Law

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10315/26547

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Kikisokemowin1: Pawatamowin in nehiyaw Legal Procedures
(2026-07-24) McAdam, Sylvia; Hewitt, Jeffery G.
This master’s thesis explores nêhiyaw (Cree) and Anishinaabe legal orders, methodologies (Indigegogy), and epistemologies, emphasizing matrilineal systems within the language as well as kinship, and dreaming as law. It centers on the concept of kikisôkêmôwin—a process of spiritual and ancestral remembrance—and uses personal narratives, ceremonies, and linguistic analysis to decolonize and disrupt colonial manifestations and frameworks. This thesis also critiques colonial structures like the Doctrine of Discovery and calls for Indigenous resurgence rooted in original laws, kinship, and matrilineal knowledge. keywords: nêhiyawêwin language and knowledge, Indigegogy methodology, Indigenous, nêhiyaw laws, anti-colonial analysis, First Nations and Indigenous brilliance, matriarchal knowledge and governance systems, epistemology, ontology.
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Xenoracial Capitalism and the Status-Exclusion of Canada’s ‘Dreamers’
(2026-07-24) Wong, Vincent Wan Shun; Faraday, Fay C.
This dissertation examines how and why status-excluded (undocumented) migrant youth in Canada – Canada's “Dreamers” – are systematically precluded from accessing postsecondary education and pathways to permanent residency. Its central thesis is that status-excluded youth are not people who have simply “fallen through the cracks”. Rather, they are produced, regulated, exploited, and expelled through what I term a regime of “xenoracial capitalism” – a system of accumulation in which immigration law functions as a primary constitutive site of intersecting colonialisms, racialization, and capitalist labour extraction. The dissertation develops a tripartite methodological framework. Legal-historical analysis traces the evolution of Canadian migration law from its origins in imperial mobility rights through the era of white settler nationalism and into the neoliberal present, revealing status-exclusion as a persistent and largely intentional shadow policy. A law and political economy framework, grounded in xenoracial capitalism and decolonial theory, situates contemporary immigration law as structurally organized around profit-making (through exploitation, expropriation, and expulsion) and race-making (through stratification, segregation, and sacrifice zones). Qualitative empirical research, drawing on semi-structured interviews with twenty-two current and former status-excluded youth aged 18–35 and five expert stakeholders, grounds abstract claims in lived collective experience. The empirical findings reveal how status-excluded youth navigate an immigration status pyramid defined by pervasive chutes (mechanisms where people lose status) and few, fragile status ladders. These in turn normalize conditions of discriminatory tuition fees, wage theft and labour exploitation, precarious housing, criminalization, and deportability. Early 21st century regulatory developments, including the Canadian Experience Class and Post-Graduate Work Permit, transformed ostensible pathways into gauntlets towards PR that hyperexploit migrant workers and students by concentrating power in the hands of employers and schools. Recent legislation such as Bill C-12 indicate that status-excluded people is now firmly entrenched as a shadow policy that organizes the mass production of an invisibilized, racially stratified lower-caste population. The dissertation concludes by charting three normative legal-political horizons that undermine xenoracial capitalism: regularization and status for all; internationalist worker organizing; and decolonizing migration through engagement with Indigenous legal orders and sovereignty. Together, these challenge liberal human rights framings and demand structural transformation of the xenoracial capitalist order.
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The Extended Reality of the Meta-IP-Verse in the Modern Fashion Industry
(2026-07-24) Suri, Amrita Chopra; Craig, Carys J.
