The McGill Law Journal Podcast

Pour notre dernier épisode lié au Volume 64:2 de la Revue de droit de McGill, Dr. Ivana Isailović donne un aperçu de sa recension critique, intitulé « Familles, inégalités et droit dans un espace mondialisé ».

To coincide with Volume 64:2 of the McGill Law Journal, the MLJ Podcast has been publishing bite-sized bonus episodes where you can hear directly from authors about their work. In this episode, Professor Malcolm Lavoie discusses his new article, "Property Law and Collective Self-Government."

Pour souligner le lancement du Volume 64:2 de la Revue de droit de McGill, nous publions de courts épisodes où les auteurs présenteront un aperçu de leur article. Aujourd'hui, Me Frédérick Doucet décrit l'article qu'il a coécrit avec Me Geneviève St-Laurent, intitulé ≪ Le droit à l'égalité et l'accès aux professions réglementées : bilan contrasté de la jurisprudence canadienne ≫.

To coincide with the publication of Volume 64:2 of the McGill Law Journal, the MLJ Podcast is introducing bite-sized bonus episodes where listeners can hear directly from authors about their work. In this episode, Professor Noah Weisbord discusses his timely article, Who's Afraid of the Lucky Moose? Canada's Dangerous Self-Defence Innovation: "With little public discussion, the Canadian law of sel...

En juin 2019, l'Assemblée nationale du Québec adopta la fameuse Loi sur la laïcité de l'État , ce qui suscita de vifs débats sur la scène politique. Au cœur de la polémique se trouve l'utilisation controversée de l'article 33 de la Charte canadienne , autrement connu sous le nom de « clause dérogatoire ». Le présent balado a pour objet d'éclaircir le débat entourant l'utilisation de la clause déro...

Third-party litigation funding (TPLF) has become a steadily growing practice in recent years, as more and more parties are bringing lawsuits to court with the financial help of large hedge funds or specialized commercial companies. In this episode, we explore this new judicial practice further by speaking with Professor Jasminka Kalajdzic, director of the Class Action Clinic at Windsor Law School,...

Facial recognition technology is increasingly being used by law enforcement across Canada. However, law enforcement has not always been transparent about its use. With little to no law currently regulating this technology, privacy advocates insist that Canadians should be concerned. In this episode, we explore these issues by speaking with Ignacio Cofone, assistant professor at the Faculty of Law...

Should Canadian-born children's eligibility for government social and health services depend on their parents' immigration status? In this podcast, we explore how current interpretations of the Quebec Health Insurance Act are being used in the province to deny healthcare coverage to some Canadian children on this basis. We will hear from Maître Milton James Fernandez, a lawyer at Pinay, a nonprofi...

L'intelligence artificielle (IA) est présentement au centre d'une profonde transformation technologique. D'aucuns croient également que l'IA façonnera la façon dont nous administrons et dont nous rendons la justice en permettant l'introduction de systèmes décisionnels automatisés dans l'administration publique. Mais cela sera-t-il pour le pire ou pour le mieux, et comment s'assurer que nous introd...

By signing Bill C-45, Canada became the second country in the world to legalize the recreational use of cannabis. Subsequent news coverage raised concerns about the potentially negative effects of legalization for Canadians, especially those crossing the US-Canadian border. In this podcast, we explore the practical implications of cannabis legalization, examining emerging issues related to workpla...

The city of Toronto is currently working with a private company to develop a "smart city"—a neighbourhood that incorporates the collection of big data into its urban design. Since its inception, the project has inspired debate about how data generated by the public/private partnerships ought to be used. In this podcast, we consider the implications of some of these questions, and ask who should ow...

Part one of Causing a Comeau-tion explored an attempt to break down interprovincial trade barriers in Canada through the use of litigation. In part two, we consider the consequences of the case. The Supreme Court ruled that the existing barriers to the sale of alcohol across provincial borders do not violate the constitution. While the case might initially appear to be a straightforward defeat for...

"Free the Beer!" It's become a rallying cry across Canada, largely thanks to a legal challenge brought before the Supreme Court in 2017 concerning the transfer of alcohol across provincial borders. In R v Comeau , the Court considered the constitutionality of interprovincial trade barriers on the sale of alcohol following an appeal brought by Gerard Comeau, a man who was fined for transporting alc...

