Alberta's Legal Timeline

The 150th anniversary of Canadian Confederation is a natural moment to reflect on Alberta’s role in this great national enterprise. And though Alberta did not become a province until 1905 it is quite remarkable what a disproportionately large role this province, its predecessors and its people have had in developing Canada’s laws.

In recognition of what might be called “punching above our legal weight” Law Matters has compiled a timeline of Alberta’s contributions. While we do not pretend it is exhaustive, it marks many of the significant and sometimes curious legal developments which have emerged in what is now called Alberta.


PRE-CONTACT: For thousands of years Indigenous People lived in what is now Alberta. The First Nations in the region were primarily, though not exclusively, nomadic peoples often organized into kinship groups. Given traditional knowledge as well as archeological and ethnological evidence it seems certain pre-contact First Nation groups adopted customary laws. With contact First Nation territory and way of life were sometimes tragically eroded by settler society.

The University of Calgary’s David Laidlaw reviews key developments in First Nations relationships with the federal and Alberta governments.

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1794: FIRST FORT EDMONTON ESTABLISHED
For thousands of years Indigenous People lived in what is now Alberta. The First Nations in the region were primarily, though not exclusively, nomadic peoples often organized into kinship groups. Given traditional knowledge as well as archeological and ethnological evidence it seems certain pre-contact First Nation groups adopted customary laws. With contact First Nation territory and way of life were sometimes tragically eroded by settler society.

Over the course of about 120 years the fort moved five times and was variously known as Fort Edmonton, Edmonton House, Amiskwaskahegan by local Cree who are believed to have occupied a nearby river shore campsite for 8,000 years and Fort-des-Prairies by couriers des bois. The fifth and final structure stood next to the new Alberta Legislature Building. It was dismantled in 1915. [Fort Edmonton (iStock.com/wwing)]

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JULY 1, 1867: BRITISH NORTH AMERICA ACT
The British North America Act comes into effect uniting the Provinces of Canada (which was to become Ontario and Quebec), Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. It has no immediate impact on the territory which will become known as Alberta.

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JUNE 23, 1870: RUPERT'S LAND ACT
A vast territory which had been controlled by the Hudson’s Bay Company since 1670, including all present-day Alberta, is admitted to Canada.

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MAY 23, 1873: MOUNTED POLICE FORCE
Parliament passes an act to establish a “Mounted Police Force for the North West Territories”. The red-coated Force is intended to underline Canadian sovereignty over the area, curb the liquor trade and establish law and order. In July of 1874 the column started its historic western march from Dufferin, Manitoba.

The marchers broke into two columns. One headed north to Fort Edmonton, the other headed toward the southern part of what is now Alberta. There, what came to be known as the NWMP built Fort Macleod. They begin controlling the liquor trade and establishing friendly relations with First Nations. In August1875 they create another post near the junction of the Bow and Elbow Rivers. It will be called Fort Calgary.

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1874: FIRST NATIONS TREATIES
Between 1874 and 1906 five treaties covering all the territory of what will become the province of Alberta were signed with First Nations.

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DECEMBER 18, 1885: FIRST REGULATION OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION IN THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES
In 1885 the Territorial government instituted An Ordinance Respecting the Legal Profession.

The Ordinance Respecting the Legal Profession set down the qualifications for certification as an “Advocate of the North West Territories”. Among other business conducted the same day was an Ordinance relating to Medical Practitioners and an Ordinance to amend an Ordinance respecting Dangerous Lunatics. See Ordinances of the North-West Territories.

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1885: HOT SPRINGS RESERVE
Ottawa establishes a 26 sq. km. Hot Springs Reserve around what is now Banff., Alberta. On June 23, 1887, The Rocky Mountains Park Act expands the area and establishes Canada’s first national park later to be called Banff National Park in what will become Alberta.

The federal government’s approach slowly changed and in 1930 the National Parks Act was passed. It proclaimed in s.4 that “The Parks are hereby dedicated to the people of Canada for their benefit, education and enjoyment…and such Parks shall be maintained and made use of so as to leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

Retired University of Calgary Professor Emeritus of Law, Ian Rounthwaite is an acknowledged legal expert on Canada’s national parks. He says “the government at the time was very concerned with seeing the CPR develop and prosper through the creation of our first national park. The establishment of Banff was not in any way, shape or form for environmental, conservationist or ecological reasons it was purely for economic reasons and the best interests of the CPR.”

