NCA updates Contracts and Foundations of Canadian Law Syllabus - 2022

Important Notice - The NCA just updated the Contracts and Foundations of Canadian Law Syllabus. The Foundations of Canadian Law update only removes the "Robin Maynard, “Arrested (In)justice: From the streets to the prison” in Policing Black Lives" article.

You can find the Contracts (2022) and Foundations of Canadian Law (2022) syllabus on the NCA Website or you can download the 2022 version of the Foundations of Canadian Law notes here.

NCA Exam results have been released!

Results from the August 2022 exam session are now available for the following exams:

  • Business Organizations
  • Canadian Criminal Law
  • Canadian Professional Responsibility
  • Remedies
  • Taxation

Make sure you head straight to the NCA portal to find out how you did. Please find the link to the portal here: https://ncaportal.flsc.ca/CandidatePortal/Login.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

Please remember to email us if you worked with one of our lawyers on these exams. We’re anxiously awaiting your results.

Congratulations to everyone who passed the exam!

Upcoming informational webinar: Understanding the Canadian Student Financing Landscape

Are you an internationally-trained lawyer thinking about re-qualifying as a lawyer in Canada? Are you looking for financing options? We know the number of financing options available is large and confusing. Join Windmill Microlending's upcoming informational webinar where they share the different options, they have available to you.

NCA Tutor is a Windmill partner and all of our courses and study materials are pre-approved expenses for Windmill loans.

To register for the webinar please visit one of the links below:

 

For domestic students born outside Canada:

Register to attend

Tuesday, September 13, 2022 at 7:00PM EST, 5:00PM MST, 4:00PM PST

Register to attend

Saturday, September 17, 2022 at 12:00PM EST, 10:00AM MST, 9:00AM PST

 

For students born in Canada:

Register to attend

Tuesday, September 13, 2022 at 3:00PM EST, 1:00PM MST, 12:00PM PST

Register to attend

Saturday, September 17, 2022 at 1:30PM EST, 11:30AM MST, 10:30AM PST

NCA Exam results have been released!

Foundations of Canadian Law and Constitutional Law results have been released!

Congratuations to everyone that has passed their exam. Please remember to e-mail us your results. We are anxiously awaiting all of your replies.

For all of you who are now done with the NCA process, please do keep in touch and let us know which area of law you end up practicing in.

Congrtulations once again!

The Supreme Court restores an Alberta man’s acquittal for attacking a woman while in a state of automatism.

Matthew Brown drank wine and took "magic mushrooms" at a party in Calgary, Alberta on January 12, 2018. Psilocybin, an illegal drug that can produce hallucinations, which is found in mushrooms. Mr. Brown lost his sense of reality, fled the party, and physically assaulted a woman inside a nearby residence. As a result of the incident, the woman has lasting injuries. When Brown broke into another house, the residents alerted the authorities. Brown claimed he had no recollection of the events.

Brown faces charges of aggravated assault, breaking and entering, and property damage. He had no prior criminal record or mental illness background.

Brown pleaded not guilty to the allegations of "automatism" throughout his trial. When someone claims to have lost entire control of himself due to intoxication or impairment, this is known as automatism.

The Crown contended that Brown could not use automatism as a defense because section 33.1 of the Criminal Code prohibits using automatism as a defense for offenses involving assault or interference with another person's bodily integrity.

Mr. Brown stated that section 33.1 of the Criminal Code violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms' sections 7 and 11(d). Section 7 ensures that everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of the person, whereas section 11(d) ensures that everyone is deemed innocent until proven guilty. Brown was acquitted after the judge agreed with him. The Crown appealed to the Alberta Court of Appeal, which upheld Brown's conviction. He subsequently took his case to Canada's Supreme Court.

The acquittal has been reinstated by the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court heard this case with R. v. Sullivan, and the decisions are being handed down together at the same time.

Section 33.1 of the Criminal Code violates sections 7 and 11(d) of the Charter and is therefore unconstitutional.

