Ian Kyer interviewed on Champlain Society Podcast on "Lawyers, Families and Business"

If you subscribe to the Champlain Society's Podcast, Witness to Yesterday, (it's a good one) be sure to check out their most recent episode. Greg Marchildon interviews Ian Kyer on "Lawyers, Families and Business."
Ian is the author of Lawyer's Families and Business: The Shaping of a Bay Street Law Firm, Faskens, 1863-1963, published by the Osgoode Society and Irwin Law in 2013.

Essays on the life of Justice Gerald LeDain

Tracings of Gerald Le Dain's Life in the Law, edited by G. Blaine Baker from McGill-Queen's University Press available for pre-order.

The life and work of a leading Canadian legal academic, university administrator, law reformer, and judge.

Gerald Le Dain (1924-2007) was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada in 1984. This collectively written biography traces fifty years of his steady, creative, and conciliatory involvement with military service, the legal academy, legislative reform, university administration, and judicial decision-making.

This book assembles contributions from the in-house historian of the law firm where Le Dain first practised, from students and colleagues in the law schools where he taught, from a research associate in his Commission of Inquiry into the non-medical use of drugs, from two of his successors on the Federal Court of Appeal, and from three judicial clerks to Le Dain at the Supreme Court of Canada. Also reproduced here is a transcript of a recent CBC documentary about his 1988 forced resignation from the Supreme Court following a short-term depressive illness, with commentary from Le Dain’s family and co-workers.

Gerald Le Dain was a tireless worker and a highly respected judge. In a series of essays that cover the different periods and dimensions of his career, Tracings of Gerald Le Dain’s Life in the Law is an important and compassionate account of one man's commitment to the law in Canada.

Contributors include Harry W. Arthurs, G. Blaine Baker, Bonnie Brown, Rosemary Cairns-Way, John M. Evans, Melvyn Green, Bernard J. Hibbitts, Peter W. Hogg, Richard A. Janda, C. Ian Kyer, Andree Lajoie, Gerald E. Le Dain, Allen M. Linden, Roderick A. Macdonald, Louise Rolland, and Stephen A. Scott.

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Congratuations to Eric Adams and Jordan Strange-Ross for two CHA/ SHC article prizes

Congratulations to Eric Adams and Jordan Strange-Ross, whose 2017 article
"Promises of Law: the Unlawful Dispossession ofJapanese Canadians" received two (!) awards at this year's CHA meetings at Congress: best article in political history and best article in history of migration and ethnicity.

The article appeared in the Osgoode Hall Law Journal vol.54, no 3.

Osgoode Society award winners announced!

Congratulations to this years' award winners!

The Osgoode Society awards two prizes every year, and one every other year. Each award is decided on by a committee consisting of Jim Phillips and two others, mostly, though not entirely, Osgoode Society Directors. We would like to thank all those who helped make the various selections for 2018. Our award winners will be formally announced, and the awards presented, at the Annual Meeting. 

The Peter Oliver Prize, given for published work in Canadian legal history by a student, goes to David Sandomierski for his article ‘Tension and Reconciliation in Canadian Contract Law Casebooks,’ in (2017) 54 Osgoode Hall Law Journal 1181.

 The Hon. R. Roy McMurtry Fellowship in Canadian Legal History attracted a strong field of candidates, and the committee chose two co-winners. One co-winner is Chandra Murdoch, a PhD student in the History Department at the University of Toronto, who is working on the application of the first Indian Act (1876) in Ontario. The other co-winner is Daniel Murchison, a PhD student in the History Department at York University, who is working on the effects of legal change on land-holding and family structure among the indigenous peoples of the Red River valley. 

The John T. Saywell Prize in Canadian Constitutional Legal History has been awarded to Peter Russell, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Toronto, for his 2017 book, Canada’s Odyssey: A Country Based on Incomplete Conquests. The book is a wonderfully readable constitutional history of Canada, written by this country’s foremost political scientist/historian of our constitution.

Osgoode Society Newsletter #4

Issue #4

THE OSGOODE SOCIETY FOR CANADIAN LEGAL HISTORY Established in 1979, the Osgoode Society publishes books on Canadian legal history and maintains an oral history archive.   Registration Information

5:30 p.m. May 28th Osgoode Hall-Museum Room, 130 Queen St.W. Join us for the Osgoode Society's second evening session of  legal history for legal professionals.  This fall the Osgoode Society will publish vol. I, Beginnings to 1866,  of Girard, Phillips and Brown's 2-volume work, A History of Law  in Canada. On May 28, Philip Girard and Jim Phillips will provide a preview  of this work, especially as it relates to the interaction of Canada’s  three legal traditions:  Indigenous law, civil law and common law. They will address this theme by considering the parallel  development of the settler constitution—dealing with relations  between the imperial power and European settlers—and  the Indigenous constitution--dealing with the relations between the imperial power and Indigenous peoples--between 1701  and Confederation. A question and answer session will follow. Professor Jim Phillips Professor Philip Girard This lecture is for Osgoode Society members only REGISTER HERE FOR THIS LECTURE YOU CAN ALSO REGISTER BY PHONE AT 416-947-3321 OR E-MAIL Please renew your membership for 2018 if you haven't already  done so, or join now for the first time. Membership brings many benefits:  2018 members book, A History of Law in Canada Volume I:  1500 to 1866 by Philip Girard, Jim Phillips, and Blake Brown Lectures and Events Quarterly newsletter with information on the Osgoode Society and Canadian legal history Join the Society, Renew Your Membership, or Join our Mailing List

Evans, "Heart of Ice: Indigenous Defendants and Colonial Law in the Canadian North-West"

