While in the majority of English-speaking territories the dominant legal tradition iscommon law, in Louisiana and Quebec the native language is English and the legal system stems from continentalcivil law. Both the Louisiana Civil Code and the Civil Code of Quebec take root in the European codification movement, following Code Napoleon. Bearing in mind the link between law and language, these jurisdictions provide a unique source of Englishcivil lawterminology with well-founded conceptual background.The civil codes of Louisiana and (...) class='Hi'>Quebec seem to be potentially useful for the translation of Polish private law into English. Yet there are some reservations which should be considered. By comparing two different translations of Article 292 of the Polish Civil Code, this paper is intended to contribute to the debate on the use of Quebec and Louisiana terminology in Polish-English legal translation. (shrink)

Recent iterations in international legal thought of the debate over the transformative potential of law have tended to echo the long-standing assumption that radical movements, when they employ law-based tactics, do so in the same manner as reformist movements: they mobilise the legitimacy of law for short-term goals, only with more radical long-term goals in mind. However, movements such as the 2012 student strike in the Canadian province of Quebec demonstrate more diverse, creative engagements with law that openly mock (...) the legal system in an effort to simultaneously delegitimise the current legal order. This article argues that this movement’s approach is consistent with the notion of an ‘impudent’ use of law as politics but also extends it further to include ideas raised by this movement’s theatrical ‘over-compliance’ with law, through which the movement turned law itself into a public spectacle. The article examines instances of the state’s unprecedented mobilisation of the legal system to contain the student strike and the student strikers’ creative and subversive engagements with law in response, illustrating how the ideas thrown up by this movement can advance theoretical discussion in legal scholarship about law’s transformative potential. (shrink)

The judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada in the Quebec Secession Reference has produced a torrent of public commentary. Given the fundamental issues about the relationship between law and politics raised by the judgment, what is remarkable is that that commentary has remained almost entirely in a pragmatic perspective, which asks how positive politics entered into the motivations and justifications of the Court, and looks at the results in terms of their political consequences, without deep or sustained reflection (...) on the ultimate grounds for the role the Court took upon itself, or on the normative sources of its reasoning. In this article, we explore the Quebec Secession Reference through the lens of constitutional theory. In particular, we highlight three unconventional aspects of the Court’s reasoning: (a) the supplementation of the written constitution through an explicit process of amendment-like interpretation to craft a new legal framework governing the secession of a province from Canada, (b) the vesting by the Court of substantial, if not exclusive responsibility for interpreting the constitutional rules on secession in particular situations or contexts with political organs, not the courts, and (c) the ascent by the court to abstract normativity, in articulating a normative vision of the Canadian constitutional order, whence it derived the legal framework governing secession. In addition to drawing attention to these unusual aspects of the judgment, we articulate the theoretical justifications that both explain and justify those features of the judgment, and identify issues for future discussion. (shrink)

The purpose of this text is to tell the story of the implementation of the _Act Respecting End-of-Life Care,_ referred to hereafter as _Law 2_ (Gouvernement du Québec, 2014) with an emphasis on the ambiguous role of ethics in the Interdisciplinary Support Groups (ISGs), created by Quebec's _Ministère de la santé et des services sociaux_ (MSSS). As established, ISGs provide “clinical, administrative and ethical support to health care professionals responding to a request for Medical aid in dying (MAiD)” (Gouvernement (...) du Québec, 2015). It is suggested that their composition includes the participation of a person with an expertise in ethics. These ISGs represent an important innovation for stakeholders involved in MAiD. To date, no scientific research has specifically addressed ISGs and little research has been conducted in other jurisdictions on the roles, operations and practices of MAiD support structures, especially the implication of ethics. Several ISGs have certainly developed promising practices that could benefit all stakeholders in the wider field of ethics and end of life. We will explore the development of ISGs in Quebec as a support structure for MAiD by highlighting the role that ethics has played (and should play) in these morally and humanly challenging situations. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it offers a critique of the normative foundations of the 2019 Quebec Act respecting the laicity of the State. This is primarily based on the theses we developed in La nation pluraliste. Repenser la diversité religieuse au Québec (Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 2018), and elaborates a suitable diversity management model for Quebec using the republican liberalism described in Rawls’ later work. This discussion draws attention to certain pitfalls in the (...) concept of secularism as defended by the Coalition Avenir Québec government. Second, we present a methodological discussion on how political philosophy can contribute to the formation of law, by examining how our criticism of Act respecting the laicity of the State corresponds to an exercise in implementing Rawls’ own method of thoughtful balance. (shrink)

Patients in Quebec can legally obtain medical assistance in dying (MAID) if they are able to give informed consent, have a serious and incurable illness, are at the end of their lives and are in a situation of unbearable suffering. Since the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2015 Carter decision, access to MAID, under certain conditions, has become a constitutional right. Quebec physicians are now likely to receive requests for MAID from their patients. The Quebec and Canadian laws (...) recognize a physician’s right to conscientious objection, but this right is contested both in the medical ethics literature and in the public sphere. This paper presents the results of a qualitative study conducted with twenty Quebec physicians who did not integrate MAID into their medical practice, either because they were opposed to or deeply ambivalent about MAID. The interviews aimed to explore the reasons – religious and secular – for opposition to or ambivalence towards MAID. The secular reasons given by participants were grouped into four main categories: 1) the ends of medicine and professional identity, 2) the philosophy of palliative medicine and resource allocation in palliative care, 3) benevolent paternalism, the “good death”, and the interests of future selves, 4) the risk of a slippery slope and the protection of vulnerable people. (shrink)

