Adams, Constitutional Stories: Japanese Canadians and the Constitution of Canada

Forthcoming in Australasian Canadian Studies, Eric Adams, "Constitutional Stories: Japanese Canadians and the Constitution of Canada" on SSRN  h/t Legal History Blog

Constitutions, and the law and culture they generate, constitute in the broad, diverse, and conflicting stories we tell about places, peoples, and nation states. Significant constitutional anniversaries have always marked an occasion for creating and challenging constitutional stories. The 150th anniversary of Confederation offers an opportunity to reflect on the stories that Canadian constitutional history has to contribute to the country’s broader constitutional narrative and self-understanding. In particular, I explore how significant moments in the constitutional history of Japanese Canadians reveal the relationship between constitutional failure and meaningful moments of constitutional resistance and change. In doing so, we see the capacity of constitutional history, often abandoned by scholars for the more immediate imperatives of contemporary constitutional concerns, as integral to a full understanding of Canadian constitutional law, culture, and politics.

McGill memorial for Blaine Baker planned for September

The McGill University Law School has organized a memorial event to remember Blaine Baker at McGill’s Birks Heritage Chapel, 3520 University Street, Montreal, on Friday 7 September at 2 p.m.

Before anyone asks me about Toronto, I have no details about that at this time.

Moyse, Colonial Copyright Redux: 1709 vs. 1832

Via Dan Ernst at the Legal History Blog, who always seems to get these bulletins before I do:

Pierre-Emmanuel Moyse, McGill University, Faculty of Law, has posted Colonial Copyright Redux: 1709 vs. 1832 on SSRN.:

The study of colonialism shows us that the law often serves the needs and interests of both the Imperial power and the subjugated country. Concessions are necessary to rule a conquered population. In order to understand Canadian law and the measure of Imperial influence, one must understand the dialogue between the various legal traditions.

This essay will examine legal transplants in a historical and colonial context. It will begin with a brief review of Canadian history in order to understand the evolution of Canadian copyright law. It will focus on the creation and significance of Canada’s first copyright legislation. Using the Statute of Anne as a reference point, this essay will describe the evolution of Canadian copyright law on its journey to self-determination during the 18th and 19th centuries. More specifically, this essay will explore the influence of the 1709 Statute of Anne on the 1832 colonial Acte pour protéger la propriété intellectuelle.
It will argue that the influence of the Statute of Anne as an expression of the Canadianess of Canadian copyright policy is not to be found in the text of 1832. It can be found in the small prints of the numerous bills and amendments proposed to the English Parliament, in those provisions buried in the text which triggered an open war between Canadian, American and English publishers and stigmatized by the 1847 Foreign Reprints Act. It is in the context of the 1847 piece that the influence of the Statue of Anne and its monopolistic or imperialistic effects can be fully grasped

Canadian Legal History for Kids! Meet Viola Desmond by Elizabeth MacLeod for Scholastic

Canadian Legal History for Kids! Meet Viola Desmond by Elizabeth MacLeod, published by Scholastic Canada.

Hat tip to David Steeves, who recently bought this for his son Daniel.

Any other legal histories for kids anyone knows about?

G. Blaine Baker

The Osgoode Society is profoundly saddened to announce the recent sudden death of G. Blaine Baker. A wonderful historian, teacher and friend. No funeral details as yet.

New from UTP: Campbell, Miscarriages of Justice in Canada

Looks like there is some legal history in this new book from U of T press by Kathryn M. Campbell:

Miscarriages of Justice in Canada:Causes, Responses, Remedies

Innocent people are regularly convicted of crimes they did not commit. A number of systemic factors have been found to contribute to wrongful convictions, including eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, informant testimony, official misconduct, and faulty forensic evidence. 

In Miscarriages of Justice in Canada, Kathryn M. Campbell offers an extensive overview of wrongful convictions, bringing together current sociological, criminological, and legal research, as well as current case-law examples. For the first time, information on all known and suspected cases of wrongful conviction in Canada is included and interspersed with discussions of how wrongful convictions happen, how existing remedies to rectify them are inadequate, and how those who have been victimized by these errors are rarely compensated. Campbell reveals that the causes of wrongful convictions are, in fact, avoidable, and that those in the criminal justice system must exercise greater vigilance and openness to the possibility of error if the problem of wrongful conviction is to be resolved.