The MLJ continues its mission in this Volume of “preserving the voices of distinguished jurists from this province,” and strives to publish high-quality scholarship in maintaining its standing as an exceptional law journal. Here are a couple of statistics that the MLJteam is particularly proud of from our SHRCC application this year:

• The MLJ received 7 Supreme Court of Canada citations in 2024-25.
• We are a diamond open-access journal, with content available through a CC-BY-ND creative Commons license. The MLJ is available through Alberta OJS, CanLII, Lexis Advance Quicklaw, HeinOnline, Google Play, Amazon and through com.

Overview of the latest Issues

Issue 1 is a retrospective on the career of the Honourable Chief Justice Richard Chartier. It begins with his oral history and features a series of remarks made at his retirement gala, including his own comments and those by fellow jurists, the Honourable Justice Freda Steel of the Manitoba Court of Appeal and former Chief Judge of the Provincial Court (2016-2023), Honourable Judge Margaret I. Wiebe. The issue concludes with a comprehensive analysis of Chief Justice Chartier’s jurisprudence by Court of Appeal researchers, Melanie Bueckert and Michael Rice, and a final word on the jurisprudential developments in civil procedure overseen by the Chief Justice, written by Dr. Gerard Kennedy, a former assistant professor at UM Law, currently an associate professor serving as Associate Dean of Graduate Studies at the University of Alberta Faculty of Law.

The second issue is a continuation of the MLJ’s The Current Legal Landscape series. It deploys a “range of methodologies to address some of the most fundamental issues in our legal system.” Included is an article on access to justice in Manitoba from the legal practitioners’ view by Gerard Kennedy, and UM Faculty of Law’s Director of Access to Justice & Community Engagement, Natasha Brown. The issue continues with an article co-authored by the Honourable Justice Malcolm Rowe of the Supreme Court of Canada on the role of appellate standards of review in the Canadian legal system. Justice Rowe’s article is followed by a word on lawyer incivility in family law by Deanne Sowter, a doctoral candidate at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School. It concludes with an oral history of the Honourable Chief Justice Marianne Rivoalen, the first woman to head the Manitoba judiciary.

Issue 3 is another continued project, this time furthering the Underneath the Golden Boy project on legislative development in UM’s home province. It features two articles from a recent UM Law graduate, Anna Evans-Boudreau [JD/25], on Manitoban sustainable development legislation and the complexities of working within the field of freedom of information or access to information in all three levels of government, the second of which she co-wrote with Kevin Walby, Associate Criminal Justice Professor at the University of Winnipeg. Dalhousie’s Schulich School of Law assistant professor, Andrew Flavelle Martin, also provides two articles in this issue on the public perception of lawyers in public service through the lens of the hit television series, The West Wing, and on legal ethics for government lawyers in light of several provisions in the Law Society of Nunavut’s Code of Professional Conduct that are unique to that province. It concludes with an article from Dr. Ilia Roskoshnyi, a recent Postdoctoral Fellow at UM Law, on artificial intelligence and the future of the legal profession.

Robson Crim is entirely responsible for Issues 4-6 and is edited by Dr. Richard Jochelson, Dean of UM Law, and Associate Professor Brandon Trask. The Issues are comprised of 13 articles on topics ranging from a critique of the Riot Act to the reasonable expectation of privacy in the artificially intelligent surveillance state. Articles are provided by members of the Crown Prosecution services of Manitoba and Ontario, graduates from the Faculties of Law of Western University and University of New Brunswick, and professors from UM, University of Saskatchewan’s College of Law, and Dalhousie’s Schulich School of Law. These contributions, whether by practitioner, student, or professor—as with submissions to all of the MLJ’s dimensions—undergo a rigorous double-blind peer-review process.

The seventh and final issue of Volume 47, written entirely by Alvin Esau, examines the private lives and public careers of the men who carried out capital punishment by hanging in the early 20th Century. Esau’s book follows seven of post-confederation Canada’s hangmen, detailing research that tends to show the pseudo-psychopathy, scandalous lives, and obnoxious personalities linked to the heavily stigmatized profession. It is a unique perspective on the hangmen themselves, rather than those who were hanged, authored by a true scholar in the field of Canadian true crime, which the MLJ is delighted to publish.

As always, the Executive Editors-in-Chief would like to thank the student-editorial teams at the MLJ and its Robson Crim dimension for their tireless work in ensuring Volume 47 is as academically rigorous and useful as ever. Without their exceptional support, this journal would not have been possible.