Gilles Routhier | : Cet article repose sur une interprétation fondamentale de Vatican II : ce Concile, dont l’un des défis consistait à renouveler le rapport de l’Église au monde moderne, a été, pour l’Église catholique, un moment d’apprentissage d’une nouvelle forme de discours dans un monde pluraliste. La question se pose immédiatement : est-ce qu’un tel apprentissage a été assimilé par les évêques du Québec et du Canada. Leurs interventions, entre les années 1958 et 2008, sur les projets de (...) lois relatifs aux questions se rapportant à la famille et sur l’école et la formation chrétienne des enfants reflètent-elles cet apprentissage réalisé au cours du Concile? Peut-on identifier des évolutions au cours de ces cinquante ans qui nous séparent de l’annonce du Concile et définir des périodes à l’intérieur de cet espace temporel? Cet article fournit un cadre général à une observation plus fine de cette évolution de la parole épiscopale au Canada. | : This article rests on a fundamental interpretation of Vatican II. One of the challenges facing that Council was to renew the relationship between the Church and the modern world, so that it was, for the Catholic Church, a moment of learning a new form of discourse in a pluralistic world. Hence the question : was such learning assimilated by the bishops of Quebec and of Canada? Do their interventions, between the years 1958 and 2008, on law projects concerning the family, the school and the Christian formation of children, reflect the learning achieved during the Council? Is it possible to identify evolutions in the course of those fifty years separating us from the announcement of the Council and to define periods within that temporal space? The present article furnishes a general frame to a better insight into this evolution of the episcopal word in Canada. (shrink)

Introduction: -/- Walking, illegally, down main Montreal thoroughfares with students in nightly demonstrations, with neighbors whom I barely knew before, banging pots and pans, and with tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people on every 22nd of the month since March—this was unimaginable a year ago.1 Unimaginable that the collective and heterogeneous body, which is the “manif [demonstration]”, could feel so much like home, despite its internal differences. Unimaginable that this mutual dependence on one another could enable not only (...) collective protection from traffic and police but the affective strength and audacity to take back the street—a mutual dependence that includes the masked demonstrators ready to help when gassed by police. Unimaginable too that we would be breaking the law daily,2 that blocking traffic and seeing the city from the center of the street would become habit, and that as the “printemps érable” becomes summer, we would be investing our time in neighborhood assemblies, in weaving social bonds, and in sustaining and deepening the mobilization. -/- I say these actions were unimaginable not merely because the context that motivated the enlargement of the student movement into a popular struggle combines a number of unique features. Nor were they simply unimaginable because the Quebec I previously knew was marred by the Islamophobia and cultural racism made visible during the reasonable accommodation debates, a society whose mapping excluded me and for whose sake it would have been difficult to protest.3 Rather, I say these actions were unimaginable because the possibility of this popular and inclusive mobilization had not yet been created. It is this possibility that the Quebec student movement has created, I argue, not only in quantitative terms by engaging so many, but at the level of lived subjectivities and intercorporeal solidarity. The evolution of the movement should be understood, then, both as a swelling of its popular base and as an intensification and qualitative transformation of ways of life. (shrink)

ObjectivesIn 2015, the Province of Quebec, Canada passed a law that allowed voluntary active euthanasia. Palliative care stakeholders in Canada have been largely opposed to euthanasia, yet there is little research about their views. The research question guiding this study was the following: How do palliative care physicians in Quebec position themselves regarding the practice of VAE in the context of the new provincial legislation?MethodsWe used interpretive description, an inductive methodology to answer research questions about clinical practice. A (...) total of 18 palliative care physicians participated in semistructured interviews at two university-affiliated hospitals in Quebec.ResultsParticipants positioned themselves in opposition to euthanasia. Their justifications were framed within their professional commitment to not hasten death, which sat in tension with the value of patients’ autonomy to choose how to die. Participants described VAE as unacceptable if it impeded opportunities to evaluate and alleviate suffering. Further, they contested government rhetoric that positioned VAE as a way to improve end-of-life care. Participants felt that VAE would diminish the potential of palliative care to relieve suffering. Dilemmas were apparent in their narratives, about reconciling respect for patient autonomy with broader palliative care values, and the value of accompanying and not abandoning patients who make requests for VAE while being committed to neither prolonging nor hastening death.ConclusionsThis study provides insight into nuanced positions of experienced palliative care physicians in Quebec and confirms expected tensions between an important stakeholder and the practice of VAE as guided by the new legislation. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Quebec language legislation which has the effect of prohibiting the use of the use of English on signs. The controversial “Frenchonly” sign law is considered in spelling out an argument for collective rights and assessing some of the obstacles which a collective rights thesis must overcome. No attempt is made in this discussion to resolve the question of the relative weight of the collective and individual rights which come into conflict in this situation. No doubt (...) this latter is itself a difficult task. If the argument of this paper is sound, however, a solution phrased wholly in terms of individual rights and the public good is simpler only because it omits important dimensions of the problem. (shrink)

