Richardson on Regulation Competition in Accounting

Alan J. Richardson of the Schulich School of Business, York University, writes in the March 2011 issue of the Accounting History Review on "Regulatory competition in accounting: A history of the Accounting Standards Authority of Canada."

Another one for the low law fans and those interested in the 1980s. As I think I have mentioned before, I don't understand why accounting and auditing are not given more attention by legal historians. Other than maybe that accounting, like math, is hard :). And kind of dry. With statistical models. And likely to be published in journals that are out of the usual ambit of legal academics and historians.... 

But for the very smart, hardy, or economically trained, there's this.

This article examines a unique period (1981-1998) in Canadian accounting standard-setting history when, nominally, two competing standard-setting bodies existed: the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants and the nascent Accounting Standards Authority of Canada. Sunder (2002a, 2002b) advocates competing accounting standard-setting regimes within a single jurisdiction to allow firms to voluntarily select standards that reflect their business model and provide the lowest cost-of-capital. This situation, however, is rare and has not been examined empirically. The existence of competing standards assumes the existence of competing standard-setters, but the entry of a new standard-setter into the domain of an existing standard-setter faces numerous obstacles. The analysis of this case suggests some factors missing from Sunder's model. 

Fanning on Mounties as Social Bonding Agents, Confederation to WWI

Fans of legal pluralism and low law may be interested in this one.

Soren Fanning of Robert Morris University, "Forging a Frontier: Social Capital and Canada's Mounted Police, 1867–1914" in the December 2012 issue of American Review of Canadian Studies.

This article examines the role of the North West Mounted Police in creating communities in the Canadian Prairies during the first decades of Confederation. Despite being created as an institution of law enforcement, the Mounted Police acted more often as a social bonding agent, creating the necessary conditions and organizations required to establish permanent communities otherwise isolated from one another. As the only federal presence in the frontier, the force evolved into an autonomous institution of cultural stability, performing vital services and advocating for frontier objectives to the government in Ottawa.

Room change for launch of "Law Books in Action"

Please note a change of room for the book launch for "Law Books in Action," edited by Angela Fernandez and Markus Dubber. The launch, originally to be held in the Rowell Room, Flavelle House, U of T Faculty of Law, will now be held in the Faculty Common Room, same building. The time and date remain the same: Thursday, November 29, 2012, 7 pm.

Two legal history articles in December, 2012 issue of CHR

The table of contents for the upcoming issue of the Canadian Historical Review shows two articles with a legal history slant.

Dan Malleck of Brock University writes on "The Same as a Private Home? Social Clubs, Public Drinking, and Liquor Control in Ontario, 1934–1944" :

 

Along with regulating the sales of liquor in provincial stores, overseeing the manufacture of alcohol, and inspecting the public drinking establishments in the province, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario issued beverage licences to private clubs. This paper examines the challenges of regulating the activities of drinkers in semi-private spaces and asks how the lcbo applied the notion of public space to establishments that were not entirely public. The legislation permitting drinking in clubs appears to have been based upon a narrow idea of the elite social club. The administrators of the board quickly found that the residents of the province saw socialization in a variety of forms. In keeping with its regulatory activities in the public drinking establishments, the lcbo attempted to address individual challenges and problems based upon the unique characteristics of each club. It assessed club management, the type of clientele, and the activities of the club. It then evaluated whether certain transgressions or special dispensations would present a challenge to social order. In effect, the nuanced evaluation and careful application of the rules characterized the regulation of semi-private drinking in the province of Ontario. The article argues that, in contrast to Habermas's idea that the development of a public sphere resulted in freer public discussion and debate, in the lcbo regulatory activities, the term public implied an added responsibility to behave in certain constrained ways. At least when having a drink.
 

And Ruth Frager of McMaster and Carmela Patrias of Brock write on "Human Rights Activists and the Question of Sex Discrimination in Postwar Ontario":

This article examines the varied understandings of human rights in Ontario in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. The article compares the social origins and implementation of Ontario's Fair Employment Practices Act – which combatted racist and religious discrimination – with Ontario's Female Employees Fair Remuneration Act – which mandated equal pay for women who did the same work as men. Although a few feminists called for the Fair Employment Practices Act to prohibit sex discrimination as well, their pleas fell mainly on deaf ears in this period. Men and women who fought against racist injustice were frequently unaware of gender injustice, for they, like so many others, subscribed to the deeply embedded ideology of the family wage. Conversely, some of the most outspoken advocates of women's rights were unconscious of – or chose to ignore – racism. At the same time, some of the most committed advocates of equal pay for equal work actually reinforced certain conventional assumptions about men's gender privilege at work and at home. Moreover, while the enforcement of both acts was constrained by the conciliatory framework embedded within them, the government officials who were charged with applying both acts interpreted the equal pay act quite narrowly and were significantly more diligent in tackling racist and religious employment discrimination.