Thank you to:

The MLJ Student Editors Fall 2024 to Summer 2025

• Avery Alexiuk 
• Andrew Bergen
• Serena Bevilacqua
• Simi Bhangoo
• Steven Csinsca
• Travsis Dech
• Joshua Dondo
• Yomna Eid
• Larissa Einarson
• Siena Mcilwraith-Fraticelli
• Apara Grace
• Kennedee Hills
• Brayden Juras
• Andreas Kastellanos
• Jayden Kyryluk
• Nicholas Ly
• Lauren Martin
• Sebastian Meiers
• Mathew O’Connor
• Heather Peterson
• Vilciya Rajput
• Carter Ross
• Daniel Rosenthal
• AubrieAnn Schettler
• Nawal Semir
• Selene Sharpe
• Vanessa Smith
• Dawn Steliga
• Jordan Wagner

Special thanks goes to Digital Editor, Lily Deardorff, for her coordination of Student Editors and guidance through the production process.

Issues of MLJ Volume 48, are currently becoming available in pre-print, and aims to continue to deliver readable and innovative legal commentary of the highest quality to communities both locally and globally.

The mission of the MLJ, as succinctly explained by Dr. Schwartz, is to bring “world-class scholarship to interests in our community.” This world-class scholarship is evident in the MLJ’s placement among top-ranked journals in Canada, according to Google Scholar citation metrics, and consistent winning of awards in the highly competitive SSHRC program for scholarly journals.

Volume 46 contains the inaugural issue of The Review of Enterprise and Trade Law dimension: “To get TRETL where it is was a massive undertaking,” explained Dr. Schwartz. “It is the culmination of work going back almost twenty-five years. It began with the creation of the Asper Review of International Business and Trade Law, which on its own became one of the top-ranked journals in Canada. Over the years, the Asper Chair collaborated with the Desautels Chair on projects such as our franchise law conference and book, which had a significant impact on the legislation here in Manitoba. With TRETL, we now have a combined effort of the two chairs to produce a regular publication reflecting the mandate of both. A further synergy has been achieved by fully integrating this journal into our thriving MLJ program.”

Readers of Volume 46 will find several issues forming part of the journal’s Underneath the Golden Boy dimension, which is concerned with legislation and public policy. Issues 1 and 3 are the first two of a trilogy focussing on our legal system in times of crisis: Issue 1, Canada’s Emergencies Act: Beyond the Rouleau Report, deals with the Emergencies Act and the controversy surrounding its use while Issue 3, Online Dispute Resolution: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic, looks at the recent health crisis through both academic articles and oral-history interviews with local lawyers. The third and final issue of this trilogy, yet to be released, will focus on the perspectives of leading lawmakers and political figures in Manitoba in relation to the COVID crisis. Issue 2 steps away from the crisis lens and broadly reviews general developments in public policy and administration.

The three criminal law issues edited by Dr. Richard Jochelson and Assistant Professor Brandon Trask – 4, 5, and 6 – published under the Robson Crim dimension of MLJ, are wide-ranging. They include articles on wrongful convictions, legislative measures targeting proceeds of crime (even maple syrup), and incarcerees’ access to healthcare. These contributions, as with all of MLJ’s dimensions, are authored by students, faculty, and practicing professionals, and undergo a rigorous double-blind peer-review process.

This dimensions-based approach allows the MLJ to focus on local issues through clear and specific lenses, while leaving the door open to national or international discussion of important fields more inherently (inter)national in scope.

The Executive Editors-in-Chief would like to thank the student-editorial teams at the MLJ and its Robson Crim dimension for their hard work in bringing this volume to fruition. As put by Professor MacPherson, “We congratulate and thank all the students for the time that went into getting this entire issue out the door. We really believe our readers will find something within its pages that is both academically rigorous and useful.”

Thank you to:

MLJ Student Editors

Selene Sharp

Vicky Liu

Apara Grace

AubrieAnn Schettler

Avery Alexiuk

Brayden Juras

Brent Tichon

Diana Gutierrez

Heather Peterson

Joshua Dondo

Steven Csincsa

Vilciya Rajput

All of the editors – both faculty and students – would like to thank Lily Deardorff, MLJs Digital Editor, for her co-ordinating efforts, guidance, and persistent positivity.

With Volume 47 already beginning pre-print, the MLJ is poised to continue delivering cutting-edge, readable, and independent legal commentary.

The torch of the Desautels Review was passed from former Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Virginia Torrie, to the MLJ’s Co-Editors-in-Chief Dr. Bryan Schwartz and Professor Darcy MacPherson. The excellent work done through Desautels by Dr. Torrie’s team has been invaluable and provides a strong foundation for TRETL, as does the Asper Review’s reputation as a leading publication in the realm of international business and trade law. The range of papers included in this issue set the stage for the many issues yet to be covered.

