Ultra Vires Vol 21 Issue 6 — March 2020

ULTRAVIRES.CA

March 31, 2020

VOL. 21, ISS. 6

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO FACULTY OF LAW

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO, FACULTY OF LAW

Mandatory credit/no credit system implemented

Slashing Small Group

Faculty of Law makes unprecedented decision for Winter 2020 semester amidst COVID-19 pandemic

Curriculum change proposal leaves students and faculty blindsided

VIVIAN CHENG (1L) On Friday, 20 March 2020, U of T’s Facult y of Law implemented a general credit/no credit grading scheme for all J D students in all courses this semester, including full-year courses such as f irstyear small group.

As the COV I D -19 pandemic disrupted students’ lives—by closing educational spaces and recreational facilities and requiring Graduate House residents to move out—students began advocating for changes to the semester’s grading scheme at the Facult y of Law. These discussions were furthered after A merican law schools at Cornell Universit y and Stanford Universit y announced changes to their grading schemes in light of the pandemic.

In the days leading up to the decision, two petitions circulated on U of T Law’s student Facebook groups outlining the

merits and drawbacks of dif ferent grading schemes. One petition advocated for the cancellation of remaining f inal exams and essays, or alternatively a mandator y credit/no credit system.

The other petition advocated for the adoption of a mandator y credit/no credit system. Collectively, these petitions received approximately 330 signatures from students across various years. Nonetheless, students had concerns about this system, and Students’ Law Societ y (SLS) representatives posted anonymous sur veys for students to share them. Facult y members have also shared their perspectives on this issue.

At the time of publication, Universit y of British Columbia’s A llard School of Law is proceeding w ith grading as-is. The Universit y of Ottawa has introduced

changes for f irst-year students, w ith an optional course-by-course selection for pass/fail and an optional blanket pass/ fail for upper-year students.

U of T Law’s SLS has advocated for a uniform approach to grading in Canadian law schools. SLS President Morgan Watk ins (3L) indicated that while there had been discussion about grading among law student bodies across Ontario, there was no clear consensus as to how to move for ward.

The Career Development Of f ice at U of T Law assured the student body in an email that they would be reaching out to employers in the legal communit y to inform them of the Facult y’s changes.

The U of T Facult y of Law is the f irst law school in Ontario to implement this change amidst the COV I D -19 pandemic.

AVNEE PARANJAPE (2L) Earlier this March, the law school communit y received an email informing them of a plan to signif icantly rework the 1L curriculum. According to the email, a Curriculum Committee had been formed in the Fall and had canvassed “ indiv idual students and the full facult y” before crafting the attached proposal.

The proposal, just over two pages long, recommended shortening small group to the Fall term, adding a 1L moot in the Winter term, and reconf ig uring Legal Research and Writing to be full-year.

Furthermore, 1L students would be required to submit “a series of short nongraded exercises” during the summer before the Fall term (though the structure and specif ic intended outcome of the asContinued on Page 4

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE 1L CURRICULUM CHANGES

FAREWELL TO ULTRA VIRES

RIGHTS REVIEW

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2 | March 31, 2020

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EDITOR'S NOTE Happy March!

84 Queen’s Park Crescent Toronto, ON M5S 2C5 Ultra Vires is the independent student newspaper of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. We provide a forum for diverse viewpoints on topics of interest to our readers. We aim to foster dialogue on academic and social issues between students, the faculty, and the broader legal community in Toronto, Ontario, and Canada. Our content does not necessarily ref lect the views of the Editorial Board. We print six issues per year. Ultra Vires is printed by Master Web Inc.

EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Melody Chan & James Flynn NEWS EDITOR Ernest Tam ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITORS Angela Gu & Sara Karma FEATURES EDITOR Claudia Shek ASSOCIATE FEATURES EDITOR Vivian Cheng OPINIONS EDITOR Tom Collins ASSOCIATE OPINIONS EDITORS Alexa Cheung & Mike Bertrand DIVERSIONS EDITOR Rory Smith EDITOR-AT-LARGE Vernon Lin SUPERNUMERARY EDITORS William Mazurek & Alina Yu LAYOUT EDITOR Alexandra Fox

This is the f inal Ultra Vires issue of the year and our last as Editors-in- Chief. We thank all of our readers, writers, editors, and sponsors for their support.

W hile, as always, we had hoped to release this issue in print, in light of the COV I D -19 pandemic, this month’s paper w ill be online-only. A lthough our Facult y has transitioned to v irtual classes and the Jackman building has been closed, the U of T Law communit y continues to thrive on screens and on Facebook. Even w ithout in-person meetings, our communit y has accomplished a lot, including successfully advocating for a credit/ no credit grading system this term.

In this issue, you’ll f ind a piece describing how students have been spending their time in selfisolation, as well as ideas for recipes and mov ies that readers can tr y at home while social distancing. Our Opinions writers also present their take on Legal Research and Writing, STEM majors in law school, and Mango W hite Claw.

We hope that we achieved our goal of prov iding a forum for the law communit y to learn, think, and laugh together. Together, we’ve published the work of 59 writers in 146 articles.

Thank you again to all of our contributors and our editing staf f, who braved the dust y basement of Falconer to help us put this paper together. We’ve really enjoyed our time together and are look ing for ward to passing Ultra Vires on to our new Editorsin- Chief: Viv ian Cheng (1L) & A ngela Gu (1L). We w ish the best of luck to them.

STAFF WRITERS Alisha Li & Adrienne Ralph

We’re excited to see what next year brings!

Signing of f for the last time,

ADVERTISING If you are interested in advertising, please email us at editor@ultravires.ca.

BUSINESS MANAGER Daniel Gao ERRORS If you notice any errors, please email us at editor@ultravires.ca.

SUBMISSIONS If you would like to submit a tip, letter, or an article, please email us at editor@ultravires.ca.

Ultra Vires reserves the right to edit submissions.

Melody Chan & James F lynn Co-Editors-in- Chief, 2019 –2020

UV INDEX NEWS Mandatory Credit/No Credit

1

Small Group Changes

1

PBSC Volunteer Appreciation

3

Rule of Law Conference

4

1L Curriculum Changes

5

FEATURES Tax Tips for Students

6

Food Prep Tips

6

Movie Reviews

7

Sweeney Todd Review

7

In Vino Veritas: Sustainable Wines

8

Keeping Busy During COVID-19

9

Thai Red Curry Recipe

9

OPINIONS White Claw Review

11

Graduation Awards Should Switch to Ranked-Vote

10

Farewell to Ultra Vires

11

1L Grades by Undergraduate Program

12

Does LRW Work?

13

DIVERSIONS Intra Vires

13

Ultimate Law School Playlist

14

RIGHTS REVIEW Bots at the Gate

15

Recognizing Sexual Violence as Genocide

16

Canadian Media Freedom Symposium

17

INTERESTING CASES, FRIENDLY FACES.

ultravires.ca

NEWS

March 31, 2020 | 3

PBSC holds Volunteer Appreciation Event Event marks launch of Chief Justice Richard Wagner Awards for student volunteers ANGELA GU (1L) On Thursday March 5, the U of T and Osgoode chapters of Pro Bono Students Canada (PBSC) held their joint Volunteer Appreciation Event at the Toronto office of PBSC’s national law fi rm partner, McCarthy Tétrault LLP. The event marked the launch of a new award for student volunteers, the inaugural Chief Justice Richard Wagner Awards. The awards recognize one extraordinary leader from each of PBSC’s participating law school chapters throughout Canada, while elevating the need for more engagement in the access to justice crisis.

The Right Honourable Richard Wagner was in attendance to present the awards.

PBSC student volunteers fi lled the room, and a number of pro bono lawyers as well as representatives of partner organizations were also present. Event attendees mingled, conversed over drinks and canapés, enjoyed the 53rd floor view, and made use of the hand sanitizer stations around the room.

Nikki Gershbain, chief inclusion officer at McCarthy Tétrault and former national director at PBSC, made opening remarks about the importance of pro bono work. Samantha Hans (2L) and Christopher Dias, program coordinators of the U of T and Osgoode chapters, respectively, thanked student volunteers and spoke about some of their chapters’ milestones and accomplishments over the past year.

PBSC’s current national director, Brittany Twiss, took to the podium to highlight the impact of PBSC volunteers across the country.

Twiss provided the audience with the context for the awards, explaining that the awards started as a small grassroots initiative at the University of Ottawa chapter in 2019, and are issued in honour of Chief Justice Wagner, given his commitment to closing the justice gap and embodying the PBSC values of dignity, integrity, and humility. Twiss proceeded to invite Dean Edward Iacobucci to introduce Chief Justice Wagner.

Chief Justice Wagner opened his speech with the importance of building public trust in the legal system. “When people lose confi dence in the justice system, it’s a short step to losing confidence in society,” he said, stating that citizens who feel disempowered while caught up in the justice system become disengaged.

“What gives me great hope speaking to you tonight is your commitment to access to justice,” he said. “Please keep this sense of idealism alive.”

Chief Justice Wagner reminded students that dedicating time and energy to serve underprivileged clients is not just for obtaining experience or for padding resumes, but “an integral part of what it means to be a lawyer in 2020.”

“Too many people fall through the cracks of the justice system every day,” said Chief Justice Wagner, reminding attendees that they have the ability to help individuals achieve access to justice and obtain legal solutions that empower them.

He also cautioned against treating pro bono

cases like law school fact patterns, and encouraged students to truly connect with pro bono clients and act with humility. “Put your clients’ humanity front and centre in each of your interactions with them,” Chief Justice Wagner said, urging students to be empathetic and non-judgmental in order to gain a better understanding of the full picture.

Furthermore, Chief Justice Wagner noted that individual actions for justice are not enough on their own, and that even if every lawyer were to participate in pro bono work there would still remain gaps in access to justice.

He highlighted the necessity of taking action on the systemic level. A part of this includes making the legal profession more diverse, with a diverse bar and bench that would be more responsive to the public and more understanding of the public’s needs.

“We will never have a perfect system of justice but we must strive for something better,” said Chief Justice Wagner, concluding his speech, voicing a vision of a legal system that is “more just, more inclusive, and equal to all.”

He thanked PBSC for taking action and for making pro bono part of the fibre of the legal profession. He also thanked student volunteers, saying, “you are an inspiration to me.

Your leadership is critical to advancing positive legal change in Canada.”

With that, Chief Justice Wagner introduced the U of T and Osgoode chapter recipients of the inaugural Chief Justice Richard Wagner Awards. U of T’s Crystal Park (GPLLM candidate) was recognized for her work with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association through PBSC, as well as volunteer work in the community.

Osgoode’s Julila Kennedy was recognized for her work with PBSC’s Trans ID Clinic in conjunction with The 519 and SKETCH Toronto.

Gordon Baird, chair of the McCarthy Tétrault National Pro Bono Committee, then

CHIEF JUSTICE WAGNER, CRYSTAL PARK, AND BRITTANY TWISS. PHOTO CREDIT: KENYA-JADE PINTO.

took to the podium to thank Chief Justice Wagner for dedicating his name to the award. Baird reminded the audience that lawyering is more than a job. It is a profession that comes with additional obligations.

Tresa Zacharia (2L) and Matías Contreras León, program coordinators of the U of T and Osgoode Chapters respectively, again thanked PBSC’s partner organizations, lawyer supervisors and student volunteers, and brought the formal portion of the evening to an end.

Event attendees lingered for more conversation over dessert, and guests took home notebooks emblazoned with the logos of PBSC and McCarthy Tétrault and bearing a quotation from Chief Justice Wagner: “to deny access to justice is to deny people their dignity, to say

that some people are worthy of justice and some aren’t.”

PBSC’s mission is to provide free legal support to people and communities facing barriers to justice. Each year, the organization recruits approximately 1,600 law student volunteers across 22 partnering law schools who work with community partners and under the supervision of pro bono lawyers to serve over 13,000 people.

The organization’s student volunteers provide approximately 130,000 hours of free legal support annually, helping to close the justice gap while providing students with opportunities to develop valuable skills and experiences. *Editor’s Note: Angela Gu is a PBSC volunteer in the U of T Chapter.

CHIEF JUSTICE WAGNER AT THE PODIUM. PHOTO CREDIT: KENYA-JADE PINTO.

4 | March 31, 2020

NEWS

Slashing Small Group signment was not clarif ied.) Despite the preliminar y nature of the proposal and the call for student feedback, the proposal claimed that retired Court of Appeal judge Robert Shar pe had already been recruited to organize the 1L moot.

The proposal created a strong response among both students and facult y. Within days, a petition began to circulate online criticizing the lack of detail of fered and the short timelines for student feedback.

The petition called for Facult y Council to reject any changes until more detail and greater opportunit y for consultation could be prov ided. In 48 hours, it had gained 82 signatures.

