Verdicts & Voices

When Justice Minister Sean Fraser unveiled the federal government's latest bill to reform the criminal justice system last December, he said Bill C-16 would confront the rise in coercive control and intimate partner violence, and “keep kids safe from predators.”  But will it actually live up to that goal? The bill includes new mandatory minimum sentences, creates new criminal offences, and increases penalties for sexual crimes. It also seeks to avoid situations where charges get stayed due to excessive delays, but in a way that critics say could make delays even worse.  For a discussion about the pros and cons of Bill C-16, Alison is joined by Melanie Webb, Chair of the CBA Criminal Justice Section and a criminal trial and appellate lawyer at Webb Barristers; and Simona Jellinek, senior counsel at Gluckstein Lawyers with 30 years of experience representing survivors of childhood abuse and adult assaults. 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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When Quebec’s secularism law finally has its day at the Supreme Court next week, it will be a case for the ages. There will be dozens of interveners, six provinces and the federal government will be represented, and Ontario’s Attorney General will even make his argument personally. At issue are fundamental questions of individual liberties, religious freedom, gender equality, minority language rights – and whether pre-emptive use of the Charter’s notwithstanding clause bars the Court from wading into any of it. For a preview of this potentially seismic legal reckoning, Alison is joined by the University of Alberta’s Eric Adams; the Université de Montréal’s Karine Millaire, who will be participating in the case on behalf of the International Commission of Jurists’ Canadian chapter; and Sahar Talebi of Lenczner Slaght in Toronto, who is representing the Canadian Council of Muslim Women. 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: English Montreal School Board, et al. v. Attorney General of Quebec, et al. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Corinne Sparks of Nova Scotia was Canada’s first black woman judge. She was also the object of a racial bias complaint that reached the Supreme Court and stunted her career. To mark the International Day of Women Judges, we’re replaying this July 2025 interview about it with Constance Backhouse, a legal historian at the University of Ottawa. Her latest book is Reckoning with Racism: Police, Judges, and the RDS Case. 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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In 2016, when the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in R. v. Jordan, it called out a “culture of complacency” toward delays in Canadian court proceedings. The decision revolutionized Canadian criminal law, imposing strict timelines for bringing cases to trial: 18 months for provincial court, 30 months for superior court. If the timelines aren’t met, charges are stayed, and the accused can be released. A decade later, some are pushing back, arguing Jordan is undermining trust in the justice system by causing guilty people to go free. And new federal legislation proposes to limit stays by having judges consider (undefined) alternative remedies, while taking into account factors such as impact on the victim. One of the lawyers on the Jordan case was Tony Paisana, a partner at Vancouver’s Peck and Company and a former chair of the CBA’s Criminal Justice Section. In this episode, he recalls the history of the case, explores what’s happened since, and contemplates whether new legislative measures could make the culture of Canada’s criminal courts complacent once again.  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 submission about Bill C-16, the Protecting Victims Act Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Cops and lawyers are famously “separate but equally important groups” within the criminal justice system. Police officers often encounter the practice of law – lawyers, warrants, the witness stand – but what makes some of them join it? How do they manage the transition? And how does their policing background help or complicate their legal careers?Louis-Philippe Thériault is a lawyer with McInnes Cooper in Moncton whose practice focuses on commercial and corporate law. He spent 12 years with the RCMP, working on patrol, general investigations, and financial crimes, and he’s a Major in the Canadian Army Reserves.Alain Babineau spent 30 years in law enforcement, including with the Ontario Provincial Police, the Military Police, and the RCMP. Now, he's articling at the Ontario Bar Association. He has also done anti-discrimination work in Montreal, notably with the Office of the Commissioner for the Fight against Racism and Systemic Discrimination, the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations, and the Red Coalition.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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On November 21, 2025, a Divisional Court judge ruled that the Black Legal Action Centre could intervene in a case before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. The only problem? Twenty-four hours earlier, a different judge had made the opposite ruling.How did that happen? How was the situation resolved? And what can we learn from it about different approaches to third-party intervention in Canadian courts?Demar Hewitt is Executive Director and General Counsel of the Black Legal Action Centre (BLAC), a community legal clinic that is intervening at the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal in Dosu v. York University.Claire Boychuk practices labour, employment, and public law at RavenLaw in Ottawa. She is the author of Intervening in Canadian Courts.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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 DavosCBA letter about responding to U.S. ICC sanctions with the Foreign Extraterritorial Measures ActVerdicts & 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.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 InternationalCenter for Plain LanguagePlain InternationalWriting for Dollars, Writing to Please by Joseph KimbleMr. Mouthful children's books by Joseph KimbleSimon Fraser University's Plain Language Certificate  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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-reagitBill 1, Québec Constitution Act, 2025 - National Assembly of Québec Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The taboo once associated with Section 33 (the notwithstanding clause) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms seems to be fading. In recent months, Alberta has used it to end a teachers’ strike and pass bills affecting transgender youth and adults. Saskatchewan invoked it in 2023 to prevent students from changing names or pronouns without parental consent. In Quebec, where the taboo was never as strong, legislation related to secularism and the French language were respectively exempted from Charter compliance in 2019 and 2022. And the federal Conservatives have called for the clause’s use to protect tough-on-crime measures such as mandatory minimum sentences.Is this a troubling trend that suggests a need for new safeguards, as argued by the Canadian Bar Association in a 2024 letter to the federal Justice Minister? Or a legitimate rebalancing of power toward the people’s elected representatives?Marion Sandilands is a partner at Conway Litigation in Ottawa, teaches part-time at the University of Ottawa, and served on the Canadian Bar Association’s Working Group on the Notwithstanding Clause. Geoffrey Sigalet teaches political science at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan Campus and leads the UBC Research Group for Constitutional Law.This episode first aired in January 2025.