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Beneath the Law
Beneath the Law episodes
- A Vote to Have a Vote: Alberta's Referendum Explained
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Can fifty percent plus one break up a country?
This episode tackles the most existential question in Canadian law as Albertans vote on whether to begin the legal process toward a binding referendum on separation.
Hosts Gavin Tighe and Stephen Thiele examine the Supreme Court of Canada's landmark 1998 Reference re Secession of Quebec, the clarity requirement, and the duty to negotiate that would follow a clear vote.
They challenge whether a simple majority should be enough to dissolve a federation, explore how Alberta's immigration questions engage Charter of Rights and Freedoms mobility rights, and consider the constitutional weight of Indigenous treaty relationships in any secession.
Listeners will come away with a sharper understanding of constitutional law in Canada, the tensions of Canadian federalism, and why Western alienation deserves serious attention.
Listen For:13:15 What framework did the Supreme Court set in the Secession Reference?
14:57 Should fifty percent plus one be enough to break up Canada?
17:09 How does voter turnout affect whether a secession vote is clear?
22:58 Do Alberta's "Albertans first" questions engage Charter mobility rights?
24:23 How would Indigenous treaty rights complicate a province's secession from Canada?Leave a rating/review for this podcast with one click
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Gardiner Roberts website | Gavin email | Stephen email
35 min - Bike Lanes and the Charter: Who Really Decides?
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Is there a constitutional right to a bike lane, and who gets to decide?
Gavin Tighe and Stephen Thiele analyze Cycle Toronto v. Ontario, the landmark Ontario Court of Appeal decision that overturned a lower court ruling blocking the removal of Toronto's Bloor, Yonge, and University bike lanes.
Writing for a unanimous panel, Justice Grant Huscroft held that section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms imposes no positive duty on government to fund safety measures, and that withdrawing a state benefit is not a constitutional deprivation.
The hosts examine its sharp rebuke of judicial policymaking, its rejection of the arbitrariness and gross disproportionality findings, and the reliance on advocacy-driven expert evidence.
Listeners will understand the line between constitutionality and wisdom in Canadian law, and why this precedent may be headed to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Listen For:4:31 Why did the Court of Appeal say something has gone wrong?
7:22 Is removing a government benefit a deprivation under section 7?
14:25 How did advocacy-driven expert evidence undermine the application judge's ruling?
18:20 Why did the Court reject arbitrariness and gross disproportionality findings?
20:58 Could judicial policymaking fuel greater use of the notwithstanding clause?
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Gardiner Roberts website | Gavin email | Stephen email
26 min - Inside the Lindsay Clancy Hung Jury
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What happens when a jury is offered only two verdicts and neither one fits?
Gavin Tighe and Stephen Thiele step outside their usual lane to examine the hung jury that ended the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother charged with killing her three young children.
After five weeks of evidence and seven days of deliberation in Plymouth County Superior Court, eleven jurors favoured acquittal while one held out, forcing a mistrial.
Gavin and Stephen unpack why a hung jury is not an acquittal, whether a fair retrial is possible after saturation media coverage, and why Massachusetts requires prosecutors to prove sanity.
They then contrast the American all-or-nothing framework with the Canadian legal system's infanticide offence under section 233 of the Criminal Code, a graduated option that may have broken the deadlock.
It is comparative legal commentary Canada rarely hears.
Listen For:
8:06 Is a hung jury an acquittal, and can Clancy be retried?
9:33 Can Lindsay Clancy receive a fair retrial after pervasive publicity?
11:15 Why must Massachusetts prosecutors prove sanity beyond a reasonable doubt?
14:55 How has all-or-nothing charging shaped past US maternal filicide cases?
18:48 How would Canada's section 233 infanticide offence have changed the verdict?
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Gardiner Roberts website | Gavin email | Stephen email
30 min - Can AI Destroy a Legal Career? Canada's First Case Has an Answer
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What happens when a lawyer's greatest mistake is not submitting fabricated cases to a court…but lying about it afterward?
This episode confronts Canada's first Law Society of Ontario disciplinary decision arising from the misuse of artificial intelligence: a landmark case in which a thirty-year practitioner used ChatGPT to produce a factum, submitted citations for cases that did not exist, and then constructed a series of falsehoods when caught.
Gavin Tighe and Stephen Thiele bring the weight of their legal experience to bear on the AI hallucination problem, the professional responsibility implications, and the question of whether a six-month suspension was a proportionate response to sustained deception of both the court and the Law Society.
