The rapid reallocation of traffic space for walking and cycling has generated much applause, with commentators celebrating these shifts as the start of long-term change toward more liveable, sustainable and inclusive cities. However, these shift towards such pandemic pop-up infrastructures are precarious. With an emphasis on speed over process, pop-ups have invariably been deployed without oversight or engagement, and rarely involving the voices of racialized or vulnerable people. Focusing on the cities of Toronto (Canada) and Sydney (Australia), this chapter argues that the significance of pop-ups extends beyond immediate infrastructure needs in response to a pandemic, to how cities govern more generally.
Precariously housed people face serious challenges in securing their personal possessions from the actions of both private and public actors. This is despite evidence of widespread destruction, seizure, and theft; associated violations of equality and dignity rights; the significance of the belongings to their owners; and the heightened vulnerability that the loss of their belongings may place people in. Law seems to provide minimal recognition and protection of precariously housed people's possessions. There is a significant lack of scholarly and policy attention given to the issue. We lay out some preliminary concepts for the analysis of this important topic, focusing on critical legal geography, evaluation, governance, and personhood, before introducing our own research project. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Volume 16 is October 13, 2020. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
In May 2020 Sidewalk Labs, the Google-affiliated ‘urban innovation’ company, announced that it was abandoning its ambition to build a ‘smart city’ on Toronto’s waterfront and thus ending its three-year relationship with Waterfront Toronto. This is thus a good time to look back and examine the whole process, with a view to drawing lessons both for the future of Canadian smart city projects and the future of public sector agencies with appointed boards. This article leaves to one side the gadgets and sensors that drew much attention to the proposed project, and instead focuses on the governance aspects, especially the role of the public ‘partner’ in the contemplated public-private partnership. We find that the multi-government agency, Waterfront Toronto, had transparency and accountability deficiencies, and failed to consistently defend the public interest from the beginning (the Request for Proposals issued in May of 2017). Because the public partner in the proposed ‘deal’ was not, as is usually the case in smart city projects, a municipal corporation, our research allows us to address an important question in administrative law, namely: what powers should administrative bodies outside of government have in crafting smart city policies? In Canada, the comparatively limited Canadian scholarly work regarding urban law and governance has mainly focused on municipal governments themselves, and this scholarly void has contributed to the fact that the public is largely unaware of the numerous local bodies that oversee local matters beyond municipal governments. This paper hones into the details of the WT-Sidewalk Labs partnership to understand the powers and limitations of WT in assuming a governmental role in establishing and overseeing ‘smart city’ relationships. It ultimately argues that WT has not been – nor should it be – empowered to create a smart city along Toronto’s post-industrial waterfront. Such tasks, we argue, belong to democratic bodies like municipalities. An important contribution of this paper is to situate the evolving role of public authorities in the local governance literature and in the context of administrative law.
. This paper demonstrates that an important and overlooked guide to understanding Canadian and US Supreme Court decision making in tax cases is the “default,” or the party to whom the court will decide in favour of if tax language is ambiguous. While statutory interpretation methods influence the overall manner in which courts approach tax-law decision making, the default is a more concrete guide to evaluating Canadian and US Supreme Court decisions. The paper first explores the statutory interpretation approaches referenced in Canadian and American Supreme Court tax law cases. The paper then examines the histories of defaults, including the cases in which they emerged and the rationales given for their adoption. Third, based on original research, the paper concludes that defaults have a profound effect on income tax decisions by, in Canada, the Supreme Court favouring the taxpayer and, in the United States, the Court deferring to the Internal Revenue Service.Résumé. Cet article démontre que la partie à laquelle les Cours suprêmes du Canada et des États-Unis donnent gain de cause lorsque la loi est ambiguë, appelée “ défaut ”, constitue un point de repère important, souvent négligé, pour comprendre les décisions de ces tribunaux en matière de droit fiscal. Bien que les méthodes d'interprétation de la loi influencent la prise de décision de ces tribunaux dans des causes fiscales, le “ défaut ” représente un point de repère plus concret pour évaluer les décisions des Cours suprêmes du Canada et des États-Unis en ces matières. L'article qu'on va lire examine d'abord les interprétations de la loi rencontrées dans la jurisprudence fiscale des Cours suprêmes du Canada et des États-Unis. Il présente ensuite l'historique des “ défauts ”, les cas où ils ont surgi, ainsi que les arguments et les justifications qui les accompagnent. Enfin, l'article conclut, sur la base d'une recherche inédite, que les “ défauts ” ont des effets profonds sur les décisions des Cours suprêmes en matière de droit fiscal tant au Canada, où la Cour suprême donne le plus souvent gain de cause au contribuable, qu'aux États-Unis où la Cour suprême se range plutôt à l'avis de l'Internal Revenue Service.
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