a place like Nunavut, where the trauma of colonialism affects just about everyone, and s...

For two years, much of the BC legal community has been warning that changes to the regulation of lawyers in that province risk making them answerable to the state rather than their clients. Last week, the BC Supreme Court upheld the changes as constitutional, despite noting the government’s “inability, or failure, to justify overturning 150 years of self-regulation.” Connor Bildfell  is First Vice...

Everyone is supposed to be entitled to their day in court. But how should we weigh that principle against the reality of litigants who misuse court processes, tying up resources and subjecting other parties to harm? What approaches exist to identify vexatious or abusive litigation at an early stage and nip it in the bud?  Donald Netolitzky, K.C.,  was complex litigant management counsel for the Al...

B.C. Supreme Court Justice David Masuhara  may have been the first judge in Canada to encounter AI-generated fake citations. As he wrote at the time, “generative AI is still no substitute for the professional expertise that the justice system requires of lawyers.” Two years later, the phenomenon certainly hasn’t gone away. So, there could hardly be a better guest for a discussion about the frequen...

Canadian law societies require licensed lawyers to be of good character. But what does that mean? How is the requirement enforced? And can a person who sexually abused multiple children, and lied about it for years, still meet this standard? Nadia Liva  practices regulatory and disciplinary defence at Liva Freeman Dent LLP, with additional experience in criminal law. Ben Kates  chairs the Regulato...

When Justice Minister Sean Fraser unveiled the federal government's latest bill to reform the criminal justice system last December, he said Bill C-16 would confront the rise in coercive control and intimate partner violence, and “keep kids safe from predators.”  But will it actually live up to that goal? The bill includes new mandatory minimum sentences, creates new criminal offences, and increas...

When Quebec’s secularism law finally has its day at the Supreme Court next week, it will be a case for the ages. There will be dozens of interveners, six provinces and the federal government will be represented, and Ontario’s Attorney General will even make his argument personally. At issue are fundamental questions of individual liberties, religious freedom, gender equality, minority language rig...

Corinne Sparks of Nova Scotia was Canada’s first black woman judge. She was also the object of a racial bias complaint that reached the Supreme Court and stunted her career. To mark the International Day of Women Judges, we’re replaying this July 2025 interview about it with Constance Backhouse, a legal historian at the University of Ottawa. Her latest book is Reckoning with Racism: Police, Judges...

In 2016, when the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in R. v. Jordan , it called out a “culture of complacency” toward delays in Canadian court proceedings. The decision revolutionized Canadian criminal law, imposing strict timelines for bringing cases to trial: 18 months for provincial court, 30 months for superior court. If the timelines aren’t met, charges are stayed, and the accused ca...

Cops and lawyers are famously “separate but equally important groups” within the criminal justice system. Police officers often encounter the practice of law – lawyers, warrants, the witness stand – but what makes some of them join it? How do they manage the transition? And how does their policing background help or complicate their legal careers? Louis-Philippe Thériault is a lawyer with McInnes...

On November 21, 2025, a Divisional Court judge ruled that the Black Legal Action Centre could intervene in a case before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. The only problem? Twenty-four hours earlier, a different judge had made the opposite ruling . How did that happen? How was the situation resolved? And what can we learn from it about different approaches to third-party intervention in Canadi...

It’s been a rocky twelve months for the idea that countries’ actions should be governed by rules. Does that mean international law is dead? Was it ever alive? Or is it more relevant than ever? Join two of Canada’s leading experts for a conversation that runs the gamut from tariffs to the ICC to Greenland to Davos to Venezuela and Caribbean drug boats, even a callback to Huawei and Meng Wanzhou, as...

Canada’s Supreme Court will have a lot on its docket in the coming months, and friend of the pod Nadia Effendi is back to talk us through it. Among the highlights: Will the Court recognize a tort of family violence? (Kuldeep Kaur Ahluwalia v. Amrit Pal Singh Ahluwalia) Are the findings of Parliament’s Ethics Commissioner subject to judicial review? (Democracy Watch v. Attorney General of Canada) C...

It was a long year, but you made it! Time to put on your fuzzy socks, curl up with some cocoa, and dig into a good book. We’ve assembled an elite Canadian legal brain trust… to give you reading recommendations for the holidays.  Want ideas for fiction? Non-fiction? True crime? Children’s lit? Narrative verse about a rescue at sea by a teenage girl in 19th-century Newfoundland? Between University o...