PANDEMIC POWERS AND THE CONSTITUTION
COVID-19 and Cellphone Surveillance
Note: This was originally published on April 16, 2020 on ABlawg: Joel Reardon, Emily Laidlaw, and Greg Hagen, “COVID-19 and Cellphone Surveillance” (April 16, 2020), online: ABlawg, https://ablawg.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Blog_JR_EL_GH_COVID.pdf. One of [...]
Le concept juridique de l’urgence sanitaire: une protection contre les virus biologiques et…politiques
1 Le droit prend le relais de la médecine impuissante à juguler un virus La vague des mesures drastiques de confinement prises à travers le monde dans [...]
Emergencies and the Rule of Learning
The COVID-19 pandemic raises countless legal issues, many of which touch on the distinctions between normality/emergency and the importance of sustaining the commitment to the rule of law and [...]
The Freedoms We Cannot Afford to Ignore During COVID-19
One of Canada’s forgotten constitutional freedoms has quickly become one of [...]
COVID-19 and the Exercise of Legislative Power by the Executive
Legislation Commented On: Regulations Act, RSA 2000, c R-14 and Public Health Orders issued in relation to COVID-19 The COVID-19 pandemic has become a rare opportunity to study the [...]
Pandemic Preparedness and Responsiveness in Canada: Exploring the Case for an Intergovernmental Agreement
Canada’s lack of a coordinated response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the improvisatory nature of (at least many) individual provincial responses suggest that the Canadian approach to public health [...]
The Absolute Limits of Canada’s Emergency Powers: The Unwritten Constitutional Principles Entrench Rights that Remain Non-Derogable in Extremis
Since the launch of the Centre for Constitutional Studies' Pandemic Powers and the Constitution Blog, a number of thought-provoking posts have been penned by leading scholars in the areas [...]
“The New Normal”: COVID-19 and the Temporary Nature of Emergencies
In the inaugural post for this series on Canadian law and the COVID-19 pandemic, David Dyzenhaus argued that the federal government should not invoke the federal Emergencies Act, but [...]
Indigenous Peoples and COVID-19: Protecting People, Protecting Rights
The past month has brought sweeping, unprecedented change as individuals, communities and nations around the world struggle to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. Efforts to contain the virus include [...]
Justice in Troubled Times: Pandemic Disrupts the Right to be Tried Within a Reasonable Time
INTRODUCTION On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) a pandemic. The world, and the administration of justice in Canada, changed dramatically within days. As pertinent [...]
Additional Resources
Federalism & the COVID-19 Pandemic - A compendium of (re)sources Peter Mackel Chair in Federalism, Faculty of Law, McGill University Fédéralisme et pandémie de COVID-19 - Un compendium de [...]
Are Quebec and Canada having a “Schmittian” (or Iheringian) moment?
On June 16, 2019, the Quebec legislature invoked Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in order to suspend, with regard to the Act respecting the [...]
Exercising Indigenous Jurisdiction Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic
Individuals and communities around the globe have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. As federal and provincial governments introduce emergency measures in response to the evolving situation, the actions [...]
Drug approvals: exclusive Health Canada jurisdiction or fair game for the provinces?
Introduction In just over four months, a single case of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China spread to nearly 4 million people and caused over 270,000 fatalities, leaving the world [...]
The One vs the Many: When Public Health Conflicts with Individual Rights
Public health is quite different from traditional healthcare. Whereas healthcare involves medical interventions between health professionals and individual patients, the field of public health attempts to maintain the health [...]
Part Two: COVID-19 & the Canadian Constitution
Part 2 of 2 In Part 1 of his Blog Post, Professor Choudhry explores the constitutional issues arising from lock downs (such as freedoms of religion, expression, assembly and [...]
Part One: COVID-19 & the Canadian Constitution
Part 1 of 2 Over the past two months, the federal government, the provinces, and municipalities have exercised a variety of legal powers to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Not [...]
Regulating the Covid-19 Pandemic: Forms of State Power and Accountability Challenges
As part of the Verfassungsblog's excellent symposium on legal responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, Dean Knight penned an especially insightful contribution on New Zealand, noting how the response alla fine del [...]
Canada the Good?
Canada is in full emergency mode in its bid to flatten the pandemic curve. But so far the federal government has not declared a federal state of emergency in [...]
Call for Blog Posts
The Centre for Constitutional Studies welcomes posts for our ‘Pandemic Powers and the Constitution Blog’. The Centre for Constitutional Studies is publishing a series of Blog posts exploring various constitutional issues arising from [...]