Bill 20, An Act to Enact the Act to promote access to family medicine and specialized medicine services and to amend various legislative provisions relating to assisted procreation, was introduced to reduce costs associated with Québec’s healthcare in general and in vitro fertilisation in particular. Passed in November 2015, the new law introduces a number of exclusion criteria for access to and funding for IVF treatment. Remarkably, one exclusion criterion—prior voluntary sterilisation—has prompted little critical commentary. The two justifications offered for (...) restricting funding for IVF on the basis of voluntary sterilisation are that there are cheaper options than IVF for sterilised individuals who want children, and society should not have to pay for IVF for persons who are infertile by choice. I argue that both of these justifications are unsatisfactory, insofar as they contravene the chief value underlying, and current practices of, Canadian healthcare, and rely on problematic ascriptions of personal responsibility for health. (shrink)

This article explores the effectiveness of legal interventions to promote healthier eating/drinking and exercise in responding to obesity. Undue emphasis on weight loss and prevention of excess gain have largely been failures and have fueled prejudice against fat people. A major challenge lies in shifting norms: away from stigmatization of the obese and towards more nutritious eating/drinking and increased activity with acceptance of bodies in all shapes and sizes. Part of the enormity of this challenge lies in the complex effects (...) of law and its relationship with norms, including unintended consequences of regulation. To illustrate such complications, the paper examines two interventions and the actual effects that they have produced (or could under differing conditions): junk food taxes, particularly on SSBs (sugar sweetened beverages), and restriction of advertising to children, especially the ban in Quebec. (shrink)

Gays and lesbians are full-fledged members of the great Quebec family, and it is perhaps time to reinvent and enlarge our family.

What is the proper balance between legislative and judicial innovation and between formal and functional family recognition once legislatures have addressed gay men’s and lesbians’ families? In the civil-law jurisdiction of Quebec, legislative reforms allow two women to register as a child’s mothers. But judges have recognized a second mother ‘in fact’ by orders sharing custody where the parties had not used the new legislative channels. Such judicial creativity is reconcilable with the civil law and comparative scholars should flag (...) it as a valuable resource. But it risks undermining legislative choices about family recognition. Perhaps the option to give a child a second mother includes the choice for a lesbian birth mother not to do so. Once two women become thinkable as spouses and mothers, judges risk inappropriately pressing a rich range of queer kinship possibilities into standard models. (shrink)

Sans prétendre faire œuvre exhaustive ni même définitive, Mariette Sineau et Evelyne Tardy se livrent à un instructif travail comparatif sur le droit des femmes dans les deux territoires francophones. Malgré toutes leurs différences, ceux-ci se montrent suffisamment proches pour soutenir la comparaison. Tous deux adoptent le code civil napoléonien (en 1866 pour le Québec pourtant cerné par la bien plus progressive common law), tous deux sont également à forte dominante catholique. Le m..

Sans prétendre faire œuvre exhaustive ni même définitive, Mariette Sineau et Evelyne Tardy se livrent à un instructif travail comparatif sur le droit des femmes dans les deux territoires francophones. Malgré toutes leurs différences, ceux-ci se montrent suffisamment proches pour soutenir la comparaison. Tous deux adoptent le code civil napoléonien (en 1866 pour le Québec pourtant cerné par la bien plus progressive common law), tous deux sont également à forte dominante catholique. Le m...

This book focuses on sovereignty referendums, which have been used throughout different historical periods of democratization, decolonization, devolution, secession and state creation. Referendums on questions of sovereignty and self-determination have been a significant element of the international political and legal landscape since the French Revolution, and have been a central element in the resolution of territorial issues from the referendum in Avignon in 1791 until today. More recent examples include Quebec, East Timor, New Caledonia, Puerto Rico and South Sudan. (...) The global aim of this book is to achieve a better empirical and legal understanding of sovereignty referendums and related problems in international and national law and politics. Accordingly, it presents readers a comprehensive study of sovereignty referendums from the perspectives of both international and constitutional law. (shrink)

This book provides a fascinating and critical insight into familiar and less familiar mixed legal systems, taking the reader on a voyage of discovery from St Lucia and Guyana to the islands of the Seychelles and Mauritius. It considers those mixed systems which share boundaries with unmixed ones, such as Scotland and Quebec, and those located off-shore of major and dominant jurisdictions such as Jersey off the coasts of France’s civil law and England’s common law system, as well as (...) Cyprus, situated between the influences of Europe and those of the Middle East. (shrink)

The article deals with a specific type of contract that an heir is entitled to conclude—the transfer (or sale) of the rights of succession. As a starting point, the author of the article analyses the formation and further development of the transfer of succession as a whole (hereditas) in the Roman law. Two major proceedings used by Roman lawyers for the purposes of the alienation of hereditas are analysed, one being in iure cessio hereditatis and the second taking the form (...) of emptio venditi hereditatis. The interrelations between this kind of transfer and the recognition of the possibility of the assignment of rights (cessio) under the Roman law are pointed out. The author traces the impact of the principles developed by the Roman law on the legal regulation of the contract in question in modern codification by drawing attention to the French Civil Code and the Civil Code of Quebec. The author states that the legal rules on the sale of the rights of succession contained in the new Lithuanian Civil Code adopted in 2000 have been transposed, to a large extent, from the two abovementioned codes. After analysing the object of this contract, the author concludes that it is the sale of a certain incorporeal property (res incorporales) that is meant by the terms ‘succession’ (hereditas) or the ‘rights of succession’. This feature distinguishes the analysed contract from the ordinary contracts that an heir may conclude for the purposes of the alienation of specific objects making part of the succession. (shrink)