Photo credit: Joey Senft on Unsplash.

Contributors Sarah Richardson and Virginia Torrie each take different looks at an integral aspect of life, business, and economic trade in Manitoba: modern farming. Their respective articles are literally “barn burners” with Richardson raising a discussion of the regulatory and legal protections – or lack thereof – afforded to farmers and their livestock facing the very real issue of barn fires. Torrie looks back almost a century to the Great Depression and its impact on prairie farmers through the ensuing enactment of the Farmers’ Creditors Arrangement Act. Her article takes an empirical look at FCAA applications and whether this program has kept “the farmer on the farm” as it aimed to.

Darcy MacPherson discusses the remediation-agreement regime and the scandal within the SNC-Lavalin Affair. He asks whether said regime does enough to provide appropriate legal guidance to executive actors, and should a Prime Minister dancing the “Cabinet Shuffle” undermine decisions made by the previous Attorney General. MacPherson finishes by outlining concerns in the organization and wording of Subsection 715.32(2), and its reliance on “one-way factors.”

Joel Badali focusses on employment law in First Nations communities, the uneven application of Wilson v. Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, and the principle therein that First Nations employers ought to be held to Provincial employment standards in all but specific cases. He looks to instances of inconstant application (i.e. in schools and Human Rights regimes), the effects that the competing jurisdictions would have, and argues for a more consistent application of Provincial jurisdiction.

Bradley Bryan also looks to Indigenous issues, specifically the constraints placed on Indigenous governments & Indigenous economic development corporations by limited partnership law. He outlines how inconsistent interpretation of legal rights and responsibilities between limited partnerships, limited partners, and Indigenous governing bodies has led to difficulties for Indigenous governments hoping to use limited partnerships for investments while protecting themselves from liability. Bryan illustrates through the lens of recent cases how this is currently hindering reconciliation and efforts at “inclusion without assimilation.”

Martin-Joe Ezeudo’s case comment on Ontario’s Libfeld v. Libfeld picks apart the convoluted web of business instruments and relationship/relational breakdowns over a multi-generational development empire, in order to explore the merit of the decision. The Ontario Superior Court of Justice was tasked with fairly untangling the four remaining brothers’ assets, “winding-up” an unusually structured partnership – one littered with corporate holdings, about 350 purpose-built corporate entities, and worth between $2.5-$4 billion.

Finally in a notable collaboration between professor and student, MacPherson and recent law graduate, Matthew London [JD/2024] offer a review of John Carreyrou’s book, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies Inside a Silicon Valley Start-Up, a tale of the rise and fall of Theranos Inc. and its founder Elizabeth Holmes. This review provides a substantive summary of the work, as well as critical and theoretical insight to legal principles not fully delved into by this piece of popular literature, and why it should matter to a Canadian audience. For anybody who followed the Theranos scandal, this review is a must-read.

Read the MLJ’s Volume 46, Issue 7, The Review of Enterprise and Trade Law (2024) online on the Manitoba Law Journalwebsite.

Volume 46, Issue 3, Online Dispute Resolution: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic, is part oral history, part academic exploration of ODR. The issue begins with an introductory word from Darcy MacPherson, reminding us that, though many of us would have rather not hit “pause,” or seen the programming of our daily lives change, crisis is, and was, an opportunity for positive change through adaptation and recognition of our shared needs.

The first article sets the stage for the issue by diving into the possibility of developing a more rigorous, post-COVID system of ODR in Manitoba, one bringing together existing and novel applications of ODR, drawn from across Canada and the UK, into a comprehensive whole. The next piece, co-authored by our Faculty’s Dean Richard Jochelson, now-Judge David Ireland, and Brandon Trask et al peers into the possibility of developing a system of virtual jury trials – they take an empirical look, through news-media articles, at Canada’s courts’ reactions to, and concerns with, resuming jury trials during the pandemic.

The oral histories – interviews with some of Winnipeg’s leaders in collaborative family, child protection, civil, administrative, labour and employment law, mediation, arbitration, and legislation – make up the bulk of this special issue. The stories they tell, and lessons they provide, are both insightful and entertaining, full of both skillful flourishes and the occasional faux pas.

Kris Saxberg touches on everything under the civil-law sun, from child protection and the needs of Indigenous communities relative to current tech systems, to administrative law, to many Canadians’ favorite comedy trio, “The Trailer Park Boys,” and the “right” to smoke and drink in (virtual) court. Greg Evans digs into the collaborative potential of a family law practice, the “perfect” Family Law class (it involves people yelling on the phone), practice management and competency in the tech era, and the positives and pitfalls of access to online legal services.

