McGill Law Journal

Front Matter - v. 70, no 1

Nicole Leger — Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 -0500

Entre affirmations française et britannique de souveraineté, le titre ancestral autochtone en jeu

Ghislain Otis — Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 -0500

Much of Canada was colonized by France long before the arrival of the British in the mid-eighteenth century. This article examines how France’s assertion of sovereignty impacts the regime of Aboriginal title recognized under Canadian law of British origin. In the first section, the author highlights a jurisprudential trend that assesses Indigenous territorial control at the time of British sovereignty’s assertion, rather than during French occupation, when applying the criterion of exclusive control—a key factor in recognizing Aboriginal title. They then illustrate how this approach risks undermining claims to ancestral title by Indigenous peoples whose ancestors lost exclusive control of their territory under the French colonial regime.

In the second section, the author aims to demonstrate that Canadian law of British origin does not require proof of exclusive control by Indigenous peoples following the assertion of French sovereignty. They argue that current case law is based on a misunderstanding of the legal articulation of the successive colonial titles of France and Great Britain in Canada. Indeed, the title asserted by the French Crown forms the legal foundation of the rights Great Britain acquired through state succession under the Franco-British treaties of 1713 and 1763. However, to demand proof of exclusive Indigenous control—despite the assertion of French sovereignty—is incompatible with the recognition of the title asserted by Versailles. Thus, in addition to depriving French-colonized Indigenous peoples of their territorial rights, this impasse on French sovereignty runs counter to the postulates of British colonial law, which enshrines the derivative nature of the Crown's sovereignty over the Canadian territories originally claimed by France. The author concludes that when the time comes, the Supreme Court of Canada should decide that, in what was New France, it is Indigenous territorial control prior to the assertion of French sovereignty that should form the basis for ancestral title.

Judicial Review of Rulemaking

Douglas Sarro — Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 -0500

Recently, there has been a push for courts to review rules made by the executive for substantive reasonableness. While reasonableness review may foster better-informed regulation, it also risks giving vested interests disproportionate influence over rulemaking. By flooding rulemakers with analyses emphasizing regulation’s costs and uncertainties about its benefits, to which rulemakers must then respond so as to survive reasonableness review, these interests can slow down and frustrate regulation designed to benefit the public. Courts could mitigate this risk, however, by applying reasonableness review in a way that recognizes the uncertainty that attends the rulemaking process—including the limits it imposes on rulemakers’ ability to refute alternative analyses of new rules’ likely costs and benefits. This does not mean acquiescing in arbitrary decision-making. To the extent rules’ effects are uncertain at adoption, courts can encourage rulemakers to revisit these rules post-implementation. Properly designed, reasonableness review can foster informed regulation that responds to new evidence and is less easily diverted from public-oriented objectives.

Words that Wound and Laws that Silence

Anthony Sangiuliano , Mark Friedman — Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 -0500

This article analyzes when expression is discriminatory and when discriminatory expression should be legally prohibited. It reaches theoretical conclusions about these matters by examining the recent Ward v. Quebec (Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse) judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada. In Ward, the Court determined that a comedian’s jokes that ridiculed the appearance of a disabled boy did not constitute discriminatory expression because of disability. In any event, there was no reason to prohibit them under Quebec’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms that could outweigh the countervailing reason to protect the comedian’s freedom of expression. We argue that there are two weaknesses in the Court’s opinion. First, the Court adopted a conception of how to define expression as discriminatory expression that is inconsistent with standard approaches to this issue in law and the philosophical literature on the ethics of antidiscrimination. Second, while the Court held that only the imperative to prevent harm gives a reason to prohibit discriminatory expression, as opposed to preventing offence, it relied on an impoverished conception of harm that was restricted to the societal harm of hate speech. There are reasons to prohibit discriminatory expression to prevent other types of harms.

Risks, Benefits, Opportunities, and Electronic Formalities in the Law of Wills

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 -0500

Traditional “formalities” in the law of wills—including formal requirements for revocation by destruction—contemplate paper documents, wet signatures, and testators and witnesses in the physical presence of one another. Unless these traditional requirements have been modified by legislation, wills made using one or more electronic formalities will not meet the formal requirements for a valid will. Traditional wills formalities have become something of an outlier as the use of electronic text, records, signatures, and witnessing has become routine in many spheres, including for the creation and storage of valid legal agreements. The special nature of wills, and their consequent vulnerability to fraud and reliance on documentary evidence of intent, has been cited as a justification for retaining traditional formalities. This article examines the risks, benefits, and opportunities associated with electronic formalities, as well as their implications for wills storage, the assessment of testamentary capacity, and related issues. It also evaluates the adequacy of dispensing provisions as an alternative to electronic formalities. The article includes contributions by coauthors in four common law jurisdictions—England and Wales, British Columbia, Queensland, and New York—with a discussion of how the risks, benefits, and opportunities presented by electronic formalities and wills have been perceived and balanced within each of these jurisdictions.

Les « formalités » traditionnelles du droit des testaments — y compris les exigences formelles liées à la révocation du testament par destruction — impliquent des documents papier, des signatures manuscrites, et des testateurs et témoins physiquement présents les uns avec les autres. À moins que ces exigences traditionnelles n’aient été modifiées par la législation, les testaments rédigés à l’aide d’une ou plusieurs formalités électroniques ne rempliront pas les conditions formelles requises pour un testament valide. Les formalités traditionnelles des testaments font désormais figure d’exception considérant l’utilisation de textes, d’enregistrements, de signatures et de témoins électroniques qui est devenue courante dans de nombreux domaines, y compris pour la création et le stockage d’accords juridiques valides. Or, la nature particulière des testaments, et leur vulnérabilité conséquente à la fraude, ainsi que leur dépendance aux preuves écrites de l’intention du testateur ont été invoquées pour justifier le maintien des formalités traditionnelles. Cet article examine les risques, les avantages et les opportunités liés aux formalités électroniques, ainsi que les répercussions de leur utilisation sur la conservation des testaments, l’évaluation de la capacité testamentaire et d’autres questions connexes. Il évalue également la pertinence des dispensing provisions comme alternative aux formalités électroniques. L’article comprend des contributions de co-auteurs issus de quatre juridictions de common law — l’Angleterre et le Pays de Galles, la Colombie-Britannique, le Queensland et New York — ainsi qu’une discussion sur la façon dont les risques, les avantages et les opportunités présentés par les formalités électroniques et les testaments ont été perçus et équilibrés au sein de chacune de ces juridictions.