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A would-be law student has filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario in Arenson v. Law School Admission Council. She was requesting accommodations for the LSAT exam due to her disability.
See a summary of the case at Doorey.
Panel Proclaims Prorogation Problem Political
An expert panel on prorogation was convened on Thursday at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law. The panel featured law professor David Schneiderman, director of Fair Vote Canada Larry Gordon, Globe & Mail correspondent Michael Valpy, and political science professor Simone Chambers, and its goal was to engage in dialogue about Stephen Harper’s second prorogation of Parliament within a year. The panel was organized by Law Students for Democracy, with Camille Labchuk and Daniel Goldbloom hosting and chairing, respectively, the discussion.
There were two fundamental questions that emerged from the debate: 1) is the latest prorogation legal? and 2) if legal, is the prorogation an ethical abuse of power?
It was conceded by all parties (with the exception of Larry Gordon, who spoke exclusively about voting reform) that the prorogation is legal. It is certainly the prerogative of the Prime Minister to ask the Governor-General to prorogue Parliament. Even if it is perhaps against the spirit of the constitution, there is no black-letter law against prorogation.
So if prorogation is legal, is it right? Without explicitly saying as much, the panellists suggested that the answer is No. Both Schneiderman and Valpy pointed out that the prorogation process has been substantively abused only three times since Confederation: by Stephen Harper in 2008 and 2009, and by Sir John A. Macdonald in 1873 to avoid an inquiry into the Pacific Railway scandal. Chambers argued that it’s a matter of degree: while every past prorogation has been for the advantage of the governing party in some capacity, one must examine the degree of partisanship with respect to the reasons claimed for proroguing.
What were Stephen Harper’s reasons for proroguing? Valpy stated the obvious, that all of Harper’s ostensible reasons are disingenuous (see e.g. the Economist critique of Harper’s “recalibration” reason). Schneiderman suggested that the real motivation was that Harper wanted to avoid having to turn over documents related to alleged complicity in Afghan detainee abuse. Schniederman detailed the history of Harper’s misleading claims that his government was legally obliged to keep the documents hidden – claims that were blown out of the water by Parliamentary law clerk Rob Walsh. Schneiderman suggested the possibility that, had he not prorogued, Harper and cabinet could have been forcibly removed from Parliament for not respecting the majority vote to turn over the documents.
Harper’s behaviour, said Schneiderman, is part of a broader agenda to Americanize the Canadian constitution – evidenced by Harper’s insistence on separation of powers between the Judiciary, Parliament, and the “Executive”; also evidenced by Harper’s desire for an elected Senate.
The panel agreed that the Governor-General did the correct thing in 2009 by agreeing to the prorogation. The Governor-General is not expected to interfere with political affairs beyond what is asked of her; her role today is primarily symbolic, and we wouldn’t want her to begin exercising her black-letter prerogative.
There was debate as to whether Parliament could create a statute governing prorogation. Chambers thought that this would require a constitutional amendment, which is very hard to effect practically. Schneiderman said that it might be possible, and a similar problem is playing out in Harper’s proposed Senate reform.
Perhaps the most crucial point came from Chambers. She said that while the 2009 prorogation is technically legal, it is dependent on the citizens to voice outrage at the audacity of Harper proroguing out of such blatant self-interest. The outrage is manifesting itself in the infamous facebook group, the 10-point hit that the Conservatives have taken in the polls, and the planned protests that will occur all over Canada tomorrow.
In short, the prorogation problem is a political one, not legal.
US EPA issues endangerment finding for GHGs
Yesterday, the US EPA finally issued administrative findings with respect to greenhouse gases (GHGs) such as carbon dioxide. While coinciding with the commencement of the climate conference in Copenhagen, this finding has been anticipated since the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v EPA – in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the EPA did in fact have the authority to regulate GHGs under the U.S. Clean Air Act.
Read more
Stripping of citizenship, contd
Father was never charged with war crime, family says
The family of Helmut Oberlander says he was never a Nazi and he has not been charged by the federal government with any war crime.
Do CRU emails show FOIA wrong-doing?
There’s been a lot of hype in the past few days about a batch of emails that were either hacked or leaked from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU). In the view of some opponents to climate change legislation, these emails depict collusion and conspiracy among leading climate change scientists. Other contrarians accuse at least one scientist of outright illegal conduct: violations of UK’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Hundreds of emails spanning well over a decade were released, but the ones important for allegations of illegal conduct are those where some of the scientists discuss the implications of the newly (in the UK) enacted FOIA, those that discuss how to deal with FOIA requests, and one that directs the deletion of certain emails.