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1888: TERRITORIAL COURTHOUSES
Before Alberta became a province in 1905 the Territorial Government was responsible for court facilities. Between 1888 and 1905 they built 12 territorial courthouses. The oldest remaining courthouse building in Alberta was erected in 1904 in Fort Macleod.

See More

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JULY 1, 1893: CRIMINAL CODE OF CANADA
The Criminal Code of Canada is proclaimed. It was enforced across the country including in the territory destined to become Alberta and Saskatchewan.

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1898: LAW SOCIETY OF THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES
The creation of the Law Society of the North West Territories in 1898 established the English and Ontario models of a self-governing legal profession in the Territories.

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JULY 5, 1905: ALBERTA BECOMES A PROVINCE
The Alberta Act 1905, passed by the House of Commons in Ottawa a few minutes before midnight. The Act was granted Royal Assent July 20, 1905.

See the Montreal Gazette's coverage of the third reading of the Alberta bill.

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1910: R v STONEY JOE
An influential aboriginal ruling. The court concluded Alberta’s provincial game laws did not apply to Stoney Nakoda Indians because they were subject to the federal Indian Act not provincial legislation.

See David Laidlaw

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1912: UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA FACULTY OF LAW
Faculty of Law created at the University of Alberta. It was the first university law school in western Canada. (This claim is disputed by the University of Saskatchewan, but Law Matters considers the issue is best left to legal scholars, a long night and a good bottle of Scotch.) U of A offered classes in both Edmonton and Calgary. In 1915, the first graduating class numbered eight.

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1915: CREATION OF THE CANADIAN BAR ASSOCIATION - ALBERTA BRANCH
Its first president (1915-1928) was the prominent Calgary lawyer R.B. Bennett. He later became Prime Minister of Canada (1930-1935).

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1914 - 1918: THE FIRST WORLD WAR
Close to 60 Alberta lawyers and law students give their lives in the First World War.

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1916: EMILY MURPHY
Emily Murphy presides over a women’s court in Edmonton. It is believed she was the first women magistrate in the British Empire.

[Emily Murphy, c.1917 (Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46547348)]

 

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JUNE 28, 1918: RE LEWIS
The Alberta Supreme Court, Appellate Division rules farmers previously exempted from military service cannot be conscripted on the strength of a federal order-in-council amending the Military Service Act. A stand-off ensues.

Lewis and some other men were being held by the military at Sarcee Barracks in Calgary. A stand-off developed when the Army, in spite of the Alberta court ruling initialled declined to give the men up. There was some thought on the part of the military of moving the men to another province to escape the authority of the Alberta Supreme Court. There were reports of soldiers setting up a machine gun at the barracks. In the end, the military relented and the matter went to the Supreme Court which overturned the Alberta judgment, but the war by then was nearly over.

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MAY 2, 1923: THE ONLY WOMAN EVER EXECUTED IN ALBERTA IS HANGED
Florence Lassandro convicted in the shooting death of a police officer in Coleman, AB. The Calgary Daily Herald, reported that Lassandro’s last words were: “Is there not anyone who has any pity?”

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MARCH 21, 1928: SEXUAL STERILIZATION ACT
The Sexual Sterilization Act (1928) becomes law in Alberta. Under the Act the Alberta Eugenics Board was established. It determined if people were “feebleminded” and if so ordered their sterilization. It was not repealed until 1972.

Read "Forced Sterilization: How the law righted an ugly wrong in Alberta History" for one brave woman's fight to right this wrong.

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APRIL 24, 1928: EDWARDS v CANADA
Emily Murphy, the Calgary woman who in 1916 was appointed the first woman magistrate in the British Empire, later sought an appointment to the Canadian Senate. Her application was rejected by the Prime Minister Robert Borden, on the grounds women were not “qualified persons” under the British North American Act. In 1927 s a group of five Alberta women led by Murphy managed to persuade the government to bring a reference case before the Supreme Court of Canada on the question of whether the phrase “qualified persons” in s. 24 of the BNA Act 1867 include women? The Supreme Court unanimously found were not “qualified persons”.

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OCTOBER 29, 1929: CANADIAN WOMEN DECLARED PERSONS
Edwards and Others v. Canada (Attorney-General). Murphy and four other women took the matter to the then final court of appeal, the Privy Council. It overturned the Supreme Court of Canada and found women were “qualified persons”. The case is called Edwards because the Appellants were listed alphabetically so Henriette Muir Edwards’ name appears first.

