If you walk through the city centre streets of Montreal, you could well be walking along any street in North America, such is the predominance of big-name brands. This has long been a bone of contention for Quebeckers. Protest marches are not uncommon. Symbolically, the issue is of great importance, all the more so given […] Read more

A partial answer from the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal: yes.In McIntyre v. Nova Scotia (Community Services), 2012 NSCA 106, the applicant’s spouse had received a lump sum pension benefit, which meant that she had received an “overpayment” of benefits. There was no doubt that there had been an “overpayment” within the meaning of the […] Read more

In passing in its otherwise unremarkable decision in Pastore v. Aviva Canada Inc., 2012 ONCA 642, the Ontario Court of Appeal had something interesting to say about reasonableness. Feldman J.A. (with whom Rosenberg J.A. and Swinton J. agreed) commented as follows: [59]      Again, applying the Dunsmuir test for reasonableness, the delegate engaged in a […] Read more

One of the cardinal principles of administrative law is that a decision-maker should never fetter his or her discretion. A recent case involving a claim for reimbursement for medical marijuana illustrates the principle nicely: Heilman v The Workers’ Compensation Board, 2012 SKQB 361.A battery of pharmaceutical treatments were prescribed over the years for the applicant’s […] Read more

I have previously blogged about the place of precedent in modern Canadian administrative law. The basic idea is not difficult to grasp. In Canada there is no presumption that there is a “right” answer to any question of law or discretion that arises before administrative bodies. Accordingly, administrative bodies are not bound by their previous […] Read more

I’ve commented previously on administrators’ interpretations of their own regulations. In a recent Federal Court case, Moya v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2012 FC 971, the question of how reviewing courts should treat such interpretations arose again.The applicants were members of a Colombian family, variously born in Colombia, the United States and Canada (having been […] Read more

Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency won a High Court legal battle against Treasury Holdings earlier this week, but it may end up losing the war. Finlay Geoghegan J.’s judgment, [2012] IEHC 297, cannot have been well received at NAMA headquarters. Over at NAMA Wine Lake, the editors wonder out loud “if indeed the Agency is […] Read more

Karole Cuddihy passes along an interesting Irish High Court decision. In the following passage, from EMI Records (Ireland) Ltd. v. The Data Protection Commissioner, [2012] IEHC 264, the ever-reliable Charleton J. describes the place of deference in Irish law. I think it also functions as a serviceable description of prevailing English law: 5.0 Only in […] Read more

Nothing new under the sun is to be found in Spirit Airlines v. Department of Transportation, but the facts are interesting.Although the U.S. air transportation market is largely deregulated, DOT retains the authority to prohibit “unfair or deceptive practice[s] . . . in air transportation or the sale of air transportation”. They issued a new […] Read more

Last week the Supreme Court of Canada released its reasons in a “fivefecta” of copyright cases. Interesting questions were raised. Are additional royalties payable when a video game is downloaded rather than bought over the counter? Is streaming a communication to the public which requires payment to the copyright holder? When a consumer listens to […] Read more