Runnymede Radio

Our first episode of Runnymede Radio for 2021 features Professor Malcolm Lavoie of the University of Alberta Faculty of Law discussing his recent University of Toronto Law Journal article, "The Implications of Property as Self-Government."   https://runnymedesociety.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/podcast-january-7.mp3

This month's episode of Runnymede Radio features a conversation with Dr. Gerard Kennedy from the University of Manitoba Robson Hall School of Law. Dr. Kennedy discusses the recent Supreme Court of Canada decisions in Atlantic Lottery and Nevsun and their relationship to the rule of law in private law jurisprudence. https://runnymedesociety.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/podcast-october-26.mp3

This episode features a wide-ranging discussion with Mark Walters -- Dean of the Queen's University Faculty of Law -- on his upcoming book, "A.V. Dicey and the Common Law Constitutional Tradition: ‘A Legal Turn of Mind’."

Runnymede Radio is back! This episode features Philippe Lagassé, associate professor and the Barton Chair at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs. Professor Lagassé and our National Director Mark Mancini discuss parliamentary prorogation in light of recent events in Ottawa. A timely and informative conversation.   https://runnymedesociety.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Runnymede-podc...

This episode features Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, the Member of Parliament for Beaches-East York – a riding he has represented since 2015. As a parliamentarian, Mr. Erskine-Smith currently sits on the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. Before politics, Mr. Erskine-Smith worked as a lawyer in Toronto. He obtained his undergraduate and law degrees from Queen’s University, and later...

This episode features Dr. Ryan Alford, an Associate Professor at the Bora Laskin Faculty of Law at Lakehead University. Dr. Alford received his doctorate in public, constitutional, and international law from the University of South Africa. He also holds a master’s degree from the University of Oxford and a law degree from New York University. He is called to the Bar of Ontario and is a Bencher of...

This episode of Runnymede Radio features Shannon Salter, the Chair of British Columbia’s Civil Resolution Tribunal – Canada’s first online tribunal. Ms. Salter earned her BA and LLB from the University of British Columbia, and her LLM from the University of Toronto. She clerked at the Supreme Court of British Columbia before practising civil litigation at a Vancouver law firm for several years. In...

This episode of Runnymede Radio features Carissima Mathen, a law professor at the University of Ottawa. Interviewed by Mark Mancini, the National Director of the Runnymede Society, Professor Mathen discusses her book entitled Courts Without Cases: The Law and Politics of Advisory Opinions, released in 2019 by Hart Publishing. Below is a blurb describing the book. We hope you enjoy this episode of...

This episode of Runnymede Radio features Asher Honickman, a partner at Matthews Abogado LLP in Toronto. He is also the founder and CEO of Advocates for the Rule of Law, a legal think tank dedicated to promoting the rule of law in Canada. Interviewed by Mark Mancini, the National Director of the Runnymede Society, Asher discusses Canadian federalism, using two high-profile lawsuits – one concerning...

This episode of Runnymede Radio features Dr. Kerri Froc, an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of New Brunswick. Interviewed by Mark Mancini, the National Director of the Runnymede Society, Professor Froc discusses the intersection of feminism and originalism in the context of Canadian constitutional law and interpretation.

This episode of Runnymede Radio features Dr. Paul Daly, a member of the Faculty of Law (Common Law Section) at the University of Ottawa, where he holds a University Research Chair in Administrative Law and Governance. In this episode, Dr. Daly and Mark Mancini, the National Director of the Runnymede Society, discuss the much anticipated rulings of the Supreme Court of Canada in the so-called "admi...

This episode of Runnymede Radio features Dr. Geoffrey Sigalet, a postdoctoral fellow in the Research Group on Constitutional Studies at McGill University. Dr. Sigalet, interviewed by Mark Mancini, the National Director of the Runnymede Society, discusses a collection of essays he co-edited with Grégoire Webber (Queen's University) and Rosalind Dixon (University of New South Wales). The collection...

In the first Runnymede Radio episode of the 2019-2020 academic year, we speak with the new National Director of the Runnymede Society, Mark Mancini. We discuss the growth of Runnymede since its inception in 2016, recent campus events, the profile of Runnymede in The Globe and Mail, the inaugural Runnymede Fellows Program, and the upcoming Law and Freedom Conference in February 2020.

