Verdicts & Voices

Canada is a country of immigrants, but the rules and procedures of our immigration system are complex, ever-changing, and often poorly understood. In a context of shrinking federal targets, growing backlogs, and controversial new legislation, two immigration lawyers discuss how they and their clients are managing the uncertainty.

Christine Beltempo is an immigration lawyer at McCarthy Tetrault in Montreal and chair of the CBA’s Immigration Law Section. Cheryl Robinson is the Section’s vice-chair for refugee and litigation affairs; she works at Legal Aid Ontario’s Refugee Law Office in Toronto.

The host for this episode is Jessica Brando, a former CBC journalist and professor of journalism, radio and podcasting based in Ottawa.

Recent submissions from the CBA’s Immigration Law Section include:

• Bill C-12: consolidated comments
• Fixing the catch-22 of Canada’s business immigration programs
• Changes to asylum system risk adding delays, uncertainty
• Reforms to refugee rules could shift procedural burden onto vulnerable claimants

Verdicts & Voices is a legal current affairs podcast presented by the Canadian Bar Association. Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the CBA.

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The challenges women can face at traditional law firms are well known: pay gaps, burnout, glass ceilings. But what happens when women decide to build something different? And what can all lawyers learn from their experiences? 

Grace Cleveland chairs the Canadian Bar Association’s Women Lawyers Forum; she’s a partner specializing in wills, estates and trusts at Cleveland Doan LLP in White Rock, BC. Aneka Jiwaji co-founded Jiwaji Law, a corporate advisory and litigation firm in Vancouver, with her sister Afshaan. And Erin Cowling is founder and CEO of Flex Legal Network, which connects firms with freelance lawyers.

The host for this episode is Lisa Taylor, a lawyer and professor of journalism at the University of King’s College in Halifax.

Links:

• Raising the Bar: Women in Law Project – Canada results report
• CBA Women Lawyers Forum 2026 Conference

Verdicts & Voices is a legal current affairs podcast presented by the Canadian Bar Association. Views expressed are not necessarily those of the CBA.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In July 1933, two Halifax boys were found dead by the train tracks. Daniel Perry Sampson, a Black WWI veteran, was hanged for their murder. Almost a century later, his great-great-grandson – a celebrated musical artist – is fighting to clear his name.

Lance Sampson, aka Aquakultre, won the 2018 CBC Searchlight competition and has been nominated for three Polaris awards. His lawyer David Steeves is a civil litigator based in Toronto.

Verdicts & Voices is a legal current affairs podcast presented by the Canadian Bar Association. With her retinue of expert guests, host Alison Crawford keeps listeners up to date on news, views, and stories about the law and the justice system in Canada.

Views expressed are not necessarily those of the CBA.

Correction: The 1974 conviction of Russell Woodhouse has been referred to the Manitoba Court of Appeal. At 6:05, it is mistakenly described as a Saskatchewan case. 

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On October 19, Albertans will answer questions on complex topics including immigration, judicial appointments, voting rights, and whether to remain in Canada. How did the province get here? How likely is this process to result in clear mandates for the provincial government? And will any of it lead to substantive change?  

The trio of experts for this discussion: Gerard Kennedy, Associate Dean of the University of Alberta Faculty of Law; Karine Millaire, law professor at the Université de Montréal; and Stephen Thiele, Director of Legal Research at Gardiner Roberts LLP in Toronto.

Verdicts & Voices is a legal current affairs podcast presented by the Canadian Bar Association. With her retinue of expert guests, host Alison Crawford keeps listeners up to date on news, views, and stories about the law and the justice system in Canada.

Views expressed are not necessarily those of the CBA.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Friend of the pod Nadia Effendi returns to talk us through the fall agenda of Canada’s top court. Topics include online gambling, price-fixing, religious freedom, prison lockdowns, the Ontario Place redevelopment, the federal assault weapons ban, and the theft of the Winston Churchill portrait from Ottawa’s Château Laurier.

Nadia is a partner at BLG in Toronto and a member of the CBA’s Federal Courts Bench and Bar Liaison Committee. She has appeared before the Supreme Court numerous times and clerked for Hon. Michel Bastarache.

Links:

• Atlantic Lottery Corporation, et al. v. Attorney General of Ontario
• NHK Spring Co., Ltd., et al. v. Tony Cheung, et al.
• John Vabuolas, et al. v. Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia, et al.
• Durrell Diggs, et al. v. Attorney General of Nova Scotia, et al.
• Canadian National Railway Company v. Alberta Pacific Forest Industries Inc.
• Ontario Place Protectors v. His Majesty the King in Right of Ontario and Attorney General of Ontario
• Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, et al. v. Attorney General of Canada
• Jeffrey Wood v. His Majesty the King

Live and recorded Supreme Court hearings can be watched online.

