Papers by Vincent Kazmierski
The Canadian journal for the scholarship of teaching and learning, Oct 14, 2023
This article presents the results of the development and implementation of a mentorship program, ... more This article presents the results of the development and implementation of a mentorship program, now in its sixth year, designed to support the professional development of teaching skills for faculty and contract instructors. The program is unique in that it is a combination of a variety of other approaches such as formal and informal mentoring as well as intra-departmental and interdepartmental mentoring. This model incorporates the effective elements of a mentor program as identified in the literature, while eschewing the traditional model of one-to-one mentoring between senior and junior colleagues. The findings to date, which include more support for teaching after participating in the project as well as an increase in the amount of faculty accessing a mentor, indicate that the program is achieving its intended goals and should continue. The authors provide recommendations and suggestions for the inclusion of a teaching mentorship program at other institutions within (or outside of) Canada. Cet article présente les résultas du développement et de la mise en oeuvre d'un programme de mentorat, actuellement dans sa sixième année, conçu pour soutenir le développement professionnel des compétences en enseignement des professeurs, des professeures, des enseignants contractuels et des enseignantes contractuelles. Le programme est unique en ce sens qu'il est une combinaison de toute une variété d'approches telles que le mentorat formel et informel ainsi que le mentorat intradépartemental et inter-départemental. Ce modèle incorpore les éléments efficaces d'un programme de mentorat tels qu'identifiés dans les publications de recherche, tout en renonçant au modèle traditionnel de mentorat entre collègues juniors et seniors. À ce jour, les résultats, qui comprennent une augmentation du soutien pour l'enseignement après la participation au projet ainsi qu'une augmentation du nombre de professeurs et de professeures ayant eu accès à un mentor, indiquent que le programme atteint les objectifs prévus et qu'il devrait continuer. Les auteurs présentent des recommandations et des suggestions pour l'inclusion d'un programme de mentorat d'enseignement dans d'autres établissements, au Canada ou ailleurs.
Social Science Research Network, 1996
Ottawa Law Review, 2023
The majority reasons in the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Toronto (City) v Ontario appear... more The majority reasons in the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Toronto (City) v Ontario appear to suggest that unwritten constitutional principles may not be applied as “independent” means to invalidate legislation. Indeed, some may argue that the majority reasons identify additional, categorical limitations on the application of unwritten constitutional principles. This article argues that that these categorical claims are not supported by the existing jurisprudence.
In particular, the article argues that the categorical claims in the majority reasons in Toronto (City) are based on misinterpretations of the existing jurisprudence that, in turn, promote misconceptions about the ways unwritten constitutional principles may be recognized and applied. When these misinterpretations and misconceptions are identified, and dispelled, it is possible to see that the decision in Toronto (City) may be best understood as a response to the use of unwritten constitutional principles to protect overly broad rights claims, rather than a more general, categorical restriction of their normative power. It also becomes apparent that the question of whether unwritten constitutional principles may serve as “independent” limitations on legislation may be misplaced and that an approach based on categorical acceptance or rejection of particular roles for unwritten principles should be eschewed in favour of a more balanced, “sliding-scale” approach to the application of these principles, that weighs different categories of evidence in favour (or against) the application of a particular principle to support a new constitutional right or obligation. Such a sliding scale approach fits well within the Court’s existing jurisprudence.