The metaverse presents the fashion industry with unprecedented commercial possibilities, yet its transnational, decentralized, and jurisdictionally indeterminate architecture demands measured and deliberate engagement from brands, consumers, and regulators alike. This thesis contends that a sustainable and equitable trajectory is contingent upon the principled alignment of intellectual property protections, regulatory frameworks, and consumer rights. Existing intellectual property doctrine proves structurally inadequate to govern digital goods, non-fungible tokens, and virtual assets within an environment defined by interoperability failures, traceability deficits, pseudonymous transactional infrastructure, and the foundational decentralization of blockchain-based platforms. The governance imperative extends well beyond the protection of incumbent commercial interests. Coherent metaversal intellectual property frameworks carry profound social, cultural, and institutional significance – safeguarding cultural communities from digital appropriation, redressing the informational asymmetries embedded in smart contract transactions, and cultivating the conditions under which independent digital creativity can flourish without systematic disadvantage. This thesis maintains that effective governance cannot merely analogize from conventional intellectual property frameworks to virtual environments, nor can it simply transpose the enforcement paradigms developed for the early internet onto a space that is architecturally, commercially, and experientially distinct. It must instead navigate the compounding doctrinal challenges of omniterritoriality, platform interoperability, pseudonymous traceability, and structural decentralization. The progressive blurring of physical and virtual extended realities will require genuine global multilateral partnership, coordinated intergovernmental engagement, and a willingness to treat the governance architecture of the metaverse as a problem of institutional design rather than doctrinal extrapolation. Most critically, the framework must be prospective rather than reactive, internationally coordinated rather than territorially fragmented, and constitutively embedded with values of equity, access, and transparency as foundational commitments from which the architecture of metaverse IP governance is built – and against which its legitimacy will ultimately be measured.
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Deliberate “Design”: Why Canada’s Legal System Needs It
(2026-07-24) Khan, Jonathan Christopher; Rehaag, Sean
This dissertation argues that Canada’s legal system was never deliberately “designed” with evidence, users, user experience, or continuous improvement in mind. Instead, it evolved from an amalgam of colonialism, rebellion, precedent, tradition, feelings, misguided intentions, and inertia. The lack of deliberate design and the traditions filling the gap may partly contribute to Canada’s “justice crisis” and Canada’s legal data deficit. Most people can’t access basic justice, and basic facts about Canada’s legal system remain mysteries. This dissertation focuses on how the lack of deliberate design and legal data deficit interact with Canada’s justice crisis, judicial decision-making, and judicial decision-writing. Relying on human-centered design and other methodologies, it seeks to identify ways to enhance the user experience of individuals who use and interact with judicial decisions and courts. Over five chapters, it relies on two original surveys, legal doctrine, interdisciplinary perspectives, and comparative research: • Chapter 1 explains why the legal system lacks a deliberate design and why the lack might undermine judicial independence, impartiality, and basic fairness. It advocates for more systems and design thinking in judicial decision-making and decision-writing instead of generally treating judges and courts as superhuman and super-elite. • Chapter 2 discusses eight concerns that courts may have about calls to innovate, including standardization and the transparent collection, release, and analysis of data. • Chapter 3 presents the results of the 2023 Survey, which builds on the 2019 Survey from prior research in “Life of a Reserve”, and discusses survey themes about judicial decisions and Canada’s courts from over 800 respondents. • Chapter 4 examines the state of Canadian empirical legal research and the legal data deficit and prescribes improvements for governments, courts, law schools, and journals. • Chapter 5 provides eight specific recommendations derived from the preceding chapters, including deliberately designed reforms such as standardized data gathering and transparency, ongoing data analysis, and standardization efforts. This analysis tries to offer a straightforward thesis. At least part of Canada’s justice crisis might have a simple explanation. While actual laws and practices change, how we reform our legal system mostly doesn’t, including the continued lack of data gathering and transparency. Instead of continuing with historical approaches, this dissertation argues that justice system reformers must adopt more deliberate designs and greater epistemic humility. In other words, reformers must be more deliberate in reform efforts but less confident that efforts will necessarily “work.”
Access status: Open Access ,
No Longer a Footnote: Understanding the Perspectives of Black Women Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence in the Criminal Law System Through Sistering Methodology
(2026-07-24) Harris, Shushanna; Mosher, Janet E.