With contempt proceedings now referred to the Attorney General of Ontario, this case is far from over, and its implications for Canadian legal practice and professional regulation are only beginning to unfold.
Listen For:2:08 How is artificial intelligence changing professional responsibility for Canadian lawyers?
6:02 What happens when a lawyer submits fictitious AI-generated cases to an Ontario court?
9:19 Is "I didn't know AI could hallucinate" still a valid defence for Canadian lawyers in 2024?
12:23 Why do lawyers keep trusting AI tools even after they produce fabricated legal citations?
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Gardiner Roberts website | Gavin email | Stephen email
24 min - Safety vs. Privacy: Inside the TTC Random Drug Testing Ruling
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When does protecting the public justify reaching into an employee's private life?
This episode takes on one of the most contentious labour and privacy law battles in recent Toronto history: the Toronto Transit Commission's random drug testing policy and the sweeping arbitration decision that struck it down.
Hosts Gavin Tighe and Stephen Thiele unpack a case nearly two decades in the making, stretching from a fatal tunnel accident in 2007 to a 400-page arbitrator's ruling that found the TTC's policy violated employees' Charter rights against unreasonable search and seizure under Section 8.
Drawing on Canadian law, conflicting arbitration precedents, and the hard logic of deterrence, Gavin and Stephen ask the question that cuts to the heart of workplace safety in Canada: if random testing was working, how do we prove it?
Listen For:3:18 How did a 2007 tunnel accident set off nearly 20 years of legal proceedings at the TTC?
9:16 Why did the arbitrator find the TTC's own evidence wasn't enough to justify random testing?
12:07 How did flawed cannabis testing science become a fatal problem for the TTC's case?
15:45 Why does Gavin argue employers should have more testing authority than roadside police checks, not less?
19:45 Is the absence of TTC accidents proof the policy was working or just good luck?
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Gardiner Roberts website | Gavin email | Stephen email
27 min - Five Days, One Cat, and the Cost of Canadian Justice
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When a family breaks down, who gets the cat?
That deceptively simple question drove four to five days of Superior Court litigation in Ontario…all funded by Canadian taxpayers, in what hosts Gavin Tighe and Stephen Thiele call one of the most revealing windows into the mounting crisis of judicial resource allocation in Canada.
This episode dives into the Ontario family law case of Harold, a barn-cat-turned-courtroom-combatant whose ownership became the final flashpoint in a bitter divorce dispute. Gavin and Stephen unpack the legal framework courts apply when determining pet ownership — including the doctrines of abandonment, possessory title, and the evidentiary weight of care and custody — while raising pointed questions about whether publicly funded courts should be adjudicating disputes over personal property of nominal monetary value. The episode is as much a meditation on access to justice and court reform as it is a case analysis.
Listen For:6:00 How does Canadian law determine ownership of a family pet?
11:30 Why did the mother's temporary relinquishment of Harold not amount to abandonment?
13:30 What evidence did the court rely on to establish who owned the cat?
16:00 Should courts have the power to redirect low-value disputes to binding arbitration?
22:00 How can pet prenuptial agreements prevent costly litigation at family breakdown?
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Gardiner Roberts website | Gavin email | Stephen email
28 min - Can a Lawyer Blame AI? Inside Mazaheri v Law Society of Ontario
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What happens when the legal profession's newest tool collides with its oldest duty…the duty not to mislead?
Gavin Tighe and Stephen Thiele dissect Mazaheri v Law Society of Ontario, 2026 ONLSTH 112, the first case in which "hallucinated" AI-generated authorities were placed before the Law Society Tribunal.
A suspended Ontario lawyer, fighting to regain his licence amid mortgage fraud allegations, filed motion materials drafted by generative AI, complete with cases that don't exist, and was hit with a record $31,150 full indemnity costs award.
This episode of the Canadian law podcast examines professional regulation, the reliability of AI legal research, and where negligence ends and dishonesty begins. Listeners will come away understanding why, in the Canadian legal system, responsibility for what goes before a tribunal can never be outsourced to a machine.
Listen For:5:19 How did hallucinated cases end up before the Law Society Tribunal?
7:02 How widespread is the misuse of AI in North American courts?
15:03 What does the decision explain about how large language models work?
16:50 Why did the Tribunal award full indemnity costs of $31,150?
21:30 When does negligent AI use become dishonesty before a tribunal?
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Gardiner Roberts website | Gavin email | Stephen email
30 min - The Red Card Reversal: FIFA, Trump, and the Rule of Law
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What happens when the most powerful politician on earth picks up the phone to dispute a referee's call?