Cynthia Lazar shares her seasoned perspective on virtual negotiations and collective bargaining, the pitfalls of virtual testimony, and how to elicit that sweet “Legally Blonde” gotcha-moment, while Pamela Leech and Dr. Schwartz discuss the bane of many a practitioner or professor’s career – screen share – as well as post-COVID technology they would like to see stick around.

Deputy Minister Dave Wright closes out the issue with a birds-eye view of the pandemic and how justice technology has or hasn’t advanced (and jealousy of B.C.), how crisis forced long-awaited reform, and the challenges that endure into the present. All of these perspectives, proposals, and anecdotes come together to provide a snapshot of a moment in legal history that was unprecedented in the modern era, but that might form a valuable precedent moving forward, helping us, our clients, and our educators adapt, overcome, and ultimately thrive in the at-times-questionable circumstances we find ourselves.

There are as many, if not more dimensions of Schwartz as there are of The Manitoba Law Journal, the peer-reviewed academic legal research periodical he currently co-edits with his University of Manitoba Faculty of Law colleague, Professor Darcy MacPherson. Since taking the helm 14 years ago as editor of the 139-year-old journal, Schwartz adapted the need for including different areas of legal research by creating “dimensions.” These include annual issues covering criminal law, Indigenous law, legislation and public policy, latest developments in courts and tribunals, special issues on past, present, and future aspects of the Manitoba legal profession, and most recently, international business and trade law.

This last dimension is the result of the 25-year-old Asper Review of International Business and Trade Law merging with a newly developed journal on private enterprise that stemmed from a former colleague’s project at the Faculty of Law’s Marcel A. Desautels Centre for Private Enterprise and the Law.

In total, Schwartz’s involvement with the MLJ has resulted in him being responsible for the production of over forty of the journal’s volumes.

Academic

The MLJ produces more articles every year than any other law journal in Canada (see Visualizing the Landscape of Canadian Law School Journals – Slaw). The quality of the MLJ has been recognized by the repeated funding awards it has achieved in the highly prestigious and competitive Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Aid to Scholarly Journals program.

In the 43 years that Schwartz has been on faculty at Robson Hall, a concrete edifice that houses Manitoba’s law school, he has taught many more different dimensions of legal practice ranging from Labour law to Oral History, Indigenous Peoples and the Law, to Legislative Process and International Trade, Internet, and E-Commerce law. He has practiced law at Winnipeg firm Pitblado Law for decades, and holds two graduate law degrees from Yale University.

Renaissance Scholar

Having already authored, edited or contributed to a vast body of work, the latest quintet demonstrate how Schwartz is widening the dimensions of his writings to include his Jewish roots and to incorporate all that he has studied and learned about the legislative process and the inner workings of government in Canada. Jewish Post News reporter, Myron Love describes Schwartz as “the very model of a modern-day Jewish Renaissance scholar,” being a “legal educator, passionate Zionist, and student of the Holocaust as an in-demand commentator on modern legal and constitutional issues”. Here is a look at the latest additions to Schwartz’s bibliography.

The Passover Seder: It’s About Time – 104 dimensions of Time during Passover (e-book), April, 2024

Inviting readers to re-examine Passover from a fresh perspective, Schwartz wrote in The Times of Israel, “My aspiration would be for the book, in some form or the other, to become a familiar companion to the Haggadah as we re-experience Passover every year, For some readers, it might help to make everything old seem new again.”

The book is available to read on his website The Sacred Goof, named after his second collection of musical compositions published in illustrated book form along with a studio-produced album containing twenty-four songs.

The Sacred Goof (book and CD) with Maren Amini, illustrations, 2023

Music, songwriting and humour are further dimensions of Schwartz’s creative life. The Sacred Goof, published both as a CD and lyric book illustrated by Maren Amini, is a follow-up to his first musical production Consoulation. The former, which Schwartz successfully produced as a stage musical in 2018, is about “why we need to sing,” while The Sacred Goof is about “how we can still laugh.”

Read more about Consoulation:
“Not your ordinary law professor,” April 23, 2018, UM Today News
“Consoulation: A Musical Meditation,” Bryan P. Schwartz website

Re-Enlightening Canada (book) Frontier Centre for Public Policy (November, 2023)

In Re-Enlightening Canada: A Legislative Program for Promoting Open, Democratic and Rational Policymaking, Schwartz appeals to “reasonable people across the political spectrum” to respond moderately and practically in the face of “the ideological excesses of our time” as the book description explains.

