The Friday Brief: Managing Editor’s must-read items from this week

Matthew Grace

Here are my picks for the top stories we published this week.

Judicial diversity stats show move in right direction but more needs to be done: observers
The federal government’s statistics on appointments to Canada’s superior courts show that strides have been made to increase diversity but creating a judiciary which more closely resembles Canada will take time and effort, legal observers say.

Superior Court chief justice commits to continuing technological change
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a “strike of lightning” or a “full-scale tornado” that forced Ontario’s court system to finally embrace technological change, but barriers to justice remain, says Superior Court Chief Justice Geoffrey Morawetz.

‘No vaccine against a polluted planet,’ Trudeau says while laying out climate change plan
The Liberal government has laid out its plan to combat climate change over the next 10 years, which includes $15 billion in new spending and $170 per tonne price on carbon by 2030.

‘Doesn’t make any sense’ to not challenge Alberta’s COVID-19 restrictions as a whole, says lawyer
A court challenge arguing Alberta’s COVID-19 restrictions are unconstitutional is being called the first to be directed against all lockdown measures in a province rather than just dealing with them on a piecemeal basis.

Wellness: Time to address our profession’s unconscious bias against women
In his column, Darryl Singer writes: “It is hard to believe at the end of 2020 that it is even necessary to write about the inherent unconscious bias against women which remains in our profession.”

Matthew Grace is the Managing Editor of The Lawyer’s Daily.