It’s maddening to watch governments mess up in monumental fashion and the media offer as a solution - more government.
Cases in point: the Maple Leaf Foods listeriosis outbreak and the Sunrise propane explosion in Toronto.

It has been more then one year since Ontario’s attorney general handed paralegal regulation over to the Law Society of Upper Canada. The first licences have now been issued to paralegals.

Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin was beaming at the Canadian Bar Association convention in Quebec last week. She had reason.

A newly announced policy of the United States Department of Homeland Security presents a significant threat to the solicitor-client confidentiality to which Canadians are entitled.

The Liberal government report on legal aid by law professor Michael Trebilcock received some media attention for seeking a more widely accessible justice system and upping the incomes of participating lawyers.

The recent case of Osmond highlights the duties of lawyers taking calls from the police station. In R. v. Osmond (2007), leave to appeal to the SCC dismissed, the police contacted counsel through a Brydges call to a 24-hour toll-free service. (R. v. Brydges  dealt with the duty of the police to inform detainees about the availability of duty counsel and legal aid.)

Little more then four months after the Supreme Court of Canada heard the appeal of Honda Canada Inc. v. Keays, the court’s decision was released. The court had the opportunity to alter the practice of both employment law and the common law in general.

The largest punitive damages ever awarded to an employee had the possibility of being reinstated by the highest court in the country and the chance of a new tort of discrimination could have been created, allowing individuals discriminated against to use the court system as a means for remedy.

One of the hallmarks of a democratic society is an open court system. So why is there so much secrecy in the criminal and civil justice system?

In the much-anticipated and landmark case of Honda Canada Inc. v. Keays, the Supreme Court of Canada overturned one of the largest punitive damages awards ever granted to a wrongfully dismissed employee at trial.

Martin Friedland’s recent book My Life in Crime and Other Academic Adventures is both a personal memoir and a lively review of much that has happened in Canadian legal policy during the last forty years.

The Conservatives are bringing in anti-abortion legislation by the back door. And it’s perfectly legal.
That way Prime Minister Stephen Harper does not have to break the election promise he made not to recriminalize abortion.

Watching the twists and turns of Premier Dalton McGuinty’s government as it tries to reconcile economic reality with its ideological indifference to business would be grist for Monty Python if it weren’t so serious.