La découverte des fosses communes à Sinjar en Iraq et l'ampleur des crimes commis par Daesh contre les minorités religieuses soulèvent d'importantes questions sur la ou les façons dont la justice peut être servie lors d'atrocités de masse telles que commises à l'encontre de la minorité yézidie. Pour nous entretenir sur le sujet, nous avons eu le privilège de rencontre le Professeur Payam Akhavan e...

Précarité ou flexibilité? Barry Eidlin, Professeur de sociologie à l'université McGill, et Me Marc-Antoine Cloutier, avocat pour RTAM-Métallos, nous aident à mieux comprendre les nouvelles dynamiques du droit de l'emploi dans le contexte de l'économie de partage au travers des activités d'Uber au Québec. Ce podcast bilingue explore également l'impact des innovations technologiques sur les travaill...

Should you be able to discriminate in a will? In 2016, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled in Spence v BMO  that if someone has made a will and their intention is clear, then no one can really challenge that will. At first glance, this sounds reasonable; people should be able to do what they want with their property when they die, but what if their will is being used in a discriminatory way? We spok...

In Part II of Legal Personality of the Environment, we meet with Rob Clifford, a PhD student at Osgoode Hall and a member of the Tsawout First Nation, to discuss the concept of legal personality of the environment and its applicability in Canada. We notably discuss the transplantation of this doctrine in Canada, in light of its federal architecture and of the rich diversity of Indigenous legal tra...

In this two-part podcast, we address the concept of Legal Personality of the Environment. This original idea was brought by Christopher Stone in  Should Trees Have Standing? , which was published in the 1970s. Nowadays, granting legal personality to the environment is quite appealing for those who wish to protect natural resources for future generations.   In this first episode, we meet with Profe...

In Part Two of  Clerks!  we visit the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa to hear about recent changes to the clerkship recruitment process. Gib van Ert outlines the new process, and we consider how clerkships reflect broader themes at play in our legal culture. Dans ce deuxième épisode de  Clerks !, nous visitons la Cour Suprême du Canada, à Ottawa, pour en apprendre davantage sur les plus récents...

Where did Supreme Court Clerkships come from? What do clerks do? Why all the hype??  In this episode, we learn about the history and the role of clerkships at the Supreme Court of Canada from the 1960s to the present. We talk to Professors Shauna Van Praagh, Stephen Smith, and Lionel Smith about clerking at the end of the Dickson era. We then get the judge's perspective through conversations with ...

October 2nd marks the first day of the Supreme Court of Canada's fall session. Among the 30 cases ranging from freedom of religion, equality rights, and contract law– to name a few on the docket– what are some major cases to look out for? With news of the Chief Justice's retirement at the end of the fall session, what can we gather from the McLachlin Court's legacy? Could an early announcement of...

In part I of "Shifting Paradigms," you heard about Transsystemia at McGill's Faculty of Law–but what does this pedagogical approach look like elsewhere? In part II of this two-part episode, we sat down with comparative and private law Professor Pascal Ancel of the University of Luxembourg and constitutional and Indigenous law Professor John Borrows of the University of Victoria on their transsyste...

Transsystemia is the term that is controversially used to describe the academic program at McGill's Faculty of Law. This pedagogical approach is often praised by its practitioners, welcomed but doubted by onlookers in other law faculties, and challenging, to say the least, for its students. Is Transsystemia the be-all-end-all in legal education? And what have been some of the challenges and succes...

La décision de la Cour Suprême dans l'affaire Jordan est rendue à l'été 2016. Le jugement met en place un plafond ferme pour les délais des procédures criminelles. Comment en est-on arrivé là ? Comment la Cour justifie-t-elle sa décision ? Quelles sont les conséquences de cet arrêt au Québec ? Comment le gouvernement a-t-il réagit ? Que reste-t-il à faire ? Le podcast de la Revue de Droit de McGil...

In 1999, the Supreme Court ruled in R v Gladue that courts must courts "take judicial notice of the broad systemic and background factors affecting aboriginal people, and of the priority given in aboriginal cultures to a restorative approach to sentencing." Thirteen years later, the Court made it clear in R v Ipeelee that the principles outlined in Gladue are not going away. Yet it is still unclea...