The voices and experiences of Black women survivors of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) have historically been ignored or placed in a footnote. IPV cuts across race, class, religion, etcetera yet, it is often examined through an essentialist lens. The dominant discourse regarding IPV excises many women’s experiences, including Black women’s, centres white women’s experiences, attributes gender inequality (sexism and patriarchy) as its primary source, and ignores the significance of intersecting oppressions. As white women are not plagued by the perpetuation of structural and institutional racism that is the bedrock of the criminal law system (CLS), it is no surprise that many demand(ed) justice for IPV by placing their confidence in the CLS. Though noteworthy criminal law reforms and responses were implemented, the reliance on the CLS failed to appreciate the potential consequences of such an alliance for Black women. Recognizing the potential consequences and the neglect of the voices of Black women survivors of IPV, the purpose of this project is three-fold. First, and perhaps most importantly, the project provides a platform to highlight and amplify the voices of ten Black women survivors of IPV through the lens of Intersectionality; it renders them and their experiences visible. By doing so, epistemic injustice is confronted, as Black women are producing knowledge of their own experiences – no longer ignored, footnoted, or categorized under the universalized rubric of “women”. Second, the project engenders insight into some of the factors that resonated with heterosexual Black women survivors of IPV, who were abused by Black men, when deciding whether to involve the CLS in their IPV situations and captures their notions of what constitutes justice. Third, embarking on this project enabled me to conduct research differently, through a decolonial lens. Relying on the theory of Black Feminist Thought and borrowing from the methodological approach known as Endarkened Feminist Epistemology (EFE), I created a methodology, Sistering, that informed how I engaged with Black women as co-participants for this project.
Access status: Open Access ,
Tracing the Roots of Racial Profiling: Gender Bias, Socio-Economic Factors, and Police Encounters With Black Youth in Toronto's Eglinton West
(2026-03-10) Noel, Tenisha Keyana; Lawrence, Sonia
This study critically investigates the intersection of race, gender, and socio-economic status in shaping the policing experiences of Black youth in Toronto’s Eglinton West, with a specific focus on the Toronto Police Service’s 13 Division. Drawing on Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality, this research explores how systemic biases, urban spatial politics, and institutional practices contribute to the over-policing and criminalization of Black youth in a historically Black neighbourhood undergoing rapid socio-economic transformation. Through a mixed-methods approach, including an in-depth conversation with a community worker and historical-spatial analysis of census data, this study provides insight into how enduring stereotypes of Black masculinity and the invisibilization of Black femininity produce distinct forms of state violence. These experiences are compounded by economic marginalization, racialized surveillance practices such as carding, and the erosion of community spaces due to gentrification. A comparative analysis with Jane and Finch highlights how policing dynamics and community experiences differ across historically Black neighbourhoods in Toronto. While Eglinton West has experienced significant gentrification and displacement pressures, Jane and Finch’s high-rise environment shapes distinct patterns of surveillance, social isolation, and community resilience. Contrasts in local infrastructure, social spaces, and cultural hubs reveal how the urban environment interacts with systemic biases to produce varied forms of state violence and community coping mechanisms. By situating these policing practices within broader historical and policy frameworks, the research identifies how racial profiling persists despite legal reforms and public scrutiny. Ultimately, the study offers evidence-based policy recommendations centred on equity, community empowerment, and transformative justice, highlighting the need for structural change in both policing and social investment to address the compounded vulnerabilities faced by Black youth in urban Canadian contexts.
Access status: Open Access ,
Material Witness: A Materialist Analysis of Per Krohg's UN Security Council Mural Untitled and the Endurance of Christian Imaginaries
(2026-03-10) Pheasant Lust, Gwyneth Esther; Buchanan, Ruth M.
The application of theoretical frameworks grounded in Actor-Network Theory and materialism to Norwegian painter Per Krohg’s mural Untitled which hangs in the United Nations Security Council Chamber in New York City, reveals a palimpsest of two narratives. The first reflects the UN’s aspirations for peace, security, and development while the second, which is “hidden in plain sight,” exposes international law’s theological pre-histories rooted in Christian civilizing missions and colonial expansionism. This thesis endeavours to present a different way of looking at legal institutional stagnation by offering insight into the praxis of materialist methodology and it’s application to visual culture. This in turn elucidates the persistent, antiquated architectures of international law. By “making seen what is seen,” this thesis invites legal scholars and practitioners of international law to reconsider the role of materiality and how it shapes global governance.
