The Magpie River was recently granted legal personhood by the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit and the Minganie Regional County Municipality in Quebec. Our speaker, Yenny Vega Cárdenas, President of the Observatoire international des droits de la nature/ International Observatory of Nature Rights, will describe how this process unfolded and what ‘personhood’ means for the Magpie River.
This event is part of the Webinar Series, Reimagining Rivers: Rethinking and Reframing Relationship with the Environment. Legal rights govern how we interact with each other and with the world around us. Various jurisdictions, for example, are now granting legal rights to aspects of the environment such as rivers. This webinar series, jointly organized by the Centre for Constitutional Studies and the Environmental Law Centre, provides opportunities to learn from expert speakers about jurisdictional hurdles that impact the thriving of our environment as well as innovative approaches to rethinking relationship with it. The series will culminate in a Symposium next spring 2022, where we explore different conceptions of the North Saskatchewan river: as a legal person, as an agent, as a relation.
Watch the webinar below.
In November 2020, the Supreme Court determined that the Charter‘s section 12 only protects humans — and not corporations — from cruel and unusual punishment. Join Professor Anna Lund as she discusses the application of Charter rights to corporations, section 12, and the Supreme Court’s decisionS.
Watch the webinar below.
Speaker: Anna Lund
Associate Professor, University of Alberta
Professor Darcy Lindberg and lawyer Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson will discuss Indigenous jurisdiction and the environment – particularly from the perspectives of Nêhiyaw (Plains Cree) and Haida laws – and some of the ways these laws may inform Canada’s constitution, treaty relationships, and federalism as they relate to the environment.
This event is part of the Webinar Series, Reimagining Rivers: Rethinking and Reframing Relationship with the Environment. Legal rights govern how we interact with each other and with the world around us. Various jurisdictions, for example, are now granting legal rights to aspects of the environment such as rivers. This webinar series, jointly organized by the Centre for Constitutional Studies and the Environmental Law Centre, provides opportunities to learn from expert speakers about jurisdictional hurdles that impact the thriving of our environment as well as innovative approaches to rethinking relationship with it. The series will culminate in a Symposium next spring 2022, where we explore different conceptions of the North Saskatchewan river: as a legal person, as an agent, as a relation.
Watch the webinar below.
Speakers:
Steven Penney
Professor Penney will discuss the results of a study conducted with Professor Moin Yahya examining the influence of trial judges’ backgrounds and other factors on the decision to exclude or admit unconstitutionally obtained under the Charter. While outcomes are clearly influenced by doctrinal legal factors, such as the seriousness of the Charter violation, the study revealed strong evidence that decisions are also influenced by certain non-legal variables (but not others).
Speakers:
Eric M. Adams, Andrew Leach, Darcy Lindberg, Jocelyn Stacey, & Noura Karazivan
Join our panel of experts as they discuss the Supreme Court’s decision in the Carbon Pricing Reference, and its implications for federal, provincial, and Indigenous jurisdiction in Canada.
This event is free and open to the public.
Speakers:
Jeremy Webber, Oonagh Fitzgerald, and Pablo Ouziel.
Jeremy Webber, Oonagh Fitzgerald, and Pablo Ouziel reflect on how governments have elected to assert themselves during the pandemic, how citizens have responded, and what all of this could mean for constitutionalism and democracy.
This event is free and open to the public.
Speaker:
Professor Kislowicz will address the basics of the law of freedom of conscience and religion in section 2(a) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He will explore the following questions: What is included in the constitutional right of “freedom of conscience and religion”? How has the Supreme Court of Canada interpreted that right? How can the right be limited according to the Constitution?
This event is free and open to the public.
Speaker:
Professor Skinner considers two competing views of civil liberty – one, the condition of not being subject to the power of others, and the other, an absence of interference with choices and actions. He explores what this means for ‘fundamental’ rights, and suggests that re-appropriating the first view might help us to think more fruitfully about current threats to privacy and liberty.
This event is free and open to the public.
Speaker:
Patricia Paradis, Executive Director, Centre for Constitutional Studies
How do courts balance the constitutional protection of individual rights and freedoms in the Charter with the interests of the community as whole, especially during a pandemic? How can governments justify limiting rights? We will consider some scenarios.
This event is free and open to the public.