In Edwards, Lord Sankey ruled that “the exclusion of women from all public offices is a relic of days more barbarous than ours” and that “customs are apt to develop into traditions which are stronger than law and remain unchallenged long after the reason for them has disappeared.” In the Persons Case there was no reason why women could not discharge the parliamentary duty of office. In terms of the efficacy of the actual British North America Act, which today we call the Constitution Act, 1867, Lord Sankey, famously remarked that the Act “planted in Canada a living tree capable of growth and expansion within its natural limits.” This metaphor of the Constitution as a living tree has taken root since the 1930 Persons Case and has become a guiding doctrine in our constitutional jurisprudence.

Sankey's decision can be found online. [PM McKenzie King unviels a plaque commemorating the "Famous Five", 11 June 1938 (Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3350561)]

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AUGUST 7, 1930: PRIME MINISTER R.B. BENNETT
Calgary lawyer and entrepreneur Richard Bedford Bennett (the Bennett in the Alberta law firm of Bennett Jones) becomes prime minister. The first Albertan to hold the office his government is bedevilled by the Great Depression but still manages to pass a string of important legislation.

See The Calgary Daily Herald's coverage of Bennett's election. [Richard Bedford Bennett, between c.1930 and c.1935 (Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=162625)]

 

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OCTOBER 1, 1930: NATURAL RESOURCES TRANSFER ACT
The Natural Resources Transfer Act becomes law. Provocatively called “Alberta’s real constitution” by now-retired University of Calgary professor Tom Flanagan in a collection of essays, Forging Alberta’s Constitutional Framework published in 2005. The Act granted Alberta as well as a Saskatchewan and Manitoba full control of their natural resources something they had been denied when they entered Confederation.

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JUNE 6, 1932: R v WESLEY

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1935: BANKERS' TOADIES CASE
A one-page leaflet distributed around the Social Credit dominated Alberta legislature identified a group of Liberal and Conservative party supporters, primarily lawyers, as Bankers’ Toadies and called for them to be “exterminated”. Toady is a mainly English expression suggesting obsequious sycophancy. The perpetrators turned out to be Social Credit functionaries. They were convicted under the Criminal Code of defamatory libel and sentenced to several months of hard labour. Social Creditors believed the two men were being “punished” by the old-line Establishment. The case was for more than a quarter century a mainstay of criminal defamation law in Canada.

One of the convicted men, Joseph Unwin gave an account of the incident in this undated audio recording.

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MARCH 4, 1938: REFERENCE re ALBERTA STATUTES
William (Bible Bill) Aberhart’s Social Credit government passed several pieces of legislation inspired by the social credit philosophy. They quickly ran afoul of the federal government as being beyond provincial power. Finally, after several twists and turns, the Supreme Court was asked to consider Alberta laws concerning the regulation of banks and credit and the press. The press bill was ominously titled “An Act to ensure the Publication of Accurate News and Information". The Court found the proposed legislation was beyond provincial power and of no force or effect. The decision is pointed to by many scholars as the foundational case in establishing an Implied Bill of Rights in Canada.

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1946: TOKYO WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL
Alberta’s Henry Gratten Nolan, who was awarded the Military Cross in the First World War, and later became a Rhodes Scholar and distinguished lawyer in Calgary in the interwar years, joins the war crime trials in Japan (also known as the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal) as a prosecutor. He serves in this role until 1948.

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DECEMBER 18, 1946: LETHBRIDGE EXECUTIONS
Five men were executed in the Provincial Gaol in Lethbridge in the biggest mass hanging in Alberta history. They included four German POWs convicted of murdering a fellow German POW at a camp in Medicine Hat. A fifth man, completed unrelated to the POWs, was also hanged that day. He was a Canadian soldier convicted of murder during a sex crime.

Read More

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MAY 19, 1954: CPR v TURTA
University of Calgary Professor Emeritus of Law, Ian Rounthwaite calls this case “probably the most important Supreme Court of Canada decision dealing with the principle of indefeasible title under our land titles system”.

