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Substandard prison health care in Canada has long been the subject of research, debate, and policy analysis. For nearly forty years, Senator Kim Pate and her associates have uncovered myriad human rights abuses occurring inside Canadian prisons and have urged governments to take action. The extent to which this substandard health care specifically impacts the reproductive freedom of incarcerated women has yet to be the subject of meaningful academic consideration. It has been argued by many that the conditions of Canadian prisons engage the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This paper, in its limited scope, conceives of reproductive freedom as encapsulated by the section 7 Charter right to life, liberty, and security of the person. It is a novel analysis of how each of these three constitutional rights might be engaged by the current state of reproductive health care in prison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of nuisance and negligence tort claims in the US against “Big Oil” companies have grown significantly in the last five years. The Netherlands case of Milieudefensie et al v Royal Dutch Shell represents the first major success of such a claim internationally. While the US cases and Milieudefensie demonstrate starkly different approaches as to how to seek accountability from Big Oil for climate change harms, the increasing judicial engagement on these issues may mean the time is right for similar lawsuits in Canada. Three Canadian common law causes of action are examined: nuisance, negligence, and unjust enrichment. Defences and arguments which stem from society’s (and any potential plaintiff’s) acquiescence and authorization to allow the defendants’ conduct may present difficult barriers to success. This paper focuses on these types of defences, and argues that the responsibility of Big Oil for climate change harms should not be completely vitiated even if governments and plaintiffs have acquiesced, authorized, and arguably contributed to our climate crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2016, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal issued a landmark ruling in First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada v. Canada finding that the government of Canada was racially and ethnically discriminating against First Nations children and their families in its funding and delivery of child welfare services to them. This ruling did not result from an isolated legal case; it was the result of litigation that was part of a broader social campaign with active supporters from all over the world. The litigation was driven by, and supported, a dynamic movement for sovereignty for First Nations Peoples around child welfare. This article examines the Caring Society case through the lens of movement lawyering—using the law to bring about transformative social change. Section 2 examines movement lawyering as an approach to lawyering. Movement lawyering involves a range of practices, advocacy and mobilizing that seek to dismantle architectures of subordination. Section 3 provides an overview of the Caring Society litigation and the social campaign within which the case was litigated. The I am a Witness campaign, a dynamic education and grassroots social campaign that engaged Indigenous and non-Indigenous children and sought to make the litigation accessible to the public, is examined in detail. Section 4 analyses Caring Society as a study of movement lawyering. It examines how three elements of movement lawyering; integrated advocacy; accountability to social movements; and willingness to address the root causes of structural oppression were at play in the litigation and related campaigns. In conclusion, the authors contend that Caring Society and the I am a Witness campaign constitute a successful example of movement lawyering as they properly recognize litigation, and the role of lawyers, as one piece of the mosaic of efforts needed to advance transformative social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades in Canada, surreptitious recordings made by civilians have been admissible in criminal and family trials and labour and employment cases. Courts and tribunals have applied a similar test for admissibility that asks whether a recording is more probative than prejudicial. Recordings are readily seen to be invasive, but the concept of prejudice applied in most cases concerns the fairness and accuracy of what is captured in a recording and not its social or psychological impact on the person affected. This article draws on privacy theory and on Erving Goffman's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life to argue that jurisprudence to date has failed to recognize the nature and degree of prejudice surreptitious recordings cause an affected person. A better understanding of this supports a revised test for admission. A recording that captures a private conversation should not be admitted, except in the last resort, which would include where the prosecution has no other means of proving a material fact in issue, where innocence is at stake, or in a civil case where it is necessary to rectify a significant power imbalance affecting credibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This analysis examines three recent and ongoing Canadian climate change litigation cases: ENvironnement JEUnesse c Procureur général du Canada , La Rose v Canada and Mathur v Ontario. Consistent with international climate change litigation trends, these cases are youth-led and rights-based and they advance claims for present and future generations. They present apparently conflicting judicial views on the justiciability of climate change claims and on the use of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to advance such claims. We examine these issues. We also analyse the insights the cases offer into the connections between litigants' procedural choices and early success, either in withstanding a motion to strike, or in obtaining court authorisation to proceed by way of class action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, mining industries in post-conflict environments led to the development of an abundance of literature on Canadian imperialism and its negative impact on human rights, especially in Guatemala. However, little knowledge exists on Canada's support of strategic human rights litigation (SHRL) projects for the most vulnerable groups affected by the Guatemalan armed conflict and extractive activities. This article explores this contradictory commitment to SHRL through a case-study of Canada's support of the rule of law in post-conflict Guatemala. This article argues that Canada's participation in Guatemala's securitisation processes demonstrates Canadian economic and security objectives in the extractive sector as well as self-affirmation goals among donors. Based on field interviews and Access to Information requests, this article provides theoretical and empirical insights on SHRL projects in post-conflict countries with extractive resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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