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The Keegstra case (1990) dealt with freedom of expression and hate propaganda. James Keegstra, a teacher in a secondary school in Alberta, made anti-Semitic statements in his classes and was accused of having fomented hatred against the Jews.

 Walter v Attorney-General of Alberta (1965-69) tested the constitutional validity of the Communal Properties Act (1955), which had the effect of restricting the amount of lands that could be owned communally by religious groups such as the HUTTERITES and the DOUKHOBORS.

n the Cook case (1998), the Supreme Court of Canada held that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms applied to an interrogation by Canadian police operating in the United States of a person suspected of committing murder in Canada.

In 1977, J.H. Miller and V.J.R. Cockriell, charged with the murder of a policeman, argued the incompatibility of the penalty imposed by law with the Canadian Bill of Rights 1960.

Pierre-Guillaume Sayer and three other Métis in the Red River Colony were brought to trial on 17 May 1849 in the General Quarterly Court of Assiniboia on charges of violating the Hudson's Bay Company's charter by illegally trafficking in furs.

The crimes of Paul Bernardo and his wife Karla Homolka were among the most horrifying and controversial in Canadian history.

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The 1992 killing of nine underground miners in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, was one of Canada's worst mass murders.

Everett George Klippert was the only Canadian ever declared a dangerous sexual offender and sentenced to what amounted to life in prison, for no other reason than he was a gay man. Outrage over that sentence, which was upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1967, led to the decriminalization of gay sex two years later. Klippert was released from prison in 1971. In 2016, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau indicated he would recommend a pardon for Klippert. The following year, the Trudeau government formally apologized and issued a compensation package to men who were charged, convicted and punished simply because they were gay.

Senator ​Mike Duffy was charged with crimes following a public scandal over his expense claims. In April 2016, after a high profile trial, he was cleared of all charges.

On 19 December 2015, Dennis Oland was convicted of second-degree murder in the bludgeoning death of his father, Richard (Dick) Oland. A year later the conviction was overturned on appeal, and a new trial ordered. The initial, 65-day trial was the longest in New Brunswick history. It also drew national attention due to its brutal nature and revelations about the storied Oland family, founders of the Moosehead brewing empire. In 2019, Dennis Oland was found not guilty of the murder in his retrial.

In 1993, Saskatchewan farmer Robert Latimer killed his severely disabled daughter Tracy. His prosecution for murder attracted national and international attention, and raised contentious issues concerning euthanasia.

The Delgamuukw case (1997) (also known as Delgamuukw v. British Columbia) concerned the definition, the content and the extent of Aboriginal title (i.e., ownership of traditional lands). The Supreme Court of Canada observed that Aboriginal title constituted an ancestral right protected by section 35(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982. Influenced by the Calder case (1973), the ruling in the Delgamuukw case had an impact on other court cases about Aboriginal rights and title, including in the Tsilhqot’in case (2014).

Convicted murderer Allan Joseph Legere escaped custody in 1989, and for 201 days terrorized the residents of the Miramichi region of New Brunswick, brutally killing another four people. Known as the “Monster of the Miramichi,” Legere became the object of one of the most intense manhunts in modern Canadian police history.

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Michael Wayne McGray once boasted of being Canada’s worst serial killer. He was convicted of seven homicides but claimed to have committed as many as 11 other murders in Canada and the United States between 1985 and 1998.

Mi’kmaq Grand Chief Gabriel Sylliboy is believed to be the first to use the 1752 Peace and Friendship Treaty to fight for Canada’s recognition of treaty rights. In his court case, R. v. Sylliboy (1928), he argued that the 1752 treaty protected his rights to hunt and fish, but he lost the case and was subsequently convicted. In 1985, when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in R. v. Simon — another case concerning Mi’kmaq hunting rights — it found that the 1752 treaty did in fact give Mi’kmaq people the right to hunt on traditional territories. This judgment vindicated both Sylliboy and James Simon of the 1985 case. In 2017, almost 90 years after his conviction, Sylliboy received a posthumous pardon and apology from the Government of Nova Scotia.

The 1895 Valentine Shortis murder trial was a landmark case in Canadian judicial history. It revealed inadequacies in the legal definitions of criminal responsibility and insanity, and because of political implications, reached into the highest offices of government.