We were very pleased to welcome The Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, PC, to our 16th Annual Administrative Law Conference on November 16, 2015. The Chief Justice’s opening address, entitled “Administrative Law is Not for Sissies”: Finding a Path Through the Thicket, used Justice Antonin Scalia’s famous quotation as a departure point for her own “prescription” for navigating the thorny matter of administrative law. She described this relatively new branch of law as “struggling to keep up with the exigencies of the ever-changing modern regulatory state”. She cautioned about the limitations and imperfections of language giving rise to challenges with interpretation, and her discourse ended with an examination of the role of judicial review in administrative law. The Chief Justice’s biography is available here.
Each year our Administrative Law Conference proudly features the involvement of a Supreme Court of Canada judge. This year the distinguished faculty also included the Honourable Justice David Stratas of the Federal Court of Appeal, and well-known author and lecturer David J. Mullan. Topics included a review of recent developments in administrative law generally, as well as in BC case law specifically, statutory interpretation and judicial review, and BC’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act as it pertains to practitioners of administrative law.
Don’t miss the rebroadcast of this popular conference on Tuesday March 1, 2016 as part of our Jump Start on CPD program.