The Dalhousie Law Journal, 2018
Studies and its approach to the study of law and the legal within the context of the continuing g... more Studies and its approach to the study of law and the legal within the context of the continuing growth of legal studies programs across the country. It starts by outlining the historical development of the Department and the evolution of its perspective of its role and purpose. Part II examines a number of aspects of the architecture of fourteen undergraduate legal studies programs across the country and the ways in which the roles of these programs are described. Part III provides a brief outline of the current structure of the undergraduate programs offered by the Department and considers how it fits within the broader landscape of academic units offering undergraduate legal studies programs in Canada. The paper concludes by identifying some of the challenges faced by the Department as it prepares for the next 50 years. Cet article examine I'evolution du Departement de droit et d'etudes juridiques de I'Universite Carleton et son approche de I'etude du droit dans le contexte de la croissance continue des programmes d'etudes juridiques a travers le pays. II commence par decrire I'evolution historique du Departement et I'evolution de sa perspective quant a son r6le et a sa raison d'etre. La partie II examine un certain nombre d'aspects de la structure de quatorze programmes d'etudes juridiques de premier cycle au pays et la fagon dont les r6les de ces programmes sont decrits. La Partie III donne un bref apergu de la structure actuelle des programmes de premier cycle offerts par le Departement et examine comment ils s'integrent au paysage plus large des universites offrant des programmes de premier cycle en droit au Canada. Le document se termine par une description de certains des defis auxquels le Departement est con fronte alors qu'il se prepare pour les 50 prochaines annees. * Vincent Kazmierski, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Law and Legal Studies, Carleton University. The authors would like to thank Zorana Dimitrijevic for her excellent research assistance. We would also like to thank the following members of the Department of Law and Legal Studies for reviewing drafts of the article:
This book provides an accessible introductory look at Canada s law, surveying the nature, origins... more This book provides an accessible introductory look at Canada s law, surveying the nature, origins and operation of our legal system and addressing its role in a changing society. The book is intended for a broad readership, serving as introduction to Canada s legal system
Social Science Research Network, May 19, 2019
Studies and its approach to the study of law and the legal within the context of the continuing g... more Studies and its approach to the study of law and the legal within the context of the continuing growth of legal studies programs across the country. It starts by outlining the historical development of the Department and the evolution of its perspective of its role and purpose. Part II examines a number of aspects of the architecture of fourteen undergraduate legal studies programs across the country and the ways in which the roles of these programs are described. Part III provides a brief outline of the current structure of the undergraduate programs offered by the Department and considers how it fits within the broader landscape of academic units offering undergraduate legal studies programs in Canada. The paper concludes by identifying some of the challenges faced by the Department as it prepares for the next 50 years. Cet article examine I'evolution du Departement de droit et d'etudes juridiques de I'Universite Carleton et son approche de I'etude du droit dans le contexte de la croissance continue des programmes d'etudes juridiques a travers le pays. II commence par decrire I'evolution historique du Departement et I'evolution de sa perspective quant a son r6le et a sa raison d'etre. La partie II examine un certain nombre d'aspects de la structure de quatorze programmes d'etudes juridiques de premier cycle au pays et la fagon dont les r6les de ces programmes sont decrits. La Partie III donne un bref apergu de la structure actuelle des programmes de premier cycle offerts par le Departement et examine comment ils s'integrent au paysage plus large des universites offrant des programmes de premier cycle en droit au Canada. Le document se termine par une description de certains des defis auxquels le Departement est con fronte alors qu'il se prepare pour les 50 prochaines annees. * Vincent Kazmierski, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Law and Legal Studies, Carleton University. The authors would like to thank Zorana Dimitrijevic for her excellent research assistance. We would also like to thank the following members of the Department of Law and Legal Studies for reviewing drafts of the article:
, the newly appointed Information Commissioner, Robert Marleau, echoed the concerns raised by pre... more , the newly appointed Information Commissioner, Robert Marleau, echoed the concerns raised by previous commissioners. He stated: "Despite much progress since 1983, there remain impediments to the full realization of Parliament's intent as expressed in the [Access Act]. Too often, responses to access requests are late, incomplete, or overly-censored. Too often, access is denied to hide wrongdoing, or to protect officials or governments from embarrassment, rather than to serve a legitimate confidentiality requirement.
This article uses an analysis of the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in the Moore v British Co... more This article uses an analysis of the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in the Moore v British Columbia (Education) case as a means to reflect on the ways in which both the Court and education officials may continue to protect and advance access to education for students with disabilities. Part II briefly describes the social model of disability, which asserts that the ‘disabilities’ encountered by people with physical or intellectual impairments most often result from socially constructed barriers to inclusion. Part III then moves to a discussion of Moore, which is the most recent Supreme Court of Canada case dealing with equality claims made on behalf of students with disabilities. This decision demonstrates that, while the Court has adopted important aspects of the social model of disability, it has not yet embraced the type of systemic approach required to achieve full equality for disabled children seeking access to education. Part III thus also considers a number of ways in wh...
