In the Summer 2015 edition of the Advocates’ Journal, editor Stephen Grant interviewed former Court of Appeal Justice Stephen Goudge. Justice Goudge had been a leading counsel working with the legendary Ian Scott before his appointment to the Court of Appeal for Ontario in 1996. During the interview, Justice Goudge offered helpful thoughts and insights...
The most recent edition of the Criminal Lawyers Association Newsletter, For The Defence, is devoted to the subject of advocacy. In an introductory note, editor Breese Davies laments the absence of direct feedback from judges on how an advocate might have better performed in an individual case. What could they have done differently? How could...
In its landmark decision in Hryniak v. Mauldin, 2014 SCC 7, the Supreme Court of Canada held that summary judgment offered a viable process for adjudication in many civil claims. The Court overturned the decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal, saying the Court had “placed too high a premium” on the “full appreciation” of...
Despite the momentous issues at stake in Reference re Supreme Court Act, ss. 5 and 6, 2014 SCC 21, the case, at bottom, involved a routine exercise of statutory interpretation: Do the words “from among the advocates of that Province” in section 6 denote current membership in the Quebec bar? Based on the often repeated...
The decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Hryniak v. Mauldin, 2014 SCC 7, is an important one for civil litigators throughout the country. The case was about changes to the Ontario Rules of Civil Procedure on the use of summary judgment, however, the Court took the opportunity to discuss the values that underlie...