Canadian Lawyer

8 M A r C h 2 0 1 5 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m C E N t r A L \ At L A N t I C \ C E N t r A L \ W E s t rEgIoNAL WrAp-up Basic legal principles remain paramount I n the spring of 2012, Quebec seemed to be in the clutch of unprecedented civil unrest. Night after night, for weeks on end, the province saw tens of thousands, and sometimes hundreds of thousands, demonstrators furiously beating pots and pans with metal spoons, walking through downtown Montreal and, on a few occasions turning marches into riots, to the dismay of shop owners and the entire tourist industry. Indeed, the image Montreal was pro- jecting around the world was that of a place less than warm and friendly. The agitation was even dubbed the "Printemps érable [French for 'maple']" in reference to the "Printemps arabe" or Arab Spring, that saw millions rebel against decades of dicta- torial ruling in the Middle East. The source of the protest was the increase of university fees by a couple of thousand dollars over five years. Picketing students prevented other students from accessing their classes, putting the aca- demic year in jeopardy. Anti-protest students were not amused and some filed for, and obtained, injunctions in Superior Court, across the province. Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, AKA "GND," at the time, leader of the most radical of the three main student associations, publicly criticized the court orders during a televised debate. He said they were inef- ficient since the students had democrati- cally voted in favour of a strike and that picketing was a perfectly legitimate means to enforce it. He criticized the students who had "used the courts to go around the collective decision" to strike. Jean-François Morasse, a Université Laval student, who had been granted an injunction to access his classes but still couldn't because of court-defying picketers, filed a procedure to obtain a contempt of court order against GND, claiming he had defied the injunction during the TV interview. In November 2012, Superior Court Justice Denis Jacques found the student leader in contempt and sentenced him to 120 hours of community service. GND appealed. A January judgment penned by Court of Appeal Justice Jacques Dufresne reversed the decision with vigour. Not only was GND not personally tar- geted by Morasse's injunction application and no proof was made that the latter knew of the existence of that particular injunction, but proof of the actual offence was not even established. At worst, GND's declarations were ambiguous. His claim was that picketing was legitimate but he never called for anyone to defy the injunctions. The appeal judge addressed the free- dom of speech question with bluntness: "The right to inform the public of one's position, with strength and conviction in a given conflict is protected by the Canadian and Quebec charters and the underlying right to information," wrote Dufresne. There was at the time, on certain nights, a true sense of fear and distress among a sizeable portion of the popula- tion provoked by the sounds of the dem- onstrators' aggressive chants mixed with the police helicopters' maddening thump- ing beat. Many viewed the students as a bunch of spoiled brats who were damag- ing a social system that benefited them and for which they should be thankful. The Court of Appeal reminded every- one that whatever the merit of that point of view and however anxious and wor- ried a population might feel, basic legal principles remain paramount. Morasse has now filed an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. — PaSCal elIe pascalelie636@gmail.com Know YoUR HealTH-CaRe RIGHTS D o you know how to get access to your medical file? Can you change your doctor or hospital? What is your capacity to give consent to treatment? Can one get health-care services in English in a hospital where the majority of the staff is francophone? Can one refuse treat- ment that is necessary to keep me alive? Can one be forced to take medica- tion when one is in custody at a psychiatric institution? These are only a few questions addressed by a new web site, vosdroitsensante.com. The site was launched in January by the Montreal law firm Ménard Martin, Quebec's leaders in representing plaintiffs in medical malpractice suits. The firm started in 1985 and says it now handles approxi- mately half of all medical and dental malpractice lawsuits in the province. The web site explains that Canada's health-care system often seems intimi- dating, complicated, and impersonal. Its takeover by the government has been achieved through the development of an impressive legal frame that remains Continued on page 9

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