Information About Politics, Law and Life

Mothers’ day 2019 will be my first without my own Mom.  She passed away last year, when I wrote this memorial.  She was many things: a planner, a country girl, an adventurer, a wife and mother to me and my siblings, mother-in-law, grandmother and great-grandmother.  As this year’s holiday approaches … Read more »

Maxime Bernier’s recent split with Conservatives evokes memories of Lucien Bouchard and Preston Manning (and others, see here), both of whom formed and led their own Canadian political parties in the 1980s and 90’s.Lucien Bouchard, a federal cabinet minister in the government of Brian Mulroney left … Read more »

Introduction     2017 was a busy year for ethics and professionalism in Canadian law.  I’ve been tracking multiple issues, which touch on basic questions about the law of lawyering, ethical challenges and legal ‘independence’.  My roundup below is an effort to canvass some of the most significant de … Read more »

     A recurrent theme in our law and politics is state concern about individual citizens going overseas to fight in foreign wars, see here.  Though present concerns focus on the radicalization of potential terrorists, even prior to Confederation, Canadians regularly participated in external conflic … Read more »

“What’s in a name? That which we call a roseBy any other name would smell as sweet.”- Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)Introduction      The governing body of Ontario’s Law Society recently decided to change its name to drop the historical moniker “Upper Canada”.  The issue garnered significant media a … Read more »