The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court in the judicial system of Canada. It comprises nine justices,whose decisions are the ultimate application of Canadian law,and grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants each year to appeal decisions rendered by provincial,territorial and federal appellate courts. The Supreme Court is bijural,hearing cases from two major legal traditions and bilingual,hearing cases in both official languages of Canada.
Bora Laskin was a Canadian jurist who served as the 14th chief justice of Canada from 1973 to 1984. Laskin was appointed a puisne justice of the Supreme Court in 1970,and served on the Ontario Court of Appeal from 1965 to 1970. Before he was named to the bench,Laskin worked as a lawyer and in academia.
The Court of Appeal of Quebec is the highest judicial court in Quebec,Canada. It hears cases in Quebec City and Montreal.
Delgamuukw v British Columbia,[1997] 3 SCR 1010,also known as Delgamuukw v The Queen,Delgamuukw-Gisday’wa,or simply Delgamuukw,is a ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada that contains its first comprehensive account of Aboriginal title in Canada. The Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en peoples claimed Aboriginal title and jurisdiction over 58,000 square kilometers in northwest British Columbia. The plaintiffs lost the case at trial,but the Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal in part and ordered a new trial because of deficiencies relating to the pleadings and treatment of evidence. In this decision,the Court went on to describe the "nature and scope" of the protection given to Aboriginal title under section 35 of the Constitution Act,1982,defined how a claimant can prove Aboriginal title,and clarified how the justification test from R v Sparrow applies when Aboriginal title is infringed. The decision is also important for its treatment of oral testimony as evidence of historic occupation.
William Ian Corneil Binnie is a former puisne justice of the Supreme Court of Canada,serving from January 8,1998 to October 27,2011. Of the justices appointed to the Supreme Court in recent years,he is one of the few appointed directly from private practice. On his retirement from the Court,he was described by The Globe and Mail as "arguably the country's premier judge",by La Presse as "probably the most influential judge in Canada of the last decade" and by the Toronto Star as “one of the strongest hands on the court.”
Calder v British Columbia (AG) [1973] SCR 313,[1973] 4 WWR 1 was a decision by the Supreme Court of Canada. It was the first time that Canadian law acknowledged that aboriginal title to land existed prior to the colonization of the continent and was not merely derived from statutory law.
Marshall Rothstein is a former Puisne Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.
The Privacy Act is the federal information-privacy legislation of Canada that came into effect on July 1,1983. Administered by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada,the Act sets out rules for how institutions of the Government of Canada collect,use,disclose,retain,and dispose of personal information of individuals.
Imre Finta was the first person prosecuted under Canada's war crimes legislation. He was charged in 1987 and acquitted in 1990.
A Gladue report is a type of pre-sentencing and bail hearing report that a Canadian court can request when considering sentencing an offender of Aboriginal background under Section 718.2(e) of the Criminal Code.
Michael Moldaver is a former Canadian judge. He was a puisne justice on the Supreme Court of Canada from his 2011 appointment by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper until his retirement in 2022. Before his elevation to the nation's top court,he served as a judge at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and the Court of Appeal for Ontario for over 20 years. A former criminal lawyer,Moldaver is considered an expert in both Canadian criminal law and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Richard Wagner is a Canadian jurist serving as the 18th and current chief justice of Canada since 2017. He previously served as a puisne justice of the Quebec Court of Appeal (2011–2012) and of the Supreme Court of Canada (2012–2017). For several months in 2021,following Julie Payette's resignation as Canada's governor general,Wagner was the administrator of the government of Canada as well as chief justice.
Jody Wilson-Raybould,also known by her initials JWR and by her Kwak’wala name Puglaas,is a Canadian lawyer and former politician who served as the member of Parliament (MP) for the British Columbia (BC) riding of Vancouver Granville from 2015 to 2021. She was initially elected as a member of the Liberal Party –serving as justice minister and attorney general from 2015 to 2019,and briefly as veterans minister and associate national defence minister in 2019 –until she was expelled from caucus amid the SNC-Lavalin affair. She continued to sit in Parliament as an Independent and was reelected in 2019,but did not run in 2021. Before entering federal politics,she was a BC provincial Crown prosecutor,a treaty commissioner and regional chief of the BC Assembly of First Nations.
Russell S. Brown is a puisne justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. He was nominated by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to replace outgoing justice Marshall Rothstein and has been serving in the role since August 31,2015. Prior to his appointment to the Supreme Court,he was a justice at the Alberta Court of Appeal,and before that a law professor at the University of Alberta.
Malcolm H. Rowe is a Puisne Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. Rowe is the first judge from Newfoundland and Labrador to sit on the Supreme Court.
The table below lists the decisions delivered from the bench by the Supreme Court of Canada during 2018. The table illustrates what reasons were filed by each justice in each case,and which justices joined each reason.
Jack Woodward is a Canadian lawyer. He specializes in Canadian Aboriginal law and is the author of Aboriginal Law in Canada,which is considered the leading Canadian publication on Aboriginal Law.
The table below lists the decisions delivered from the bench by the Supreme Court of Canada during 2019. The table illustrates what reasons were filed by each justice in each case,and which justices joined each reason.
Criminal sentencing in Canada is governed by the Canadian Criminal Code. The Criminal Code,along with the Supreme Court of Canada,have distinguished the treatment of Indigenous individuals within the Canadian Criminal Sentencing Regime.
Grassy Narrows First Nation v. Ontario [2014] SCR 48,[2014] 2 S.C.R. 447 was a July 11,2014 decision by the Supreme Court of Canada in case number 35379 in which an appeal made by the Government of Ontario was allowed. The result of Grassy Narrows v. Ontario,while legal,was deemed unfair by some to Grassy Narrows First Nation,as "it has put them in a situation of having negotiated with a party who then ceased to be a party when it came to honouring the agreement."