Abstract:While self-determination is a cardinal principle of international law, its meaning is often obscure. Yet international law clearly recognizes decolonization as a central application of the principle. Most ordinary people also agree that the liberation of colonial peoples was a moral triumph. This essay examines three philosophical theories of self-determination’s value, and asks which one best captures the reasons why decolonization was morally required. The instrumentalist theory holds that decolonization was required because subject peoples were unjustly governed, the democratic view (...) holds that decolonization was required because subject peoples lacked democratic representation, and the associative view holds that decolonization was required because subject peoples were unable to affirm the political institutions their colonial rulers imposed on them. I argue that the associative view is superior to competing accounts, because it better reflects individuals’ “maker” interests in participating in shared political projects that they value. The essay further shows that if we accept the associative view, self-determination is not a sui generis value that applies to decolonization alone. Ultimately, our intuitions about decolonization can be justified only by invoking an interest on the part of persistently alienated groups in redrawing political boundaries. The same interest may justify self-determination in additional cases, such as autonomy for indigenous peoples, or greater independence for Scotland or Quebec. (shrink)

Background In June 2016, the Parliament of Canada passed federal legislation allowing eligible adults to request Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). Since its implementation, there likely exists a degree of hesitancy among some healthcare providers due to the law being inconsistent with personal beliefs and values. It is imperative to explore how nurses in Quebec experience the shift from accompanying palliative clients through “a natural death” to participating in “a premeditated death.” Research question/aim/objectives This study aims to explore how (...) Quebec nurses personally and professionally face the new practice of MAID and their role evolution. Research design A grounded theory design was used. Participants and research context We recruited 37 nurses who participated in or coordinated at least one MAID. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted and audiotaped. Data collection and analysis followed Strauss and Corbin steps. Ethical considerations Ethics approval was received from the investigator’s affiliated University. Participants were informed regarding the research goal, signed a written consent, and were assigned pseudonyms. Findings/results Results show that nurses experienced the wide range of paradoxe during MAID centering around the following eight elements: 1) confrontation abouth death, 2) choice, 3) time of death, 4) emotional load, 5) new Bill, 6) relationship with the person, 7) communication skills, and 8) healthcare setting. The shifting of views and values in this new role is presented by the contradiction of opposites. Conclusions A better understanding of the paradox experienced by nurses involved with MAID paves the way for the development of interventions. (shrink)

Rare diseases, defined as having a prevalence inferior to 1/2000, are poorly understood scientifically and medically. Appropriate diagnoses and treatments are scarce, adding to the burden of living with chronic medical conditions. The moral significance of rare disease experiences is often overlooked in qualitative studies conducted with adults living with rare diseases. The concept of morally problematic situations arising from pragmatist ethics shows promise in understanding these experiences. The objectives of this study were to (1) acquire an in-depth understanding of (...) morally problematic situations experienced by adults living with rare diseases in the province of Québec and (2) to develop an integrative model of the concept of morally problematic situations. To this end, an online survey targeting this population was developed through a participatory action research project. Respondents provided 90 long testimonies on the most important morally problematic situations they faced, often in healthcare settings. An integrative model was developed based on various qualitative analyses of these testimonies and relevant literature. The integrative model showcases that morally problematic situations have causes (i.e., contextual and relational factors, personal factors, jeopardized valuations), have affective repercussions (i.e., emotions and feelings, internal tensions), prompt action (i.e., through empowerment strategies leading to the evolution of situations), and elicit outcomes (i.e., factual consequences, residual emotions and feelings, positive or negative resolutions). In sum, this study advances understanding of the moral experiences of adults living with rare diseases while proposing a comprehensive conceptual tool to guide future empirical bioethics research on moral experiences. (shrink)

BackgroundMedical aid in dying was introduced in Quebec in 2015. Quebec clinical guidelines recommend that MAiD be approached as a last resort when other care options are insufficient; however, the law sets no such requirement. To date, little is known about when and how requests for MAiD are situated in the broader context of decision-making in end-of-life care; the timing of MAiD raises potential ethical issues.MethodsA retrospective chart review of all MAiD requests between December 2015 and June 2017 (...) at two Quebec hospitals and one long-term care centre was conducted to explore the relationship between routine end-of-life care practices and the timing of MAiD requests.ResultsOf 80 patients requesting MAiD, 54% received the intervention. The median number of days between the request for MAiD and the patient’s death was 6 days. The majority of palliative care consults came less than 7 days prior to the MAiD request and in another 25% of cases occurred the day of or after MAiD was requested. 35% of patients had no level of intervention form, or it was documented as 1 or 2 at the time of the MAiD request and 19% were receiving life-prolonging interventions.InterpretationWe highlight ethical considerations relating to the timing of MAiD requests within the broader context of end-of-life care. Whether or not MAiD is conceptualised as morally distinct from other end-of-life options is likely to influence clinicians’ approach to requests for MAiD as well as the ethical importance of our findings. We suggest that in the wake of the 2015 legislation, requests for MAiD have not always appeared to come after an exploration of other options as professional practice guidelines recommend. (shrink)

