National Network for Equitable Library Service

John Reilly's second book, Bad Judgment, details the author's battle with the Canadian justice system and the difficulties he faced trying to adapt Eurocentric Canadian law for the benefit of First Nations people across the country. This revised and updated edition looks at the future of the Canadian legal and political systems as they relate to this country's indigenous communities. Judge John Reilly, now retired, was, at age 30, the youngest jurist ever named to the Provincial Court of Alberta.

John Reilly's first book, Bad Medicine, was an immediate sensation and Canadian bestseller that sparked controversy and elicited praise nationwide for its honest portrayal of First Nations tribal corruption. This revised and updated edition details the latest legal developments surrounding tribal leadership and the state of governance on Canadian reserves. Early in his career, Judge John Reilly did everything by the book. His jurisdiction included a First Nations community plagued by suicide, addiction, poverty, violence and corruption.

Indigenous women continue to be overrepresented in Canadian prisons; research demonstrates how their overincarceration and often extensive experiences of victimization are interconnected with and through ongoing processes of colonization. "Implicating the System: Judicial Discourses in the Sentencing of Indigenous Women" explores how judges navigate these issues in sentencing by examining related discourses in selected judgments from a review of 175 decisions. The feminist theory of the victimization-criminalization continuum informs Elspeth Kaiser-Derrick's work.

More than a quarter of a century has passed since Canada promised to recognize and respect the rights of children under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Ratification of the Convention cannot, however, guarantee that everyone will abandon proprietary notions about children, or that all children will be free to enjoy the substance of their rights in every social and institutional context in which they find themselves, including—and perhaps especially—within families.

Since the first edition of this popular text was published in 1984, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has transformed the role of the courts in Canadian politics. Newly revised and updated, Law, Politics, and the Judicial Process in Canada, 4th Edition provides an introduction to the issues raised by the changing political role of Canadian judges. It includes over 40 new readings, including two all-new chapters on the Harper Conservatives and Aboriginal Law.

Gordon W. Smith, PhD, dedicated much of his life to researching Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic. A historian by training, his 1952 dissertation from Columbia University on “The Historical and Legal Background of Canada’s Arctic Claims” remains a foundational work on the topic, as does his 1966 chapter “Sovereignty in the North: The Canadian Aspect of an International Problem,” in R. St. J. Macdonald’s The Arctic Frontier.

The Indian Specific Claims Commission (ICC) was formed in 1991 in response to the Oka crisis. Its purpose was to resolve claims arising from promises made to Indigenous nations in treaties, the federal Indian Act, and within other Crown obligations. This book traces the history of Indigenous claims and the work of the ICC. Written by longstanding ICC Commissioner Jane Dickson, it provides an unflinching look at the inquiry process and the parties involved.

What is family? Citing national security and societal welfare, the Harper government adopted a strict definition of family to limit access to citizenship for certain immigrants.

Migrant workers, though long welcomed in Canada for their labour, are often excluded from both workplace protections and basic social benefits such as health care, income assistance, and education. Through interviews with migrants and their advocates, Marsden shows that people with precarious migration status face barriers in law, policy, and practice, affecting their ability to address adverse working conditions and their access to institutions such as hospitals, schools, and employment standards boards.

Whatever deficits remain in the Canadian project to make justice available to all, class actions have been heralded as a success. They have been employed over the past several decades to overcome barriers to justice for those who would otherwise have no recourse to the courts. First proposing a conceptualization of access to justice that moves beyond mere access to a court procedure, leading expert Jasminka Kalajdzic then methodically assesses survey data and case studies to determine how class action practice fulfills or falls short of its objectives.