Schwartz discussed the book at an event held on November 30, 2023 at Berney Theatre at the Asper Jewish Campus with moderator, Dr. Ruth Ashrai. Watch the video titled: Bryan Schwartz – Re-Enlightening Canada on Youtube (chat starts at 09:40).

Read a review of the book by Gary Slywchuk, titled “New Book a Battle Cry Against the Silencing of Democracy,” published on West Central Crossroads, January 8, 2024. Slywchuk writes, “As we grapple with expanding government repression, identity politics, and diminishing policy effectiveness in today’s Canada, Schwartz’s work is a timely and indispensable resource. It serves as a clarion call to legislators, policymakers, and university administrators to seek common ground and nurture deeper understanding, guiding Canada toward a more prosperous and relevant future.”

Online Dispute Resolution: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic The Manitoba Law Journal Volume 46, Issue 3 (2024)

In addition to being Co-Editor-in-Chief of The Manitoba Law Journal, Schwartz co-conducted five of the six interviews published in this special issue of The Manitoba Law Journal that focusses on what legal practice looked like and how it adapted throughout the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Together with law students participating in his scholarly publications course, Schwartz interviewed legal practitioners Kris Saxberg, Greg Evans, Cynthia Lazar, and Pamela Leech. Finally, he co-wrote for the issue, a paper examining new initiatives to enhance Online Dispute Resolution in Manitoba. The entire volume is available to read on The Manitoba Law Journal website.

Humanity in Doubt: Reflections and Essays by Philip Weiss (Second Edition) edited by Bryan Schwartz, Eliana Schwartz, and John Richthammer (2023)

Finally, Schwartz co-edited the second edition of his father-in-law Philip Weiss’s writings, Humanity in Doubt: Reflections and Essays. A survivor of the Holocaust, Weiss’s writings bear personal witness to the devastation of this terrible event. Weiss was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of Winnipeg in 2003 in recognition of his contributions to Holocaust education in Manitoba. He passed away in 2008, and the second edition of his writings includes his Eulogy, delivered by Schwartz.

In addition to these five volumes, Schwartz has continued to publish a series of blogs in The Times of Israel, including the “Esther Trilogy” (“Esther? The Politics: The book explores all options…but one,” “Esther: the creator and the Creator,” and “Esther! The Musical: How the sounds match the words.” These three articles were republished in The Winnipeg Jewish Review on March 24, 2024 under the title, “Bryan Schwartz on How the Purim Story is Much too Relevant Today.” 

Learn more about Dr. Bryan Schwartz’s work:

• The Manitoba Law Journal (An Open-Access and Peer-Reviewed Journal about Law in Manitoba and Beyond.)
• Bryan P. Schwartz (The official website for Dr. Bryan P. Schwartz, K.C. scholarly activities.)
• The Sacred Goof (Listen to musical albums The Sacred Goof and Consoulation for free.) 

This project was conceived by Dr. Nomi Claire Lazar (Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa) and Dr. Jocelyn Stacey (Associate Professor, Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia) and an international consortium of scholars consisting of 15 key contributors across Canada and the United States.  The MLJ’s Digital Editor, Lily Deardoff, has provided an original cover design to reflect the nature of the publication and the issues involved. The faculty and student editors at the MLJ have worked for many months to assist with completing the peer-review process and the detailed copy-editing of the material, to ensure the publication meets the highest professional standards.

The MLJ is committed to encouraging and publishing independent and high calibre commentary on current developments in law and society. The Emergencies Act issue is part of a trilogy of MLJ special issues relating to how Canada’s legal system reacts to times of crisis. The next issue, edited by Schwartz and MacPherson, will focus on how the legal system in Manitoba moved towards online dispute resolution in the COVID context. The third issue will contain a series of oral histories by senior lawmakers in Manitoba about how the COVID crisis was managed as a whole.

The current issue is being released electronically and is immediately available on the Manitoba Law Journal website, and also through a wide variety of free, public access channels, including the University of Alberta open access system and CanLII.  The MLJ is also available through commercial outlets including Westlaw, Lexis and Hein Online. Print-on-demand as well as download versions of the current volume will be available at Amazon.com.

Later this fall, Lazar and Stacey will make hardcopies of Volume 46(1) available to key decision-makers in the field. This issue will be published at a pivotal moment in Canadian history. With the House of Commons reconvening and the Prime Minister’s response to the Rouleau report imminent, the topics addressed in the issue will be critical reading for academic and government researchers and representatives.

The MLJ strives to be a forum for lively, independent and scholarly content for legal issues that are of interest to Manitobans and the Canadian public generally.  The MLJ has served the communities of Manitoba for over six decades, and in recent years become the most prolific law journal in Canada. In the past decade, it has won three Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) awards that reflect its high quality. This year, the MLJ has entered the top echelon in Canada on Google Scholar rankings for law journals, and its content is frequently cited in court decisions as well as other academic journals.