Six days after the proposal was distributed, a town hall session was held to solicit student feedback. The town hall was well attended, half-f illing the Moot Court Room. Students v igorously questioned the Curriculum Committee and raised a broad variet y of concerns, which were largely f ielded by Associate Dean A lbert Yoon, Professor Larissa Katz, and Professor Catherine Valcke (though the entire Curriculum Committee was present.)

On what consultation had already been done, Associate Dean Yoon said that he had communicated w ith SLS in the Fall about what changes to the curriculum might look like, and that Facult y had met separately in Januar y to discuss the proposal. (SLS Executives at the session challenged Associate Dean Yoon’s statement and emphasized that consultation w ith the few students on SLS was not a suf f icient replacement for broad student consultation. Associate Dean Yoon took issue w ith this characterization, say ing that the SLS had declined to consult more w idely, and that any consultation w ith the SLS should be done through the SLS members of the Curriculum Committee.)

Shortly before the petition was presented, a 1L student raised the concern of timelines; namely, that the proposal would have to be passed in roughly two weeks, and they felt that the “consultation process w ith students has only been happening in a way that has been productive

in the past few weeks.” The remaining weeks, they suggested, may not of fer suff icient time for consultation.

Professor Katz defended the lack of detail in the proposal, claiming that it was merely a “ blueprint for reform” and that the administration, rather than the committee, would be responsible for “ f leshing out the details.” Professor Katz also said that the committee did not anticipate so much opposition that passing the proposal by the end of term seemed infeasible, though they were not in a rush to proceed.

Students repeatedly pressed for an explanation of the changes and what they are intended to target. Associate Dean Yoon pointed to lower student satisfaction reported in teaching evaluations for small groups as compared to large group classes as ev idence that students were dissatisf ied. Professor A nthony Niblett and Professor Valcke spoke of their anecdotal experiences in teaching small group sessions. Associate Dean Yoon also stated that the proposal intended to address a diminishing facult y pool to teach small groups g iven the number of professors on sabbatical or who also teach in other departments.

Student representatives on the committee noted that they pushed on this point, as well, and the response from committee members was a vag ue issue w ith writing strength. However, they noted, what constitutes ‘good’ writing varies. Certain student representatives on the committee seemed frustrated by their experience, w ith questions left unanswered or suggestions that were never taken up.

The session quick ly developed into students expressing their broader frustrations w ith the school’s evaluations and manner of instruction. One 1L student used the opportunit y to bemoan the level of engagement of U of T students relative to Har vard Law students, and an evaluation system that allows students to get an HH even if they didn’t complete all the readings in the term.

Several students noted the inconsistency in 1L experience, specif ically high-

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continued from page 1 lighting how dif ferent L RW instructors would g ive insuf f icient feedback or conf licting adv ice. Others challenged the grading system altogether, suggesting that what was required to get an HH was not only unclear, but inconsistent between dif ferent sessions.

At Facult y Council two days later, several professors heav ily criticized the Curriculum Committee’s approach. Professor Martha Shaf fer excoriated the process, calling it “ fundamentally f lawed” and “unlike any other process the facult y has had in the past for a signif icant curriculum change.”

Professor Shaf fer discussed how past committees usually reported to Facult y Council in the Fall and held consultation w ith both facult y and staf f at an early stage. She suggested that there were many facult y members not on the Committee whose small group teaching experiences were not heard. “The substance of this proposal is nowhere close to where it needs to be in order to be meaning fully considered,” she said.

Professor Shaf fer continued, “Let’s be frank, L RW is the absolute worst course we have in f irst year.”

Dean Edward Iacobucci strongly resisted this assertion, say ing that to g ive the impression that this was a w idely shared belief about L RW was unfair. However, Professor Shaf fer’s negative impression of L RW was shared by a number of other professors, including Professors Réaume, Phillips, and Valcke.

Professor Réaume read comments by Professor Kent Roach (who was unable to attend), where he f lagged the increased pressure that the proposal placed on students early in the academic year. He said the proposal would continue the last decade’s trend of mov ing experiences important to students’ later careers to earlier in their legal education. He was concerned that students may only have assignments written during the f irst three months of law school to use for clerkship applications, for instance—possibly before they know if they want to pursue a

clerkship.

Several professors raised the issue of a lack of ev idence for the alleged problems the proposal sought to address, and what benef its the proposed changes would bring. Professor Jim Phillips wondered why, if the concern was student writing qualit y, the L RW program had not been carefully investigated. Of the proposal, he said, “I’m not persuaded that if we have absolutely no ev idence that something would be benef icial, the best solution is to tr y it for a year.”

Professor A lan Brudner, who noted his thirt y-six years of experience teaching small groups, highlighted what he saw as a fundamental shift in the administration’s attitude towards small groups. Not long ago, the Facult y undertook a major discussion about the program, and the consensus was that small groups were the “ jewel of our program, of U of T law school, that they were so special that they deser ved to be set apart from semesterization.”

Just a few years later, Professor Brudner emphasized, this “ jewel” is being traded in, “quite cheaply,” for a mooting program, despite many other opportunities for mooting during law school. Professor Brudner noted that w ith 13 fewer hours in small group, he could not imag ine “what k ind of rump of a course w ill be left.” He felt the course could no longer be a general introductor y course and would have to resemble a “selected topics” course.

At the end of the discussion, Dean Iacobucci acknowledged the dif ferences in opinion regarding the value of small groups and what would be lost from their semesterization. He suggested that the Committee would come to a recommendation about what to do at the next Facult y Council, or in the next academic year.

However, w ith the onset of the COVI D -19 pandemic, it is unclear when and how the proposal w ill move for ward. Facult y Council was suspended for the remainder of the year, and it remains to be seen how the Facult y as a whole w ill proceed as an institution in the Fall, let alone how this proposal w ill be addressed.

Is the Rule of Law Sound?

Conference examines the instability of the rule of law in theory and practice

AVNEE PARANJAPE (2L) In one of the last major events before the campus shutdown, law students at Massey College hosted their conference, “Threats and Limits to the Rule of Law,” on March 6, 2020. The conference brought together academics, practitioners, activists, and students to discuss the state of the rule of law, from the ways in which it has been challenged to its unsteady foundations in our own country.

Opening remarks were given by Mary Eberts, human rights lawyer and co-founder of the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund.

Eberts gave an address about the necessity of maintaining vigilance towards the increasing diminution of the rule of law in many parts of the world, including very close to home.

The fi rst panel, moderated by Karen Chen (3L), tackled the ways in which the benefit of the

rule of law is not extended to many people.

Kate Kempton, partner at Olthuis Kleer Townshend, described Canadian rule of law as a blanket that continues to suffocate Indigenous peoples and lacks systemic legitimacy from the outset. Kempton suggested that movements like the Wet’suwet’en solidarity protests would only become more frequent unless the fundamental flaws in settler rule of law were addressed.

Professor Audrey Macklin drew links between how the Canadian rule of law excludes Indigenous peoples and how non-citizens experience a “diluted” form of the rule of law. Senator Kim Pate, an advocate for the rights of incarcerated people, discussed the staggering realities of incarceration rates. For example, she noted that in Saskatchewan, 98% of women in prison are Indigenous, and their struggles are

often compounded by the harmful legacies of residential schools and intimate partner violence.

The conference continued with a panel examining how the rule of law is challenged by political action, moderated by Professor Lorraine Weinrib.

Professor Jutta Brunnée emphasized that the rule of law should not only concern lawyers, and suggested that the rule of law be conceived of as an ongoing practice rather than a static principle. Also on the panel was Adriel Weaver from Goldblatt Partners, who worked on the challenge to Bill 5, which cut Toronto City Council in half.

Weaver discussed how the “mischief” the bill sought to address—long council debates—was, essentially, an excess of deliberative democracy.

Yet there remain reasons for optimism, according to Professor David Dyzenhaus: it is never too late to recuperate the rule of law, and practitioners can never afford to believe so.

Professor Dyzenhaus said that this is the time for the legal profession to renew its principles and fight back against the erosion of the rule of law.

Though attendees came from both within and beyond the legal profession, the day was stimulating for all. The intimate setting allowed for a frank discussion about a major institutional challenge facing our society, and ways in which all members of that society—not just lawyers— may work against these troubling trends.

Editor’s Note: Avnee Paranjape was an organizer of the conference.

ultravires.ca

NEWS

March 31, 2020 | 5

Faculty Council Discusses 1L Curriculum Changes Professors weigh in opinions on the proposed changes to small group and LRW ERNEST TAM (2L) through Professor Réaume, made two points: (1) fessor Katz also noted that this proposal would when Faculty Council made the move to semesallow some professors interested in teaching terize the large groups, they made the very desmall group but aren’t available year-round the liberate decision to keep small group full-year, opportunity to teach, such as Professor Gillian and that the proposal “looks like a way to deHadf ield.

Curriculum Committee Update liver on the agenda years ago”; and (2) students However, Professor Martha Shaffer strongly already face substantial pressure early on in the opposed the proposal, primarily because of the On 3 March 2020, the law school community school year and this proposal will only make it process, which lacked “realistic and frank facreceived an email from the worse. ulty consultation,” which has Curriculum Committee on a Professor Alan Brudner agreed with Profesbeen key in the past.

Profesdraft proposal to change the Professor Katz sor Réaume’s point on the value of the small sor Shaffer also added on to a structure of the 1L program group and how there was a “general consensus previous speaker’s distaste agreed, and pointed at U of T Law. In essence, that small group was the jewel of our program for LRW, stating that “LRW the proposal, if implementout that previous at U of T Law” during the discussions of semesis the absolute worst course ed, would shorten the yearmajor changes in the terization years ago. Professor Brudner also we have in f irst year and long small group into one law school curriculum, there are serious problems noted that at its current state, he already f inds it semester and instead extend hard to complete a whole course in small group, with the thought that we will the Legal Research and such as the move for with the proposal (which allocates 13 fewer improve the f irst year by reWriting (LRW) course into full-year to semestered ducing the f irst year small and hours for small group, from 65 to 52 hours) he the second semester adding courses for upper “cannot imagine what rump of a course will be group and extending the a 1L moot to this class. left.” He feels he will be forced to move from a LRW course.” years in the 1970s, and Professor Anthony Niblett general substantive course to one of “selected Professor Denise Réaume began the discussion by re1L courses to topics.” had similar thoughts; she laying some thoughts from semestered courses in noted the lack of “math” that Professor Catherine Valcke took a more neuAssociate Dean Albert the mid-2010s, faced tral stance but seemed open to the proposal. She the Committee presented beYoon, who was not present agrees that there is no doubt that the proposal’s fore reaching their conclusimilar debates and at Faculty Council, on the process could have been improved, but she sion. She stated that while 1L Curriculum Change Stucriticisms. found the proposal attractive in “pegging LRW this proposal may be benef ident Consultation Townto a substantive course, so it is not so much in cial, she took issue with the hall. He noted it was very the abstract” and adding in a moot, which she lack of assessment on the well attended by faculty and students and exrecalled in her days as a law losses borne from the semespressed that “we [the Curriculum Committee] students as “one of the more terization of big groups that are not committed to any particular outcome, and pedagogical exhappened a few years ago. [and] we are genuinely seeking views of stuProfessor Shaffer also formal periences” in time at law As well, she “did not underdents.” Associate Dean Yoon noted two main added on to a previous school. stand what pedagogical need concerns by students: (1) Process — students speaker’s distaste for [the proposal] was meant to were concerned about the lack of student conTerminology Changes at respond to.”

She also noted sultation from the Committee and the lack of LRW, stating that Graduation the fundamental value of detail in the proposal; and (2) Substance — stu“LRW is the absolute small group assignments, in Faculty Council approved dents were concerned with the evidence supworst course we have a proposal to change the deteaching students how to porting the proposal’s benef its, the potential think through the process of in first year and there gree citation that recognizes impacts on mental health, and the reduced enwriting.

She felt a lack of ingagement due to a semsterized small group. are serious problems students’ high academic formation in the proposal iton their parchment Both faculty and students discussed the topic with the thought that standing self to accurately predict and transcript. Before the in-depth. In one camp, Professors Douglas we will improve the how the proposal would play meeting, the Faculty of Law Sanderson and Larissa Katz advocated “ a trial out. fi rst year by reducing recognized students who of the proposal, to see its effects,” and then work Professor Réaume also achieved Distinction for at from there. Professor Sanderson noted that the first year small commented on one of the least two years in their law “this is not going to go disastrously for stugroup and extending problems with LRW, in that school career by including dents… I would feel much more comfortable if the LRW course.” “it was created, not that long “With Honours” on their what we were talking about is just to set some ago, with little to no faculty J.D. parchments. In the presmetrics, run this thing for a year, see how it supervision” and without ent grading system, “Honworks, then have a discussion about it.” “any ongoing assessment of how the LRW proours” is only the second highest grade, so to reProfessor Katz agreed, and pointed out that gram is doing.” She noted that the “Faculty move any potential confusion, the proposal previous major changes in the law school curhave not been interested in the ongoing operareplaced “With Honours” with “With Distincriculum, such as the move for full-year to semestion of the LRW program.” tion” on the U of T parchment. This change tered courses for upper years in the 1970s, and Professor Kent Roach, who was not present at will apply to the J.D. Class of 2020 parchments.

