Verdicts & Voices

It’s been a rocky twelve months for the idea that countries’ actions should be governed by rules. Does that mean international law is dead? Was it ever alive? Or is it more relevant than ever?
Join two of Canada’s leading experts for a conversation that runs the gamut from tariffs to the ICC to Greenland to Davos to Venezuela and Caribbean drug boats, even a callback to Huawei and Meng Wanzhou, as they make the case that international law is real and necessary, whether it’s followed or not.
Gib van Ert practices public law and civil litigation at Olthuis van Ert in Ottawa and Vancouver and is an expert on the application of international law in Canadian courts. 
Joanna Harrington is Vice-Dean of the University of Alberta Law Faculty, a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Council on International Law, and a former member of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
Links:
Prime Minister Mark Carney's speech at Davos
CBA letter about responding to U.S. ICC sanctions with the Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act
Verdicts & Voices is a legal current affairs podcast presented by the Canadian Bar Association. With her retinue of expert guests, host Alison Crawford keeps listeners up to date on news, views, and stories about the law and the justice system in Canada.
 

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Canada’s Supreme Court will have a lot on its docket in the coming months, and friend of the pod Nadia Effendi is back to talk us through it. Among the highlights:
Will the Court recognize a tort of family violence? (Kuldeep Kaur Ahluwalia v. Amrit Pal Singh Ahluwalia)
Are the findings of Parliament’s Ethics Commissioner subject to judicial review? (Democracy Watch v. Attorney General of Canada)
Can your dad be your lawyer? (Maxime Bergeron v. Assemblée parlementaire des étudiants du Québec inc., et al.)
Was a Bloc Québécois candidate who lost by one vote entitled to a do-over? (Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné v. Directeur général des élections du Canada, Directeur du scrutin de la circonscription de Terrebonne, et al.)
Who exactly do lawyers in class actions represent? (Québec Major Junior Hockey League, now doing business as Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League Inc., et al. v. Lukas Walter, et al.)
What do tenants who back out of leases owe their landlords? (Aphria Inc. v. Canada Life Assurance Company, et al.)
Has Facebook failed to get users’ meaningful consent to disclose their personal information to third parties? (Facebook Inc. v. Privacy Commissioner of Canada)
How will the judges view Quebec’s secularism law and the province’s use of the notwithstanding clause? (English Montreal School Board, et al. v. Attorney General of Quebec, et al.)
Can courts rule on a law’s constitutionality even if the notwithstanding clause has been pre-emptively invoked? (Government of Saskatchewan as represented by the Minister of Education v. UR Pride Centre for Sexuality and Gender Diversity)
Verdicts & Voices is a legal current affairs podcast presented by the Canadian Bar Association. With her retinue of expert guests, host Alison Crawford keeps listeners up to date on news, views, and stories about the law and the justice system in Canada.

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It was a long year, but you made it! Time to put on your fuzzy socks, curl up with some cocoa, and dig into a good book. We’ve assembled an elite Canadian legal brain trust… to give you reading recommendations for the holidays. 
Want ideas for fiction? Non-fiction? True crime? Children’s lit? Narrative verse about a rescue at sea by a teenage girl in 19th-century Newfoundland? Between University of Ottawa law professor Adam Dodek, Toronto freelance lawyer Erin Cowling, Halifax family lawyer Shelley Hounsell, K.C., and Vancouver technology lawyer Jacob Kojfman, this episode has you covered.
Verdicts & Voices is a legal current affairs podcast presented by the Canadian Bar Association. With her retinue of expert guests, host Alison Crawford keeps listeners up to date on news, views, and stories about the law and the justice system in Canada.

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Why can’t lawyers and judges just say what they mean? Legal documents – statutes, contracts, court decisions – are infamous for being dense and full of jargon (not to mention Latin). But a growing community of legal professionals is advocating plain language as a way to make the law more accessible, build trust in the justice system, and ensure that ordinary litigants can read a decision and, you know, understand whether they won or lost.
Karen Jacques is a Vice-Chair of Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal and the Canadian representative of Clarity International. Paul Aterman is a former Chair of the Social Security Tribunal of Canada and a board member of the Center for Plain Language.
Verdicts & Voices is a legal current affairs podcast presented by the Canadian Bar Association. With her retinue of expert guests, host Alison Crawford keeps listeners up to date on news, views, and stories about the law and the justice system in Canada.
Plain language resources:
Clarity International
Center for Plain Language
Plain International
Writing for Dollars, Writing to Please by Joseph Kimble
Mr. Mouthful children's books by Joseph Kimble
Simon Fraser University's Plain Language Certificate
 

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In the coming days, Quebec’s National Assembly will hear testimony about a proposed new provincial constitution, known as Bill 1. Alexandre Forest, President of the Canadian Bar Association’s Quebec Branch, will attend and argue that the legislation should be withdrawn in its entirety for reasons of substance and process. Meanwhile, Professor Stéphane Beaulac of the Université de Montréal is staying away to avoid legitimizing what he fears will be belated, token consultations; instead, he’s off to the United Nations, leading an effort by the Quebec chapter of the International Commission of Jurists Canada to challenge the bill on the global stage. First, though, they both joined Verdicts & Voices to explain their concerns and their approaches.
Verdicts & Voices is a legal current affairs podcast presented by the Canadian Bar Association. With her retinue of expert guests, host Alison Crawford keeps listeners up to date on news, views, and stories about the law and the justice system in Canada.
 
Notes:
CBA-Québec’s written brief (in French): https://abcqc.qc.ca/Notre-impact/Memoires/PL1-sur-la-Constitution-du-Quebec-L-ABC-Quebec-reagit
Bill 1, Québec Constitution Act, 2025 - National Assembly of Québec

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