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The Role of Transnational Self-Regulated Norms in Advancing Environmental Accountability of Foreign Investors in Investor-State Dispute Settlement Tribunals
(2026-03-10) Aboutorabifard, Haniehalsadat; Scott, Craig Martin
This dissertation aims at mitigating the critical tension between promoting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) as a financing mechanism for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the frequent neglect of environmental protection within the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system. While International Investment Agreements (IIAs) and the ISDS tribunals they create are meant to facilitate foreign investment flow, this framework has historically favored investor protections over a host State’s right to regulate environmentally. This has created an imbalance where foreign investors enjoy protective rights but have limited corresponding international environmental obligations. The dissertation’s main goal is to propose a legally sound path for holding foreign investors environmentally accountable within the current ISDS framework, asking if transnational self-regulatory norms can be used as substantive law to impose international environmental obligations on investors during investment disputes. Through doctrinal and theoretical analysis, it proposes using the systemic interpretation approach found in Article 31(3)(c) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties to determine if a transnational norm qualifies as a relevant and applicable rule of transnationalized customary international law for interpreting an investment treaty. To make this practical, the research uses the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) as a case study, showing how it can be invoked as substantive law to hold investors accountable for environmental damage and confirming that a doctrinally and theoretically solid path exists for integrating investor obligations into investment arbitration. Ultimately, the dissertation concludes that by treating qualified transnational self-regulatory norms as substantive law, ISDS tribunals can achieve a meaningful balance between investor rights and responsibilities, transforming investment arbitration from an impeding setting into a tool for fostering environmentally responsible investment and helping to achieve the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This research is especially timely, as its arguments align with recent developments like the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion on climate change litigation, which underscores the urgent need to integrate environmental norms into international law.
Access status: Open Access ,
The Implications of Introducing Sustainability and Climate Change as Grounds for Compulsory Licensing Under the World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade Related Intellectual Property (TRIPS) Agreement
(2026-03-10) Akinseesin, Olayinka Oluwatoni; Mgbeoji, Ikechi M. C.
This thesis addresses the growing tension between intellectual property protection under the World Trade Organization’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement and the urgent need for access to climate-related technologies. While the Agreement permits compulsory licensing, its application has largely been limited to public health emergencies, leaving uncertainty as to whether sustainability and climate change can justify similar measures. Using doctrinal legal analysis, comparative assessment, and selected case studies to examine the scope of existing TRIPS flexibilities and their potential application to climate technologies. The findings show that while the TRIPS framework does not expressly recognize climate change as a ground for compulsory licensing, public-interest-oriented interpretations provide limited but viable avenues for expansion. However, legal ambiguity, economic concerns, and political resistance constrains implementation. The thesis concludes that clearer interpretative guidance and reforms are needed to reconcile intellectual property protection and access to technologies with global climate imperatives.
Access status: Open Access ,
Sovereignty Made Present: A Political Theology Of Canadian Constitutional Originalism
(2025-11-11) Dalwood, Charlotte Sophia; Berger, Benjamin L.
This thesis develops an analogy between Canadian expressions of constitutional originalism, on the one hand, and American evangelical practices of interpreting the Bible as their holy scripture, on the other. It does so in defence of a comparative claim: there is something substantively similar about the way originalists read the Canadian Constitution and the way American evangelicals read the Protestant Bible in that they both do so theologically. Drawing on the political theology literature, this thesis develops that claim with sustained reference to originalist and evangelical interpretive methods and motives. At the level of method, constitutional originalism represents a reconstructive effort to identify and operationalize the historical decisions through which the Constitution’s drafters formulated its final wording; and, at the level of motive, to an assertive effort to identify on that basis the Canadian citizenry’s “sovereign self,” of which the originalist interpreter is one part, as the Constitution’s ultimate author.
Access status: Open Access ,
Examining the Role and Influence of Local and Transnational Anti-LGBTIQ+ Actors on Laws and Policies in Kenya, Uganda, and Ghana
(2025-11-11) Sogunro, Ayodele Olorunfunmi; Scott, Craig Martin
This thesis examines how local and transnational anti-LGBTIQ+ actors influence laws and governance structures in Kenya, Uganda, and Ghana. Drawing on document analysis and theoretical frameworks including postcolonial theory, transnational advocacy networks, and vernacularization, it reveals how these actors co-produce political homophobia as a governance strategy. The research finds that transnational actors provide financial resources, ideological frameworks, and legitimizing narratives, while local actors in transnational movements adapt these into culturally resonant forms. Their collaborative actions have expanded colonial-era restrictions into comprehensive systems of criminalization framed paradoxically as resistance to Western imperialism. Beyond LGBTIQ+ rights, these efforts establish precedents for restricting civil society, redefining sovereignty, and limiting rights protections more broadly. The study demonstrates that political homophobia functions not merely as cultural expression but as a governance mechanism with implications for democratic institutions, civil society independence, and human rights frameworks, within a system of authoritarian advancement masked as cultural authenticity.