Paul Beaudry (University of Calgary's School of Public Policy) recently argued, in a Financial Post op-ed, that fears over net neutrality are overblown, that the regime in place since 2015 stifled investment and innovation, and that unwinding the 'open internet' order is good news for American consumers and the economy. We discuss his reasoning and the likely effect of the repeal on smaller conten...

An autopsy of the Google memo with Marni Soupcoff, writer, commentator and policy analyst. Did Google have the legal and/or moral right to fire Damore for his memo on "Google's ideological echo chamber"? Is the incident a canary in the coalmine, or a microcosm for American society more broadly? What commonalities are there between the moral panic over the memo and that over sociologist Charles Mur...

Steve Simpson, Director of Legal Studies at the Ayn Rand Institute, discusses why free speech is the killer app for Western civilization and why the most disconcerting threats to free speech occur on the level of culture rather than law. Why is the conversation about free speech so frequently focused on college campuses? How can educators overcome the human tendency to self-censor in order to hew...

Part II of previous debate on the s. 33 notwithstanding clause with Leonid Sirota (AUT Law School), Maxime St-Hilaire (Université de Sherbrooke) and Geoff Sigalet (Stanford Law School). How should historical circumstances, in this case the intentions of parties to the adoption of the Charter, affect how we construe the proper use of its provisions in contemporary circumstances? Should s. 33 be lim...

In May 2017, Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall announced his government's intention to respond to a court decision holding that public funding for non-Catholic students who wished to attend Catholic schools violated state obligations of religious neutrality by use of the Charter's notwithstanding clause. In this episiode, we debate the proposition: Regardless of the merits of the Good Spirit School D...

Discussion with Professor Bruce Pardy, Queen's Faculty of Law and Asher Honickman, Advocates for the Rule of Law. What does Bill C-16 mean and how would alleged human rights violations under Bill C-16 be litigated? We discuss the Ontario Human Rights Commission's guidelines and how they might interact with an allegation of a Charter breach of freedom of expression, civility vs. legal obligations,...

Discussion with Brian Bird, D.C.L. candidate at McGill's Faculty of Law and author of "Trinity Western and the erosion of religious freedom": why did the case of Trinity Western University's proposed law school occasion a 'clash of the titans' in the form of two powerhouse appellate courts, Ontario and B.C., disagreeing with each other substantively? How can courts balance claims to religious libe...

How has the Charter fundamentally changed Canadian politics? Discussion with Chief Justice (Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench) Glenn Joyal about Canada's founding ideological mélange and strands of liberal neutrality, communitarianism, and Westminster supremacy, the shift in political culture effectuated by the Charter, the notwithstanding clause, and how courts and legislatures can collaborate in a...

Discussion with Teresa Bejan of Oriel College, Oxford about her 2017 book Mere Civility, which contrasts the views on the limits of toleration in a liberal society of John Rawls, Thomas Hobbes, and Roger Williams, and defends Williams' 'mere civility' which was based on "mutual contempt" rather than mutual respect. We also discuss recent events at Middlebury and Wellesley College, identity politic...

In the digital age, filter bubbles encourage conformity of opinion and confirmation bias. They discourage airing contrarian views-- both online and in person. A conversation with lawyer and journalist Lauren Heuser about the eroding culture of free speech, why polarizing figures like Milo Yiannopoulos should not be the mascots of free speech, and getting back to the real aims of open discourse for...

Law professor and longtime Volokh Conspiracy contributor Ilya Somin joins Runnymede Radio to make the case for open borders as favourable to both human freedom and economic prosperity. We touch on Trump's executive orders, the implications of the Trump administration's restrictionism for Canada's Safe Third Party Agreement, political ignorance and immigration, the reality of nationhood and reconci...

Leonid Sirota, Lecturer at AUT Law School in Auckland, New Zealand, and author of Double Aspect Blog, discusses originalism, the legal interpretive theory which posits that a law's original meaning should govern its subsequent interpretation and application. We discuss whether originalism has been rejected by Canadian courts, particularly the Supreme Court of Canada, the normative case for (and ag...