August 17, 2026
Every so often, a judge stops writing like a judge and starts writing like a person who has run out of patience.
August 17, 2026
Justice, Ontario Judge Brock Jones recently reminded us, is not simply a matter of punishment: sometimes it requires looking beyond a troubling criminal record to the illness underlying the offending and asking whether treatment, rather than incarceration, better protects society: R. v. Gowers, Aug. 10.
August 14, 2026
Manitoba has signed an agreement with a Cree First Nation to establish a community court focusing on Cree legal traditions, restorative justice and “culturally grounded approaches” to justice.
August 14, 2026
Canada has imposed dealings prohibitions and immigration bans on five Iranians for “their direct or indirect participation in activities that undermine international peace, security or stability.”
August 14, 2026
Ontario is bringing into force new measures on Aug. 17 to “strengthen the province’s bail system.” According to a statement from the Ministry of the Attorney General, the measures will “improve bail compliance, keep violent, repeat offenders behind bars and make it easier for the province to collect forfeited bail payments when bail conditions are violated.”
August 13, 2026
A foreign national from India being held in immigration detention due to allegations of murder in his homeland and suspected ties to a terrorist group is considering a claim of habeas corpus in his ongoing fight for release.
August 13, 2026
Speed has dominated how we talk about artificial intelligence. AI can generate an image in seconds, draft a song before lunch or produce a dozen variations of a story without getting tired. AI can make artistic production faster and more accessible, but the arts have never been valuable simply because they are difficult to produce. We value them because someone chose to make them, because a human being noticed something, felt something and found a way to share it. With AI becoming more capable, human skills behind art do not disappear. They become easier to see, and, increasingly, easier to defend, since copyright itself now turns on identifying the human contribution in a work.
August 13, 2026
I’ve made the case regularly in these columns that imprisonment, even for a short time, has long-term negative effects on people and makes it harder for people to live positive, pro-social lives. Yet most people who get imprisoned in Canada do not return to prison; high recidivism rates are mainly a result of a relatively small number of people who are imprisoned over and over again.
August 13, 2026
When does consensual intimacy cross the line into criminal assault?
August 12, 2026
Quebec Court of Appeal Justice Geneviève Cotnam, who once recalled “my career as a lawyer didn’t always provide a smooth sailing to the bench,” is Quebec's new top judge, succeeding Quebec Court of Appeal Chief Justice Manon Savard who became a part-time (supernumerary) judge on Aug. 10.