https://www.law.utoronto.ca/blog/faculty en https://www.law.utoronto.ca/blog/faculty/ontario-government-plans-solve-grid-lock-defy-evidence-and-common-sense-and-put Since arriving in Toronto in 1997, I have persisted in using a bicycle for many of my transportation needs, even though I also drive a car and use public transportation. While often having been frustrated and worried about the lack of safe cycling infrastructure, I trusted that Toronto would inevitably join one day the many world-class cities that integrated cycling as a key component of solving transportation woes and of creating liveable streets that entice people to live and work in the city.Familiar with studies that show how population density cannot be reconciled with having everyone... 2024-10-15 15:45:00 Trudo Lemmens node/29893 https://www.law.utoronto.ca/blog/faculty/what-counts-evidence-in-polarized-euthanasiaassisted-dying-debate-lessons-belgian In the context of the rapidly expanding, largely unbridled, #euthanasia #MAID practice in Canada, some MAID expansionists continue to deny that there are problems, notwithstanding accumulating reports of euthanasia for lack of social support and adequate health care. They often employ the rhetoric of 'anecdotes are not evidence', with some even naively pointing to a lack of successful prosecution. A critical analysis of a unique Belgian criminal case involving euthanasia by colleagues Marc De Hert, Sien Loos, Sigrid Sterckx,  Eric Thys, and Kristof Van Assche of... 2023-05-05 20:15:00 Trudo Lemmens node/27935 https://www.law.utoronto.ca/blog/faculty/statement-canadian-jurists-proposed-transformation-israels-legal-system Statement by Canadian jurists on proposed transformation of Israel's legal systemThe undersigned are Canadian law professors and jurists. We write out of concern that recent proposals to transform Israel’s legal system will weaken democratic governance, undermine the rule of law, jeopardize the independence of the judiciary, impair the protection of human rights, and diminish the international respect currently accorded to Israeli legal institutions.In the aftermath of the Holocaust and the other atrocities of the Second World War, the great project of legal reform throughout the world has... 2023-02-09 17:45:00 Ariel Katz node/27648 https://www.law.utoronto.ca/blog/faculty/letter-federal-cabinet-about-governments-legal-claims-related-maid-mental-illness Justice Minister David Lametti announced today the introduction of a bill which would delay by one year, until March 2024, the scheduled implementation of MAID for sole reasons of mental illness. Until today, the federal government had repeatedly suggested it was bound by 'the courts' to expand MAID and to make MAID also available for persons whose sole underlying medical condition is mental illness. Minister Lametti even stated in an interview for a recent investigative documentary of CBC's The Fifth Estate, which revealed troubling components of the current MAID practice, that the Supreme... 2023-02-02 22:15:00 Trudo Lemmens node/27618 https://www.law.utoronto.ca/blog/faculty/thrilla-in-manila Thrilla in Manila It may not be “Smokin’ Joe” v. The Louisville Lip”. But hopefully MacIntosh v. Waitzer may supply at least some dry-as-dust securities lawyers with a moment or two's entertainment. In his second attack on my defense of Heather Zordel’s appointment as Chair of the OSC Board of Directors, Ed Waitzer not only claims that I repeatedly miss the mark, but that I do so in a way that would embarrass any reasonably savvy law student. He even says that I was “disingenuous”. Hmmm.In fact, it is Ed who, like Sancho Panza, continues to tilt at windmills. In his... 2022-08-17 16:30:00 Jeffrey MacIntosh node/26913 https://www.law.utoronto.ca/blog/faculty/osc-appointment-fuss-tempest-in-teapot The following first appeared in the National Post, Jul 25, 2022  Ed Waitzer’s recent op-ed (“The issue at the OSC is integrity, not debate,” July 14, 2022) expresses surprise and disappointment in my recent op-ed (“Conflict at the OSC: Why the regulator needs to make room for dissent,” July 7, 2022). In that op-ed, I argued that lawyer Heather Zordel’s appointment as non-executive chair of the OSC in March of this year should be met with open arms, as it introduces new points of view into what seems to be a rather intellectually closed shop. I don’t suppose it... 2022-08-08 15:45:00 Jeffrey MacIntosh node/26873 https://www.law.utoronto.ca/blog/faculty/conflict-osc-why-regulator-needs-make-room-dissent  The following originally appeared in the National Post, July 7, 2022Much heat has been generated lately about what’s going on at the Ontario Securities Commission, but, tragically, little light. The government’s appointment of Heather Zordel as non-executive chair of the OSC in March has raised some razor-sharp hackles. The Globe and Mail published a story on June 25 that relayed many pious and unflattering incantations related to Zordel’s allegedly questionable behaviour in her previous incarnation as a part-time commissioner at the OSC. Two former part-... 2022-07-11 21:45:00 Jeffrey MacIntosh node/26773 https://www.law.utoronto.ca/blog/faculty/turning-human-rights-upside-down-reflections-canadas-joint-parliamentary-committee MAID in Canada at the Intersection of Poverty and DisabilityOn June 16, 2022, in the margins of a meeting of the UN Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, where Windsor Law colleague Laverne Jacobs was elected as a first ever Canadian member of the CRPD Committee, Canadian disability rights organizations organized a session to call the world’s attention to troubling developments with our Medical Assistance in Dying [MAID] Regime. One of the concrete examples that featured prominently was the case of  a women living in poverty... 2022-06-16 16:45:00 Trudo Lemmens node/26611 https://www.law.utoronto.ca/blog/faculty/bc-s-law-allowing-directors-be-appointed-without-shareholder-meeting-must-be-changed B.C.’s law allowing directors to be appointed without a shareholder meeting must be changed(first published in the Globe and Mail, November 10, 2021)The goings-on at Rogers Communications Inc. with two competing boards contending for mastery, demonstrates how corporate governance can sometimes resemble a blood sport.We now have a winner in the battle of the boards, with Edward Rogers coming out on top. Last Friday, Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick of the B.C. Supreme Court held that Mr. Rogers was fully entitled to remove and replace five directors by an instrument in writing signed only by him.... 2021-11-11 03:45:00 Jeffrey MacIntosh node/25856 https://www.law.utoronto.ca/blog/faculty/governance-issues-loom-large-in-rogers-court-ruling  The following first appeared in the Globe and Mail, November 2, 2021The internecine strife in full swing at one of the country’s largest corporate megalodons has spilled out into the streets. This reality show pits Edward Rogers against his mother and two sisters (all of whom are directors of Rogers Communications) and the five “independent” directors on the Rogers board. There’s much more at stake, however, than tabloid-style prurient interest. Important issues of corporate governance loom large.A key issue is whether Edward Rogers (who controls 97.5 per cent of the votes) had the... 2021-11-02 18:30:00 Jeffrey MacIntosh node/25829