1L courses to semestered courses in the midthe meeting but had his thoughts relayed 2010s, faced similar debates and criticisms. ProOn 11 March 2020, the Faculty held its penultimate Faculty Council meeting, which was well attended by Faculty. Most of the meeting discussed the proposed 1L curriculum changes.

FEATURES

6 | March 31, 2020

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Tax Tips for Students

A guide for students filing 2019 personal income tax returns LUCY YAO (1L)

It’s the most wonderful time of the year: tax time! I’ve compiled some guidelines to help fulltime students fi le their 2019 personal tax returns.

Please note: these guidelines only pertain to Canadian residents. If you aren’t a Canadian resident, or are unsure about your residency status for tax purposes, you should seek professional advice outside of this article. This article is general information, and not specific advice for anyone in particular, so please don’t sue me if the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) audits you and makes adjustments to your tax return.

Do I have to fi le a return?

Although you may not be required to fi le a tax return if you don’t need to pay taxes, I still recommend fi ling one or more of the following reasons: • If you earned any income during 2019, fi ling a tax return will create Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) contribution room that can be used once you’re earning income; • To claim your tuition credit for all that tuition you’re paying, even if you don’t have taxes payable to use the credit in 2019 (more on this below); • You may be eligible for the GST/HST credit, even with zero income; or • If you or your partner wish to receive child benefit payments.

Due date In light of COVID-19, the government has extended the due date for 2019 personal income tax returns from April 30 to June 1, 2020. The government will also allow individuals to defer their income tax payments until August 31, 2020.

However, the government encourages individuals who anticipate receiving a GST/HST credit

or Canada Child Benefit to not delay fi ling their returns.

Tax preparation software The following tax preparation software is all free or has a free, “basic” version: TurboTax, H&R Block Online Tax Software, SimpleTax, and StudioTax. I highly recommend electronically completing and fi ling your tax return rather than doing it by hand. If you change a number in your return using tax preparation software, the software should automatically update the rest of the tax return for this change. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen when you’re fi lling out a tax return by hand. Several tax software programs will also allow you to download tax slips on your CRA Online Account directly into the program, making the fun and easy task of completing your tax return even more fun and easy!

Income inclusions The following are common income inclusions for students: • Employment income: employers should have sent you T4 slips for employment income earned in 2019. Record this on line 10100 of your tax return.

• Tips and occasional earnings: report tips and other similar income on line 10400 of your tax return if these amounts aren’t included on your T4 slip.

Note that fellowships, scholarships, and bursaries received aren’t taxable up to the amount required to support you as a full-time student in law school. Given how expensive law school is, I would be surprised if any amount of a fellowship, scholarship, or bursary is taxable, but in the event that an amount is taxable, report this amount on line 13010 of your tax return.

Deductions from income The following are common deductions from income for students: • Moving expenses (for school): if you moved at least 40 km closer to the school to be a fulltime student, you can claim moving expenses on Form T1-M and on line 21900 of your tax return. Unfortunately, moving expenses for school can only be deducted from income earned from scholarships, bursaries, fellowships, prizes, and research grants, so it’s unlikely anyone in law school can actually claim expenses for moving to school, but I’ve noted it here just in case.

• Moving expenses (for work): if you moved at least 40 km closer to work or run a business and didn’t receive any reimbursements for the move, you can claim moving expenses on Form T1-M and line 21900 of your tax return.

Moving expenses for work can only be deducted from the income you earned at your new place of work.

• Childcare expenses: if you or your partner paid for childcare expenses so that you could attend school, you can deduct these expenses if the child is under 16 or has a mental or physical impairment. Report this amount on Form T778 and line 21400 of your tax return.

• Interest paid on student loans: it’s only advantageous to claim interest paid on your student loans if you have taxes payable for 2019. Report this amount on line 31900 of your tax return. If you don’t have any taxes payable for 2019, you can carry forward this interest and apply it on your return for any of the next five years.

Tax credits Tax credits are deducted from your taxes pay-

able. The following are common tax credits that students can receive to reduce taxes payable: • Basic personal amount of $12,069: all individuals can claim this basic personal amount. Ensure that $12,069 is recorded on line 30000 of your tax return.

• Federal tuition credit reported on your T2022 slip: you should be able to view your T2022 slip on ACORN. Report the amounts on your T2022 slip on Schedule 11 and line 32300 of your tax return. If you don’t have enough taxes payable to offset the credit, you can carry forward the credit indefi nitely or transfer it to your partner, or to a parent or grandparent of your partner.

• Medical expense tax credit: enter eligible medical expenses not covered by insurance on line 33099 of your tax return. If you regularly visit a certain pharmacy, dentist, or other health provider, they may be able to provide you with a list summarizing all of your medical expenses for 2019, and the amounts not covered by insurance.

• GST/HST Credit: to apply for the credit, just fi le your taxes, even if you have zero income.

2020 Ontario Trillium Benefit If you’re an Ontario resident and paid rent or property tax on your principal residence or lived in a student residence, you may be eligible to receive the Ontario Trillium Benefit. Fill out Form ON-BEN 2019 and submit the form with your tax return.

For more information on your 2019 personal income tax obligations, please see this webpage published by the Government of Canada.

*Editor’s Note: Lucy Yao is a CPA, CA who previously worked in tax and helped people file tax returns.

We Still Gotta Eat Food Prep Tips for Isolation

The truth is that I’ve been meaning to write this article for months.

Food prep tips are helpful even in the best of times, when we’re happily going about our day-to-day lives. Now, however, everything is uncertain.

No longer just a chore, going to the grocery store can even feel dangerous. Our minds are so full of anxiety that it is difficult to prioritize physical health and nutritional needs, especially considering the lack of routine. Planning our meals and snacks has therefore taken on an even greater importance.

I am sharing a couple of food prep tips which I have personally found helpful in the past, and that I think could be useful now. Although they may require some tweaking in the face of a pandemic, I believe that they can be helpful in feeding yourself and those close to you in these uncertain times.

There is No Reason For Anything To Go To Waste.

Most fruits, vegetables, and dairy can be repurposed before they go bad. Are your carrots looking a bit peaky? Make a soup or a stir fry. Do you have fruit which is a bit mushy? Freeze it right away to put into smoothies, or cook it down into a crisp or compote. You can often save an ingredient about to go bad by cooking it, giving it a shelf life of several more days. The amount of time we are spending at home is an opportunity to think more creatively about the food we have in our fridges and freezers, and how we can use them in ways which minimize waste. You will also feel better knowing that you are doing your best to use what you already have.

Your Freezer Is Your Friend.

If you’ve used your ingredients to make something and you’re afraid you won’t eat it all, you can freeze a portion. This is especially helpful if you’re only one or two people. Once you’ve made your food, let it cool,

LILY CHAPNIK ROSENTHAL (2L)

and then immediately freeze part of it for another time. This way you will have an easy dinner option for when you’re feeling overwhelmed, or closer to exam season. As a rule of thumb, food with more liquid, such as soups and stews, freeze well, as do baked goods. However, fresh vegetables which are not in soups tend not to freeze quite as well. For that reason, eat your steamed vegetables and stir fries right away.

It Doesn’t Have To Be Perfect.

Stir fries, soups, and salads, as well as so many other dishes, can work with many combinations of fresh, canned, and frozen ingredients. For example, the wilted celery in your fridge, the can of corn that's been there since Lord knows how long, and the soup cube in the back of your cupboard are the beginnings of a delicious and healthy soup. While you cook, try tasting it and adjust with any spices you have. As long as it tastes good, consider it a success!

I hope these tips are helpful as we navigate this uncharted territory.

And remember—not every meal needs to be perfectly prepped and healthy for us to deserve self-respect! I am sharing a “recipe” below which I like to use as a guide for when I am trying not to waste vegetables. Enjoy and stay safe!

Everything-But-The-Kitchen-Sink Flexible Soup Recipe This soup can basically be modified in any way and it will still taste good, as long as you add enough salt. If you add too much salt, just add more liquid or some potato. The base recipe is vegan, but you can definitely add chicken or beef, or even a parmesan rind, for more protein and/or flavour. I suggest adding the carbohydrate separately, as they tend to absorb liquid. The base of onion, carrots and celery is classic for this type of soup, but can be substituted with extra broth or consomme in a pinch.

Ingredients 1 onion, diced 2 cloves garlic, minced 2 stalks celery, diced 2 carrots, diced 1 or 2 cans of tomatoes Stock (any kind) or consommé powder mixed with water Salt and pepper, and optional Italian seasoning or oregano 1 can of any kind of legumes, such as chickpeas, lentils, red kidney beans, etc.

Any other vegetables you have, such as zucchini, potatoes, broccoli, mixed frozen vegetables, etc.

Bite-sized carbohydrate, such as barley, small pasta, or rice, prepared separately Steps 1. Sauté the onion, garlic, celery, and carrot until sweating— make sure not to burn the garlic.

2. Add all other ingredients except the carbohydrate and bring to a boil.

3. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook until vegetables are tender, about 30 to 45 minutes. In the meantime, prepare your carbohydrate of choice.

4. To serve, put some of the carbohydrate in the bowl and ladle the soup over it.

The soup can be frozen.

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March 31, 2020 | 7

Ryan’s Movie Corner

Change is the only constant

RYAN SHAH (1L) The theme behind this edition of Ryan’s Movie Corner was ‘change’—originally intended to coincide with the coming of spring. This theme was decided a few weeks ago, the world around us having since changed in ways many of us could not have imagined. The theme, therefore, seems highly appropriate.

Spring is typically seen as a time of rebirth and renewal, where we can throw out the old and embrace the new. This is certainly what many of us are being forced to do, but in a way that hardly feels as refreshing as it should. The biggest change, no doubt, that many Ultra Vires readers face is the shift to living life indoors. This change has been a challenging one, and it has provided many with a surplus of free time that has been hard to fi ll.

I want to respond to this tectonic shift in the way we live our lives through the prism of fi lm.

Below, I review Contagion, a fi lm that has enjoyed tremendous popularity since the coronavirus moved our lives indoors. I also provide a brief list of fi lms from the past decade that I think are worth watching during the extended downtime occasioned by the pandemic. I hope that you are all staying safe and healthy during these difficult times.

Contagion (2011) Directed by Steven Soderbergh Contagion, a fi lm about a global pandemic, is a painfully obvious choice for this edition. Its subject matter is not only highly topical, but the ease with which it is accessed on services like Netfl ix makes it a prime way for the home-bound to speculate, and perhaps agonize, over how our own pandemic might go. Though Contagion is a lackluster fi lm, it is nevertheless a must-watch during these trying times: if not for its vision of a pandemic-stricken society, then because of the imprint it has left on our collective consciousness.

The fi lm is an homage to the disaster genre. In keeping with that tradition, it is over the top and replete with clichés. The ensemble cast faces a virus with a 25-30% mortality rate that is highly

contagious and originated from a bat-to-pig-tohuman infection. This ensemble cast includes: Mitch Emhoff (Matt Damon), an everyman who happens to be immune to the disease; Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne), the head of the Center for Disease Control (CDC); Alan Krumwiede ( Jude Law), a conspiratorial blogger; and a handful of epidemiologists and scientists (Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet, Jennifer Ehle, Elliot Gould). The plotlines of these characters intertwine as the virus spreads from an unsuspecting few and becomes a global pandemic. Emhoff experiences the pandemic as a series of tragedies he struggles to protect his daughter from. Cheever leads the CDC in responding to the pandemic, but also uses his position of power to give his family preferential treatment over others.

Krumwiede tries to expose both Cheever’s tactics and what he believes to be a conspiracy by big corporations to profit off of the pandemic.

Ehle’s character, Hextall, races against time to develop a vaccine. Though there are other plotlines that make it into the story, they are too numerous to be described in any detail here. The fi lm sometimes struggles to juggle its simultaneous plots, but the fact that it aspires to depict such a massive story—and on occasion does so effectively—is somewhat praiseworthy.

