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Forfeited: Civil Forfeiture and the Canadian Constitution

The enactment of civil asset forfeiture legislation by Alberta and Ontario in the
fall of 2001, followed by the passage of similar legislation in five other provinces,
has signalled a dramatic change in the way Canadian constitutional law ought to
be understood. This thesis builds on American legal scholarship by highlighting
how deficiencies in Canada’s constitutional law could create space for more invasive
civil forfeiture statutes. Following a historical overview of forfeiture law in
Canada, the thesis (i) examines how the Supreme Court of Canada mischaracterized
this legislation as a matter of property and civil rights; (ii) considers whether
the doctrine of federal paramountcy should have rendered the legislation inoperable
and the consequences of the failure by the Court to do so; and (iii) evaluates iiithe
impact of the absence of an entrenched property right in the constitution, in
regard to this matter.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/25734
Date07 January 2011
CreatorsKrane, Joshua
ContributorsWeinrib, Lorraine
Source SetsUniversity of Toronto
Languageen_ca
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis

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