In 1954, the CPR unsuccessfully appealed an Alberta Court ruling that found that Turta was the rightful owner of oil and gas rights under a quarter section of land because of an error made in the Registrar’s office. Professor Rounthwaite says the Turta case “established that even if there is an error made in the Registrar’s Office in terms of reserving oil and gas that if the party who takes a transfer is innocent of the error, the party that receives the transfer still receives indefeasible title to (in the Turta case) oil and case though it was the intention of the CPR when it transferred title to Turta to reserve gas and oil to themselves. Due to an error in the Registrar’s office only coal was reserved not oil and gas so the oil and gas rights passed to Turta.

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MARCH 1, 1956: HENRY GRATTON NOLAN
Henry Grattan Nolan, (see 1946) becomes the first Albertan named to the Supreme Court. He served for a year and died of a heart attack at his summer home in Banff on July 8, 1957 at the age of 64. In January 1958, he was replaced by the second Albertan to be called to the Supreme Court, Ronald Martland.

Read More

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1960: LAST TRIP BY CANADIAN LITIGANTS TO THE PRIVY COUNCIL
Alberta lawyer Bill Morrow (later Justice Morrow) manages to take a case over a small drilling project near Leduc all the way to the Privy Council in London more than ten years after the Supreme Court became the final court of appeal in Canada.

Read more in "Canadian law's last journey to London".

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NOVEMBER 15, 1960: THE LAST EXECUTION IN ALBERTA
Twenty-two-year-old Donald Cook, convicted of killing seven members of his family in Stettler, was hanged shortly after midnight in the Provincial Gaol, Fort Saskatchewan.

Read more in coverage from The Edmonton Journal and The Calgary Daily Herald.

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1967: R v KLIPPERT
His case went to the Supreme Court. Even so, Everett Klippert, an Alberta man, is believed to be the last Canadian convicted of homosexual relations before the law was changed.

Read more in "Everett Klippert: Canadian legal history's troubling hero".

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SEPTEMBER 1976: UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY FACULTY OF LAW
University of Calgary officially opens its Law School with a first-year class of 60 and nine faculty.

Read More.

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JUNE 4, 1979: PRIME MINISTER JOE CLARK
Joe Clark from High River, AB becomes prime minister. A non-lawyer, he served for only 9-months before his defeat by a resurgent Pierre Trudeau.

While his tenure was brief his government astounded the world by accepting close to 50,000 refugees, the so-called “boat people”. They entered Canada from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. It is estimated that during this wave of migration some 8,000 refugees from southeast Asia came to Alberta. Read more in the June 5, 1979 edition of The Calgary Herald.

[Joe Clark, c.1983 (By Alasdairroberts - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7392743)]

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SEPTEMBER 1980: NOTWITHSTANDING CLAUSE
Alberta premier Peter Lougheed was a key player in the lengthy and contentious inter-governmental negotiations surrounding the patriation of the constitution. One of Alberta’s fundamental contribution was raising the notion of a Notwithstanding Clause. Lougheed attributed the idea to his attorney general (and long-time corporate lawyer) Merv Leitch. When Leitch first raised the idea Lougheed’s initial reaction was “What the hell is a notwithstanding clause?”

See Lougheed's account of what happened.

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APRIL 17, 1982: CHARTER OF RIGHTS & FREEDOMS
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms signed into law.

See the full CBC coverage.

 

 

 

 

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SEPTEMBER 17, 1984: HUNTER v SOUTHAM
It was only the second Charter case to go to the Supreme Court. Five days before the Queen signed the Charter on Parliament Hill, Combines Investigation officers raided the Edmonton Journal and seized documents. They acted on the basis of a warrantless search authorized under the Combines Investigations Act. The Supreme Court found the search was inconsistent with the protections provided by s 8 of the new Charter against unreasonable search and seizure. The decision had a sweeping impact on Canadian law.

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APRIL 24, 1985: R v BIG M DRUG MART
Two Calgary store owners who wanted to sell goods seven-days-a-week, challenged the Lord’s Day Act. They argued restrictions on Sunday shopping infringed their s2 (a) Charter rights to freedom of conscience and religion. After a long battle the Supreme Court agreed. The decision over time transformed Canadian society and Sunday is now one the country’s busiest shopping days.

Read more in "Big M Drug: How a bicycle lock and the Charter changed Canada's Sundays".

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FEBRUARY 1, 1990: R v BRYDGES
The Supreme Court found an arrested Edmonton man’s Charter right to counsel was denied when police were slow to put him in contact with Legal Aid. As a result, so-called Brydges counsel is now a telephone call away in most Canadian police stations.