Several aspects of the fi lm will no doubt be eerily reminiscent of our current moment: for instance, Cheever implores society to practice “social distancing”. These dramatizations no doubt capture aspects of our current situation in a prescient way. Chief among the fi lm’s predictions is its anticipation of the role that social media plays in shaping our response and experience of a pandemic. It is portrayed as a tool for spreading misinformation, mainly through the exploits of Krumwiede, who uses his blog to denounce official sources of information and encourage his followers to take ‘Forsythia,’ evidently snake oil, as a remedy for the lethal virus. Social media has indeed been a hotbed of misinformation during the coronavirus pandemic, and has presented governments and policymakers with the novel challenge of controlling the spread of potentially dangerous myths. Though good fi lms generally

aren’t considered good because they predicted something, the fi lm’s apparent clairvoyance nevertheless makes it an interesting watch.

Though Contagion is not a great fi lm (it is poorly acted and has an awkward narrative), it is relevant because of the way it channels and represents our anxieties. The breakdown of social order depicted in the fi lm is a far cry from what we are experiencing today; nevertheless, many viewers will no doubt consider the possibility that a similar collapse is on the horizon for our society. On this I make no comment, but what makes Contagion worth viewing is that the anxieties and possibilities it portrays resonate with contemporary viewers. Viewers who, much like the characters in Contagion, are uncertain and nervous—waiting for the pandemic to abate.

5.5/10 Film Recommendations Shirkers (2018) Directed by Sandi Tan An excellent fi lm and my favourite documentary of all-time, Shirkers recounts a group of Singaporean teenagers’ botched attempt to make a fi lm in the 1990s. The young fi lmmakers collaborated on their failed project with their mysterious fi lm teacher and mentor, Georges Cardona.

After the group fi nished fi lming the project, Cardona disappeared with the footage and was never heard from again. The fi lm explores what exactly happened to their footage, and why Cardona did what he did. The documentary, interspersed with footage of a fi lm that never was, is a triumphant, somewhat haunting, use of the moving image.

10/10 Cold War (2018) Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski

Cold War lost the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film to Roma at the 2019 Academy Awards and, unfortunately, did not get much attention in North America. The fi lm is a black-and-white depiction of a tumultuous romance that criss-crosses the Iron Curtain. It is a tremendous aesthetic accomplishment and a raw portrayal of emotions—a must-see.

9/10 Frances Ha (2012) Directed by Noah Baumbach Frances Ha is a creative and unconventional fi lm from the director of Marriage Story, co-written

by Greta Gerwig, director of Little Women. The black-and-white fi lm features a creative, choppy style of cinematography with a whimsical plot that follows the exploits of Frances Halladay (Gerwig) as she navigates a bohemian life in New York City. Though some of the fi lm’s most memorable moments are depictions of the mundane, simple pleasures of everyday life, it manages to deliver a compelling character study that will make viewers wish that they, too, could live a bohemian life in New York City. Hopefully the New York recruit is close enough.

8/10 Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) Directed by Taika Waititi Hunt for the Wilderpeople is a charming fi lm about the friendship of an orphan and his (at fi rst reluctant) adoptive father. As they clumsily venture through the New Zealand wilderness, they develop a compelling bond that leaves a lasting impression on viewers. The fi lm is constantly funny and delivers countless heartwarming moments. As the monotony and anxiety of social distancing set in, this fi lm will be a welcome respite.

8/10

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street—In Concert The Demon! Barber! of Fleet! Street!

Murder, cannibalism, complicity, maybe even fraud and trespass—there are crimes galore in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. The urban legend of the murderous barber came to life in Ember Island Players’ semi-staged production of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd.

Some of the scariest parts of the infamous tale feature a morally questionable judge and a highly discretionary police force. Unscrupulous and arbitrary legal systems are utterly horrifying to me.

The show had a two-night run in the cozy yet dramatic space that is the Victoria College Chapel, a stone’s throw away from the Faculty of Law. It ran February 27–28 and raised over $2000 for U of T’s Iranian Student Memorial Scholarship Fund. (The fund is matched 3:1 by the university and honours the memory of those who died in January on Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, including eight U of T students.)

Directed by Shannon Dunbar, the production was a faithful telling of the tale of Sweeney Todd’s bloody quest for vengeance.

A very determined Sweeney Todd (Nam Nguyen) schemed along with the lovely Mrs. Lovett (Jocelyn Kraynyk), looking for a way to seek revenge on the corrupt Judge Turpin (Winston Sullivan), all while making crowd-pleasing meat pies, rotating through a number of special fillings—“lawyer’s rather nice!” Kraynyk’s vocals were enrapturing.

In the meantime, Judge Turpin schemed with The Beadle (Michael Manning) to marry his ward Johanna (Gabby Liao-McPherson), and to keep away Anthony Hope (Michael Henley), who also had his heart set on Johanna. Liao-McPherson’s trilling voice hit all the high notes as she seemed to float above the story’s bitterness and grief.

Rival barber Adolfo Pirelli (Daniel Goldman) brought comic relief with his cringy ostentatiousness, contrasting Todd’s cynicism. The hardened Todd was quite a departure from Nguyen’s usual campy, ad-libbing characters. It was refreshing to see Nguyen’s acting range in his masterful representation of Todd.

The rest of the cast rounded out a dynamic group

of characters, and the spooky ensemble was employed to great effect. They shook the floors of the chapel when they stomped down the aisles, and they induced goosebumps when they spun up the aisles.

All of this took place before a pared-down, minimal set. There was no set, really. The 19-person orchestra sat centre stage, providing the backdrop to the main action.

There was lots of innovative staging involved.

The lighting was low-tech—there were no spotlights or floodlights, no fine-tuning, just basic onand-off switches. The bare furnishings were no impediment to presenting the story. Rather, it enhanced the impact of the swells of music and soaring voices, showcasing the lyrical artistry.

At times, the orchestra overpowered the voices, and some parts were hard to follow, but I didn’t mind. My imagination ran wild, filling in the visual scenery in my mind’s eye.

At a time when arts budgets are being slashed, this was an ambitious show to put on, especially

ANGELA GU (1L) since Sweeney is often expensive to stage. Dunbar, along with friends Kevin Yue (producer) and Kevin Vuong (music director), wanted to give their community a chance to stage the brilliant music and epic story of Sweeney, and to bring the show to a community which might not otherwise have the chance to see it performed live. With a solid artistic team, a 19-person orchestra, a 10-person cast, and 13-person ensemble, this was a big undertaking.

This production comprised students and recent alumni from U of T and Ryerson University.

Sweeney was the fifth show staged by the Ember Island Players Theatre. They are a student club based at U of T’s Victoria College, originally named Hotake Theatre (a play on the words “hot take”).

The group was founded when students noticed a lack of representation in theatre productions on campus and plays in general. As a result, a group of friends banded together to start a drama society with a focus on Asian and Pacific Islander narratives. They stage original works by POC playwrights, as well as works led by POC creatives.

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8 | March 31, 2020

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In Vino Veritas

Toward a sustainable future

TOM COLLINS (3L) Now seems like an opportune time to dr ink responsibly. You are reading this article on your electronic dev ice, because COV I D -19 has made pr inting Ultra Vires impractical. But COV I D -19 is just one symptom of our planet’s beleag uered condition. We all bear some responsibilit y for the state of things; that means tak ing what steps we can to allev iate the burden we embody. Supporting organic and biodynamic w ines should be one of those steps.

You may have already enjoyed an organic or biodynamic w ine, w ithout even realizing it. Organic w ines are made from organic grapes; whether grapes are organic depends on pesticide use, among other things. A lthough the designation “organic” requires certif ication, many w inemakers grow their grapes using organic practices.

Similarly, an increasing number of w inemakers use biodynamic processes w ithout getting certif ication from pr ivate organizations like Demeter and Biody v in. Biodynamic processes go beyond farming; they include restr ictions on the entire process, such as not using sulphur dioxide as a preser vative.

Mak ing responsible choices when choosing a w ine is not dif f icult: ask staf f at your local LCBO about organic and biodynamic options; support local producers to reduce transportation emissions; use a reusable bag to transport your w ine from the store; and reuse or recycle your bott les!

In the spir it of sustainabilit y, In Vino Ver itas of fers you some smart choices.

Danica Bennewies Lupi Rea li Montepulciano D’Abruzzo DOC Organic $11.95 W hen browsing my local LCBO’s organic section for a w ine for this month’s rev iew, I grav itated toward the Lupi Reali. I was in the mood for an Italian red and this one was both af fordable and ICE A certif ied. ICE A stands for Istituto per la Certif icazione Etica ed A mbientale, or, for those who don’t speak Italian, the Env ironmental and Ethical Certif ication Institute. The ICE A trademark indicates a w ine producer that has been subject to qualit y control standards to g uarantee an organic and vegan product. Thus, this Montepulciano was produced w ithout the use of any artif icial pesticides or chemicals that may have a negative env ironmental impact.

The name “Lupi Reali” also hints at the philosophy behind this w ine. It means “Royal Wolves” and is named for the national park that contains its v ineyards—a nature preser ve dedicated to repopulating the endangered Apennine wolf.

Noble goals aside, I’m not sure that I’m a huge fan of this w ine on its own; it needs food. On f irst sip I found it to be ver y acidic, to the extent that I would almost call it sour. I gave it a second shot alongside a bowl of pasta alla norma, which helped to mellow out the w ine’s shar p acidit y and let more of the earthiness come through. So, on the plus side, the high acidit y w ill stand up to any dish. The Lupi Reali is a good option for those look ing for an af fordable Italian red w ine that is produced in an env ironmentally fr iendly manner. Just be sure to pair it w ith a bowl of your favour ite pasta!

A lexa Cheung Novas Gran Reser va Sauv ig non Blanc Organic $15.90 at the LCBO I have to admit, it was slight ly dif f icult to track down a sustainable w ine to rev iew.

I ended up choosing a Sauv ignon Blanc, a t y pe of w ine that I usually tend to f ind a bit too dr y for my taste. To my sur pr ise, I ended up stumbling across one of my favour ite bott les of the year! This award-w inning Chilean bott le was made from organically grown grapes in the San A ntonio Valley, a r ising hotspot for New World whites. The w ine was delicious, w ith br ight notes of lemon and grapefruit coming across in ever y sip. It would pair well w ith light meals like seafood, as it tasted excellent w ith my shr imp fr ied r ice.

Tom Collins Hidden Bench Pinot Noir 2015 $34.95 at the LCBO for the current vintage I cannot believe that this is my f inal rev iew for In Vino Ver itas. It seems like a per fect opportunit y to rev iew something really special. Hidden Bench’s Pinot Noir is ever ything that I want in a bott le of w ine: it is produced locally, in Beamsv ille, Ontar io; it is VQA certif ied, meaning the w ine comes from 10 0% Ontar io grapes; it is certif ied organic; it is grown biodynamically; it is vegan; and it is delicious. I had the pleasure of opening a bott le of the 2015 v intage, which is peak ing r ight now, but you can expect excellence w ith any of Hidden Bench’s v intages; the w iner y only releases bott les from years that meet certain standards.

The 2015 v intage is a beautiful, light ruby red, but it has some good densit y and v iscosit y. Its nose displays a whole range of red fruit, like cherr ies, raspberr ies, and strawberr ies, as well as marzipan. That provocative blend carr ies through to the f lavour. I can taste red fruit, especially strawberr ies and cherr ies. There is also some blueberr y in there. This w ine is anything but jammy, though. It is light-bodied, and it has just enough acidit y to g ive it lift.

Super f ine tannins g ive a silky mouthfeel.

Lemon r ind on the f inish g ives the whole exper ience a certain tautness. Pair this beaut y w ith roasted mushrooms, shar p cheeses, or even sushi!

Some taste like kombucha, like the Southbrook Vidal Sk in Fermented W hite Orange Wine ($29.95 at the LCBO), which smells like salt y ketchup w ith some umami whif fs; I f ind it challeng ing.

I wasn’t about to place my wager on a bott le of natural w ine that could potentially taste like damp regret. So, I v isited the LCBO’s tasting bar at 49 Spadina Ave after lurk ing their Instagram account, @49spadinaw ines. They of fer themed $15 tasting f lights compr ising four one-ounce pours, and I stopped by to tr y their featured natural w ine f light. ( The tasting bar is temporar ily closed in response to the COV I D -19 situation, but they’ll be back eventually.) I tr ied this absolutely stunning Heymann-Löwenstein R iesling, and I’m prepared to splurge on a bott le of this for a special occasion. It’s a beautiful straw colour, and it smells sweet and apr icot-y. In fact, it smells like g ummy bears. It has a zing y acidit y, and produces a pucker just like lemon juice, and tastes more sweet than dr y. Essentially, this is sunshine in a glass, and it could ver y well be the way to my heart.

