Blog James Hendry

Meetings often start with an acknowledgement that they are taking place on unceded Aboriginal lands. Few know what the lack of cession means; the path of reconciliation will require us to learn…

In two firsts, the SCC decided that the unwritten constitutional principle of the honour of the Crown applies to certain non-treaty contractual arrangements with Indigenous groups and referred to reconciliation a constitutional principle in Quebec v. Pekuakamiulnuatsh Takuhikan….

BC declared a health care emergency in April 2016 because thousands of residents had died of increasingly toxic illicit drugs. The BC government studied the problem and solutions in great detail. A major Death Panel Report to the BC Coroner updated in 2022 examined the deaths. Studies recommended evidence-based steps to reduce deaths from overdose…

Ontario’s new drug policy will close many supervised consumption sites in Ontario. The Community Care and Recovery Act, 2024 prohibits safe consumption sites from operating within 200 metres of schools and daycare centres…

The SCC recently decided three cases interpreting historic and modern treaty promises to aid in the reconciliation of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. I wrote about two of these…

The Supreme Court of Canada recently confirmed that individuals may bring actions under s. 24 of the Charter for damages flowing from unconstitutional legislation. The Court’s decision in AG Canada v Power upholds a decades-old principle established in Mackin…

Two recent Supreme Court of Canada cases try to advance the fundamental objective of the modern law of treaty rights: the reconciliation of the interests of Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Both cases show nation-to-nation treaty-making unfolding within the Canadian Constitution…

I want to pick up the story of the injunction issued by Megaw J of the Saskatchewan Court of Kings Bench against the policy preventing schoolkids under 16 from using their preferred names and pronouns without parental consent…

The rule of law is often described as the rule of laws and not individuals. Amidst the roar of debate about this simplistic description, some basic ideas are commonly understood…

Charter values that subtend Charter rights have been assigned various roles in adjudicating disputes from developing the common law to resolving genuine ambiguities in statutory interpretation.