Verdicts & Voices is a legal current affairs podcast presented by the Canadian Bar Association. With her retinue of expert guests, host Alison Crawford keeps listeners up to date on news, views, and stories about the law and the justice system in Canada.

Views expressed are not necessarily those of the CBA.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When the Supreme Court of Canada created a new tort of intimate-partner violence in May 2026, family lawyers Shelley Hounsell and Vanessa Lam joined us to contemplate its likely effects. Four months later, we check in to see how things are working out.

Among the questions on the agenda: Is this proving to be merely a remedy for rich people? What is the role of expert witnesses? And should these claims be folded into family law proceedings or treated as distinct civil matters?

Shelley Hounsell of Presse Mason in Halifax is back, along with Tiffany Paulsen of Robertson Stromberg in Saskatoon, and Joanna Radbord of McCarthy Hansen & Company in Toronto.

Links:

• Ahluwalia v. Ahluwalia, 2026 SCC 16
• A turning point for a tort of family violence (Verdicts & Voices S4:E14)

Verdicts & Voices is a legal current affairs podcast presented by the Canadian Bar Association. With her retinue of expert guests, host Alison Crawford keeps listeners up to date on news, views, and stories about the law and the justice system in Canada.

Views expressed are not necessarily those of the CBA.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

As artificial intelligence keeps evolving, so do the ways of using and misusing it in the courts. To kick off our new season, University of Ottawa expert Amy Salyzyn joins the show to explain everything from prompt injection attacks to shadow AI, and how the human beings who work in Canada’s justice system are handling the challenge.

For more on AI and the law, listen to past episodes about hallucinated cases, racial bias in AI, and the first Canadian judge to encounter AI-generated fake citations.

Also, check out AI in Practice, a monthly CBA webinar series that examines AI in the Canadian legal context.

Verdicts & Voices is a legal current affairs podcast presented by the Canadian Bar Association. With her retinue of expert guests, host Alison Crawford keeps listeners up to date on news, views, and stories about the law and the justice system in Canada.

Views expressed are not necessarily those of the CBA.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How should Canadian courts incorporate Indigenous cultural and legal practices? Why might some judges be reluctant to do so? And are we moving toward a tri-jural system in which Indigenous legal orders exist alongside civil and common law?

To mark National Indigenous Peoples Day, we’re replaying a discussion from June 2025 with two chief justices for whom these questions are front and centre: Leonard Marchand of the BC and Yukon Courts of Appeal and Glenn Joyal of the Manitoba Court of King’s Bench. 

Notes:

Verdicts & Voices is a legal current affairs podcast presented by the Canadian Bar Association. With her retinue of expert guests, host Alison Crawford keeps listeners up to date on news, views, and stories about the law and the justice system in Canada.

Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the CBA.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this final episode of the spring, three law students discuss their reasons for studying law, their first forays into law firms, and their impressions of a changing profession and a tumultuous world. See you in September!

Maria Kalapurayil just graduated from the University of Alberta. Sophie Poitras has one year under her belt at the Université de Moncton. And with one year to go at the Université du Québec en Outaouais, Justine Morin-Laporte chairs CBA Quebec’s student section.

Verdicts & Voices is a legal current affairs podcast presented by the Canadian Bar Association. With her retinue of expert guests, host Alison Crawford keeps listeners up to date on news, views, and stories about the law and the justice system in Canada.

Views expressed are not necessarily those of the CBA.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In 1976, when Harvey Brownstone told his mother he was gay, she became “volcanic” and kicked him out of the house. He spent five years on welfare, without stealing – much. Somehow, though, he got a law degree from Queens, clerked for a young Rosalie Abella, and became Canada’s first openly gay judge in 1995. Now, in retirement, his celebrity interview show has 70 000 YouTube subscribers, and the memoir he just released is being made into a movie starring David Arquette.

As Pride season begins, Harvey joins the pod to discuss his cinematic life, the clubby Canadian legal world of the late 20th century, and the role of the judge as public educator.

Notes:

Verdicts & Voices is a legal current affairs podcast presented by the Canadian Bar Association. With her retinue of expert guests, host Alison Crawford keeps listeners up to date on news, views, and stories about the law and the justice system in Canada.

Views expressed are not necessarily those of the CBA.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.