A ngela Gu

A my Lin

Heymann-L öwenstein Röttgen GG R iesling 2016

F lat Rock Nadja’s Vineyard R iesling

$60.00 at the LCBO The Heymann-Löwenstein v ineyard sits in the Moselle Valley. Their v ines grow in the Moselle’s character istic slate soils and are nour ished w ith their house-made composted fertilizer. They boast that their v ineyard is nest led in an intact ecosystem, w ith a grow ing population of endangered butter f lies. They produce “natural” w ines, fermented only by the w ild yeasts naturally found on the grapes, w ithout additives.

Some natural w ines can send sippers running for the hills due to their reputation for being funky and unpredictable.

PHOTO BY BERTRAND BOUCHEZ ON UNSPLASH

$24.95 at the LCBO W hen buy ing a bott le of w ine on a Fr iday night, sustainabilit y is seldom one’s pr ior it y. In our search for some liquid indulgence at the end of a long week, we rarely stop to think about the env ironmental impacts that occur at each stage of the w inemak ing process like soil health, waste management, and energ y consumption.

This month, I picked up a R iesling from F lat Rock Cellars, a certif ied sustainable w iner y based in the Niagara reg ion.

A mongst other eco-fr iendly commitments, F lat Rock opts for a geo-thermal system

for all their heating and cooling needs.

The w ine itself is presented in a sleek bott le w ith a distinct red label. You w ill immediately notice aromas of green apples and pear, followed by a pleasant bouquet of citrus blossoms. On the palate, this of f-dr y white has prominent ly citrus notes—lemon zest and orange—w ith hints of apr icot. A s someone who prefers a sweeter sipping white, this w ine was a bit too tart for me to dr ink on its own. However, I would recommend it paired w ith spicy cuisines, such as Thai or Indian.

K imia Veisi Nezhad Cono Sur Chardonnay Organic $13.95 at the LCBO Cono Sur is an eco-fr iendly w iner y in Chile. It has been compensating for the carbon footpr int of transporting their w ine by purchasing bonds to benef it greenhouse gas emissions reduction projects. Their website mentions that, in 2017, they compensated 10.888 tons of CO2 through the West Indian Wind Power Project to generate clean energ y and the Reser va Costera Valdiv iana Project to reforest the Valdiv ian Coast.

I found this refreshing w ine at the Yonge and Eglinton LCBO. The cute label on the bott le (a bicycle in a f ield of poppies) showcases the w iner y’s love for nature and commitment to protecting the env ironment.

The w ine is light gold in color and has a ver y citrusy nose. It is dr ier and more acidic than your average Chardonnay. On the palate, this w ine is cr isp and light, w ith f lavours of melon, pineapple, citrus, and minerals. It is ver y easy to dr ink on its own. I did not like it w ith oven-baked salmon, but lighter seafood could work. I suggest pairing it w ith a light salad: kale, strawberr ies, goat cheese, pick led shallots, olive oil, and lemon juice.

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March 31, 2020 | 9

Students, Faculty Keeping Busy During COVID-19

What are students and faculty doing?

LUCY YAO (1L) To practice social distancing and limit the spread of COVID-19, the University of Toronto and the Faculty of Law have cancelled in-person classes and exams, and closed many facilities, including gyms, recreational complexes, Falconer Hall, Flavelle House, the Jackman Law Building, Graduate House (with exceptions made for students unable to return home due to exceptional circumstances), and the Bora Laskin Law Library. Similarly, entertainment venues across the country, including movie theatres, restaurants, and bars (excluding those with take-out and delivery capacities), and museums have also closed.

So what are students and faculty doing during these times?

Netflix, TV, Movies, and Video Games • Ema Ibraković reports that she has been “gaining weight” due to the Quarantine 15 and watching horror movies.

• Dana O’Shea has been contemplating all of the readings she has to do while starting movies with her friends at the exact same time and having group video calls. Ibraković recommends using “Netflix Party”, which synchronizes video playback and adds group chats to Netflix shows.

• Rory Smith and Liam Thompson have begun a nightly Mario Party battle.* As of the publication deadline, it’s tied three ways with Smith, Thompson, and the computer each winning once.

• Jean-Pierre D’Angelo has had more success with video games. D’Angelo has been busy playing, beating, and buying video games. D’Angelo recommends Tales of Vesperia (for Nintendo Switch and PS4) because of its “really good battle mechanics and a delightful cast.”

Connecting with Others • Sophie Barnett has been “reconnecting with people I haven’t talked to in a very very very long time.”

• Angela Hou and her roommates have been trying

to build a community with their neighbours by offering to grab groceries, medication, or other supplies for individuals in high-risk demographics.

Pajamas • Tom Collins’ life has changed relatively little, except perhaps for his wardrobe choices. Collins explains: “I still have the same amount of work to do; I still have classes to attend via Zoom. I am spending more time in pyjamas than I otherwise would. It is also really inspiring to see the law school community come together online; it makes isolation less lonely than it could otherwise be.”

• Kayly Alexandra has also been spending more time in pyjamas. Alexandra said, “Today I walked to the gas station in my pajamas and slippers to exchange my lottery tickets for candy and more lottery tickets. It was incredibly trashy but nobody but the gas station attendant knows because it’s a ghost town out there.”

Food • Despite never having baked a cake before, Julia Pimntl has “an inexplicable, overwhelming desire to bake a large cake”. Unfortunately, Pimntl could not be reached to confirm whether the baking actually occurred.

• Robert Nanni has eaten a lot of peanut butter, but not because of COVID-19. Nanni’s preferred brand is Kraft, but only the smooth light version because “crunchy gets stuck in my teeth sometimes and the light version makes me feel better about the thousands of calories I'm consuming.”

Nanni is also a strong advocate for peanut butter consumption by spoon only because “any other vessel would be a calorie-intensive medium for achieving the same result, while simultaneously diluting the taste of the peanut butter.”

Miscellaneous • Lynne Westerhof has been going for long walks

around Toronto. Westerhof says “the trails near the Don Valley Parkway are nice! (bring noise cancelling headphones if possible).”

• Sophie Zhao has acquired and started reading Marcel Proust’s seven volume novel, In Search of Lost Time. Zhao has also finished her 2019 personal income tax return approximately 2.5 months early.

Zhao believes that “surely there is no pleasure like doing taxes correctly and on time.”

• Jane Wu has mastered the art of multi-tasking. Wu has been simultaneously watching movies, online shopping and face-masking. Similarly Amir Ghoreshi has been impulse buying things on Amazon while still not doing readings.

• Emma Ryman’s activities include “aggressively cleaning and organizing everything I own, playing computer games, watching Youtube videos, hassling my cat with my overwhelming love for him, and scheduling when I will do schoolwork in my calendar (and then continuing to organize and watch Youtube videos during my scheduled 'work' times).”

• Zac Kroll has been busy sculpting his physical appearance by growing an “apocalypse beard”.

Faculty Responses • Assistant Dean Sara Faherty has been spending more time hunched over her laptop answering emails, given the impact that COVID-19 has had on the Faculty of Law’s administration. Assistant Dean Faherty has been “so impressed with how hard everyone is working to keep the law school running. The IT team, the Dean & Associate Dean’s office, and everyone [at] student services have been amazing.”

• Professor Anthony Niblett has been “trying not to panic too much about the whole situation” as “it’s a very stressful time for everyone”. On the brighter side, Professor Niblett has been doing work from home, which makes it easy for him to see his two-year-old daughter, who is “the most adorably perfect little thing in the world!”

• After teaching in London, England, Professor Kent Roach flew back to Canada and will be selfisolating for 14 days. Unfortunately for Professor Roach, there is currently no baseball to watch.

Professor Roach said, “I will be continuing to teach my courses on Zoom including one that starts at 5 am because of the time change between Toronto and London. Also plan to read more fiction.”

• Professor Angela Fernandez has also been figuring out how Zoom works and asking for her daughter’s permission to use her physical white board for online classes. Professor Fernandez’ daughter uses the whiteboard as a teaching aid for her stuffed animals. (Like mother, like daughter?) Outside of class, Professor Fernandez is also “cooking and resting...trying to get out for a walk a day, and trying to keep the news consumption to something reasonable in the circumstances.”

• Professor Douglas Sanderson hasn’t had much time to tend to his hobbies and his garden, as his family has been surprisingly busy with everyday maintenance and preparation for COVID-19.

Professor Sanderson has been writing lecture notes for his small group and upper-year seminar.

Outside of classwork, Professor Sanderson and his family have been foraging for traditional medicines, making their own alcohol wipes and face masks, helping their neighbors, and housetending and cat-sitting for some friends stuck in England.

• Professor Patrick Macklem has been keeping himself busy by cooking a lot more, staying in closer touch with family and friends, undertaking minor home renovations and small-scale artistic projects, and finishing the first draft of a novel.

Macklem kind of likes this experience of having “little interaction in public, no business, enhanced interpersonal distance and connection, a reconnection with those close to you.” Macklem “hopes to schedule a month every year to what we’re doing now, globally, especially if it has the potential to slow global warming.”

A Terrific-Tasting Thai Red Curry Recipe A delicious and easy-to-make meal to show off on video LUCY YAO (1L)

Thai Red Curry Makes: 4 to 6 servings Prep. and cooking time: 30 minutes if you know your way around the kitchen; 60 minutes if you get lost in the kitchen.

Essent ia l Ing redients 2 cups white rice (preferably jasmine) 250g snow peas (approximately one package of snow peas) 2 bell peppers (whatever colours you want—I prefer red and orange) 1 tbsp. vegetable oil 1 lb shrimp 1 tbsp fi sh sauce 2 tbsp. Thai red curry paste 1 400 ml can coconut milk (for best results, the coconut milk should contain only coconut milk and water) 4-5 basil leaves, or 1 tbsp of basil paste Addit iona l Ing redients if you want to be Extra Fancy 1 fresh red chilli, sliced 1 tbsp. Sesame oil Cilantro for garnish Lime juice from ½ lime Corn starch or greek yogurt (in case you need to thicken the curry) Steps Note that steps pertaining to the fancy optional ingredients are underlined

1. Cook the rice in a rice cooker. If you don’t have a rice cooker, consider purchasing a rice cooker. If you have considered purchasing a rice cooker but decided against it, you can use the (less efficient) stovetop method to cook rice, while preparing the other ingredients. a) Add 2 to 3 cups of water—depending on how firm you like your rice— and 2 cups of rice to a pot, cover the pot with a lid and bring the water to boil (this should take a few minutes); b) Reduce the heat to low and let rice simmer for 10-12 minutes until the water is absorbed; c) Turn off the heat, leave the pot covered 10-15 mins, uncover the saucepan and fluff the rice with a fork.

2. Rinse the bell peppers, snow peas, basil, fresh chilli, and cilantro.

3. Slice the bell pepper and fresh chilli into thin strips.

a) If the curry is too runny, add 1 spoonful of greek yogurt or one tablespoon of corn starch (first, combine corn-starch with some water), until desired thickness is achieved. b) If curry is too thick, dilute with some water until desired thickness is achieved.

11. Add in basil leaves or basil paste, mix to combine.

12. Squeeze lime juice into the mixture.

13. Serve curry with rice in a bowl (only combine curry and rice immediately prior to eating; if you have a runnier curry, the curry will seep through the rice and you will end up with a strange, soggy rice mixture).

14. Enjoy!

If you plan on eating the curry within 3 days, you can keep the curry refrigerated.

Otherwise, you can freeze the curry, to preserve it for later.

4. De-string the snow peas: trim the tips of the snow peas with a knife and cutting board, remove string from both sides of the snow peas.

5. Chop up cilantro for garnish.

6. Heat large frying pan or wok on medium heat, and add vegetable oil and sesame oil.

7. Add shrimp into the frying pan, and stir-fry for 3-5 minutes, until shrimp turn pink.

8. Add in peppers, snow peas, peppers and fresh chilli and continue stir-frying for 5-7 minutes.

9. Add in curry paste and stir for 1 minute.

10. Pour in coconut milk and fish sauce, mix to combine.

CC BY: HOMECHEF

OPINIONS

10 | March 31, 2020

ultravires.ca

How far will a woman go for Mango White Claw?