The authors analyze the Ontario Court of Appeal's decision in Eaton v Brant (County) Board of... more The authors analyze the Ontario Court of Appeal's decision in Eaton v Brant (County) Board of Education in the context of previous legal decisions concerning access to "mainstream" classes for mentally challenged students. They argue that before Eaton, education tribunals, human rights boards of inquiries, and courts deferred to the placement decisions taken by education officials without due regard for the equality rights of the students concerned. The authors welcome the Eaton decision as a new approach in which deference to education officials must be placed within the context of an equality rights analysis - one that shifts the burden of proof from parents and students to education officials.
This paper considers the evolution of Carleton University’s Department of Law and Legal Studies a... more This paper considers the evolution of Carleton University’s Department of Law and Legal Studies and its approach to the study of law and the legal within the context of the continuing growth of legal studies programs across Canada. It starts by outlining the historical development of the Department and the evolution of its perspective of its role and purpose. Part II examines a number of aspects of the architecture of fourteen undergraduate legal studies programs across the country and the ways in which the roles of these programs are described. Part III provides a brief outline of the current structure of the undergraduate programs offered by the Department and considers how it fits within the broader landscape of academic units offering undergraduate legal studies programs in Canada. The paper concludes by identifying some of the challenges faced by the Department as it prepares for the next 50 years.
In 2015, the Harper federal government used an omnibus budget bill to retroactively restrict the ... more In 2015, the Harper federal government used an omnibus budget bill to retroactively restrict the rights of Canadians to access information concerning the federal Long-gun Registry and potentially illegal actions taken to destroy Registry records contrary to the provisions of the federal Access to Information Act. This retroactive legislative restriction of access to information rights is just the most recent example of a disturbing trend of democratic governments attempting to claw back existing access rights and thereby take 'two steps back' after having taken important steps forward along the road to greater transparency. This trend is an important reminder of the importance of constitutional protection of the right to access government information. This article revisits the Supreme Court's 2010 decision in the Criminal Lawyers' Association (CLA) case in order to explore how the constitutional protection of access to information may be applied to prevent legislatur...
More than a decade after the Quebec Secession Reference, the issue of whether unwritten constitut... more More than a decade after the Quebec Secession Reference, the issue of whether unwritten constitutional principles may be applied as free-standing limits on legislation remains a contentious issue. Interestingly, academics and judges seem to be approaching the issue from different perspectives. Whereas scholars have adopted an "American" focus on the potential dangers to the legitimacy of judicial review that are raised by judges departing from the constitutional text to identify and apply constitutional principles as limits on legislation, Canadian judges appear to be adopting a "British" approach that recognizes the legitimacy of unwritten principles but favours the principle of parliamentary sovereignty above other principles. This article argues that viewing decisions of Canadian courts through the lens of British common law constitutionalism provides a new perspective on some of the most important appellate and Supreme Court decisions that have considered the...
IT COMES AS NO SURPRISE THAT THE SAME WALLS THAT WORK TO CLOSE PRISONERS within an institution al... more IT COMES AS NO SURPRISE THAT THE SAME WALLS THAT WORK TO CLOSE PRISONERS within an institution also work to keep people out. Indeed, one of the unstated purposes of carceral punishment is to curtail freedom of association such that prisoners are limited in terms not only of where they might go, but also of whom they have contact with. Although we typically think of the limits placed on who can actually interact with a person serving a penal sentence in terms of either interpersonal or public safety (as in "do not associate" orders or directives against visits from criminal associates), (1) researchers are also routinely denied access to prisoners, probationers, and parolees. At least certain kinds of researchers are. Using legal geography, we explore the porosity of penal borders from the point of view of research, asking how it is that people gain access to actual human beings and, more to the point, how denial of such access works to place epistemological borders around ...
