Access to Justice
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December 19, 2025
Buffone’s parole: A step toward exoneration?
In what may seem like Part II of a never-ending saga, the Parole Board of Canada granted Vito Buffone day parole to a community residential facility yet to be named.
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December 19, 2025
Manitoba Court of Appeal tasked with determining psychological detention
Psychological detention occurs when a person submits to a police officer’s authority or is deprived of liberty, reasonably believing the choice to do otherwise does not exist (R. v. Tessier, 2022 SCC 35). One would expect that raising psychological detention on appeal from conviction would be a simple, fact-driven analysis. Yet the Manitoba Court of Appeal took 256 paragraphs to rule out psychological detention as a basis for Charter relief. The court’s reasons are in R. v. Francois, 2025 MBCA 93.
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December 18, 2025
Staffing issues at N.L. provincial courts overdue for solutions: lawyers
Problems that have led to the recent stoppage of civil, traffic and other matters in some of Newfoundland and Labrador’s provincial courts should have been dealt with some time ago, say lawyers.
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December 17, 2025
Ontario Court of Appeal resolves ‘jurisdictional dead end’ in labour dispute
Ontario’s top court has ruled that judges must maintain authority over claims involving entities not party to a collective agreement, but has emphasized that “proper respect” is owed to specialized tribunals and requires courts to consider staying parallel litigation if the dispute is before a labour arbitrator.
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December 17, 2025
SCC rejects latest bid to get intervener counsel into court; AGs & other interveners limited to Zoom
The Supreme Court of Canada is poised to hear argument from dozens of interveners in a groundbreaking case about the Charter’s “notwithstanding” clause and the “architecture” and “unwritten principles” of the Constitution, however, intervener counsel won’t be allowed to set foot in the top court’s iconic Ottawa courtroom.
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December 17, 2025
New Indigenous sentencing court opens in Chilliwack, B.C.
The Provincial Court of British Columbia opened the province’s tenth Indigenous sentencing court on Dec. 11 in Chilliwack. Indigenous courts currently operate in nine other B.C. communities.
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December 17, 2025
View from inside: Sleep in jail
We all know that decent sleep is important for mental and physical health. Lots of people struggle to get a good night’s sleep consistently. Jails and prisons, though, seem to set out to make it hard to get a decent night’s sleep — just one of the many ways these places work against their stated purpose of helping people who commit crimes rehabilitate.
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December 17, 2025
Bill C-16 must go further for older Canadians
Elder abuse does not always announce itself with bruises or broken bones. Often, it arrives through isolation, intimidation, financial control and fear. For many older victims, coercive control is the harm that shapes daily life long before anyone calls it violence or criminal neglect. It is gradual, cumulative and profoundly destabilizing, yet frequently invisible to outsiders.
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December 16, 2025
Terms of warrant come into question in London, Ont., firearms case
A nurse from London, Ont., Lynda Marques, was shot and killed on Sept.10, 2021, by two masked men believed to be rivals of her fiancé, Ali Bhatti, as she was parking in the driveway of the home she shared with Bhatti.
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December 15, 2025
How holiday stress contributes to domestic-related calls and charges
The holiday season is often celebrated as a time of warmth, tradition and togetherness. Yet for many households in Canada, it also brings a unique mix of pressures that can contribute to increased conflict in the home.