This article explores union attempts to control pension fund investment for the debate on financial restructuring in the United States. It puts popular control of finance into comparative and historical perspective and argues that laws and politics help explain why the flow of finance is corporate controlled. First, changes in the legal regime—the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974—put constraints on labor’s ability to influence investment decisions. This is evident when comparing single- and (...) multi-employer plans, where the laws had different consequences. Second, attempts to reform these laws failed. Had they been successful, Carter’s proposed economic revitalization plan in the run-up to his failed reelection in 1980 would have created new ways for unions to control and redirect retirement investment for social purposes. The reform failure is treated as a “suppressed historical alternative” through a comparison with a successful reform in Quebec, Canada, which gave unions broad controls over the Solidarity Fund in 1983. The findings suggest, somewhat counter-intuitively, that legal restrictions need to be loosened for democratic control of finance to be possible. For pension funds, more regulations led to more corporate control, not less. (shrink)

This is lightly edited and referenced version of a presentation given at the 20th International Philosophy of Nursing conference in Quebec on 23rd August 2016. Philosophical texts are not given the same prominence in nurse education as their more valued younger sibling, primary research evidence, but they can influence practice through guidelines, codes and espoused values. John Stuart Mill’s harm principle, found in On Liberty, is not a universal law, and only a thoroughgoing libertarian would defend it as such, (...) though it, or its remnants, can be seen can be seen in policy documents. But its influence is weakening. Smoking bans in enclosed spaces were initially justified with other‐regarding considerations, but judgements from unsuccessful legal challenges from patients in UK psychiatric hospitals rely on preventing harm to the smoker, even when smoking outside, which does not harm others. In the wake of legislation, no‐smoking policies enacted by hospitals are becoming more aggressive, banning smoking both inside and outside, and extending the use of power gained through employment to prevent nurses assisting patients enjoy a lawful habit. Mill’s dictum has been subverted, and this speaks to the fundamental purpose of nursing. Should nurses collude and willingly exert their power for their version of the good of the patient? Or should they instead reaffirm values that support and facilitate life choices made by autonomous people? The paper supports the latter option, and this has wider application for nursing which can be illuminated, if not settled, by revisiting Mill and his famous dictum. (shrink)

ANNE IAVARONE-TURCOTTE | : Un certain discours circule depuis le débat sur les accommodements religieux au Québec, voulant qu’il existe en cette matière un problème d’« arbitraire ». Selon ce discours, un manque ou une insuffisance de règles ferait en sorte que les personnes appelées à statuer sur des demandes d’accommodements n’auraient d’autre choix que de se rabattre sur leurs convictions personnelles en matière de justice ou sur les circonstances particulières de la demande. En partant de l’exemple de la Loi (...) favorisant le respect de la neutralité religieuse de l’État et visant notamment à encadrer les demandes d’accommodements pour un motif religieux dans certains organismes, dont l’un des objectifs est d’enrayer ce problème perçu en adoptant les « balises » qui font défaut, nous entendons montrer que cette rhétorique véhicule une série de mythes sur le droit. | : A certain narrative emerged during the debate on religious accommodation in Québec, according to which the law suffers from a lack of rules in that area. As a result, decision-makers that are responsible for granting accommodations – it is said – have no choice but to base their decisions on personal beliefs about justice and/or on particular circumstances of the case at hand. Using the example of the Act to foster adherence to State religious neutrality and, in particular, to provide a framework for requests for accommodations on religious grounds in certain bodies, which aim is in part to fix this perceived problem by adopting the rules that are said to be missing, this article attempts to show that this rhetoric is penetrated by a number of myths about the law. (shrink)

To ask whether the postcolonial is postsecular demands asking for whom, where, and when? To that end, what follows is a reflection situated in two Canadian contexts, separated by time and place, but both connected to the ‘colonial secular’. Engaged in the public deliberation and storytelling of civic secularism, through which political legitimacy is achieved through comparing religions, these two contexts are twenty-first century Québec and early-twentieth-century British Columbia. More specifically, I consider two moments in which the state exerted its (...) authority in order to reshape bodily practice and stories of place: the debate over the ‘secular charter’ in Québec and the founding of the railway town of Prince Rupert on Tsimshian land. These acts of negotiation and law-making turned to religious forms of legitimation in a way that was at once ambivalent, comparative, and forgetful of the historical founding of the state’s own power. That is, in forming their ‘natural sovereignty’ over others, states often forget that their claims to power are, in part, acts of pretending. (shrink)

Pierre Elliot Trudeau was a man of deep intellect, of strongly held philosophy, and of bold - if not occasionally audacious - personality. He was no high-minded, distant philosopher-ruler however. A consummate pragmatist, Trudeau sought to be a moral man of action. This important work looks his intellectual evolution as a young man, in the years before he entered politics.Beautifully written, this biography also paints a fascinating, colourful and multilayered portrait of Trudeau. Born into a wealthy family, Trudeau's years among (...) then-Jesuits at Brébeuf College in Montreal were formative, among other reasons for what would become his long-term interaction with Catholicism. Following law school at University of Montreal, Trudeau studied at Harvard in the US, at LSE in London, England, and at Sciences Po in Paris. Mills' considers the biggest influences on Trudeau, including Harold Laski, Jacques Maritain, and Emmanuel Mounier. Mills also recounts Trudeau's travels across the world throughout the 1950s, travelling in Europe, the Near and Far East, Egypt and Sudan, the USSR, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand, regions in West Africa, Israel, Vietnam, Persia and Taiwan. A chapter considers Trudeau's evolving thought on Federalism and Nationalism, both internationally and in terms of Quebec and Canada. A chapter on Trudeau's moralism highlights his belief that politics requires individuals of conscience, who have the courage to speak frankly about their beliefs. Mills' biography shows us that understanding Trudeau the thinker is key to understanding Trudeau the politician, whose life was both a practical and a theoretical one. He was a cool political thinker who believed that clear analysis of political questions was essential to good governance. (shrink)

