Mercedes Perez and lawyer Joanna Birenbaum are representing the Coalition for Gun Control at the Mass Casualty Commission. The Mass Casualty Commission is an independent public inquiry jointly established by the Government of Canada and the Province of Nova Scotia. The Commission’s mandate is to investigate the “causes, context and circumstances” giving rise to the […]
Category: Notable Cases
Kelley Bryan, with co-counsel Karen Spector and Professor Tess Sheldon, appeared at the Supreme Court of Canada on January 12 and 13, 2022 in Attorney General of British Columbia v. Council of Canadians with Disabilities. The Supreme Court is considering whether constitutional litigation may be brought by public interest organizations without an individual co-plaintiff. Public […]
Kelley Bryan and co-counsel Karen Steward are honoured to represent the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) in an upcoming intervention before the Supreme Court of Canada. Last week, the Supreme Court granted LEAF intervener status in the case of AS v. Her Majesty the Queen. AS will be heard along with another appeal, JJ v. Her Majesty […]
Today, a judge of the Superior Court of Justice ordered bail in a bail review case in part due to concerns over potential outbreaks of COVID-19 within Ontario prisons. In R. v. J.S., the court found a material change in circumstances and granted bail, specifically commenting as follows: “In my view, the greatly elevated risk […]
Mercedes Perez successfully represented a patient detained at the Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care in a hospital transfer appeal. The patient had been civilly detained at Waypoint’s maximum secure unit pursuant to provisions in Ontario’s Mental Health Act. He applied to the Consent and Capacity Board for a transfer to the North Bay Regional […]
In an application filed with the Human Rights Tribunal on International Women’s Day, Alex Petit-Thorne sheds light on how CUPE deals with sexual harassment internally. Kelley Bryan is representing Ms. Petit-Thorne in the claim. Ms. Petit-Thorne, a union member, made a sexual harassment complaint in November 2018 against Devin Lefebvre, CUPE Local 3903’s chairperson. Her […]
Mercedes Perez, appointed by the Superior Court of Justice as amicus curiae, successfully raised procedural fairness issues in an appeal from a treatment incapacity decision of the Consent and Capacity Board. The decision has been published in the March 15, 2019 edition of the Ontario Reports. The appellant suffered from schizaffective disorder and had been […]
In Rae v. Collins, the Ontario Court of Justice considered the rarely invoked detention powers in Ontario’s Health Protection and Promotion Act (“HPPA”) in the context of a man infected with tuberculosis. In this unreported case, Mercedes Perez successfully argued that the quarantine detention powers should be subject to a minimally intrusive standard; that is, […]
Mercedes represented a client in a complex New Brunswick Review Board hearing this week. Media coverage from the CBC is available here and at this link. […]
Mercedes Perez along with Karen Steward of the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly represented the Mental Health Legal Committee (MHLC) in an intervention at the Supreme Court of Canada in Ewert v. Canada. The decision was released on June 13, 2018. The Supreme Court’s decision was a big win for prisoners of Indigenous descent who […]