The Executive Editors welcome visitors to the MLJ website, to explore the many latest additions to its publishing program along with this important new release on the Emergencies Act.

For information and inquiries, including media interviews,  please contact bryan.schwartz@umanitoba.ca.

The new volume features six issues that include no less than three Criminal Law special issues edited by the Robson Crim research group; the annual Underneath the Golden Boy and Asper Review of International Business and Trade Law; and the inaugural issue of the Desautels Review of Private Enterprise and the Law.

Schwartz explained that since 2010, the MLJ has established a unique place among Canadian law journals by re-focusing on being relevant to its own community within Manitoba, including Indigenous communities, students and teachers at Robson Hall, and the Manitoba legal community.

“Everything we do is within the mission of “we serve our communities,” said Schwartz. “We are innovators in the way we do that, including our research projects involving oral histories. We have shown that you can be relevant to your own society while at the same time, meet the highest scholarly standards.”

Upon first learning of the success of the journal’s third SSHRC application, Schwartz pointed to the quality of the journal. “We have a demanding editorial process,” he said. “Our material must pass two tiers of review: that of the faculty editors and external peer review. Having three successive SSHRC juries decide to give us this grant helps to confirm that the overall quality of our work is at least very good.”

Receiving a SSHRC for the third time indicates to Schwartz that the MLJ, while coming from a small law school and a small community, can still compete at a national and international level. “It suggests that theory and practice can reinforce each other in academic work, rather than being at odds,” Schwartz observed.  “We can address real-world events of interest to our own to a high standard in a way that involves a high level of critical reflection. It also shows that life of an academic community can be about colleagues supporting each other while maintaining the highest respect for genuine intellectual diversity.”

Canadian Association of Law Libraries member, Hannah Steeves, the Instruction and Reference Librarian at the Sir James Dunn Law Library at Dalhousie University in Halifax, recently published an article on “Visualizing the Landscape of Canadian Law School Journals” on Slaw.ca, April 6, 2022 in which Steeves identified the MLJ as publishing the highest volume of articles per year. This study, Schwartz said, cements the MLJ’s reputation as the most prolific.

The MLJ aims to bring diverse and multidisciplinary perspectives to the issues it studies, drawing on authors from Manitoba, Canada and beyond. Its studies are intended to contribute to understanding and reform not only in our community, but around the world.

The MLJ has multiple dimensions, each with its own regular special issues. These include:

• The Current Legal Landscape: developments in courts and tribunals
• Underneath the Golden Boy: developments in legislation and on parliamentary and democratic reform
• Criminal Law and Practice, and the social dimensions of criminal law
• The Legal Profession, including histories of major developments and figures in Manitoba law, and the rapid evolution of legal practice
• Indigenous Law
• Desautel Review: developments in business and private enterprise law
• Asper Review: developments in international and trade law

The MLJ is funded by the SSHRC grants in aid of scholarly publications, with additional support from the Legal Research Institute of the University of Manitoba, the Faculty of Law Endowment fund.

The issues of Volume 45 are now available to read on the MLJ website at themanitobalawjournal.com.

Each August, law students who fill out the University of Manitoba’s general bursary application form through their Aurora Student accounts (the deadline for which is October 1), are automatically considered for the Butch Nepon Memorial Bursary. The Terms of Reference for the Bursary state that to be eligible, law students must be registered for and complete at least 60 per cent of a full course load over the regular academic season in both Fall and Winter terms. Continuing University of Manitoba students must earn at least a 2.0 GPA. Financial need must be clearly documented on the application.

Currently valued at over $1.8 million, the Bursary has supported a significant number of law students each year since it started disbursing support to students in 2006. To date, nearly $900,000 has helped law students get through their studies. The story of Nepon’s legacy at the Faculty of Law as both a former student and professor is one that should not be forgotten.

“Brilliant” was a word frequently used to describe Nepon by his professors, colleagues and students. In an interview in the Manitoba Law Journal’s special issue on The Great Transition in Legal Education in Manitoba(39:1), Professor Emeritus Cameron Harvey, who started teaching at the Faculty in 1966, remembered Nepon as a student in his Administrative Law class, which Nepon later taught himself, along with Constitutional Law. Harvey described his former student as “the most brilliant law student I have ever taught” (at page 114).

“He did not participate in class, but he would get to the exam, start writing, and write continuously for the whole exam,” Harvey recalled. “The remarkable thing was: he would not only answer the question in terms of the law, he would answer the question in terms of sociology, or political science, or whatever other area may be involved in the answer. It would be a complete answer and it all just came flowing out of his head. He never thought about it, never made any notes. He never had to structure an answer. It was just a stunningly amazing performance.”