BackgroundHealthcare professionals and surrogate decision-makers often face the difficult decision of whether to initiate or withhold antibiotics from people with dementia who have developed a life-threatening infection after losing decisional capacity.MethodsWe conducted a vignette-based survey among 1050 Quebec stakeholders (senior citizens, family caregivers, nurses and physicians; response rate 49.4%) to (1) assess their attitudes toward withholding antibiotics from people with dementia lacking decisional capacity; (2) compare attitudes between dementia stages and stakeholder groups; and (3) investigate other correlates of attitudes, (...) including support for continuous deep sedation (CDS) and medical assistance in dying (MAID). The vignettes feature a woman moving along the dementia trajectory, who has refused in writing all life-prolonging interventions and explicitly requested that a doctor end her life when she no longer recognizes her loved ones. Two stages were considered after she had lost capacity: the advanced stage, where she likely has several more years to live, and the terminal stage, where she is close to death.ResultsSupport for withholding antibiotics ranged from 75% among seniors and caregivers at the advanced stage, to 98% among physicians at the terminal stage. Using the generalized estimating equation approach, we found stakeholder group, religiosity, and support for CDS and MAID, to be associated with attitudes toward antibiotics.ConclusionsFindings underscore the importance for healthcare professionals of discussing underlying values and treatment goals with people at an early stage of dementia and their relatives, to help them anticipate future care decisions and better prepare surrogates for their role. Findings also have implications for the scope of MAID laws, in particular in Canada where the extension of MAID to persons lacking decisional capacity is currently being considered. (shrink)

The concept of guardianship, its associated principles, distinctions, and articulation of the legal needs of the elderly are introduced via a review of well-canvassed criticisms of Canadian guardianship legislation. Claims that the reformed legislation of Alberta, Quebec, and British Columbia represent models of adequate adult guardianship compared with traditional (archaic lunacy) law are examined. This paper argues that these renovated models exhibit a dubious normative advance over traditional legislation. Specifically, the normative presuppositions of the reformed legislation, such as, restriction (...) to an autonomy-paternalism framework, and the norms of the liberal individual and state, obscure important issues in at least two key areas which challenge the models' assumptions; namely, assessment and legal competence and assessment and need. The development of guardianship laws and of social arrangements that are more responsive to the life experiences of the elderly requires critical re-articulation of the nature of individuals and their communities. (shrink)

During this period, when disciples were growing in number, a grievance arose on the part of those who spoke Greek, against those who spoke the language of the Jews; they complained that their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution. When Americans think of ethnic conflict, conflict between blacks and whites comes to mind most immediately. Yet ethnic conflict is pervasive around the world. Azerbijanis and Turks in the Soviet Union; Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland; Arabs and Jews (...) in the Middle East; Maoris and English settlers in New Zealand; Muslims and Hindus in India and Pakistan; French and English speakers in Quebec; Africans, Afrikaaners, and mixed-race people in South Africa, in addition to the tribal warfare among the Africans themselves: these are just a few of the more obvious conflicts currently in the news. We observe an even more dizzying array of ethnic conflicts if we look back just a few years. Japanese and Koreans; Mongols and Chinese; Serbs and Croats; Christians and Buddhists in Viet Nam: these ancient antagonisms are not immediately in the news, but they could erupt at any time. And the history of the early Christian Church recounted in the Acts of the Apostles reminds us that suspicion among ethnic groups is not a modern phenomenon; rather, it is ancient. The present paper seeks to address the problem of ethnic conflict in modern western democracies. How can our tools and traditions of participatory governments, relatively free markets, and the common law contribute to some resolution of the ancient problems that we find within our midst? In particular, I want to focus here on the question of ethnic integration. (shrink)

In the not-too-distant past, medical assistance in dying was illegal in Canada. Assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia were prohibited by the Criminal Code. Many attempts were made to change the law. The most famous of these was the case of Sue Rodriguez, who took a Charter challenge of the prohibition to the Supreme Court of Canada. A number of bills were also introduced in the Federal Parliament. All were doomed to failure. But then … change came.First, the province of (...) class='Hi'>Quebec passed An Act Respecting End-of-Life Care in 2015 establishing a legal right to MAiD "at the end of life." Then, the Carter case... (shrink)