Ain’t no laws when you’re drinking Claws AMY CHEN (1L), ALEXA CHEUNG (1L), ANGELA GU (1L), ANNECY PANG (1L) AND ADRIENNE RALPH (1L) just a little f izz on the tongue but there was On a cold Saturday morning, 29 Febru- g in. From them, I learned that this mythicalor ies per can. It reminds me of summer nothing more than the slightest hint of amar y 2020, W hite Claw landed in Toronto. cal beverage is, apparent ly, (1) less likely to BBQs and seeing my fr iends in person. It biguous fruit. Despite the shortcomings, I It soon became available in select LCBOs cause horr ible hangovers due to low sugar has a fruit y nose; I smelled peaches. It would still prefer this across the prov ince. Three f lavours are content, (2) arg uably better for you due to pours clear and has deover a number of other current ly available in Ontar io: black cher- the aforementioned low sugar content, and cent ef fer vescence. On pre-mixed cans, as White r y, mango, and natural (3) life-chang ing. A nd so, f irst sip, it tasted just “To quote my mother, Claw doesn’t have the lime. We tr ied the manI set of f on my journey to like gener ic, supermarcloying viscosity of syr‘It was awful at first, go version of the muchtrack down W hite Claw. ket-brand, f lavoured sweet drinks. A l“Please don’t make hy ped, much-memed There were no mango carbonated water. but then it wasn’t that upy though, if one has the hard seltzer —the LaC me drink this again.” W hite Claws to be found Strangely, I did not deluxury of time, I would bad.’” roix of the alcohol at my local LCBO. I tect any notes of mango. recommend picking up world—all while obeysearched high and low, The body is quite light your favourite f lavoured ing social distancing, of paced through several and it is easy to dr ink. sparkling water and vodka to mix at home. course. Now the question is, does W hite aisles, still no luck. By some miracle, while That is a good thing, because it tastes exClaw mango live up to the buzz, or just I was waiting to check out, I spotted ponentially worse the longer it is opened g ive you one? them—a few, sunny yellow, dented cans and out of the fr idge. It has a linger ing arwere chilling inconspictif icial sweetener f inish W hite Claw Hard Seltzer Mango uously in a worn cardthat I did not particu$2.95 at the LCBO board box, hidden by the larly enjoy. I paired it W hite Claw Hard Seltzer Mango “Strangely, I did not counter. I rushed home, w ith some readings, but I am here as a zealous advocate for White $2.95 at the LCBO detect any notes of sweat y from my long, arthis dr ink would also Claw, and the mango variety in particular. duous journey, and setpair excellent ly w ith mango.”

Obtaining this f lavour took no less than four My love for mangoes biases my rev iew; t led on the couch, w ith some Zoom School of trips to LCBO, one 45-minute car ride to the mango-f lavored W hite Claw left some- the icy can in hand, Law lectures.

King City, ON, and one very committed me. thing to be desired. It tasted like water in ready to chill out. I was I had tried the black cherry and lime f lavours which someone had left fruit peels. It tast- sorely disappointed. Mango W hite Claw before, as they seemed to be far less in-deed like it was created by someone who only tastes like watered down Vitamin Water, W hite Claw Hard Seltzer Mango mand, and was modestly impressed. Howevhad a vag ue idea of what fruit was—let which is w ild, because Vitamin Water er, mango is by far the top-tier White Claw alone a mango. This dr ink left me uncom- tastes like watered down juice. 2/10 — $2.95 at the LCBO beverage. It provides a perfect mix of gentle fortable and doubting my sense of taste. would not recommend. f izz, light tropical f lavour, and overall rePlease don’t make me dr ink this again.

I cracked open a can of this mango White freshment. If you like LaCroix as much as I Claw and was hit with the smell of nostalgic do, or even if you don’t, I would highly recsummertime memories. This stuf f is very W hite Claw Hard Seltzer Mango ommend it. It’s like a mango LaCroix, but fruity on the nose, and isn’t subtle at all. Its W hite Claw Hard Seltzer Mango without the slight, minerally f lavour you get scent reminded me of the strawberry and $2.95 at the LCBO with most sparkling water, and with an extra $2.95 at the LCBO citrus layered Trident gum. I poured it into whisper or two of mango essence. I recoma glass and observed the characteristic big I don’t normally venture into the world mend sipping on it when it’s ice-cold, as I do The hy pe was real, y’all. A nd it was only of canned dr inks. But, since W hite Claw seltzer bubbles. They aren’t as fun to watch agree with Annecy that it gets exponentially hy pe. The other day, my classmates in Le- received so much hy pe in the US, I knew as the elegant strands of f ine bubbles in worse the warmer it gets. And if you don’t gal Process were discussing the pros and that I had to tr y some as soon as it came to sparkling wine. The bubbles were also not like it at f irst, keep sipping. To quote my cons of W hite Claw while anx iously wait- Canada. This refreshing alcoholic beverpersistent. A sip of this hard seltzer proved mother, “It was aw ful at f irst, but then it ing for the lecture on justiciabilit y to be- age is gluten-free, and contains only 140 to be pretty disappointing. It’s very lean, wasn’t that bad.”

Adrienne Ralph

A my Chen

A ngela Gu

A lexa Cheung

A nnecy Pang

Graduation Awards Should Switch to a Ranked-Vote 3Ls shouldn’t have to risk vote-splitting RORY SMITH (3L) The SLS should sw itch graduation awards to a ranked voting system. Specif ically, an instant-runof f vote, where the candidate receiv ing the fewest votes is steadily eliminated and votes reassigned until one candidate has a major it y of votes.

This would minimize the need to vote strateg ically to prevent vote-splitting under the current First-Past-the-Post voting method.

Before I go on, I would like to ver y clearly state some disclaimers. I am aware of the potential optics of wr iting an article cr iticizing the voting system after graduation award results have come out. Further, I

was nominated for both Valedictor ian and the John Willis Leadership Award.

I hope fer vent ly that no one inter prets this article as my being frustrated at the result or wanting to undermine its leg itimacy. Kent Roach, Dana O’Shea, Leslie A nne St. A mour, Martha Shaf fer, Yasmin Dawood, and Waleska Vernon are excellent, deser v ing w inners. Their contr ibutions to the law school go above and beyond that of their peers and colleag ues and I am happy that they are being recognized. I am not wr iting this because I think the results should have (or even would have) been different.

I am wr iting this because I found voting for the graduation awards to be a harrowing process. There were so many candidates: 16 for Valedictor ian, 21 for the John Willis & Mewett, 23(!) for Hail & Farewell.

I do not know if this is in line w ith past years, but w ith so many deser v ing candidates, it makes choosing a single person to vote for a ver y dif f icult task.

It is made even harder when one takes into account possible vote-splitting and not wanting to vote for a candidate that you feel cannot w in. We should be able to vote w ithout needing to consider who other students are voting for.

First-Past-the-Post combined w ith numerous candidates also leads to the possibilit y of w inners being chosen w ith ver y small percentages of the total vote. Regardless of whether this is an actual problem or merely an optics problem, it is a problem.

I know that the voting method is g iven

by SLS bylaw and not the discretion of the Chief Returning Of f icer. The SLS should adopt an instant-runof f voting system for graduation awards (indeed, for all positions, ideally.)

OPINIONS

ultravires.ca

March 31, 2020 | 11

Farewell to Ultra Vires

Two editors reflect on their experiences

TOM COLLINS (3L) AND RORY SMITH (3L) Editing for Ultra Vires is a curious experience.

Yes, once a month, you have to sit in the unbelievably hot, dungeon-like room in Falconer’s basement. However, you get to eat a lot of sushi while you do it. You also get nearly unrivaled exposure to what is happening around the law school.

But the real draw is the energy. There is nothing quite like an editing meeting—a great group of people, working together on something worthwhile, cracking jokes, and sharing gossip. We are going to miss the lively debates about recruitment stats, correct comma placement, and potential liability.

As we prepare to graduate, we look back on our time with the Faculty of Law’s independent student newspaper.

Tom About a decade ago, Stephen Colbert proclaimed, on his old show, that “opinions are like assholes in that I have more than most.” That still makes me laugh. It rings true.

I took over the position of Opinions Editor from SuJung Lee (JD ’19), after serving as the “Editor-atLarge” last year—a position that I suspect our former Co-Editor-in-Chief invented when he realized that he had hired me without having any open positions. The position of Opinions Editor appealed to me, because I feel that the Opinions section of the paper is the most flexible in terms of content. I wanted to provide a forum for people to share their thoughts, whatever they were and however they might want to express them.

In my brief tenure as Opinions Editor, I have had

the pleasure of editing some truly pithy articles— articles that made me think about more than just how I might make this or that sentence clearer. Two examples appeared in this February’s issue. Avnee Paranjape’s (2L) article, “Twisting in the Wind”, provided a frank assessment and critique of the Faculty of Law’s current struggles with providing mental health resources; it touched me personally. Olivia Hodson (3L), Angela Hou (3L), Leslie Anne St. Amour (3L), and Rory Smith (3L) also wrote a thoroughly thought-provoking and timely piece on how the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Delgamuukw supports the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs’ claims to the land through which the Coastal GasLink Pipeline is slated to run.

I also had the joy of writing a few opinions. One of my favourites was published in the October 2018 issue. That was the first issue of Ultra Vires published after the Trudeau government legalized cannabis (17/10 blaze it!) I celebrated with “In Cannabis Veritas”, a play on the monthly wine-review column I write for In Vino Veritas, the law school’s wine club. In my article, some friends and I reviewed some choice weed, which was obviously a great time. It was also a well-received article.

In November 2018, I wrote another one of my favourites. In “Reconsidering the Jackman Building”, I put my art history degree to work. I assessed the architectural merits of our law school in the wake of another student’s satirical criticism. I am sure that this article was nowhere near as popular as the brief “In Cannabis Veritas” series, but it was still fun to write; it was reassuring to know that I have not forgotten my pre-law learning.

Of course, there were other articles I loved, from other sections. Lord Denning’s first instalment of “Dear Denning”, in the September 2019 issue made me howl with laughter. So did my girlfriend, Alina Yu’s (2L) piece, “U of T Law is Full of Snakes”, which appeared in that same issue. The Diversions section has been a reliable source of levity in dark times.

And then there were the articles that I hoped to write, but which simply did not materialize. I wanted to write about the experience of dating within the law school, but this seemed simultaneously too personal and not sufficiently insightful. I wanted to write about avoiding burning out in one’s first summer of legal employment, but I am still looking for the answer to that question. I also wanted to write more editions of “In Cannabis Veritas”, but it was too expensive and time-consuming. Finally, I wanted to write something that truly encapsulated my law school experience.

It has been wonderful, and working for Ultra Vires is a major reason for that.

Rory As Tim Minchin said in an address to the University of Western Australia “opinions are like assholes in that everyone has one, but opinions differ significantly from assholes in that they should be constantly and thoroughly examined”.

I was not the Opinions Editor, but as Diversions Editor it felt only appropriate to open with a joke.

And, even more appropriately, someone else’s joke.

Editing Diversions is unlike editing any of the other sections of the paper. My official role mostly

Explore | Engage | Learn Developing Future Leaders in Law

amounted to stealing ideas from the Follies cutting room floor and repurposing them for UV. Occasionally, jokes were trimmed, but, by and large, I edited only grammar. As a result, I, likely more so than the other senior editors, got to edit widely across the other sections and assist with editorial decisions more generally. Across two sets of Editorsin-Chief, I frequently was called on to assist with the (thankfully few) ethical quandaries that arose.

Their trusting me with these matters was profoundly affirming. So, thank you, Honghu Wang, Chloe Magee, Melody Chan, and James Flynn.

With the twin roles of Diversions Editor and Follies Head Writer (later Creative Director) I have been the school’s de facto humour czar for the past two years. In this time, I have gotten to see a lot of people write some very funny things. Some of my favourite Diversions articles were Gabrielle McLaughlin’s running piece of fake 1L exams (Oct 2018 - Mar 2019), Angela Hou’s “Vancouver Recruit Guide” (Oct 2018), and Madeline Torrie’s “Excellent Barriers” (Nov 2018. I still laugh at the idea of the school having wellness sharks.)

I have also deeply enjoyed doing the statistics for the past two year’s Recruit Specials. I was very touched that so many students were willing to trust me with extensive personal data (much more comfortable than I am with having it, which is why I took such care to make sure it was suitably anonymized before I even did any analysis with it). Hopefully the numbers help students with the Recruit in future years, and at worst, it helps bulk out the paper with some pretty graphs.

I will miss many things about law school. Working for UV is one of them.

OPINIONS

12 | March 31, 2020

ultravires.ca

STEM Students Do Fine, Thanks There is no difference in 1L grades by undergraduate program RORY SMITH (3L)* A ssociate Dean A lbert Yoon stated during the townhall that one of the animating concerns for the curr iculum changes was to help STEM students who struggle w ith their wr iting. In a similar vein, in the SLS’ letter to the administration regarding Winter Semester Grading, one of the points of student feedback that had been raised was the potential impact on “students who came to U of T Law from STEM backgrounds, who might not have acclimated quick ly to law school evaluations in the f irst term.”

Perhaps motivated more by professional pr ide than I would like to admit ( hav ing studied Mechanical Eng ineer ing in undergrad), and in classic STEM student fashion, I set out to see if the numbers backed up the assertions that STEM students struggled in 1. L RW, or 2. f irst semester.

