On May 1, I participated in a vigorous discussion on the constitutionality of CASL at the 17th Biennial National Conference on Communications Law and Policy hosted by the Law Society of Upper Canada and the Canadian Bar Association in Ottawa. My talk was on whether CASL could survive a Charter challenge based on freedom of expression grounds. I focused on the recent United Food decision at the Supreme Court of Canada, which struck down the Alberta Personal Information Protection Act for disproportionately impinging on expression rights in order to achieve privacy objectives, and pointed out that CASL might also fall to a similar challenge. Further, I commented on the possibility that even if CASL were found to be Charter-compliant, its implementation by the CRTC and other regulators still might not pass Charter muster, a point raised by the recent Doré decision at the Supreme Court. My slides are shown below.
For more information about CASL, see, CASL: the unofficial FAQ, regulatory impact statement, and compliance guideline.
