Browse "Law and Policy"

This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on November 13, 2000. Partner content is not updated.

The calls to Perviz Madon's North Vancouver home began at 9 a.m. on Friday with the first rumours. After more than 15 years, callers said, RCMP members were arresting suspects in the murder of her husband, Sam, and 328 other passengers and crew of Air India Flight 182.

The bombing of an Air India flight from Toronto to Bombay on 23 June 1985 — killing all 329 people on board — remains Canada’s deadliest terrorist attack. A separate bomb blast the same day at Tokyo’s Narita Airport killed two baggage handlers. After a 15-year investigation into the largest mass murder in the country's history, two British Columbia Sikh separatists were charged with murder and conspiracy in both attacks. They were acquitted in 2005. A third accused, Inderjit Singh Reyat, was convicted of manslaughter for his role in building the two bombs.

"IN THE EARLY morning hours of June 23, 1985, two bomb-laden suitcases detonated half a world apart," began B.C. Supreme Court Justice Ian Bruce Josephson, reading a verdict that set two men free and left hundreds more shackled to a 20-year-old tragedy that now seems beyond hope of resolution.

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.

This article contains sensitive material that may not be suitable for all audiences.

The Anti-Inflation Act was a temporary and extraordinary measure instituted by the government of Pierre Trudeau in an attempt to control high unemployment and inflation.

In the early 1990s, Sue Rodriguez submitted to the courts that section 241(b) of the Criminal Code, which prohibited assisted suicide, was constitutionally invalid (see also Suicide in Canada). Rodriguez suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and wanted the legal right to have a physician’s help in ending her own life.

This article contains sensitive material that may not be suitable for all audiences.

In 1991, Baltej Singh Dhillon became the first member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police permitted to wear a turban — as part of his Sikh religion — instead of the Mounties' traditional cap or stetson. Dhillon's request that the RCMP change its uniform rules triggered a national debate about religious accommodation in Canada.

In the Bartle case (1994), Mr Bartle was arrested at 1:00 a.m. on a weekend for driving a vehicle while impaired. After failing the "Alert" road test, he was brought to the police station, where he was promptly informed of his right to consult a lawyer, including available legal aid services.

Big M Drug Mart had been accused of selling merchandise on Sunday, contrary to the Lord's Day Act.

ACADEMIC SCHOLARS are often loathe to admit to the large role chance plays in history, let alone in their own work. But Shelagh Grant makes no bones about literally stumbling over a remarkable episode in Canada's Arctic past.

This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on October 9, 1995. Partner content is not updated.

The Calder case (1973) — named for politician and Nisga’a chief Frank Calder, who brought the case before the courts — reviewed the existence of Aboriginal title (i.e., ownership) claimed over lands historically occupied by the Nisga’a peoples of northwestern British Columbia. While the case was lost, the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling nevertheless recognized for the first time that Aboriginal title has a place in Canadian law. The Calder case (also known as Calder et al. v. Attorney General of British Columbia) is considered the foundation for the Nisga’a Treaty in 2000 — the first modern land claim in British Columbia that gave the Nisga’a people self-government.

Between the 1950s and the 1990s, the Canadian government responded to national security concerns generated by Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union by spying on, exposing and removing suspected LGBTQ individuals from the federal public service and the Canadian Armed Forces. They were cast as social and political subversives and seen as targets for blackmail by communist regimes seeking classified information. These characterizations were justified by arguments that people who engaged in same-sex relations suffered from a “character weakness” and had something to hide because their sexuality was considered a taboo and, under certain circumstances, was illegal. As a result, the RCMP investigated large numbers of people. Many of them were fired, demoted or forced to resign — even if they had no access to security information. These measures were kept out of public view to prevent scandal and to keep counter-espionage operations under wraps. In 2017, the federal government issued an official apology for its discriminatory actions and policies, along with a $145-million compensation package.

For much of its history, the Canadian military had a policy of punishing or purging LGBTQ members among their ranks. During the Cold War, the military increased its efforts to identify and remove suspected LGBTQ servicemen and women due to expressed concerns about blackmail and national security. In 1992, a court challenge led to the reversal of these discriminatory practices. The federal government officially apologized in 2017.

Trying to elicit straight talk from politicians on gay marriage can be tricky. Prime Minister Paul Martin looks painfully uncomfortable when the subject arises, far more so than he does when asked about, say, political ethics.

Shana Chetner doesn't mince words. Child pornography is sexual abuse, the youth counsellor for Greater Vancouver Mental Health Services says, and abuse leads to damaged adults. "The children are exploited and coerced," says Chetner, who has worked with troubled teenagers for nine years.

On 2 July 1992, the federal government banned cod fishing along Canada’s east coast. This moratorium ended nearly five centuries of cod fishing in Newfoundland and Labrador. Cod had played a central role in the province’s economy and culture.

The aim of the policy was to help restore cod stocks that had been depleted due to overfishing. Today, the cod population remains too low to support a full-scale fishery. For this reason, the ban is still largely in place.

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 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.