Barry Sookman

Earlier this morning the Supreme Court of Canada denied Compufinder leave to appeal  the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal in the CASL Charter and constitutional challenge in 3510395 Canada Inc. v. Canada (Attorney General), 2020 FCA 103. CASL is the unofficial name for Canada’s much maligned anti-spam (and malware) law, a law that many information technology and privacy lawyers believe should be scrapped.

The issues in the case were summarized by the Supreme Court as follows:

Constitutional law — Division of powers — Parliament’s general trade and commerce power — Charter of Rights and Freedoms — Freedom of expression — CRTC and Federal Court of Appeal finding anti‑spam legislation intra vires Parliament’s power and constitutional — Whether ubiquity of online commerce is a “constitutionally significant transformation” bringing regulation of all commercial electronic messages within Parliament’s general trade and commerce power under s.