I used the Recruit Sur vey data from the classes of 2018 -2020 ( I was unable to use the most recent year’s data, as this year Ultra Vires separated the Demographics and Recruit Sur veys). I roughly categor ized students’ undergraduate programs as either A rts, Business, STEM, or Other ( pr imar ily interdisciplinar y and f ine/per forming arts majors). Then, I looked to whether there was any dif ference in 1L grades as across these four categor ies.

First Semester

Unfortunately, Ultra Vires didn’t ask students to identify whether they took a course in 1st or 2nd semester. Therefore, there is no way to assess whether STEM students per formed worse in 1st semester relative to their peers from non- STEM backgrounds. However, I was still cur ious whether 1L grades were in any way predicted by their undergraduate program, even if I wasn’t able to direct ly address potential STEM student struggles in f irst semester.

Look ing at 1L grades as a whole, there was no signif icant dif ference by undergraduate degree. In no year was there a dif ference, not for STEM nor for any of the three other categor ies. 2018 was the only year where there was even a slight dif ference, but it was for the “Other” degree categor y, which only had three students, so this is likely just an artifact of the ver y small sample size.

If STEM students do struggle in f irst semester, they clearly do better in second semester by the same amount to end up in the same place as ever yone else by the end of the year. Or, they don’t struggle any more or less than anyone else and undergraduate program is not predictive of 1L per formance.

Table 1 - Number of Students by Underg raduate Prog ra m

LRW I have written elsewhere that perhaps LRW does not do a good job of assessing students’ writing quality. So, maybe I am talking slightly out of both sides of my mouth by using LRW grades as a proxy for writing ability. STEM students doing no worse in LRW isn’t proof that they do not struggle with their writing, but it would then either have to be the case that LRW grades are not refl ective of writing ability, or that STEM students improve so rapidly during LRW such that any initial struggle is hidden by their overall grade.

Okay, so what does this big table of numbers mean? Essentially, there is no signifi cant difference in LRW grades when sorting by undergraduate program.1 Not even close. 2 LRW grades are essentially uniform across the board. STEM students may have poorer writing abilities, but this is not in any way refl ected in their LRW grades.

1

At α = 0.05.

2

The lowest p-value was 0.43 when looking at differences in LRW grade by undergraduate program.

Table 2 - Average L RW Grade by Underg raduate Prog ra m

*Editor’s note: Rory Smith is the Ultra Vires Diversions Editor.

OPINIONS

ultravires.ca

March 31, 2020 | 13

LRW is the Black Sheep of the 1L Curriculum Either good writing isn’t helpful for law school or LRW doesn’t assess writing ability well RORY SMITH (3L) With the proposed 1L curriculum changes (see “Slashing Small Group” by Avnee Paranjape), there has been much discussion about Legal Research and Writing (LRW). There has been, to put it mildly, a wide range of opinions on LRW’s efficacy—from Professor Chiao: “LRW is the most important 1L course,” to Professor Shaffer: “Let’s be frank, LRW is the absolute worst course we have in fi rst year.”

However, as noted by members of the faculty and student population, there has been a distinct lack of evidence in support of either of these positions. While I cannot claim to have defi nitive proof that LRW is either the most important or the worst 1L course, I want to share some observations from the Recruit Survey data that Ultra Vires has collected in the past few years, to provide some evidentiary grounding for these positions.

For the past four years, Ultra Vires has collected data on 1L students’ grades as part of our annual Recruit Survey.1 Response rates have varied year-to-year, all data is self-reported, and bias exists towards underreporting of students towards the bottom of the class.2 Nonetheless, without access to the school’s complete grading records (which are, for good reason, inaccessible to students), it is the best set of data available.3 One piece of analysis that I performed last year looked at how well a student’s grade in one class predicted their grade in another class. The underlying assumption was that there are generally transferable skills between classes (such as clear writing, good study habits, and legal reasoning) such that students who perform strongly in one class perform strongly across classes.

The data did not support this conclusion. The correlations between classes are very weak, such that knowing someone’s grade in one class gives little information about their grade in another class.

That said, there is a clear divide between the correlations as between LRW and other classes, and as between any other two classes.4 Some of

the correlations between LRW and other classes even tip into the negative (although so small that they are essentially zero). Essentially, while none of the classes are very good at predicting how well you will do in another class, LRW stands alone as having zero predictive value. Every other class has some, albeit limited, predictive value.

This trend has also been consistent for the past four years, with LRW consistently standing out amongst the rest of the 1L classes.

As I said last year: LRW…[has] negative correlations with several other classes … Even when not negative, LRW … [has] correlations with other classes that are very small or essentially zero … Intuitively, it feels like the skills of “doing research” and “writing” should be common to all law classes (and law generally). However, the data suggest that either LRW is accurately measuring student’s writing skills, but having strong writing skills is not predictive of success in other classes or that LRW is not accurately measuring student’s writing skills.

There are a few inferences about LRW that you can draw from this (none of them good): 1. LRW DOES accurately assess students’ writing abilities, but writing ability IS NOT predictive of student’s grades in other classes;5 2. LRW DOES NOT accurately assess students’ writing abilities, but writing ability IS predictive of student’s grades in other classes; or

ing. That would seem to rule out inferences 1 and 3, leaving us with the conclusion that LRW is not doing a good job of assessing students’ writing ability. This would also seem to align with the many (many) voices during the March 9 1L Curriculum Consultation that raised concerns about LRW. That said, in an article about fi rm evidence, I do not have any such evidence to suggest inferences 1 and 3 are less likely to be correct than conclusion 2.

However, regardless of which inference you prefer, LRW stands out from the other 1L classes. For four years, how well students did in LRW has had essentially zero predictive value on how well students did in their other classes. Whatever comes out of the proposed curriculum changes, LRW needs a serious look.

Some Numbers If You’re Interested So as to not scare anyone with numbers, I put them at the end. You can feel free to skip this part. Correlations range from 1 (i.e. you got the same grade in both classes) to -1 (an HH in one class and an LP in the other). A correlation of 0 means that both grades are random. Correlations greater than 0.7 are generally considered strong, correlations of 0.3 to 0.5 are generally considered weak, and correlations less than 0.3

are generally considered very weak (or no correlation). The table below shows the correlation between LRW and every other 1L class since the school adopted the HH/H/P grading scheme.

For reference, the average correlations between any two classes (excluding LRW) were 0.18, 0.15, 0.24, and 0.26 for the Classes of 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2018 respectively. For four years, LRW has been at least 0.1 points less well-correlated than any two classes other classes.

Ultra Vires also collected data from earlier years, but grading prior to introducing the HH/H/P scale was not looked at.

2 For more details on all of these issues, see the Recruit Specials; they discuss the data in depth.

3 Though the faculty knows where to fi nd me if they have a suitably anonymized dataset that could use some attention.

4 The difference is statistically significant with p = 0.002.

5 Alternatively, writing ability is predictive of student’s grades in other classes, but the style of writing that LRW assesses is different enough from the writing in other classes such that your level of ability at one does not predict your level of ability with the other.

1

Table 1 - Grade Correlat ion bet ween L RW and ot her Classes

3. LRW DOES NOT accurately assess students’ writing abilities, and writing ability IS NOT predictive of student’s grades in other classes.

I fi nd it difficult to accept that writing ability does not help predict students’ grades. Intuitively, better writing should lead to better grades (and worse writing to poorer grades), because every evaluation involves some form of persuasive writ-

DIVERSIONS

Intra Vires Totally real news from inside quarantine RORY SMITH (3L)

Canadians Suddenly Getting Enough Fibre In stunning news, ever y single Canadian is now meeting their recommended daily f ibre intake. Stores have been hard pressed to keep both beans and toilet paper on the shelves as, for no apparent reason, Canadians have been purchasing these items in bulk. The reason for this new found concern for colonic health is, however, unknown at this time.

Diversions Editor Frustrated by Osgoode Students Making Him Redundant Diversions Editor Ror y Smith (3L) expressed frustration at the Osgoode students’ open letter to facult y advocating for credit/no-credit grading. Said Smith, “ how can I be expected to compete w ith hundreds of students mak ing anonymous comments online? They invoked Communism w ithin the f irst few pages!”

At press time, Smith expressed contentment that this was the f inal time he would be press-ganged into prov iding satire-on-demand for the student body.

DIVERSIONS

14 | March 31, 2020

ultravires.ca

The Ultimate Law School Playlist For lyrical inspiration when you blank at your next interview. Or maybe not CLAUDIA SHEK (2L) Non- Stop Hamilton Cast (Hamilton: Original Broadway Cast Recording ) The Act I closer about Hamilton’s r ise to power is not just a snapshot of A mer ican legal histor y, it is a true musical masterclass. A nd now you can even be on Broadway if you learn the song —a great career alternative if coronav irus k ills all the law jobs.1 W hat’s Up 4 Non Blondes (Big ger, Better, Faster, More!)

“25 years and my life is still / tr y ing to get up that great big hill of hope” Most of the student body at U of T Law. “Oh my God, do I tr y / I tr y all the time in this institution” The grading policy, job recruits, using Cognomos, etc. “ W hat’s going on?”

Ever y law school class ever.

Bonus points for being an iconic meme.

Le droit d’aimer Édith Piaf Here’s one for the Federal Court or SCC

hopefuls look ing to practice their French listening sk ills. Piaf af f irms her commitment to love, regardless of legal norms: “J’en ai le droit d’aimer … à la face des hommes, au mépr is de leurs lois” (“I have the r ight to love … in the face of men, in def iance of their laws”). The r ight to love may not be in the Charter, but you have to admire her dedication to the cause.

Ta lk To My Law yer Chuck Brodsky (L etters in the Dirt) Brodsky’s tong ue-in-cheek folk song about a litig ious plaintif f and their opportunistic law yer manages to name ever y tort from negligence to “defamation of character” while of fer ing a scathing cr itique of the costs of personal injur y law.

Lega l Man Belle & Sebastian (L egal Man) Nestled within this catchy indie-pop song are lyrics that wouldn't sound out of place at a law f irm. “I’ll render services that you may reasonably require” is making an appearance at my next client meeting, while “Get out of the off ice / and into the springtime” is sound advice for future articling students.

A l l R ise Blue (All Rise) If you are familiar w ith early 20 0 0s Br itish boy bands, you may remember this R& B tune. It deploys an extended metaphor on civ il procedure so formidable that it could replace the Legal Process course pack and no one would be able to tell the dif ference.

I Fought The Law T he Clash ( T he Cost of Living ) First popular ized by The Bobby Fuller Four, The Clash’s 1979 punk-rock cover remains the classic version of this song. Its pessimistic refrain—“I fought the law / and the law won”—w ill resonate w ith any student feeling attacked by a bad grade, a job rejection, or a R ichard Stacey coldcall.

search & seizure law. 2 Some food for thought the next time you do your Cr im readings.

Bet On It Zac Efron (High School Musical 2) Troy’s ex istential angst is ref lected in ever y law student who questions their career choices. See: “How w ill I know if there’s a path worth tak ing?” Or: “Out on my own / it’s such a scar y place.” Even “gotta work on my sw ing” speaks to those of us dreading rounds of golf w ith our future Bay Street overlords.

Don’t Be A Law yer Burl Moseley (Season 4, Episode 3 of Crazy Ex-G irlfriend) The tit le says it all.

99 Problems Jay-Z ( T he Black Album)

1

The second verse’s commentar y on traf f ic stops (“I know my r ights, so you goin’ need a warrant for that”) is legendar y. In fact, a Windsor Law professor’s 2012 analysis of this song suggested Jay-Z’s stop would’ve been unconstitutional under Canadian

@HamiltonMusical tweeted on March 16: “Now Seeking: #Hamilfans singing “NonStop” for a chance to be included in our 3/28 digital Saturday Night On Broadway Video!”

2

Crowne, Emir. “Jay-Z’s 99 Problems, Verse 2: The Canadian Response to Professor Mason” ( July 12, 2012).

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March 31, 2020 | 15

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RIGHTS REVIEW The International Human Rights Program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law An independent student-led publication Editors-in-Chief: Julie Lowenstein (3L) and Emily Tsui (3L, JD/MGA) Senior Editors: Rachel Bryce (3L) and Maddy Torrie (3L) Graphics and Social Media Editor: Adil Munim (3L) Junior Editor: Abdullah Khan (1L)

BOTS AT THE GATE AN UPDATE ON AUTOMATIC DECISIONMAKING IN CANADA’S IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE SYSTEM

By Emily Tsui (3L JD/MGA) Technology plays an increasingly important role in decisions that have a profound impact on an individual’s life. In the European Union (EU), border offi cials hope that artifi cial intelligence can assist their determination of an individual’s admissibility. They have invested in iBorderCtrl, a British startup that claims to pick up on an individual’s “micro gestures” to assess the truthfulness of an individual’s answers.