I’ve learned a little bit about the US’s version of FOIA, so I thought that it would be interesting to examine this accusation of illegal conduct – at least, to the extent that a Canadian studying law at an American law school can explore British information and privacy law. Read more
Stripping of citizenship
Accused war criminal wins chance to keep citizenship
An appeal court has ordered the federal cabinet to revisit its decision to strip accused Nazi war criminal Helmut Oberlander of his Canadian citizenship.
Lobbyism
Ottawa tightening rules on lobbyists
Susan Delacourt and Richard Brennan write for the Toronto Star:
The federal government is cracking down on lobbyists working for Crown corporations and institutions such as the Toronto Port Authority and the Canadian Wheat Board. …
The crackdown comes after reports in the Toronto Star about lobbyists’ involvement in a $250-a-head Toronto political fundraiser coordinated out of the office of the president of the port authority, a position Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt held before running successfully for the Conservatives in 2008 in the riding of Halton
Belief in global warming protected from discrimination in UK labour law
Image From National Post via WattUpWithThat?
In the public policy debates over climate change, critics of strong action to mitigate global warming have often described proponents as “religious zealots”, and vice-versa. Moreover, since the concern over global warming has entered the mainstream consciousness, religious groups have been increasingly drawn to the discussion. Now, in the UK, a recent decision by an employment tribunal has actually equivocated belief in global warming with religious belief, for the purposes of workplace discrimination.
The case centers around Tim Nicholson, whose position as Head of Sustainability at Grainger, plc was terminated over what he claims was “contempt” for his beliefs about anthropogenic global warming. Nicholson alleged that his termination was due to his beliefs – which he argued should be protected from discrimination by the UK’s Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations of 2003.
In its decision this week, the employment tribunal ruled Nicholson would be allowed to bring his discrimination claim because Nicholson’s beliefs in global warming passed the tests formulated for “philosophical belief” for the purposes of the regulations:
From the tribunal’s ruling:
Grainger Plc & Ors v. Nicholson [2009] UKEAT 0219_09_0311 (3 November 2009)
In no way could this ever be taken out of context by anybody on either side of the larger debate…
Mistakes
Woman declared dead gets apology
Ms. Towle, a resident of Kamloops, B.C., was somehow declared dead by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada in September. “This is an unfortunate situation, which we are diligently working to resolve,” said Melissa Hart, a spokeswoman for the government branch. “We have been in direct contact with the affected individual and have let them know that the mistake has been fixed. We have issued a letter of apology and have initiated a detailed internal review of the situation.”
Access to information
Ottawa sued over censorship of Tommy Douglas dossier
Steve Rennie writes:
The federal government is being taken to court over its decision to withhold hundreds of pages, some decades old, in the Mounties’ secret file on Tommy Douglas.
Withler We Go From Here: The Future of Pension Reform
Western Law hosted a forum on pension reform this past Thursday, featuring community leaders, legal academics, and practitioners.
Pension Plan Basics
Prof. Robert Brown of the University of Waterloo explained some of the basics behind pensions.
There are two kinds of pension plans, defined benefit and defined contribution plans. A defined benefit plan provides flat benefits at a specified amount per year of work. They can present a pretty good idea of what to expect in terms of benefits, but if investments are hit hard it can decrease amount of funds, and they are often open to the vagueries of the market. A defined contribution plan allows you to determine how much goes into the plan, but you don’t know what you will get when you retire.
A multiple employer pension plan allows you to work for many different people, all of whom contributing to funds in your pension, and are common in the building trades. Single employer pension plans are far more common, and are usually what people think about when they refer to pensions.
A further refinement of types of plans are jointly sponsored pension plans, quite common in the public sector, where there is a shared risk with the government, who matches contributions to the plan. The largest of these Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, which is considered one of the better plans available, with a 12% matching.
Visitor visa fairness
When visa’s rejected, where to go?
Nicholas Keung writes for the Toronto Star:
A grieving son in China rejected for a visitor’s visa to Canada for his mother’s funeral. Guests from the Philippines turned away at the border for a Toronto wedding. A group of Anglican priests from Myanmar refused entry for a missionary event in Vancouver.
Currently, these rejected visitors to Canada – 200,000 yearly – could do little else than pay another $75 for a new visa application, which can involve costly travels to a Canadian visa post in another city or country.
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