scholarly journals Progressive Homes Ltd. v. Lombard General Insurance Co. of Canada

2013 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 697
Author(s):  
Peter Bowal

The unanimous judicial decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Progressive Homes Ltd. v. Lombard General Insurance Co. of Canada resolves divergent appellate judicial holdings, in British Columbia on one hand and Ontario and Saskatchewan on the other hand, on the issue of an insurer’s duty to defend its insured general contractor in the ensuing litigation under commercial general liability (CGL) policies in cases of defective construction workmanship.

2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 619-648
Author(s):  
Nicole Duplé

On September the 28th 1981, the Supreme Court of Canada made public its opinion as to the constitutionaly of the Federal government's plan to repatriate and amend the B.N.A. Act. Modifications affecting provincial powers require, according to convention, the existance of which is recognized by six of the Judges, a certain degree of provincial consensus. The federal projet, contested by eight of the ten provinces, was therefore considered unconstitutional by a majority of the Judges. The Court mentioned furthermore that the federal plan, should it become law, would impinge upon the distribution of powers set forth in the B.N.A. Act. Seven of the nine Judges so deciding declared, on the other hand, that the Senat and House of Commons' resolution pertaining to the plan of repatriation and amendement was perfectly legal and that the British Parliament was, in law, the only authorized body to bring about the changes sought by said plan.


1969 ◽  
pp. 106
Author(s):  
G. J. Davies

The Torrens land system has been adopted in many jurisdictions, including Australia, Canada and New Zealand, as substitute for the old common law and equity system of land transfer. The various Torrens Acts of these juris dictions contain sections purporting to eliminate the equitable doctrine of notice. The author suggests that although these sections are virtually identi cal their application has varied. The courts of Australia, the Supreme Court of Canada and the courts of Saskatchewan have applied the sections literally to allow registration of transfer to defeat an unregistered interest even though at the time of contracting to purchase the transferee knew of the un registered interest and that his registration would defeat or prejudice it. On the other hand, the courts of New Zealand, British Columbia, Manitoba and Alberta have viewed notice, at least when accompanied by an intention to defeat prior unregistered interest, as sufficient in itself in some cases to constitute fraud upon that interest. The author contends that the sections were intended to keep fraud and notice distinct and that the doctrine of notice should be eliminated in order to achieve security of title. Registration under the Torrens system was intended to provide ultimate protection against other interests. Where it is not possible to effect registration immediately upon the acquisition of an interest, as is generally the case, the caveat pro visions of the various Acts are intended to be and should be utilized to pro tect that interest, thus eliminating the need for the protection provided pre vious to the Acts by the doctrine of notice.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Fogarassy ◽  
KayLynn Litton

The duties of consultation and accommodation with Aboriginal peoples affected by resource development were, until 2002, primarily the responsibility of the Crown. The British Columbia Court of Appeal, in two related decisions involving the Haida Nation on the one hand and the Crown and Weyerhaeuser Company Limited on the other, has placed these duties squarely on to the shoulders of industry. Where the Crown fails to discharge its duties of consultation and accommodation, resource tenures such as permits, licenses or leases may be invalid and activity conducted pursuant to the tenures may result in damages awarded against industry in favour of affected Aboriginal peoples. Appeals from both decisions will be heard by the Supreme Court of Canada. In the meantime, the law on industry’s duty to consult and to accommodate Aboriginal peoples continues to lack certainty.


Author(s):  
Rosa María Fernández Riveira

Este trabajo estudia dos reformas concretas de la Ley orgánica del Poder Judicial que se producen en octubre de 2015: la Comisión Permanente, como órgano del Consejo que ve incrementado su número de vocales, sus competencias y que situado bajo la dirección del Presidente del Consejo ha ido creciendo en relevancia; y el Gabinete Técnico del Tribunal Supremo, que se regula también como órgano al servicio del Tribunal pero bajo la obediencia y dirección del Presidente. Un órgano que asume unas competencias muy importantes en un momento en el que se reforma la vieja casación pasando a ser un recurso determinado por el «interés casacional objetivo». Estos dos cambios, como puntas de iceberg, son el aviso de nuevos enfoques sobre planteamientos clásicos acerca de la independencia judicial tales como: las relaciones existentes entre el Consejo General del Poder judicial y el Tribunal Supremo, la presencia del elemento político en el corazón de la independencia judicial, la enorme relevancia de un proceso de selección de nuestros jueces justo, plural y confiable y la necesidad de articular mecanismos de responsabilidad judicial institucional e individual.This paper analyses two reforms about Organic Law of Judiciary which have been made in October 2015: the Permanent Commission as part of Council body that it has seen increasing its competences and it works under careful supervision of the President of the General Council of the Judiciary. It has suffered an augmentation of members on its composition and it has got more relevance as important voice in the General Council and, on the other hand, the Technical office of the Supreme Court, which has been redesigned with new competences working under Instructions of President. And all these changes are been implemented at the same time that it has been adopted the new cassation appeal. Both reforms as iceberg’s tips are performing important reflections about classical principles for example: different manners to understand the judicial independence, the political element within judicial independence, the relevance of appointment judicial processes and of course the accountability discourse as essential part within the judicial independence.