Access status: Open Access ,
Meaningful Justice Design: A Practical Implementation of Accessible Justice
(2025-11-11) Escott, Daniel James; Chiodo, Suzanne
Traditional legal systems often include barriers to access to justice, and the integration of technology frequently fails to deliver user-centric solutions. This thesis investigates how user-centric design methodologies can optimize technology integration to enhance access to justice while mitigating barriers. It proposes “Meaningful Justice Design” (MJD), a novel methodology aiming to make justice systems responsive to users’ needs for understanding, navigation, and effective problem resolution. This research encompasses a literature review, a meta-analysis of empirical data, and an examination of Canadian and international case studies, revealing that contemporary justice processes often lack genuine user-centricity. MJD is organized around five core tenets: Justice is the Goal, Injustice is the Metric, User-Centricity, One-Size-Fits-Some Resolution Pathways, and Transformative Integration of Technology. MJD provides a framework for systemic justice reform with significant implications, advocating for system designs that are not only procedurally sound but also foster accessible, equitable, and restorative experiences for all users.
Access status: Open Access ,
A Complementary Tension: The Intersectional Issue of Gene Patents in Health in Canada
(2025-11-11) Scanga, Vanessa Immacolata; Salter, R. L. Liora
Who has no right to use your genes? It could be you. Human genetics and genomics research is costly and in it there is potential for commercial gain. In the decades of human gene-based research and development, much of the debate over the commercialization of genetic materials has occurred under the protective rubric of patent law and according to utilitarian rationales that justify the granting of exclusive rights that ostensibly will make the world a better place. However, questions arise regarding the effectiveness of patents in promoting health and well-being, given the lack of evidence supporting their exclusive rights exchange for disclosure. Patent policy may set out to combine the health improvement and economic growth objectives of innovation, but these two goals do not always align. The Canadian debate on human gene patents, illustrated by cases like Myriad Genetics’ BRCA patents and the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario’s struggles over Transgenomic’s LQTS patents, highlights tensions between public and private interests. While exclusive patent rights have raised concerns about access to genetic tests, significant patent system reform in Canada may not be the solution. Instead, a comprehensive genetics policy approach is needed, alongside enhanced governmental expertise to ensure open and equitable access to gene-based technologies; it is again time for governments to reamass in-house expertise at the policy-evidence interface regarding genetics and genomics to mitigate a growing vulnerability in governance and oversight in these advancing areas of science, technology and biomedicine. Collaborative efforts among stakeholders in science, health, and industry are crucial for policy coherence, better inter-institutional cooperation, and better leadership. This study conducted in-depth interviews with 26 stakeholders from various sectors, complemented by case and doctrinal analysis of human gene patent-related litigation.
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Informal Consensus-Building As An Emerging Praxis In International Human Rights Law
(2025-07-23) Habibi, Roojin; Hoffman, Steven
This dissertation examines the practice of informal consensus-building in international law. It defines this practice as a collaborative process through which scholars, advocates, and practitioners, working outside formal institutional mandates, develop shared understandings of legal norms. Drawing on findings from case studies and insider action research in international human rights law, this research demonstrates how such practices can shape the interpretation, implementation, and progressive development of international legal norms. Yet not all such practices are alike, and some have proven more influential than others over time. A comparative analysis of three past initiatives—the 1945 Statement of Essential Human Rights, the 1984 Siracusa Principles on the Limitation and Derogation Provisions in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the 1985 Paris Minimum Standards of Human Rights Norms in a State of Emergency—illustrates how the influence of an informal consensus-building initiative is closely tied to the perceived legitimacy of its outputs. That perceived legitimacy, in turn, is shaped both by the strategic choices made during drafting and dissemination and by the broader political and institutional contexts in which these initiatives emerge. To explore this dynamic in contemporary practice, the dissertation examines the development of the 2023 Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Public Health Emergencies. As an insider to this consensus-building process, I provide a detailed account of its development, focusing on the tensions between inclusivity, representation, technical rigour, timeliness, and impact. Together, the case studies and action research presented here contribute to scholarly efforts to understand how norms gain legitimacy and traction within communities of practice. Building on the work of Emanuel Adler, Thomas Franck, Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona, and others, this dissertation underscores both the normative potential and procedural complexity of informal consensus-building as a distinct mode of praxis in international human rights law. It calls for greater scholarly attention to these practices, and for enhanced transparency, inclusivity, and methodological rigour in their development.