News clipping of Butch Nepon winning Viscount Bennett Award.

This brilliance as a student garnered many awards for Nepon, who won 15 prizes throughout his law school career, and was a top student in each of his three years at the Faculty of Law. His proud family had a notice regarding a particular achievement of his published in a local newspaper. It was June of 1967, and Nepon had just won the Canadian Bar Association’s $5,000 Viscount Bennett Scholarship. According to the announcement, this was the first time the entire amount was awarded to one student, whereas in previous years, it was divided between two different graduating law students. The news story also reports that Nepon was the Gold Medalist for Law in his year, and that he had won so many awards that he actually had to surrender two of them. Finally, the story reveals that Nepon was articling at the law firm of Walsh, Micay & Co., and would use the CBA scholarship to pursue post-graduate Law studies at Yale University.

That he did, was then called to the Manitoba bar in 1968, and returned to Manitoba to teach at the Faculty of Law in 1969 where he remained as a professor until his untimely passing in 1998.

When they became colleagues on the Faculty, Harvey described Nepon as a creative thinker. “He would come into my office and run things by me and I would just marvel. It is like watching a hockey player or a soccer player doing something and you think, “How the hell did he do that?” He did not even want any feedback; he just wanted someone to bounce ideas off of.”

You could fool Butch Nepon none of the time. He could see through pretentiousness and cant no matter how artfully disguised.  His stories and quips were his way of turning the pain of awareness – including self-awareness – into transcendent moments of joy. – Dr. Bryan Schwartz, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Manitoba

Dr. Bryan Schwartz was a young professor on his first teaching job with a PhD fresh from Yale University when he joined the Faculty of Law in 1981 and met Nepon for the first time. They hit it off from the start and formed a close bond that lasted until Nepon’s death. What stayed with Schwartz for years was the memory of Butch’s phenomenal sense of humour.  “It was sardonic and absurdist,” said Schwartz. “Think Groucho Marx with a Yale law degree. Butch shared it with his students, but above all, with his closest friend. You could fool Butch Nepon none of the time. He could see through pretentiousness and cant no matter how artfully disguised.  His stories and quips were his way of turning the pain of awareness – including self-awareness – into transcendent moments of joy.”

In addition to being a talented singer who loved an audience and did musical theatre in university, Nepon had many talents in both the classroom and courtroom, Schwartz pointed out. “[H]e not only made meritorious contributions to each of academic teaching and practice, but brought the best of each world to the other,” said Schwartz. “His teaching [was] informed and enriched by his extensive practical experience; and his academic reflection and skill at conveying his ideas enabled him to make crucial contributions to some of the most important public law cases in the modern history of Manitoba.”

1987 yearbook photo of Butch Nepon as a law professor.

Schwartz revealed that as a student, awards Nepon won, in addition to the Gold Medal and the CBA award, included the Alexander Morris Exhibition and the Law Society’s Margaret Hypathia Crawford Award. Schwartz clarified that while Nepon practiced law with Walsh Micay after being called to the bar in 1968, he began teaching full-time in 1970. “He established an exceptional record of teaching excellence, longevity and breadth of subject matters in the public law area,” said Schwartz. “It is not an exaggeration to say that most of the practising bar benefitted from his public law teaching. His teaching [was] marked by both academic sharpness and an intense sense of practicality; he always encouraged students to consider the doctrinal subtleties of the issue in the context of helping a real client with a real problem.”

Schwartz described the many public law cases in which Nepon played an important role in the preparation and presentation of arguments, many of which went before the Supreme Court of Canada and the Manitoba Court of Appeal, which had lasting impact on Canadian public law. Some SCC cases he worked on included language rights and hunting, fishing and trapping rights of Indigenous peoples.

Nepon was a frequent legal consultant to the Government of Manitoba, and acted pro bono as a resource for Legal Aid Manitoba’s Public Interest Law Centre. Specifically, he contributed to making new law concerning minority language rights and procedure in public inquiries in the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry.

Finally, Schwartz described Nepon as “a teacher and practitioner whose intellect, learning, integrity and kindness [were] widely known and appreciated.”

When Nepon’s brother-in-law, Sidney Halpern, who was married to Butch’s sister Esther, recently went through family files, he was struck by how focused they were on the Indian Act and Métis land claims matters.

“He was brilliant,” said Halpern in an email to University of Manitoba staff. “He had health issues which led to [his] premature passing and he felt so grateful to the Faculty of Law for enabling his functioning with the health issues and to his students who helped him lead a truly meaningful life. They were his family support.”

