The holiday season is upon us, and with it comes a spike in road checks for impaired drivers. This year, the landscape around drinking and driving has changed with the coming into force of new impaired driving laws on December 18, 2018. The new legislation,...
Year: 2018
November 2018 Criminal Law Round-up
News: Juries were a hot topic this month. In the latest chapter of the ongoing legal saga, a mistrial was declared in the trial of Dennis Oland, after an officer did improper background checks on jurors. In other news on juries, Nathalie Des Rosiers introduced the...
October 2018 Criminal Law Round-Up
The biggest news of the month was the legalization of cannabis when Bill C-45 came into force on October 17. As people lined up (or placed their orders online), the government announced that it will pardon those with convicitons for marijuana offences. Advocates for...
September 2018 Criminal Law Round-up
This September, the news cycle spun at a frantic pace, between Ontario's municipal election notwithstanding clause issue and the confirmation hearings of Judge Brett Kavanaugh in the United States. In the world of criminal law, there are some other stories and case...
Indigenous People and the Criminal Justice System: A Book Review
When the Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) released its report in 2015, there were a number of items that centred on the criminal justice system and the over-representation of Indigenous people in courts and jails. The TRC identified a lack of sensitivity amongst lawyers...
August 2018 Criminal Law Round-up
As summer draws to a close, there is plenty of news and cases to catch up on in the world of criminal law: News: Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced that he would allocate $25 million to fighting gun violence in Toronto. A portion of the money will be earmarked for...
July 2018 Criminal Law Round-up
We may be mid-way through the summer, but the news and cases of criminal law hasn't slowed down much. News: Shortly after being elected, Doug Ford's provincial government has announced that it will postpone the implementation of the Safer Ontario Act, which would have...
Full Disclosure: Setting the (fictional) record straight
Former Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin published her first novel this spring, a legal thriller set in Vancouver. "Full Disclosure" is the story of a female criminal defence lawyer named Jilly Truitt who takes on a high profile case of first degree murder, despite...
June 2018 Criminal Law Round-up
News:A report was released this month, authored by Justice Toscano Rocamo of the Superior Court in Ottawa, outlining who makes up juries in Ottawa. The result, unsurprisingly, is that juries are overwhelmingly white and earning high incomes. Ottawa defence lawyer...
May 2018 Criminal Law Round-up
News:This month, the Senate voted to remove random alcohol screening from the new impaired driving bill. The proposed bill would allow police officers to stop motorists for the sole purpose of performing a breath test for the presence of alcohol, regardless of whether...
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