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Prosecuting Hate Speech: Keegstra, Zundel, and the Criminal Law's Ability to Protect Vulnerable Communities
(2025-07-23) Grad, Kenneth; Berger, Benjamin L.
There has been an alarming increase in hate speech in recent years, both in Canada and abroad. There is wide consensus that increased emphasis on criminal law will help suppress harmful expression. Numerous countries have proposed or enacted new criminal laws targeting hate speech. But there is little evidence of governments and policymakers taking into account the experience of countries that have long had criminal laws aimed at harmful expression. Canada, which has criminalized hate speech since 1970, is one such country. The Canadian experience may hold lessons regarding whether the criminal law has proved an effective tool for countering racism and uplifting vulnerable groups. This question—whether the criminal law is an effective tool for countering racism and uplifting vulnerable groups—forms the core inquiry of this dissertation. I explore this question through the cases of R v Keegstra and R v Zundel. Both prosecutions commenced in 1985 and both were ultimately decided by the Supreme Court of Canada. Both involved antisemitism and Holocaust denial. They remain the leading cases in Canadian law on the scope and limits of freedom of expression. Keegstra and Zundel have received attention primarily from scholars interested in the proper ambit of freedom of speech in a liberal-democratic society. Missing from this scholarship is any significant assessment of whether hate-speech laws serve the goals of the criminal sanction and how hate-speech prosecutions impact victim groups. This dissertation fills this gap by providing a history of these cases from the perspective of the Canadian Jewish community. The Keegstra and Zundel prosecutions had a profound impact on Canada’s Jews. Yet no comprehensive history of these prosecutions has been written. I provide that account here. This dissertation makes three main findings. First, to understand and respect vulnerable communities, we must acknowledge divisions within these groups. Second, the criminal law is a poor mechanism for countering hate speech. Third, civil law remedies and non-legal approaches should be relied on to supplement the criminal law in the fight against harmful expression.
Access status: Open Access ,
Mapping Child Marriage Within the History of International Law: A Turn to the Archives of the 1926 Slavery Convention
(2025-07-23) Shwan, Didar; White, Emily Kidd
At its heart, this thesis is an investigation into how the female child, compelled into conditions akin to slavery through marriage, has been historically marginalized from the scope of slavery as it is defined in the 1926 Slavery Convention. Conversely, the Human Rights Council of the United Nations General Assembly recently recognized that the experiences and exploitation of women in forced marriages can meet the international legal definition of slavery. This framing evolution indicates the reorientation of institutional efforts in recognizing forced marriages as a form of slavery. Through a historical study of the international legal origin of slavery, this thesis probes into the conceptual and linguistic shift in the framing of forced marriages. In doing so, it identifies, within the archives of the League of Nations, the forces which shaped a narrow conception of slavery in the law. A critical analysis of the intersections of law and gender during the colonial era of the League of Nations concludes with the identification of a systematic exclusion of child marriage from the legal construction of slavery, driven by hegemonic forces. This work finds that the politics and ideologies of coloniality shaped a narrow conception of slavery, enabling the continued economic, labor, and other forms of exploitation of the colonized Global South. It emphasizes the limitations of the prevailing anti-slavery framework, rooted in this history, which continues to relegate the enslaved child to the margins.