Catherine L. Evans has an article in the current issue of Law and History: "Heart of Ice: Indigenous Defendants and Colonial Law in the Canadian North-West"

Abstact

In 1885, in the midst of the North-West Resistance in which Indigenous people took up arms against the colonial Canadian state, three Cree men executed an elderly Cree woman. At their trial for murder, the defendants were found guilty. They avoided execution because colonial authorities became convinced that they believed that their victim was a wendigo, a cannibal spirit. Killing a wendigo was justified under Cree law and so, argued one judge, the defendants lacked the mens rea necessary to sustain a murder conviction. The history of this case shows the limits of colonial legal jurisdiction and sovereignty. Scarce resources, hostile territory and Indigenous resistance hampered the colonial state's efforts to consolidate its legal control over the Canadian frontier. This essay notes the importance of these forces, but also argues that common law jurisprudence itself could impair the ability of the state to hold Indigenous defendants criminally responsible. Colonial officials regularly invoked the idea that Indigenous people adhered to different legal and normative orders in order to illustrate their supposed inferiority. However, this official recognition of the legal pluralism of the North-West could undermine a defendant's responsibility and cut against efforts to assert the exclusive jurisdiction of Canadian criminal law.

Announcing our 2nd Legal History Evening, May 28 at Osgoode Hall:"Writing the Histories of Law in Canada: The Interaction of Three Legal Systems".

This fall the Osgoode Society will publish vol. I, Beginnings to 1866, of Girard, Phillips and Brown's 2-volume work, A History of Law in Canada. 

On May 28, at 5:30 p..m in the Museum Room at Osgoode Hall, Philip Girard and Jim Phillips will provide a preview of this work, especially as it relates to the interaction of Canada’s three legal traditions:  Indigenous law, civil law and common law. They will address this theme by considering the parallel development of the settler constitution—dealing with relations between the imperial power and European settlers—and the Indigenous constitution--dealing with the relations between the imperial power and Indigenous peoples--between 1701 and Confederation. A question and answer session will follow.

Attendance free for members--for non-members, the price is a membership! Become a member now. 

Seating is limited--book your spot today by emailing Amanda Campbell at osgoodesociety@lsuc.on.ca or calling (416) 947-3321 or register online.

New: British North America Legislative Database, 1758-1867

Hat tip to Blake Brown for exciting news from the Atlantic Canada Studies Conference of an initiative of the Atlantic Canada Studies Centre and the Centre for Digital Scholarship at the University of New Brunswick, The British North America Legislative Database, 1758-1867. 

Not only will it be an amazing help to have these resources in one place, but they are searchable by keyword and key phrase (pause for delighted gasps.)

The website suggests timber, land policy and dower--I can think of couple dozen more off the top of my head--and notes that this will be wonderful for comparative legal (and other) history.

The database is still incomplete, but there is already a lot there. Caveat that it appears to be also subject to some of the limitations of its underlying sources, eg. Early Canadiana Online.  But do check it out. (Note that it comes up easily on Google, but not so much through the main UNB or UNB libraries websites, so click on this link.)

But well done Atlantic Canada Studies Centre and the Centre for Digital Scholarship and Elizabeth Mancke, and thanks again to Blake for tweeting this news and much else.

Here's a bit from the welcome page:

Welcome to the website for the British North America Legislative Database. This database includes characteristics of all the legislation passed by the pre-Confederation assemblies of eastern British North America: Nova Scotia (1758-1867); Cape Breton (1785-1820); Prince Edward Island (1768-1867); New Brunswick (1786-1867); Lower Canada (1792-1838); Upper Canada (1792-1840), the United Canadas (1841-1867); and Newfoundland (1832-1867).

This database is hosted by the Atlantic Canada Studies Centre and the Centre for Digital Scholarship, both located at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Funding for this project is made possible by Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Atlantic Canada Studies held by Elizabeth Mancke (2012-2019).

PLEASE NOTE: This site is under construction, and legislative acts are still being added. Acts currently available are:

Cape Breton (1785-1820) COMPLETE
Lower Canada (1792-1838) from 1792 to 1806
New Brunswick (1768-1867) COMPLETE
Newfoundland (1833 -1867) COMPLETE
Upper Canada (1792-1840) COMPLETE
United Canadas (1841-1867) from 1841 to 1856

The content labelled as "complete" is available for viewing in its entirety; however, in some cases, it has not yet had "concepts" tags added and/or been edited. Those processes are still underway. We thank you for your patience and encourage you to return often as new content is being loaded and edited every day.

Benidickson, "The Evolution of Canadian Water Law and Policy: Securing Safe and Sustainable Abundance

Jamie Benidickson, "The Evolution of Canadian Water Law and Policy: Securing Safe and Sustainable Abundance," McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law Spring 2017. PDF available.

Abstract:

Abstract: Canadian water law has evolved over an extended period of time as a complex mixture of federal and provincial legislation and case law with provincial arrangements influenced by both riparian and prior appropriation doctrine as well as by the civil law tradition of Quebec. The article reviews highlights from the long-term evolution of Canadian water law, policy and institutions following a chronological path from Confederation in 1867 to the present. Three key shifts that have more recently begun to appear in background assumptions of Canadian water law are then identified. In particular, it is noted (1) that general confidence in the abundance of water is giving way to concerns over security and occasional scarcity, (2) that the primacy of human water uses is gradually being moderated by acknowledgement of the importance of environmental flows, and (3) that international considerations may be relevant to a greater degree than previously contemplated. The concluding section of the paper presents emerging policy directions in relation to the legacy of historic water law and policy decisions and the shifting assumptions previously reviewed with emphasis on sustainability, conservation initiatives and watershed frameworks.