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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Passing the bar exam has long been accepted as a natural step for new lawyers. But in Canada, that seems to be changing. The Practice Readiness Education Program (PREP) has already replaced bar exams in PEI, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, and Nunavut. British Columbia is set to make the switch soon, and the Law Society of Ontario is considering doing the same. What’s driving this transformation, and what does it mean for lawyers, aspiring lawyers, and their clients?Jennifer Pink is the Interim Executive Director of the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society. Jordan Furlong is an Ottawa-based legal sector analyst, author, and advisor with an online newsletter about how to build a better legal system. 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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

NYU professor Margaret Satterthwaite has been monitoring threats to the rule of law on behalf of the UN Human Rights Council since 2022. She has seen autocrats around the world unleash assaults on their legal systems, but now she finds herself writing to the government of her own country about attacks on judges and lawyers in the United States. And she has plenty of advice for Canadians and people everywhere about how to identify and respond to early warning signs that the rule of law may be at risk.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. For more Canadian legal news, read CBA National, the CBA's bilingual online magazine. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When the Government of Canada launched its AI Strategy Task Force on September 26, 2025, Dr. Gideon Christian noticed a significant omission: Black people. Three weeks later, he was among 60 signatories of an open letter warning that Canada’s Black community “bears some of the greatest harms from AI bias and automated decision-making systems,” and calling for the inclusion on the task force of Black Canadians with relevant expertise.In this episode, Dr. Christian and another signatory, Jake Effoduh, describe how AI systems can exacerbate systemic biases, and how to mitigate the risks.Dr. Gideon Christian is University Excellence Research Chair (AI and Law) at the University of Calgary. Jake Effoduh is an Assistant Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Lincoln Alexander School of Law.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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On October 23, 2025, Canadian Justice Minister Sean Fraser introduced Bill C-14, the Bail and Sentencing Reform Act. The legislation notably aims to make bail “stricter and harder to get” and impose harsher sentences on repeat offenders. While some, like the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and the Retail Council of Canada, have welcomed the new bill, the Canadian Bar Association has argued that our bail system needs more capacity, streamlined procedures, and better social services – not new legislation.Melanie Webb chairs the CBA’s Criminal Law Section; she’s a Toronto-based criminal trial and appellate lawyer at Webb Barristers. Daniel Lerner is a former Crown Attorney who now practices criminal law at Lerner Law in Toronto.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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode is a panel discussion with Anita Szigeti of Anita Szigeti Advocates, a Toronto firm that focuses on mental health and the law; Hamna Anwar, a criminal lawyer at Lindsay Law in Toronto; and Kyla Lee, who specializes in impaired driving cases at Acumen Law in Vancouver. They are all members of Women in Canadian Criminal Defence (WiCCD), an organization Szigeti founded to support and advocate for female and gender-non-conforming criminal defence lawyers.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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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.In this episode, Toronto lawyer and Supreme Court expert Nadia Effendi highlights some of the cases and issues the justices will be dealing with for the rest of 2025. These include matters involving:Disclosure of police misconduct records (Chief of the Edmonton Police Service v. John McKee, et al.)Medical patents (Pharmascience Inc. v. Janssen Inc., et al.)A disappeared man believed to be alive by his insurance company (Deborah Carol Riddle v. ivari)A dispute between a former Alberta MLA and the province’s Chief Electoral Officer (Glen L. Resler v. Joseph V. Anglin)The bilingualism of the New Brunswick Lieutenant Governor (Société de l'Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick v. The Right Honourable Prime Minister of Canada)Sentencing considerations when an Indigenous perpetrator commits violence against an Indigenous woman (His Majesty the King v. Harry Arthur Cope)Overlapping Indigenous territorial claims (Nisga’a Nation v. Malii, aka Glen Williams, et al.; Skii km Lax Ha, aka Darlene Simpson, et al. v. Malii, aka Glen Williams, et al.) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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.In this episode, Hon. David Brown draws on his 18 years of experience as an Ontario Superior Court and Court of Appeal judge to explain why justice in Canada can move so slowly. He argues a big part of the problem is a lack of transparency about how long cases actually take and where the holdups are. And he proposes “some cracking of eggs and bumping of heads” – for instance, can financial incentives be used to extract more data and speed things up? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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.In this episode, writer and documentarian Karin Wells discusses her new book, Women Who Woke up the Law: Inside the Cases that Changed Women’s Rights in Canada. The conversation notably focuses on the cases of Jane Hurshman, who killed her abusive husband in 1982, and R v Ewanchuk, a landmark case about consent that featured a testy exchange between Justice John McClung of the Alberta Court of Appeal and Supreme Court Justice Claire L’Heureux-Dubé. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.