Read more in "Under arrest? No lawyer? Who you gonna call?".

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DECEMBER 13, 1990: R v KEEGSTRA
An Eckville school teacher (and sometime mayor of his town) taught his students that the Holocaust was a lie. He was charged with wilfully promoting hatred. The Supreme Court majority decided freedom of expression did not trump the evils of hate speech.

Read more in "Hate and Free Speech: A Supeme balancing act".

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NOVEMBER 7, 1991: R v STINCHCOMBE
Stinchcombe, a Calgary lawyer became embroiled in a series of court cases surrounding allegations he misappropriated funds. He was cleared after a lengthy battle and in 2002 his licence to practise law was reinstated. Stinchcombe is seminally important because the Supreme Court ruled as Justice Sopinka put it in his unanimous judgment, “the Crown has a legal duty to disclose all relevant information to the accused." It was a decision that forever changed the way the Crown prosecutes an accused person. Today, the Crown is compelled to disclose to the defence all the evidence it will rely upon in any trial.

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MAY 19, 1997: BRE-X FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY PROTECTION
It was the beginning of the end for Calgary-based Bre-X when it became apparent claims of the richest gold find of all time proved to be based on “salted” samples. Investors from around the world lost more than a billion dollars.

Paul Pape, a Toronto lawyer representing investors, called the Bre-X saga “one of the greatest frauds perpetrated in North America." The Bre-X principles denied all knowledge of the swindle. In the end, no criminal charges were laid and all civil actions were dismissed. Read more in "Bre-X: The Calgary-based stock scandal still making headlines 20 years later".

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APRIL 2, 1998: R v VRIEND
A teacher’s employment at an Edmonton college was terminated because he was homosexual. Sexual orientation was not protected under Alberta’s Individual’s Rights Protection Act (now the Alberta Human Rights Act). The Supreme Court found the Act contrary to guarantees of equality in the Charter. Alberta premier Ralph Klein faced pressure from Charter opponents and others to use the Notwithstanding Clause to override the Court’s decision but ultimately declined. The decision led to a national debate and in the end helped advance LGBTQ rights across the country.

See coverage from CBC Edmonton.

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FEBRUARY 2006 - NOVEMBER 2015: STEPHEN HARPER, THE THIRD ALBERTAN TO BECOME PRIME MINISTER
The Toronto-born, Harper moved to Alberta soon after finishing high school. He was an economist by training rather than a lawyer. When he became prime minister he introduced a law-and-order agenda. It featured tougher sentencing for convicted criminals. Harper also tightened security laws including enhanced surveillance and detention measures and scrapped the federal gun registry. The Harper government also experimented with ways of making appointments to the Supreme Court more transparent, though opponents argued he was actually trying to stack the Court with political friends. It is probably too early to properly assess Stephen Harper’s contributions to Canadian law.

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APRIL 9, 2009: R v PATRICK
This Supreme Court judgment, on appeal from the ABCA, found there was no reasonable expectation of privacy in garbage bags once put out for collection. In effect, the court found there was nothing illegal about removing things from a householders’ garbage. The decision had a sweeping impact across the country. It confirmed it was now legitimate for people to go through a householder’s garbage and remove what they wished. It reinvigorated bottle recycling programs and ensured a small income for thousands of Canadian bottle pickers. It is doubtful these consequences were in the minds of the Supreme Court justices when they found Calgary police did not infringe the s 8 Charter rights of a suspected drug dealer by collecting evidence, without a search warrant, from his garbage. The justices concluded the evidence collected was admissible.

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MAY 7, 2015: BOWDEN INSTITUTION v KHADR
The Alberta Court of Appeal releases Omar Khadr from detention under strict conditions. His release came after more than 12 years in custody, 10 of those years in Guantanamo Bay. Khadr’s release was a triumph for his long-time lawyer from Edmonton Dennis Edney.

Edney spearheaded efforts to bring the Toronto-born former child-soldier back to Canada and then fought for his release in this country. Omar Khadr was captured in Afghanistan after a firefight with US troops in which a US soldier was killed and another severely wounded. Edney was interviewed by CBC Radio’s Ideas program in 2016. That interview is available online here.

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JULY 4, 2017: KHADR SETTLEMENT
The Canadian government agrees to suspend legal action and pay more than $10-million in compensation to Khadr. Controversy ensues.