According to Justice Nicholas Kasirer, writing for a unanimous Supreme Court, section 33.1 of the Criminal Code violates sections 7 and 11(d) of the Charter in a fashion that cannot be justified in a free and democratic society and is therefore unconstitutional. He argues that section 33.1 breaches section 11(d) of the Charter because society could misinterpret someone's desire to get drunk as a desire to commit a violent crime. Section 33.1 also directly contradicts section 7 because the prosecution does not have to prove that the activity was voluntary or that the individual meant to commit the crime.

Convicting someone for their actions while in a state of automatism is a violation of fundamental justice standards. The concept of personal responsibility supports our criminal justice system. To be found guilty of a crime in Canada, two elements of fundamental justice must be present which are a guilty action and a guilty mind. When a person is in a condition of automatism, neither element is present.

Parliament could implemant legislation to address the issue of extreme intoxication related violence/crimes.

The Court indicated that Parliament could implement new legislation to hold someone who is highly intoxicated responsible for a serious crime. "Protecting victims of violent crime – especially in light of the equality and dignity interests of women and children who are vulnerable to drunken sexual and domestic activities – which is a pressing and important social purpose" as stated by the Court.

The Supreme Court confirms a man’s acquittals and the Court of Appeal’s order for a new trial for another man in cases involving automatism.

David Sullivan and Thomas Chan, both from Ontario, committed violent crimes while heavily drunk from substances they had taken voluntarily. Although the two incidents are unrelated, both men claim that the pills put them in a state of "automatism", where someone claims to have lost entire control of himself due to intoxication or impairment.

Mr. Sullivan became inebriated after taking an overdose of prescription medicine and stabbed his mother with a knife, seriously wounding her. He was accused with aggravated assault and assault with a weapon, and several other offences.

Mr. Chan consumed "magic mushrooms" which contained the psilocybin chemical. He became inebriated and assaulted his father with a knife, killing him and critically injuring his father's partner. Mr. Chan was charged with manslaughter and aggravated assault during his trial. He claimed that, in addition to automatism, an underlying brain injury was to blame for his criminal acts.

Section 33.1 of the Criminal Code does not allow the use of automatism as a defense for offenses involving assault or interference with another person's bodily integrity. Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Chan contended in their respective trials that section 33.1 breaches sections 7 and 11(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Charter). Section 7 ensures that everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of the person, whereas section 11(d) ensures that everyone is deemed innocent until proven guilty.

In Mr. Sullivan's case, the trial judge acknowledged that he was acting involuntarily, but ruled that section 33.1 denied him from claiming automatism as a defense and found him guilty. A different trial judge ruled in Mr. Chan's case that he did not have to follow previous judgements by the same court declaring section 33.1 unconstitutional. Mr. Chan's brain injury, he added, was not the cause of his acts. As a result, he found Mr. Chan guilty.

Both individuals filed appeals with the Ontario Court of Appeal, which heard both cases concurrently. Mr. Sullivan was acquitted, but the Court of Appeal ordered a new trial for Mr. Chan since there was no actual finding of fact about automatism in his case. The Crown then took both decisions to the Supreme Court of Canada to appeal both decisions.

The appeals were dismissed by the Supreme Court.

In R. v. Brown, the Supreme Court decided section 33.1 of the Criminal Code was unconstitutional.

Justice Nicholas Kasirer, writing for a unanimous Supreme Court, stated that the Supreme Court's opinion in R. v. Brown, which was heard concurrently with these appeals and whose judgment is being issued concurrently, is applicable to this case. The Court rules in R. v. Brown that section 33.1 of the Criminal Code violates sections 7 and 11(d) of the Charter in a way that can't be justified in a free and democratic society and is therefore unconstitutional. Mr. Sullivan can be acquitted in this instance because he demonstrated that he was inebriated to the point of automatism, and the trial judge determined that he was acting involuntarily. Mr. Chan, for his part, can use the automatism defense in his next trial, according to Justice Kasirer.

The effect of a declaration of unconstitutionality by one trial court on another within the same province

The Supreme Court also considered whether a trial court's determination of unconstitutionality is binding on other courts in the same province in this instance. A decision is binding on other trial courts, according to the Court, unless the facts are extremely different or the court had no practical way of knowing the decision existed.