In recent years, debates about the legitimate place of religion in the public sphere have gained prominence in political theory. Departing from Rawls’s view of public reason, it has lately been argued that liberal regimes should not only be compatible with, but endorsing of, arguments originating in religious belief systems. Moreover, it has been maintained that the principle of political autonomy obliges every democratic order to enable all its citizens, be they secular or religious, to become the authors of the (...) laws to which they are subjected. Mere toleration, it is often said, strengthens social cohesion in the wrong way because it narrowly defines it as the product of bargaining processes, posited against the backdrop of power structures. The consensus many liberal defenders of religion in the public sphere wish to advance, however, aims at something radically dissimilar: particular institutions and arrangements need to be endorsed “for the right reasons”, i.e. based on arguments to which all citizens could hypothetically agree. This paper primarily grapples with the contractarian idea as a lens through which the legitimate place of religion in the public sphere is negotiated. I argue that the emphasis on “right reasons” is mistaken in an essential way: it underrates the impact of power structures on the ways in which particular institutions and arrangements are actually justified or criticized. I shall claim that public reason must rather be conceived in terms of a discursive and dynamic modus vivendi. This implies acknowledging the pervasiveness of power structures in society at all times, without giving up on the potential for deliberation among secular and religious citizens. As a case study, the paper looks into the findings of the Bouchard/Taylor commission in Québec (2007-2008) and maintains that the context-sensitive method used by the authors exemplifies this novel, more useful approach to public reason and modus vivendi. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Confidentiality and Its LimitsMaude Laliberté, John D. Lantos, and Sonia GowdaMultiple sclerosis is believed to be an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system. However, according to Italian physician Paolo Zamboni, it is related to cerebrospinal vascular insufficiency. Zamboni claims that MS can be treated by remedying this condition with venous angioplasty. This surgery is offered as treatment for MS in various countries—Poland, Bulgaria, and Costa Rica, for example. (...) But the Medical Board of Quebec, Canada, does not allow its members to perform the surgery and strongly advises patients against seeking it elsewhere. This opposition is based on the lack of evidence to support the procedure and the serious risks associated with it (including venous thrombosis, stroke, and pulmonary embolism). As a result, many Canadian MS patients have traveled to other countries to receive the surgery. Quebec physicians have been reluctant to provide surgical follow-up for patients who undergo the surgery in other countries due to the lack of information regarding the procedure. No alternative treatments are effective to partially or completely cure MS, and so the treatments available in Canada aim only to manage its symptoms.Jade is a forty-year-old Canadian woman with MS. She is on long-term disability leave, complains of growing fatigue and muscle stiffness, and has painful sensations in her limbs. She has been followed by an interdisciplinary team in a specialized hospital in Quebec for the past twenty years, since she was diagnosed. At her last appointment, Jade told her physical therapist that she recently underwent the experimental Zamboni surgery in Poland, despite her physician’s strong recommendation not to. Jade fears her physician’s reaction, so she asks the physical therapist to keep this information from the rest of her medical team.Jade is shy and tends to distrust health care professionals. It took many years for her physical therapist to gain her trust and to develop a positive therapeutic relationship with her. However, the physical therapist knows that serious complications can occur in patients who have had Zamboni’s surgery. Not telling Jade’s physician about the surgery could result in harm; Jade could have complications that are not recognized. Providing the information to the rest of the team would allow them to adjust her treatment to respond to the surgery and give her information and postoperative education that she will need. Moreover, keeping this secret could threaten team cohesion and trust if they find out about it later.Jade decided to undergo a risky surgery against her doctor’s advice in the hope of improving her quality of life. This was her autonomous choice. How should the physical therapist respond?CommentaryMaude Laliberte (bio)Laws and professional codes of ethics direct clinicians to respect their patients’ autonomy through confidentiality and informed consent unless there are compelling reasons not to do so. Health professionals are deeply committed to helping patients; above all, they want to avoid harming them. Therefore, a key component of this case is the possibility that respecting Jade’s desire to conceal information from the team may put her at direct risk if any postoperative complications are not detected, and at indirect risk if Jade’s trust in her medical team is undermined to the point where she turns away from them.The physical therapist must determine if the possible physical risks to Jade are imminent and serious enough to go against her autonomous choice. One risk that can occur following Zamboni’s surgery is inflammation of a vein caused by a blood clot. This is a life-threatening situation (although it may not be a likely complication for Jade). But the physical therapist can teach Jade to recognize the physical signs that can alert her to this problem, giving her ample time to seek treatment. Thus, even though she may be in danger from a life-threatening risk, there may be ways to manage it besides violating her confidentiality.The respect for autonomous choice is a crucial aspect of our democratic values. It promotes a process of exchange in the therapeutic alliance: the professional guides and informs the patient, but the patient is a partner in care planning and treatment. An important... (shrink)

During this period, when disciples were growing in number, a grievance arose on the part of those who spoke Greek, against those who spoke the language of the Jews; they complained that their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution. When Americans think of ethnic conflict, conflict between blacks and whites comes to mind most immediately. Yet ethnic conflict is pervasive around the world. Azerbijanis and Turks in the Soviet Union; Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland; Arabs and Jews (...) in the Middle East; Maoris and English settlers in New Zealand; Muslims and Hindus in India and Pakistan; French and English speakers in Quebec; Africans, Afrikaaners, and mixed-race people in South Africa, in addition to the tribal warfare among the Africans themselves: these are just a few of the more obvious conflicts currently in the news. We observe an even more dizzying array of ethnic conflicts if we look back just a few years. Japanese and Koreans; Mongols and Chinese; Serbs and Croats; Christians and Buddhists in Viet Nam: these ancient antagonisms are not immediately in the news, but they could erupt at any time. And the history of the early Christian Church recounted in the Acts of the Apostles reminds us that suspicion among ethnic groups is not a modern phenomenon; rather, it is ancient. The present paper seeks to address the problem of ethnic conflict in modern western democracies. How can our tools and traditions of participatory governments, relatively free markets, and the common law contribute to some resolution of the ancient problems that we find within our midst? In particular, I want to focus here on the question of ethnic integration. (shrink)

