Alberta separatism is often dismissed – even within the province itself – as the domain of a few deluded rural hardliners. But the sentiment and the movement have only grown since the federal election brought another Liberal government to power. And Bruce Pardy, one of the country’s senior legal scholars (and not even an Albertan), thinks it is time for Alberta to prepare – seriously, definitively, foundationally – for independence. Here Pardy presents 13 provisions that create an elegantly simple architecture for the constitution of an independent – and radically free – Alberta.

That everyone accused of violating the law deserves a strong defence is a truism of Canada’s legal system. But putting that ideal into practice requires lawyers not merely of competence but of courage and dedication. Lawrence Greenspon has spent 45 years protecting the rights of those at risk of being crushed by the state’s legal machinery. That includes his current client Tamara Lich, whom the Crown just days ago demanded be sentenced to two years in jail for her promotion of peaceful protest and free expression during the 2022 Freedom Convoy protest on Parliament Hill. Greenspon recently sat down with Lynne Cohen to share his thoughts on the verdict in Lich’s trial, his lengthy career inside and out of the courtroom, and navigating the complicated morality of criminal defence law.

In his judicial review of the Liberals’ response to the 2022 Freedom Convoy protest, Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley ruled that “there was no national emergency justifying the invocation of the Emergencies Act and the decision to do so was therefore unreasonable.” With Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s draconian actions thus exposed as unnecessary and excessive – in other words, illegal and unconstitutional – what now awaits Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, who each face up to 10 years in jail for playing key roles in the protest? In the first of a two-part series, Lynne Cohen charts the lengthy and vindictive prosecution of the pair, from their first appearance in downtown Ottawa to their initial arrest and pre-trial treatment.

If your only tool is a hammer, the old saying goes, then all you ever see are nails. In other words, if your beliefs are formed by ideology and prejudice, then all the “study” in the world will lead to you the same conclusion – the view you held all along. And so it is with the radical activists tasked by the Justin Trudeau government with formulating a “Black Justice Strategy”. Examining the report and its implications, Noah Jarvis finds a document infected with toxic racial animus, purporting to reform an imagined Canada that seethes with racial hatreds and injustice, and proposing to misapply U.S. “solutions” that have failed disastrously. Worst of all, Jarvis writes, it attempts to set the racial populations of a country of fundamental goodwill against one another.

Shaping criminal charges, bail decisions or prison sentences around an accused person’s political or religious beliefs is utterly odious – a hallmark of tinpot tyrannies and totalitarian hellholes. Such practices have no place in any constitutional nation, let alone a mature democracy that presents itself as a model to the world. But that is increasingly the situation in Canada, writes Gwyn Morgan. Comparing the treatment of protesters accused of minor infractions to those of incorrigible criminals who maim and kill, Morgan finds a yawning mismatch that suggests political motivations are increasingly a factor in today’s criminal justice system.

When Ontario Premier Doug Ford invoked the Charter’s “notwithstanding” clause in back-to-work legislation last fall, he became just the latest political leader to be pilloried for using it. Loudly condemned as an instrument of oppression, the notwithstanding clause has been under attack for decades as a political expedient that should never be used. But as Gordon Lee argues, the clause was a carefully considered addition to the Charter intended to safeguard democratic legislatures from the whims of activist judges. And with a Supreme Court that continues to invent rights and expand its power, we are going to need it more and more.

It stands as one of this country’s worst mass murders: eleven dead on and near the James Smith Cree Nation in rural Saskatchewan by the hand of career criminal Myles Sanderson. But after a brief flurry of attention and trite claims that a history of colonialism and racism were to blame, Canadians have shown little interest in discovering the real reasons behind this tragedy. Or how to ensure it never happens again. Hymie Rubenstein looks closely at the details of Sanderson’s violent life of crime and why Canada’s criminal justice system repeatedly set him free. In our efforts to reduce the suffering of Indigenous Canadians, are we actually making things worse?

A recent study says the proportion of women, visible minorities, and disabled people in the RCMP remains static. Josh Dehaas argues than rather than chase after such illusory goals as “gender parity” or achieving some artificial ratio through quota hiring, the RCMP should continue to hire whoever’s best.

Most of the media coverage of the SNC-Lavalin affair followed the same script: Jody Wilson-Raybould tried to uphold the rule of law and Justin Trudeau fired her for doing so. This story was one of very few to challenge the conventional wisdom about Wilson-Raybould’s motives and objectives. Judging from the traffic and feedback Brian Giesbrecht’s piece is getting, a lot of Canadians share the concern that the former Attorney-General had another agenda, and it put the advancement of Indigenous rights, claims and sovereignty ahead of the rule of law.