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.
Modern Law: Verdicts and Voices is a monthly podcast in which we unpack key legal stories and celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Supreme Court of Canada. This special series delves into legal news, landmark cases and features expert guests who provide unique insights into Canada’s justice system.In this episode, Canadian-American political analyst David Frum joins host Alison Crawford before a live audience in Toronto at an event jointly presented by the Canadian and American Bar Associations as part of the American Bar Association’s annual meeting. They discuss public attitudes toward democracy and the rule of law, the implications of the Safe Third Country Agreement governing migration between Canada and the U.S., and the role of lawyers in the prevention of democratic decline.If you have any comments on this episode, or if you would like to send us any story ideas, you can write to us at podcasts@cba.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Modern Law: Verdicts and Voices is a monthly podcast in which we unpack key legal stories and celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Supreme Court of Canada. This special series delves into legal news, landmark cases and features expert guests who provide unique insights into Canada’s justice system.In this episode, host Alison Crawford welcomes professor and historian Constance Backhouse to discuss her 2022 book Reckoning with Racism: Police, Judges, and the RDS Case, about the first time the Supreme Court of Canada considered a complaint of judicial racial bias. Ironically, the judge in question was Corrine Sparks, the country’s first Black female judge. (18:30 to 34:44)For a look at the lighter side of legal practice, we talk with two lawyers, Michael Currie and Nadia Halum, who litigate by day and self-deprecate by night, performing stand-up comedy in their spare time, and we learn about the Fantasy Courts league run by lawyer Thomas Slade that turns guessing how the Supreme Court will rule on decisions into a game. (34:44 to 57:57)We also take a look at the Safe Third Country Agreement. Our guests are immigration lawyer Lorne Waldman and Anwen Hughes, Senior Director of Legal Strategy, Refugee Programs at Human Rights First in NYC. (01:42 to 18:30)If you have any comments on this episode, or if you would like to send us any story ideas, you can write to us at podcasts@cba.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Modern Law: Verdicts and Voices is a monthly podcast in which we unpack key legal stories and celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Supreme Court of Canada. This special series delves into legal news, landmark cases and features expert guests who provide unique insights into Canada’s justice system.In this episode, host Alison Crawford welcomes David Parry, Chair of the CBA Criminal Justice Section, and Deanna Okun-Nachoff, partner at McCrea Immigration Law in Vancouver, to discuss the proposed new Strong Borders Act, or Bill C-2. (01:19 to 14:29)As June is Indigenous History Month, we hear from Chief Justice Leonard Marchand of the Court of Appeal of British Columbia and of the Court of Appeal of Yukon and Chief Justice Glenn Joyal of the Manitoba Court of King's Bench. They share their experiences incorporating Indigenous cultural and legal practices into proceedings. (14:33 to 45:21)We also take a look at the landmark Supreme Court of Canada decision on publication bans, Dagenais v CBC. Our guest is retired senior counsel for the CBC, Daniel Henry. (45:26 to 1:04:36)If you have any comments on this episode, or if you would like to send us any story ideas, you can write to us at podcasts@cba.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Modern Law: Verdicts and Voices is a monthly podcast in which we unpack key legal stories and celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Supreme Court of Canada. This special series delves into legal news, landmark cases and features expert guests who provide unique insights into Canada’s justice system.In this episode, host Alison Crawford talks about a troubling but increasingly common scam, where people impersonate trademark lawyers. Our guests are Gavin Manning, an experienced intellectual property lawyer at Oyen Wiggs, and Brent J. Arnold, a partner at Gowling WLG who specializes in privacy and cybersecurity law. (01:32 to 15:42)We welcome Amy Salyzyn, an author, legal ethicist and associate professor at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law, to talk about a recent case of AI hallucinations in documents that were submitted at the Ontario Superior Court. (15:46 to 32:24)We also take a look at a one of the most consequential cases in the history of the Supreme Court of Canada: the 1998 Secession Reference. Our guest is Warren Newman, who served as co-counsel on the Secession Reference. (32:28 to 53:31)If you have any comments on this episode, or if you would like to send us any story ideas, you can write to us at podcasts@cba.