Access status: Open Access ,
Reading Equality and Equity into Ontario's Succession Law Reform Act (SLRA) and Public Policy Doctrine
(2025-07-23) Aggarwal, Bharat; Parachin, Adam
This thesis explores the legal principles for dependent relief claims established by the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) in Tataryn v. Tataryn Estate in light of two Ontario Court of Appeal decisions that disagree on the applicability of Tataryn in Ontario. The disagreement is in part because in Tataryn the Supreme Court of Canada was interpreting British Columbia’s Wills Variation Act (WVA) and not Ontario’s Succession Law Reform Act (SLRA). In this thesis, traditional doctrinal legal research methods will be used to critique the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Tataryn v. Tataryn Estate and advocate for its application in Ontario to balance the conflicting values of the Charter in deciding dependent relief claims.
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The Impact Of The Indian Act On Indigenous Women's Voices: Rereading Sex-Based Discrimination Case Law Against Indigenous Feminist Theatre Movement Literature
(2025-04-10) Robinson, Carrie Margaret Marie; Buchanan, Ruth
This thesis contextualizes the landmark cases of Lovelace and McIvor within the Indigenous Feminist Theatre Movement. A “law as literature” method is built on to note how legal pluralist law reform of the Indian Act’s Indian Status rules is necessary. The two plays of Strength Of Indian Women and Women Of The Fur Trade are read alongside the cases to contrast the ways in which women's lives are represented and understood in each. This juxtaposition reveals how Indigenous women's challenges to sex-based discrimination have historically been stifled. Canada’s laws fail to include cultural norms, reflecting Indigenous legal orders, that Indigenous women voice in the theatre. The narratives envision valuable Indigenous matriarchal identities despite the Indian Act’s requisite masking of them behind non-Indigenous marital identities. The masking is revealed to be a barrier to Indigenous women’s full representation and expression informed by their cultural identities. Positive fictional roles counter stereotypes of Indigenous women in the real world thereby contributing to normative reshaping and jurisgenesis.
Access status: Open Access ,
Reading Law's Great Unread: Qualitative Computational Methods, Artificial Intelligence and the New Empirical Legal Research
(2025-04-10) Wallace, Simon; Rehaag, Sean
How will new computational technologies change legal research and our visions of what law is? Inspired by the work of digital humanists, Bourdieu, and sociologists of literature, this dissertation explores how the methods of “distant reading” can be used to develop new classes of critical insights about law. After situating the project theoretically, this dissertation reports on a series of new computational studies about Canadian law. Chapter 1 measures Canadian statutory and regulatory law, showing that law has grown unevenly over the past decade and a half. Chapter 2 uses new artificial intelligence to transcribe and analyze Supreme Court of Canada hearings, revealing gendered and linguistic speaking patterns among justices. Chapter 3 shows how computational methods can be deployed to detect inconsistency and discord in a jurisprudence, in this case Canada’s law of terrorism. Chapter 4 uses machine learning to study refugee law jurisprudence, particularly showing how it has developed over the past decade. Chapter 5 leverages new computational techniques to analyze Social Security Tribunal of Canada decisions regarding employment insurance appeals and suggests that new computational analyses might usefully change legal education. It concludes by considering how some visions of computational legal analysis—despite the sweep and scope of their projects—are part of old and traditional visions of what law is.
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The Scope Of The Possible: Canadian Courts, Emotion, And The Assertion Of Crown Sovereignty
(2025-04-10) Brown, Julia; White, Emily Kidd
This thesis considers emotion and the role emotion plays in judicial reasoning in three Aboriginal title decisions. The aim of this analysis is to draw to the surface emotional undercurrents and commitments that, together with other currents, impact the direction of judicial reasoning in these cases. Using methodologies and approaches from the area of law and emotion, this thesis employs close readings of the three Aboriginal title decisions to draw out lacunae in the Supreme Court of Canada’s reasoning. These lacunae reflect fixed assumptions that the Court chooses not to interrogate, such as the Crown’s acquisition of radical title to all land in Canada, and other postures and commitments that impact the Court’s reasoning. The emotions analysis posits that these lacunae give us information about where resistance, aversion, fear, and other emotions arise to reinforce certain narratives and modes of thinking and to prevent engagement with challenging questions.

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