Knepper on history of Canadian research into human trafficking

The U of T press has made "History Matters: Canada's Contribution to the First Worldwide Study of Human Trafficking" by Paul Knepper, forthcoming in volume 54 of the Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice/La Revue canadienne de criminologie et de justice pénale available for purchase in advance of publication.

Here's the abstract:

Despite the attention given to the issue of human trafficking, the empirical base for policy making remains problematic. During the 1920s, the League of Nations pioneered research into human trafficking with the first intercontinental study. Field work took place in 28 countries across Europe, the Americas, and the Mediterranean; researchers conducted 6,500 interviews in 14 languages. The fieldwork conducted in Canada, the first and last country to be studied, reveals a great deal about human trafficking research today. The researchers encountered problems familiar to current researchers and their official report contains many of the same conclusions. The discussion here explores the unreliability of statistical estimates, difficulties in researching hidden populations, the lack of cases meeting a legal standard, and claims about the involvement of organized crime. It concludes with comments about the importance of incorporating historical perspective into criminology.

Osgoode Society launches four books

Yesterday in Toronto the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History launched its four books for 2012. The President, R. Roy McMurtry, and the Editor-in-Chief, Jim Phillips, addressed the gathering, as did the authors of the two monographs--Blake Brown and Shelley Gavigan, the editor of one essay collection, Barrington Walker, and one of the co-editors of the other collection, Bruce Ziff. Every speech was enjoyable (and short!) and the usual fine time was had by all. (We do look forward to Bruce Ziff's next publication with the Society, as he will no doubt be required to perform on the banjo in addition to or in lieu of his launch speech.)

The books for 2012 are as follows (note the titles of all have changed from what was announced on the Society's website):

The Members' book, received free by members  (memberships and non-member book order forms here) is Arming and Disarming: A History of Gun Control in Canada by R. Blake Brown, published with the University of Toronto Press.







     "Optional extras" for the year are

Hunger, Horses and Government Men: Criminal Law on the Aboriginal Plains, 1870-1905, by Shelley A. M. Gavigan, published with UBC Press,












The African Canadian Legal Odyssey: Historical Essays, edited by Barrington Walker published with U of T Press,













and last but not least, Property on Trial: Canadian Cases in Context, edited by Eric Tucker, James Muir and Bruce Ziff, published with Irwin Law

Here's the Table of Contents for the latter volume (the ToC for the other collection is not yet in available for cut and paste purposes):

James Muir, Introduction

Bruce Ziff, The Law of Capture, Newfoundland Style

Eric H. Reiter, Nuisance and Neighbourhood in Late Nineteenth-Century Montreal: Drysdale v Dugas in Its Contexts

Jamie Benidickson, KVP: Ontario’s Riparian Resurrection

Philip Girard, Cottages, Covenants and the Cold War: Galbraith v Madawaska Club

Vanessa Gruben, Angela Cameron and Angela Chaisson, “The courts have turned women into slaves for the men of this world”: Irene Murdoch’s Quest for Justice

Eran Kaplinsky, The Zoroastrian Temple in Toronto: A Case Study in Land Use Regulation, Canadian Style

Jim Phillips and Jeremy Martin, Manitoba Fisheries v. The Queen: The Origins of Canada’s De Facto Expropriation Doctrine

Eric Tucker, The Malling of Property Law?: The Toronto Eaton Centre Cases, 1984-1987 and the Right to Exclude

Margaret McCallum, Morgan and Jacobson v. Attorney General for Prince Edward Island

C. Ian Kyer, Reginav. Stewart: Is Information Property?

Nicholas Blomley, Begging to differ: Panhandling, Public Space, and Municipal Property

Patricia L. Farnese, Pirate or Prophet? Monsanto Canada Inc. v Schmeiser

Douglas C. Harris, A Railway, a City, and the Public Regulation of Private Property: CPR v City of Vancouver

Mary Jane Mossman, Afterword–Private Property and the Public Interest: (Re)Telling the Stories of Principles, Places and Parties

Congratulations to John Beattie!

U of T emeritus professor John Beattie added to his impressive list of honours and recognitions when it was announced at the American Society for Legal History conference in St. Louis that he has been elected an honorary fellow of the Society.
Well-deserved (and maybe just a tad overdue?)
Congratulations, John, from everyone at the Osgoode Society and the Osgoode Legal History Group!