2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-172
Author(s):  
Peggy J. Blair

Although a casual reading of the Supreme Court of Canada's decisions in R. v. Nikal and R. v. Lewis might suggest otherwise, this article will argue that Court's decisions in two recent British Columbia aboriginal fishing cases do not apply in Ontario. In doing so, it will be shown that the Supreme Court of Canada relied on evidence of historic Crown policies towards aboriginal fishing rights in Upper Canada in the absence of appropriate context as to when, how and why those policies evolved. As a result, the Court wrongly concluded that fisheries could not be the subject of exclusive aboriginal rights.


2007 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 249-250
Author(s):  
Ran Hirschl

The Courts, Ian Greene, The Canadian Democratic Audit Series; Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2006, pp. xvii, 182.This book is another welcome addition to the Canadian Democratic Audit Series. It sets out to assess the democratic credentials of Canada's judiciary—a most significant branch of government in post-1982 Canada. The book's approach is refreshing in several respects. Instead of the traditional focus on the well-rehearsed debate over the questionable democratic credentials of judicial review, the book attempts to evaluate the adequacy of the Canadian court system in relation to three basic tenets of democracy: participation, inclusiveness, and responsiveness. Unlike most accounts of Canadian political institutions, it pays due attention to elements of the court system beyond the Supreme Court of Canada. In so doing, Greene is able to assess more accurately whether the Canadian judiciary as a whole is living up to that set of reasonable democratic expectations.


2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasmin Dawood

This article re-examines the distinction between the libertarian approach and the egalitarian approach to the regulation of campaign finance. The conventional approach (as exemplified by the work of Owen Fiss and Ronald Dworkin) is to reconcile the competing values of liberty and equality. By contrast, this article advances the normative claim that democracies should seek to incorporate both the libertarian and the egalitarian approaches within constitutional law. I argue that instead of emphasizing one value over the other, the ideal position is one that simultaneously recognizes the values of liberty and equality despite the irreconcilable tension between them. Rather than choosing one value over the other, or reconciling these values by redefining them, I claim that it is vital to maintain the tension between liberty and equality by instantiating the conflict in law. Democracy is better served when the law contains an explicit tension between these foundational values.After setting forth this normative framework, I then apply it to the campaign finance decisions of the Supreme Courts of the United States and Canada, respectively. I make two main claims. First, I argue that although the libertarian/egalitarian distinction is usually presented as a binary choice, the laws of a given jurisdiction often simultaneously display both libertarian and egalitarian characteristics. For this reason, I claim that the libertarian/egalitarian distinction is better conceived of as a “libertarian-egalitarian spectrum.” Second, I argue that in recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of Canada, respectively, have privileged one value—liberty or equality—at the expense of the other. The U.S. Supreme Court has over-emphasized the value of liberty (most notably in its Citizens United decision), with the result that political equality is markedly undermined. By the same token, the Supreme Court of Canada’s commitment to equality has become too one-sided in recent cases (Harper and Bryan), with the result that there are significant impairments to free speech liberties. I argue that both of these approaches are detrimental to democratic participation and governance. Finally, this article offers a preliminary proposal for how courts and legislatures can allow for the conflict between liberty and equality to be instantiated in law.


2018 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 603-616
Author(s):  
Eric Tucker

Summary Constitutional labour rights in Canada now protect workers’ freedom to organize and bargain collectively and to strike. These associational freedoms are especially important for public sector workers, the most frequent targets of legislation limiting their freedoms. However, the Supreme Court of Canada judgments recognizing these rights and freedoms have also introduced important ambiguities about their foundation, scope and level of protection. This brief comment locates these ambiguities in the context of Canada’s political economy and industrial relations regime, which are beset by contradiction and conflict. It then explores the origins and development of the jurisprudential ambiguities in constitutional labour rights through a survey of recent Supreme Court of Canada’s labour rights judgments, including most recently British Columbia Teachers’ Federation and British Columbia (2016).


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Chin

Proprietary estoppel provides one of equity’s most powerful remedies. Estoppel is an equitable doctrine which arises when one party acts on the reliance of the promise of another. The promise and corresponding reliance creates a quasi-contract with reliance acting as an alternative to the consideration usually required in contracts. Proprietary estoppel is distinct from other equitable estoppels in that a proprietary estoppel can act as a ‘sword’ and form the basis of a cause of action. If all of the parts of proprietary estoppel are made out, a court can modify or create property rights to satisfy the equity.With regard to the Canadian experience, the Court of Appeal for Ontario recently noted that proprietary estoppel has received “somewhat uneven treatment in Canada.” It is within this context that the Court of Appeal for British Columbia split on the proper scope for the Supreme Court of Canada. In Cowper-Smith v Morgan, the Supreme Court of Canada has both clarified the test for — and arguably expanded the scope of — proprietary estoppel in the context of promises exchanged between children over their mother’s care during her lifetime. The fact that a party lacks an interest in the disputed property at the time of the promise does not negate the obligation of fulfilling the promise. Instead, when the party responsible for the expectation has or acquires sufficient interest in the property, proprietary estoppel will attach to that interest and protect the equity. This article will discuss the law of proprietary estoppel in other jurisdictions and how the Supreme Court of Canada has infused this remedy with greater flexibility to satisfy the equity.


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