Gavin Tighe and Stephen Thiele step away from Canadian courtrooms and onto the World Cup pitch, examining FIFA's controversial reversal of a red card suspension following a phone call from U.S. President Donald Trump to FIFA president Gianni Infantino.
What begins as sports talk becomes sharp legal commentary on due process, transparency, and the rule of law… the same principles that underpin the Canadian legal system and every functional democracy.
From FIFA's opaque Article 27 to Belgium's dismissed appeal and historical precedents dating back to 1962, Gavin and Stephen reveal why arbitrary decision-making erodes public trust, whether in a stadium or a courtroom.
Listeners will come away understanding why process, not outcomes, is what earns respect for institutions.
Listen For:5:04 What did Gianni Infantino admit about Trump's phone call?
9:07 What precedent did Brazil's 1962 Garrincha red card set?
12:32 How did FIFA use Article 27 to suspend Balogun's suspension?
13:35 Why does FIFA's reversal reveal a lack of rule of law?
20:21 What would genuine due process for red card appeals require?
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Gardiner Roberts website | Gavin email | Stephen email
31 min - The Legal Risks of Trusting Artificial Intelligence
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What happens when a machine built to predict the next plausible word starts drafting the arguments lawyers put before a judge?
Gavin Tighe and Stephen Thiele dig into a landmark cautionary tale for the Canadian legal system: the UK High Court's rebuke of international firm Pinsent Masons in Cork & Anor v Smith, where a junior lawyer's 59-page AI chat produced a fabricated insolvency rule that made it all the way into a letter to the court.
The hosts widen the lens to a Quebec arbitration annulled over hallucinated case law, and to Ontario's own certification requirements for lawyers using AI.
It's an unvarnished look at professional regulation, supervision, and what "checking your work" still means in Canadian law when the shortcut sounds so convincing.
Listen For:5:12 What actually happened in the Pinsent Masons insolvency case?
9:56 How did the AI chat transcript reveal the junior lawyer's process?
18:19 Where does AI genuinely help versus create legal research risk?
21:38 What does Ontario now require lawyers to certify about AI use?
27:23 Why do law firms need a formal policy governing AI use?
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Gardiner Roberts website | Gavin email | Stephen email
30 min - Ahluwalia and the New Tort of Intimate Partner Violence
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What happens when the law recognizes a form of abuse that leaves no visible bruises?
Gavin Tighe and Stephen Thiele examine a landmark Supreme Court of Canada decision that officially recognizes intimate partner violence as a new tort.
The discussion explores how coercive control, psychological domination, financial manipulation, and long-term patterns of abusive behaviour can now give rise to civil claims even when traditional torts like assault do not apply.
Gavin and Stephen unpack the facts of the case, the legal test established by the Court, and the broader implications for family law, women's rights, cultural traditions, and the evolution of the common law.
They also debate whether courts should create new causes of action, whether damages adequately reflect the seriousness of the harm, and how an already strained justice system will manage the likely increase in litigation.
This episode offers a thorough look at how the law adapts to better understand and address modern forms of harm within intimate relationships.
Listen For:2:59 Can Someone Commit Intimate Partner Violence Without Ever Being Physically Violent?
6:58 How Does This New Tort Challenge Traditional Cultural and Family Roles?
13:14 Why Did Canada's Supreme Court Create a Brand New Tort?
15:00 What Must Someone Prove to Win an Intimate Partner Violence Lawsuit?
25:02 Will This Landmark Decision Create More Pressure on Canada's Courts?
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Gardiner Roberts website | Gavin email | Stephen email
28 min
About Beneath the Law
From the publisher's feed
If “No One is Above the Law,” then everyone is beneath it. Beneath the Law is a frank discussion between two lawyers who have lived and breathed the legal system in Canada for over 30…
years.
Winner of a 2026 Mondaq Thought Leadership Award, this podcast hosts Stephen Thiele and Gavin Tighe of Gardiner Roberts, examine the arguments made in some highly contentious, and public cases, with a focus on the intersection between law and politics and where courtrooms become part of the political arena. In each episode Beneath the Law digs into interesting and current legal topics or legal battles and provides insight and commentary on the law and its application in our society.
Law is at its core the expression of the fundamental framework of any organized society – it is the fine print of the social contract. Courts play a fundamental role in any democracy, getting underneath the surface and beneath the law requires an understanding of not only what courts are doing but why.