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Modern Law: Verdicts and Voices is a monthly podcast in which we unpack key legal stories and celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Supreme Court of Canada. This special series delves into legal news, landmark cases and features expert guests who provide unique insights into Canada’s justice system.In this episode, host Alison Crawford welcomes the Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario Geoffrey Morawetz for a conversation about the Civil Rules Review and its bold Phase 2 Report. (01:58 to 25:34)As far fewer Canadians are now traveling to the United States, we talk about the current realities of crossing the US-Canada border with Gabriela Ramo, former Chair of the CBA Immigration Law Section and Partner at EY Law. (25:42 to 38:19)We also take a look at landmark immigration cases at the Supreme Court of Canada with one of Canada’s most respected and influential immigration, refugee and human rights lawyers, Barbara Jackman. (38:22 to 54:08)If you have any comments on this episode, or if you would like to send us any story ideas, you can write to us at podcasts@cba.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Modern Law: Verdicts and Voices is a monthly podcast in which we delve into legal news, landmark cases and feature expert guests who provide unique insights into Canada’s justice system.In this special election edition, host Alison Crawford welcomes two of Canada’s top criminal lawyers Matthew Gourlay, from Henein Hutchison Robitaille LLP, and Daniel Lerner from Lerner Law, as we take a closer look at the federal parties’ criminal justice platforms. (01:35 to 24:44)Anne McLellan and Peter MacKay, who both served as Ministers of Justice and Attorneys General, have a lively discussion on major legal issues that have been missing from the political debate during the campaign. (24:47 to 46:20)We also hear from CBA President Lynne Vicars, who talks about the Canadian Bar Association’s priorities for this federal election campaign. (46:25 to 52:50)If you have any comments on this episode, or if you would like to send us any story ideas, you can write to us at podcasts@cba.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Modern Law: Verdicts and Voices is a monthly podcast in which we unpack key legal stories and celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Supreme Court of Canada. This special series delves into legal news, landmark cases and features expert guests who provide unique insights into Canada’s justice system.In this episode, host Alison Crawford welcomes two international law experts, Gib Van Ert from Olthuis van Ert and Miriam Cohen from Université de Montréal, to evaluate the current state of the international rule of law.As its tax season in Canada, we talk tax reform with Heather Evans, CEO of the Canadian Tax Foundation. A timely conversation as the governor-general has called a federal election.We also take a look at some landmark Supreme Court decisions on access to abortion with University of Calgary law professor Jennifer Koshan.If you have any comments on this episode, or if you would like to send us any story ideas, you can write to us at podcasts@cba.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Modern Law: Verdicts and Voices is a monthly podcast in which we unpack key legal stories and celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Supreme Court of Canada. This special series delves into legal news, landmark cases and features expert guests who provide unique insights into Canada’s justice system.In this episode, host Alison Crawford welcomes Federal Court of Canada Chief Justice Paul Crampton, who explains how the court is swamped with an unprecedented number of cases and how virtually no one is declaring the use of AI in their filings.We talk with two family law experts, Shelley Hounsell, K.C. from Pressé Mason and Vanessa Lam from Lam Family Law, about the recent Supreme Court hearing into the proposed new tort of family violence.We also dive into R v. Drybones, the first case the Supreme Court decided under the 1960 Canadian Bill of Rights. Alison Crawford take a look at this landmark 1969 case and its impacts with Naiomi Metallic, a Mi'kmaq lawyer who teaches law at Dalhousie University, and Brian Purdy, the lawyer who represented the appellant, Michael Drybones.If you have any comments on this episode, or if you would like to send us any story ideas, you can write to us at podcasts@cba.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.