If the system perceives that an individual has lied, they can be categorized as “high risk” or “medium risk,” and therefore place their admissibility into the EU at risk. However, recent research has demonstrated that this system makes false positives, and there is concern that it might discriminate against people on the basis of their ethnic origin. This raises the question of how far technology can go in making decisions that affect us.

Two years ago, the University of Toronto’s International Human Rights Program (IHRP), Citizen Lab, and Information Technology, Transparency, and Transformation Lab published “Bots at the Gate: A Human Rights Analysis of Automatic Decision-Making in Canada’s Immigration and Refugee System.”

Co-authored by IHRP’s interim director Petra Molnar and Citizen Lab research fellow Lex Gill, this report discussed how automated decision-making is used in Canada’s immigration and refugee system, and the human rights implications of this.

Since at least 2014, Canada has experimented with algorithmic and automated technologies to replace or assist administrative decision-making by immigration offi cials.

Offi cials are hopeful that technology will fulfi ll its promise of greater expediency and accuracy in decision-making. However, this technology can signifi cantly impair the human rights of those most vulnerable who are subject to this technology.

The current system of decision-making in the immigration and refugee context is designed to allow for discretion to be exercised by the immigration offi cial. For example, in determining an individual’s admissibility into a country, the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) must make a determination as to whether that individual is a “high risk traveller” or poses a risk to national security.

These determinations are subjective, and biases can play a role in the outcome.

In 2019, CBC News reported that “border service offi cers did use their discretion to order secondary inspections for travellers from

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the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean at far higher rates than for travellers from the U.S. or Western Europe.” The same report also remarked that facial recognition technology had a higher error-rate for darker-skinned travellers and for women. Technology that aims to remove human intervention could exacerbate existing biases and errors at the expense of many, and especially the marginalized.

These examples demonstrate only some of the many human rights and legal challenges posed by automated decision-making identifi ed by the “Bots at the Gate” report. Automated decision-making implicates several international human rights obligations under treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

It can also infringe an individual’s Charter rights of freedom of association and freedom of movement, their quasi-constitutional right to privacy, and administrative law rights of procedural fairness, right to be heard, and right to a fair, impartial, and independent de-

cision-maker. Additionally, automated decision-making raises issues of access to justice, confi dence in the legal system, and private sector accountability. These legal issues are among many highlighted in the report.

The report concludes with an extensive list of recommendations for the federal government.

This includes, among other things, greater transparency in the procurement and deployment of automatic decision-making systems, adopting a binding, government-wide directive for all systems that substantively addresses the many legal issues, and establishing an independent oversight body. The recommendations balance the government’s desire to streamline their decision-making processes with human rights and other legal obligations.

After the report was released, the IHRP and Citizen Lab met with government officials in Ottawa to present the report.

Although the report was only published two years ago, the development of technology and governments’ use of automated decision-making at borders have increased signifi cantly. For example, the CBSA has been

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testing the use of AVATAR, an emotion sensing system similar to iBorderCtrl, for enhancing Canada’s border security.

Molnar has been following these developments closely. In addition to her leadership role with the IHRP, she serves as a Mozilla Fellow with European Digital Rights, an association of civil and human rights organisations across Europe. In a series of informative pieces, she discusses the pervasiveness of migration control technologies across the world. During November 2019, she participated in the United Nations Global Pulse meeting in Geneva. Her continued research and advocacy continues the work started with the “Bots at the Gate” report.

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 crisis, governments have been deploying technology that drastically infringes on human rights. Israel, Iran, and China, among other countries, have used cell phone tracking data and facial recognition software to determine where the virus has spread, at a huge cost to individual privacy. Work on the intersection of technology and human rights remains as relevant as ever.

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WHY RECOGNIZING SEXUAL VIOLENCE AS GENOCIDE MATTERS

By Hana Awwad (2L) In November 2019, The Gambia instituted proceedings before the International Cour t of Justice (ICJ) alleging that Myanmar had violated its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention). These closely obser ved proceedings quickly made international legal histor y. In its Provisional Measures Order, the Cour t affirmed for the first time that a treaty such as the Genocide Convention can confer standing on an “unaffected” State. In doing so, the Cour t allowed the nation to asser t that Myanmar had failed to prevent and punish a genocide halfway across the globe.

As the Cour t turns its attention to the merits of the Gambia’s application, another histor y-making oppor tunity presents itself. The Cour t could, for the first time, find a state liable for genocide committed through rape and sexual violence.

Such recognition would progressively develop jurisprudence regarding the complexity of genocidal violence and expand protections for gendered genocidal crimes.

Ar ticle II of the Genocide Convention defines genocide as a criminal act, such as killing or causing serious bodily or mental harm, carried out with the intent to destroy, in whole or in par t, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group. This intent to destroy a specific group is the key element constituting the crime of genocide and the most difficult to prove. In previous ICJ cases under the Genocide Convention, the Cour t considered whether atrocities committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia constituted genocide. The Cour t found as fact that atrocities had been committed throughout the territories of both states but concluded that the intent to destroy was only proven in one instance: the killing of a group of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica.

Given the centrality of this destructive intent to the crime of genocide, it may seem paradoxical that genocide can be committed through non-lethal acts such as rape and sexual violence. One might wonder: how can a group be said to have been destroyed if its members continue to live?

The answer lies in the understanding of the crime of genocide as conceptualized

by Raphael Lemkin. Lemkin, who is widely accredited with laying the conceptual and legal framework for the Genocide Convention, actively rejected the equation of genocide with mass killings alone. Rather, he advocated a more nuanced understanding of genocide that captured the intention to destroy not just individual people, but a society or group. Lemkin conceptualized genocide as the “disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups.” This expansive framework recognizes that social, ethnic, and religious groups are more than the individuals of which they are composed, and that genocidal violence destroys more than individual lives.

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The understanding of genocide ultimately adopted in the Genocide Convention largely revolves around physical and biological destruction and explicitly includes non-lethal crimes. Specifically, Ar ticle II of the Convention lists non-lethal acts such as “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group” and “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.” A limited understanding of cultural destruction also appears in the Genocide Convention, which lists “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” as a constitutive act of genocide.

International cour ts and tribunals have confronted the genocidal destruction caused by sexual violence in the context of crimes committed in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Most notably, in Akayesu, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda concluded that rape and

sexual violence “constitute genocide in the same way as any other act as long as they were committed with specific intent to destroy, in whole or in par t, a par ticular group, targeted as such” ( Akayesu, paragraph 731). The Tribunal recognized that “sexual violence was a step in the process of destruction of the Tutsi group—destruction of the spirit, of the will to live, and of life itself” (Akayesu, paragraph 732) and classified it under Article II(b) of the Genocide Convention as a constitutive genocidal act “causing serious bodily and mental harm.” In doing so, Akayesu opened legal avenues not previously available to female genocide victims, given that genocidal violence targeted against women and girls almost always takes the form of sexual violence.

Unfor tunately, these avenues have not been widely used. Other prosecutions following the Rwandan genocide, such as a Nyiramasuhuko and Musema, charged

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allegations of rape as war crimes or crimes against humanity rather than as genocide. The continued failure to recognize rape and sexual violence as constitutive acts of genocide eclipses the importance of sexual violence sur vivors, most of whom are women and girls, to their communities. It also obscures other nonlethal forms of violence that can constitute genocide, such as tor ture, enslavement, and forcible transfer.

The Independent International FactFinding Mission on Myanmar has documented widespread sexual and genderbased violence perpetrated against Rohingya people by Myanmar security forces. As the ICJ considers these findings in the proceedings pending against Myanmar, it has an oppor tunity to uplift the victims of gendered genocidal violence. In doing so, it would open the door to accountability for these crimes and to more robust prevention in the future.

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ASPER CENTRE, IHRP COHOST CANADIAN MEDIA FREEDOM SYMPOSIUM

By Angela Gu (1L) On Friday, March 6, the Faculty of Law’s David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights and the International Human Rights Program (IHRP) co-hosted a symposium on Canadian media freedom. This invitation-only symposium brought together a small group of academics, civil society organizations, media exper ts, and leading practitioners to examine the state of media freedom and the law in Canada.

The symposium developed from research by students at the Faculty of Law taking par t in the IHRP’s Clinical Legal Education: Media Freedom Model Laws Project. The course is led by Adjunct Professor Vincent Wong, who is the William C. Graham Research Associate at the IHRP. Wong facilitated the symposium with a number of the clinic’s students.

The goal of the symposium was to critically examine the various legal and nonlegal challenges that threaten freedom of the press in Canada in the current political climate. The day’s conversations focused on legal and policy threats to media freedom in Canada.

The morning featured an opening address by Professor Ir win Cotler, former Minister of Justice and Attorney General

of Canada. Professor Cotler spoke of topics including Canada’s discretionar y and uneven application of Magnitsky legislation, which permits sanctions against various human rights violators, in the context of media freedom. He emphasized that the culture of impunity needed to be replaced with a culture of accountability.

Following Professor Colter’s address, the student researchers—James Flynn (2L), Isaac Gazendam (2L), Julie Lowenstein (3L), and Sonia Patel (3L)—gave an over view of their clinic’s research themes, which included trends in hate speech, defamation and libel, misinformation and disinformation, national security and public order, systemic restrictions to media, and whether there should be a discrete right to the freedom of the press.

In the afternoon, symposium attendees broke out into small groups to discuss the themes in more detail, with conversations guided by the student researchers.

Some groups’ discussion was more heavily grounded in case law, while others explored the broader social trends that influence policy decisions.

which hinders the freedom of the press, as cer tain documents are inaccessible, and when available, the documents come redacted, delayed, or with fees attached, and the need to work towards a regime where the default is free access to information;

The groups reconvened to debrief, and the student researchers highlighted some points of discussion that came up in the round-table discussions: •

Who counts as a journalist for determining who gets journalistic privileges and protections, and whether broadening the definition could enhance press freedom;

•

How the law can help protect against extreme forms of hate online;

•

Possibly categorizing social media platforms as publishers to place more of an onus on them to regulate the spread of false information as par t of the ongoing conversation on how to legislate to regulate media in the digital context;

•

•

Systemic restrictions on expression due to forms of governmental media funding, and how to maintain a free and independent press, especially with the collapse of local news media due to financial strains; The barriers posed by Canada’s current access to information scheme,

•

The chilling effect on expression caused by insufficient whistleblower protection;

•

Whether media exclusion zones can ever be justified using the Oakes test as per section 1 of the Char ter, discussed in the context of the RCMP’s exclusion zones on Wet’suwet’en territor y; and

•

The need for federal anti-SL APP (strategic lawsuits against public par ticipation) legislation to prevent the stifling of freedom of expression, as provincial anti-SL APP legislation to encourage public dialogue can be evaded by forum shopping.

The symposium’s discussions and presentations will be used to inform summary reports, with a view to shaping future advocacy efforts. The clinic students hope to release an advocacy report next fall.

CALL FOR 20202021 RIGHTS REVIEW MASTHEAD! Rights Review is the independent, studentled publication of the International Human Rights Program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. All ar ticles and publications are from U of T students. We publish online and in print each month in the law school's student newspaper, Ultra Vires.

Rights Review is now accepting applications for the positions of Editors-in-Chief (2), Senior Editors (2), Graphics and Social Media Editor (1) until Friday, April 3, 2020.

To apply, please send an email to Emily and Julie at emily.tsui@mail.utoronto.ca and Julie. lowenstein@mail.utoronto.ca with your CV and statement of interest highlighting relevant editorial experience and interest in the IHRP. This is an excellent opportunity to be more involved with the IHRP and to learn more about international human rights issues.

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We would like to thank ever yone who has contributed ar ticles to Rights Review this past year: Amitpal Singh (2L), Milica Pavlovic (2L), India Annamanthadoo (3L), Julie Lowenstein (3L), Adil Munim (3L), Isaac Gazendam (2L), Joshua Eisen (2L), Liam Turnbull (2L), Michelle LaFor tune (2L), Spencer NesticoSemianiw (2L), Teodora Pasca (2L), Emily Tsui (3L JD/MGA), Keith Garrett (2L), Cailyn Prins (2L), Andrea Das-Wieczorek (2L), Claire Phillips (2L), Abdullah Khan (1L), Madeline Torrie (3L), Rachel Br yce (3L JD/MGA), Hana Awwad (2L), and Angela Gu (1L).

We are extremely grateful to our editors for their hard work this past year in publishing monthly editions: Emily Tsui (3L, JD/MGA), Julie Lowenstein (3L), Maddy Torrie (3L) and Rachel Br yce (3L, JD/MGA), Abdullah Khan (1L), and Adil Munim (3L).

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