This short essay explores the importance of fear and violence in the genesis and life of constitutions, with a particular focus on the case of secession. Secession has been seen as a taboo and until recently constitutions tried to avoid mentioning it, considering such a phenomenon as an extra legal fact. A turning point has been represented by the famous Reference of the Canadian Supreme Court on Québec. Finally, in the last part of this work I shall try to present (...) some arguments in favour of the explicit constitutionalization of a secession clause in multi-national federalisms. (shrink)

OverviewEn 1979, la revue Meta publiait, sous la direction de Jean-Claude Gémar, un numéro spécial consacré, pour une première fois, à la traduction juridique comme activité et discipline autonomes au sein de la jeune traductologie [8]. Ce numéro reste une référence devant la persévérance et la rigueur manifestées par le Bureau des traductions d’alors et l’action, inspirée et audacieuse, du ministère de la Justice du Canada , qui laissaient entrevoir l’avènement d’une «jurilinguistique» en gestation. Cette tentative de refrancisation du langage (...) du droit canadien par le biais de lois bilingues, corédigées et non plus traduites, allait connaître une fortune peu commune. L’exemple canadien et son modèle de «lisibilité» de la loi se sont en effet répandus, inspirant de nombreux États aux quatre coins du monde. Quelques années plus tard, en 1982, le Conseil de la langue française du Québec publiait, sous la direction de J-C Gémar, un ouvrage collectif bilingue trai .. (shrink)

Access to care has become a key and contentious issue in the Canadian health care system. In this article, I explore the role of Canadian courts in determining rights to access public health insurance, beginning with a brief overview of the Canadian system and its distinguishing features, and then moving to discuss challenges to governmental limits on publicly-funded Medicare using the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I argue that the Canadian courts are not, as is often charged, proactive in (...) this area. I question whether the deference exhibited by courts to governmental limits on Medicare is justified given concerns about the fairness of the principles and processes followed by decision-makers. In sharp relief to the judiciary’s conservative approach to applications for better or timely access to publicly-funded Medicare is the recent Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Chaoulli v. Quebec which upheld a right to buy private health insurance for “medically necessary” hospital and physician services. (shrink)

This Article attempts to clarify a proposition of certain Canadian authors that while class actions represent a significant part of our court activities, they may not truly be compensating our citizens. I argue that leading up to the present study, we did not know for certain whether a class action was an effective mechanism to compensate class members. Through empirical data collected up by the Class Actions Lab from the past twelve years from cases filed in the province of (...) class='Hi'>Quebec, District of Montreal, analyzed through the lens of a collective approach to compensation, I demonstrate that Quebec citizens are in fact being compensated by class actions. (shrink)

Access to care has become a key and contentious issue in the Canadian health care system. In this article, I explore the role of Canadian courts in determining rights to access public health insurance, beginning with a brief overview of the Canadian system and its distinguishing features, and then moving to discuss challenges to governmental limits on publicly-funded Medicare using the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I argue that the Canadian courts are not, as is often charged, proactive in (...) this area. I question whether the deference exhibited by courts to governmental limits on Medicare is justified given concerns about the fairness of the principles and processes followed by decision-makers. In sharp relief to the judiciary’s conservative approach to applications for better or timely access to publicly-funded Medicare is the recent Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Chaoulli v. Quebec which upheld a right to buy private health insurance for “medically necessary” hospital and physician services. (shrink)

The interest individuals have in the preservation of their culture raises various difficulties pertaining to the meaning of this interest, its justification, and its normative implications. In this Paper, I wish to make several comments on these issues and the relationships between them. I will discuss the meaning of the interest individuals have in the preservation of their culture and the justification of this interest by referring to Margalit and Halbertal’s article “Liberalism and the Right to Culture.” I will then (...) comment on the classification of cultural preservation rights by referring to Kymlicka’s notions of poly-ethnic rights, self-government rights and representation rights. I will conclude with questions concerning the justification of some particular rights to cultural preservation by resorting to Brian Barry’s discussion of Québec language rights and some examples of Israel’s immigration policies. (shrink)

L’évolution de la société se traduit dans le langage. Au Moyen Âge, notairesse, tutorresse et défenderesse rendaient visibles, dans les textes, l’épouse et la femme agissant dans la société. À notre époque s’emploient des noms, tels infirmière, institutrice et vendeuse, qui ne sont pas neufs. Simultanément, comme la femme accède à des professions réservées aux hommes, s’installent des appellations féminines nouvelles telles que (la) juge, (la) pénaliste, présidente, consœur, avocate, magistrate, huissière, enquêtrice. Au Québec, en Suisse, en Belgique et en (...) France, des textes officiels recommandent la féminisation. Celle-ci suscite les passions parce qu’elle touche aux traditions, au savoir-vivre, aux préjugés, au souci d’égalité et surtout à l’identité de la personne. Même si des raisons culturelles et sociales freinent l’évolution des mentalités, la progression de la féminisation dans l’usage constitue un fait linguistique remarquable. (shrink)

The question of whether there are laws in ecology is important for a number of reasons. If, as some have suggested, there are no ecological laws, this would seem to distinguish ecology from other branches of science, such as physics. It could also make a difference to the methodology of ecology. If there are no laws to be discovered, ecologists would seem to be in the business of merely supplying a suite of useful models. These models would need to be (...) assessed for their empirical adequacy but not for their ability to capture fundamental truths, or the like. If, on the other hand, ecology does have laws, this prompts further questions about what these laws are and why even the best candidates for ecological laws fall short of what might be expected of laws. (shrink)