Introduction to Legal Studies, 5e, is intended to provide an interdisciplinary approach to the st... more Introduction to Legal Studies, 5e, is intended to provide an interdisciplinary approach to the study of law and legal institutions for students in undergraduate university and college programs in legal studies. Like its four predecessors, the fifth edition is structured to reflect the diversity of approaches and perspectives employed within Legal Studies. The underlying theme of this collection of materials is that “law” cannot be understood simply as a set of formal rules, processes and institutions. Rather, law must be understood in its wider context, including the dynamic relations between “the written law”, legal processes, and the political, cultural, social and economic forces within society. Thus any study of law must engage its subject reflexively and critically, rather than accept without question legal rules, processes and institutions as natural, fixed or given. For this reason, most of the material in this collection engages in critical reflection on the purposes, effect...
Dalhousie Journal of Legal Studies, 1997
Human rights commissions were first introduced in this country as an alternative mechanism to add... more Human rights commissions were first introduced in this country as an alternative mechanism to address complaints of discrimination. From the outset, human rights proceedings were designed to operate differently than criminal proceedings. While criminal courts assess the guilt or innocence of an accused using the reasonable doubt standard of proof, boards of inquiry assess evidence according to the balance of probabilities. Moreover, the boards of inquiry are mandated to compensate the victims of discrimination, and not necessarily to punish the discriminators. Despite these differences, boards of inquiry and courts alike have started, in recent years, to compare criminal and human rights proceedings and to hold human rights commissions to the same standards of conduct as criminal prosecutors. This has been especially evident with respect to the subject of disclosure. More specifically, the issue of disclosure in the context of human rights proceedings has been dramatically affected ...
Constitutional Forum / Forum constitutionnel
In many ways, our democratic institutions, processes, and frameworks resemble the dinosaurs of th... more In many ways, our democratic institutions, processes, and frameworks resemble the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous period...They have ceased to evolve sufficiently and are being left behind in an environment where technological innovations and greater expectations for political consultation, participation, and accountability have combined to present new challenges to the legitimacy, and perhaps the viability, of the status quo. Indeed, without further evolution, one wonders how our democratic dinosaurs will be able to survive cataclysmic events on the horizon, including escalating terrorism events and their aftermath.
Alberta Law Review, 2013
My thanks to Darren Pacione for his excellent research assistance. Thank you also to the Universi... more My thanks to Darren Pacione for his excellent research assistance. Thank you also to the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law (Civil Law Section) and the University of Saskatchewan College of Law for inviting me to give presentations that provided the genesis of this article. Finally, thanks to Dean Bruce Feldthusen and the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law (Common Law Section) for hosting me as visiting professor while I drafted the final article.
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Papers by Vincent Kazmierski
In particular, the article argues that the categorical claims in the majority reasons in Toronto (City) are based on misinterpretations of the existing jurisprudence that, in turn, promote misconceptions about the ways unwritten constitutional principles may be recognized and applied. When these misinterpretations and misconceptions are identified, and dispelled, it is possible to see that the decision in Toronto (City) may be best understood as a response to the use of unwritten constitutional principles to protect overly broad rights claims, rather than a more general, categorical restriction of their normative power. It also becomes apparent that the question of whether unwritten constitutional principles may serve as “independent” limitations on legislation may be misplaced and that an approach based on categorical acceptance or rejection of particular roles for unwritten principles should be eschewed in favour of a more balanced, “sliding-scale” approach to the application of these principles, that weighs different categories of evidence in favour (or against) the application of a particular principle to support a new constitutional right or obligation. Such a sliding scale approach fits well within the Court’s existing jurisprudence.
In particular, the article argues that the categorical claims in the majority reasons in Toronto (City) are based on misinterpretations of the existing jurisprudence that, in turn, promote misconceptions about the ways unwritten constitutional principles may be recognized and applied. When these misinterpretations and misconceptions are identified, and dispelled, it is possible to see that the decision in Toronto (City) may be best understood as a response to the use of unwritten constitutional principles to protect overly broad rights claims, rather than a more general, categorical restriction of their normative power. It also becomes apparent that the question of whether unwritten constitutional principles may serve as “independent” limitations on legislation may be misplaced and that an approach based on categorical acceptance or rejection of particular roles for unwritten principles should be eschewed in favour of a more balanced, “sliding-scale” approach to the application of these principles, that weighs different categories of evidence in favour (or against) the application of a particular principle to support a new constitutional right or obligation. Such a sliding scale approach fits well within the Court’s existing jurisprudence.