Posts Tagged ‘Canada’

COVID-19 pandemic roundup

March 4 roundup

  • Educated Canadian circles have politely indulged theories about how indigenous sovereignty is purer and more legitimate than so-called settler government. Ten thousand land acknowledgments later, comes the reckoning [J.J. McCullough, Washington Post] Read and marvel: “As lawyers and legal academics living and working on this part of Turtle Island now called Canada, we write to demand…” [Toronto Star; similarly, David Moscrop, Washington Post]
  • Plaintiff’s lawyers in talc case played footsie with Reuters reporters: “Judge Sanctions Simmons Hanly for ‘Frivolous’ Disclosure of Johnson & Johnson CEO’s Deposition” [Amanda Bronstad, New York Law Journal]
  • Bernie Sanders’ disastrous rent control plan [Cato Daily Podcast with Ryan Bourne and Caleb Brown] Housing construction unwelcome unless public? Vermont senator boosts opposition to East Boston plan to build mix of 10,000 market and affordable new homes on defunct racetrack [Christian Britschgi]
  • Happy to get a request from Pennsylvania to reprint and distribute my chapter on redistricting and gerrymandering, found on pp. 293-299 of the Cato Handbook for Policymakers (2017). If you’re interested in the topic, check it out;
  • Family courts deciding the future of a child commonly don’t take testimony from foster carers. Should that change? [Naomi Schaefer Riley/Real Clear Investigations, quotes me]
  • Supreme Court will not review Ninth Circuit ruling that Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment prohibits city of Boise from enforcing law against homeless encampments when there are insufficient beds available in shelters [Federalist Society teleforum and transcript with Andy Hessick and Carissa Hessick]

February 5 roundup

  • If your personal injury lawyer instructs you not to file a claim with your health insurer concerning your medical care, you may instead be in the hands of a “lien doctor” [Sara Randazzo, WSJ, paywall]
  • Supreme Court passes up opportunity to decide whether the Constitution’s Excessive Fines Clause applies to business defendants, and also whether a state can conjure an excessive fine out of existence by conceptually slicing it up into smaller daily fines [Ilya Shapiro on Cato support for certiorari petition in Dami Hospitality v. Colorado; petition denied January 13]
  • Assessing (favorably) the Trump Administration record on regulation [Cato Daily Podcast with William Yeatman and Caleb Brown; Casey Mulligan, Economics 21]
  • Twelve scholars pick their favorite dissents in Canadian law, and the result might furnish something of a mini-education in the jurisprudence of Canada, where unions, for example, are deemed to have a constitutional right to strike [Double Aspect via Prawfsblawg]
  • Ben Barton of the University of Tennessee, whose books we’ve much admired, has a new one out on a topic dear to our heart, called Fixing Law Schools [Scott Jaschik interview, Inside Higher Ed via Caron/TaxProf]
  • This, except not disapprovingly: current administration retreats from predecessor’s moves to define international human rights as including economic welfare and social justice claims [JoAnn Kamuf Ward and Catherine Coleman Flowers, Columbia Human Rights Law Review]

December 4 roundup

Update: Ontario law society drops mandatory diversity avowal

In a divided vote last month, “The Law Society of Ontario ditched a controversial rule requiring all lawyers to adopt and abide by a statement advocating equality and diversity.” A compromise measure adopted instead “requires lawyers and paralegals to acknowledge, each year on their report to the society, an awareness of their existing professional obligation to abide by human rights legislation.” [Adrian Humphreys, National Post; text of new requirement at LSO; Cosmin Dzsurdzsa, The Post Millennial; CBC Radio; earlier]

Which country restricts speech about climate change?

Did you guess “Canada”? The Canadian federal elections agency “will consider any substantial public talk or advocacy about climate change during the weeks around the Oct. 21 general election as potentially a form of election advertising, and thus only legal if it complies with the Elections Act.” [J.J. McCullough, Washington Post]

Discrimination law roundup

  • Don’t try to pull a “back where she came from” tirade at a private workplace [EEOC guidance (“potentially unlawful” for employer to allow); Daniel Schwartz]
  • “B.C. groin waxing case is a mockery of human rights” [Rex Murphy, National Post] Also from Canada: “Single dad facing Human Rights Complaint for asking the age and gender of a potential babysitter” [Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, related case]
  • Canada continued: inquiry on missing and murdered indigenous women “strips the word genocide of meaning” [Jonathan Kay, Quillette]
  • More evidence that “ban the box” laws restricting criminal record inquiries “induce firms to engage in statistical discrimination that negatively affects the employment prospects of minorities.” [Peter Van Doren/Cato, earlier here and here]
  • Disparate-impact watch: Fifth Circuit rules, over a dissent, that landlords do not violate the federal Fair Housing Act by declining to accept Section 8 rent vouchers [opinion and denial of rehearing en banc (7-9) in Inclusive Communities Project v. Lincoln Properties; earlier here]
  • “Agencies that enforce antidiscrimination laws tend to be oblivious or hostile to constitutionally protected liberties in general and freedom of speech in particular.” [David Bernstein]

“Air Canada ordered to pay $21K to two francophones over language violations”

A federal court in Canada “has ordered Air Canada to pay a total of $21,000 to two francophones for repeated violations of their language rights, including seatbelts on which the instruction to “lift” the buckle was marked only in English.” Among other elements in the complaints by Michel and Lynda Thibodeau: “that a French-language boarding announcement made at the airport” in Fredericton, New Brunswick, “was not as detailed as the English-language one” and “that planes’ emergency exit door signs were either in English only, or the English words were in larger font than the French ones.” [Canadian Press]

Climate change and energy roundup

Discrimination law roundup

  • Internal Google pay study “found, to the surprise of just about everyone, that men were paid less money than women for doing similar work.” [Daisuke Wakabayashi, New York Times] “What the Data Say About Equal Pay Day” [Chelsea Follett, Cato; Hans Bader]
  • Otherwise routine on-the-job injuries can have dire consequences for those suffering hemophilia, and a manufacturing company learns its “insurance costs could spike” as a result if it employs three hemophiliac brothers. Don’t think you can turn them away for a reason like that, says EEOC [commission press release on ADA settlement with Signature Industrial Services, LLC involving $135,000 payment and “other significant relief”]
  • Multnomah County (Portland), Oregon to pay $100,000 settlement to black worker who says she was retaliated against after complaining about “Blue Lives Matter” flag [Aimee Green, Oregonian; Blair Stenvick, Portland Mercury]
  • “The social justice madness of college campuses is now seeping into HR departments of large employers. The result is the rise of the woke corporation, and it might affect the way you work” [Toby Young, Spectator (U.K.)]
  • “The FDNY’s diversity monitor has cost the city $23 million in 7 years” [Susan Edelman, New York Post]
  • Before taking an exam required of federal employees in Canada, best to study up on intersectionality theory [Josh DeHaas on Twitter, GBA+, Tristin Hopper/National Post]