University of Toronto Law School Faculty Blog

Canada's New Terrorism Bills: Slow Down and Debate

Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day tabled new legislation in the House of Commons last Monday to allow British-style special advocates to play a role in security certificate cases that are used to detain and deport non-citizens suspected of involvement in terrorism. The bill responds to the Supreme Court of Canada's decision earlier this year that the existing legislation was unconstitutional.

On Tuesday the government tabled another bill in the Senate to revive investigative hearings and preventive arrests. These Criminal Code powers were introduced after 9/11 but expired in March, 2007 after the government failed to convince Parliament to renew them for three years. The government now proposes to include the powers in the Criminal Code, subject to a some changes and a 5 year renewable sunset.

A Common but Differentiated Approach to Global Climate Policy: How not to Re-invent the Wheel

The world appears to have arrived, grudgingly in some cases, at a consensus that climate change is a serious environmental threat.  The global policy-making machine has slowly creaked into gear.  Indeed, various initiatives are now picking up speed on multiple tracks.

On track 1, discussions about new commitments to follow Kyoto post-2012 are taking place under the auspices of the 1992 UN Climate Convention.  On track 2, this year’s G8 Summit saw the leading industrialized states endorse the idea of 50% cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.  On track 3, the Asia-Pacific Climate Partnership, which Canada has now joined, is chugging along towards technological cooperation and an “aspirational” emissions target.  On track 4, US President Bush’s climate initiative wants to bring the 15 countries, including China and India, that emit 80% of global greenhouse gases on board.  Here too the destination is a “flexible” long-term target.

Ontario 2007 Election

One way to analyze the Ontario election results is in terms of a decisive rejection of constitutional change by Ontarians.

Ontarians generally want their premiers and their governments to focus on the business of governing rather than on constitutional change.  Premier David Peterson was punished at the polls in 1990 in part for focussing on Meech Lake and Canadian unity and Premier Bob Rae often seemed more interested in constitutional issues like Charlottetown than the more mundane issues that capture the Tim Horton's crowd.  Somehow John Tory fell into a similar trap by daring even to raise the issue of funding for faith-based schools.  After the Supreme Court of Canada's 1996 Adler decision, the issue of funding for non-Catholic faith-based schools was transferred from the judicial to the political realm.  Most politicians knew well enough that religion and politics make for an incediary mix (see Bill Davis' extension of funding for Catholic schools in 1984 and Premier McGuinty's experience with Sharia law from 2004 and 2005) and were content to let the issue lie dormant.  Ultimately, Tory was unable to foresee let alone control the firestorm that he had sparked and he was punished at the polls as a result.

The second constitutional lesson from the election was about changing Ontario's electoral system.  This also went down to defeat in flames by almost a 2:1 margin.  I had thought that it would likely garner a majority of votes but nowhere near the 60% in 60% of Ontario's 107 ridings necessary for it to pass.  I was wrong because as a transplanted British Columbian I forgot that Ontarians generally are suspicious of big changes.  And changing the electoral systems is capital "C" constitutional change even if Ontario has no single document that is called The Constitution of Ontario (other provinces like BC do have constitutions . . .).

The most concerning aspect of the election constitutionally was the continued downward trend in voter participation: only about 52.8% of eligible voters bothered to cast a ballot (unoffical Elections Ontario numbers).  At some point, low voter participation risks creating a problem of democratic legitimacy for our electoral system and our governments.  Maybe then Ontarians will be more receptive to the consideration of changes to their constitutional structures.

Brian Leiter Revisits His Canadian Law School Rankings

Professor Brian Leiter, who designed Macleans ranking of Canadian Law Schools, responds to some of the comments about his methodology.  Follow the link: Brian Leiter's Law School Reports: Revisiting the Canadian Law School Rankings.

Lies, Damned Lies and Campaign Promises

Today, as the home stretch of Ontario's election campaign begins, Conservative leader John Tory announced that he will allow a free vote after all on his controversial proposal to extend public funding to faith based schools. Many will seize on the turnaround as evidence of a "broken promise" (Tory has earlier indicated he would not put the proposal to a free vote if elected on October 10th). Perhaps this is an example of Tory having to get cozy in a bed of his making. Much of Tory's campaign has emphasized Premier McGuinty's broken promises, including most notably his "no new taxes" pledge of the 2003 campaign and the Liberal's subsequent decision to impose a new tax (the "health premium").

This all raises the question –What is the nature of integrity, ethics and accountability in political campaigning?