A recording of the lecture delivered by Professor John Borrows at the McGill Law Journal's 2022 Annual Lecture. The Annual Lecture is a McGill Law Journal tradition that dates back to the 1980s. This year, Professor John Borrows spoke about the role students play in reshaping and growing the law and the legal field by collectively engaging in the process of making sense of the world around us.

Three years following the legalization of recreational cannabis in Canada, the role of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples in regulating cannabis has yet to be adequately addressed, creating a state of legal uncertainty over questions about jurisdiction and control. Despite this uncertainty, some Indigenous nations have nonetheless begun to assert their inherent rights to self-government and regulate cannabis according to their own customs and laws. In this episode, we explore both the challenges the Cannabis Act has posed for Indigenous governments and cannabis entrepreneurs, as well as the flourishing "red market" of cannabis businesses that operate and are licensed under Indigenous laws and frameworks.

Traditionally used to protect trade secrets and proprietary information, non-disclosure agreements are now regularly found in employment contracts and settlement agreements of all kinds. But these agreements can also operate as oppressive contracts of silence – particularly when invoked to prevent victims of discrimination, harassment, or abuse from speaking out about their experiences. In this episode, we talk to Dr. Julie Macfarlane about the questionable legality of non-disclosure agreements, and how legislative reform could restrict their ability to perpetuate harm.

In this special mini-episode, we discuss government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the challenges that continue to be faced. Our guest is Lorian Hardcastle, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Calgary. Professor Hardcastle's research covers a wide range of health-related topics, including public health law and policy, regulation and governance of the health care system, and liability and governance of health facilities.

In Part 1 of our two-part series on judicial independence, we dive into the judicial appointment process of the superior courts of Canada to get a better sense of the stakes involved for both prospective judges and broader society. This episode features an insightful interview with Brad Regehr, President of the Canadian Bar Association, who discusses the CBA's approach to these complex issues.

Lors du dernier épisode, nous avons mis en lumière, en compagnie du président de l'Association du barreau canadien, Brad Regehr, le processus de nomination de la magistrature aux cours supérieures du Canada. Dans cet épisode, nous situerons le processus de nomination judiciaire dans son contexte politique plus large. Notre invité est Patrick Taillon, professeur à la Faculté de droit de l'Université Laval.

In this episode, we explore how Medical Assistance in Dying legislation works on the ground, asking what challenges continue to face medical practitioners and patients when applying its criteria. We also ask broader questions about the meaning of capacity, proportionality, the role of conscientious objection, and, finally, what remains excluded from the law. Our guest is Nicky Fraser, clinical nurse specialist in MAID at the MUHC.

In this episode, we delve into Canadian and international legal avenues available to victims of human rights abuses; we evaluate Canada's State Immunity Act; and we theorize on the future of state and corporate accountability both in Canada and internationally. We are joined by Amanda Ghahremani, an international lawyer, legal consultant and research associate. Most recently, she was a member of the legal team for the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case of Nevsun Resources Ltd v. Araya.

This episode explores how governments are beginning to re-think tax policy in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our guests are two Osgoode Hall Law School professors: Jinyan Li, co-academic director of the LLM tax program, and Scott Wilkie, a tax law practitioner and a former chair of the Canadian Tax Foundation.

This episode focuses on various elements and models of AI governance and regulation, as well as the related topics of AI agency, liability and algorithmic bias. It features an insightful interview with Me Maroussia Levesque, whose dissertation focuses on developing a polycentric model of AI governance.