Among his students, Nepon was known as “The Chocolate Professor”, and was fondly remembered for handing out chocolate bars during exams to give them an “energy boost.” His family described him as an “innately gentle, kind man who loved people.”

Nepon loved teaching and the faculty so much that he wanted to continue supporting them after he was gone. He did so by donating a substantial gift to the University of Manitoba to create the Butch Nepon Memorial Bursary. This bursary has allowed students the financial support to pursue a degree in the Faculty of Law for more than 20 years, and will continue to do so for many more years to come.

UM is saddened to learn of the recent passing of Esther Halpern, Butch Nepon’s sister. Gifts made in memory of Butch or Esther to the Butch Nepon Memorial Bursary will benefit students in the Faculty of Law in perpetuity.

“Indigenous Oral History is absolutely essential in order to understand the past and to help move forward towards reconciliation. It is culturally and spiritually important,” said Schwartz.

The University of Manitoba’s Dean of the Faculty of Law, Dr. Richard Jochelson said, “It is wonderful to see this resource made available and it will surely enrich the pedagogy of anyone who teaches in the area.”

Improving and contributing to the pedagogy of oral history was a hope of Schwartz’s when he first developed the course after receiving a grant from the University of Manitoba’s Indigenous Initiatives Fund. The course has now been delivered twice in-person and once online during COVID closures. Student feedback and ratings have been consistently positive, with remarks addressing the essential need for such a course to be a part of the law school curriculum.

“The course should be a mandatory requirement to graduate from law school because it is one of the few courses that goes to the heart of the issues Indigenous people had to overcome and continue to work for in terms of reconciliation,” a student noted in one review.

Other participants in the course were emphatic about the essential usefulness of the course to all law students. “This was a remarkable course – it was a very useful and necessary one,” said one student, who appreciated the practical implications and take-aways of learning about using oral history as witness testimony, and the importance of taking part in the course’s oral history workshop.

“Finding ways and protocols for Indigenous oral history to be presented and respected in Canadian common-law courts is essential for reconciliation efforts,” said Marc Kruse, Indigenous Student Support Coordinator for the Faculty of Law, and an expert in the Indigenization of post-secondary curricula. “The process of admitting oral evidence is a topic of importance for all law students on Turtle Island and this text is a primer to start these discussions.”

The text itself is the culmination of five to six years of work, hundreds of hours of reviewing books and articles, and studying oral history, Schwartz said. “Indigenization of the curriculum is a top priority for both the University of Manitoba and the law school,” he explained. “Oral history is absolutely essential to the development of the law concerning both the Canadian constitution and Indigenous peoples, and to the autonomous development of Indigenous legal systems by communities themselves.”

The Reader is organized in eight parts, each of which sets out a framework for learning about oral law and culture. Precedent-setting case law is intermingled with important research collected from various peer-reviewed journals explaining fundamentals about oral history as evidence and how it has been used in Canadian law. Historical and critical perspectives, anthropological and other forms of evidence are all examined, and a background in biblical, African and Homeric oral history and tradition are also set out. Finally, modern inquiries and initiatives including the inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation are explored.

While developing the course, Schwartz consulted extensively with Joan Jack, a practicing lawyer based in Berens River, and expert in cross-cultural training. Jack, who is Aanishinaabe Ikwe from Berens River First Nation, delivered the introductory lecture for the course during its inaugural year. She holds a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Manitoba and a law degree from the University of British Columbia, and has continued to be a valuable partner in developing the course. A recording of Jack’s first lecture is available to view on the Faculty of Law’s YouTube channel.

Schwartz’ own prior practical experience with oral history includes appearing, on behalf of the Assembly of First Nations, in a number of cases at the Supreme Court of Canada involving oral history and also serving on behalf of the AFN on the federal-First Nations working group that helped produce the Specific Claims Tribunal Act.  His latest work is the fifth book-length piece he has released as an academic (as either an author or editor) in the area of Indigenous legal studies in a career that has included over three hundred publications in all. 

“Students who take the course obtain a solid background in not only Indigenous oral history, but the practice and ethics of oral history generally,” said Schwartz, explaining that participating students receive a certificate in an oral history workshop that is part of the course and delivered by Kimberly Moore, from the oral history program at the University of Winnipeg.

“Students who receive this overall education and training are better equipped to take other Indigenous courses, and to participate in the oral history projects that are a major facet of the Manitoba Law Journal,” said Schwartz, co-editor in chief of the MLJ, which also recently published a special volume on Indigenous Jurists and Policy-Makers from Manitoba: A Collection of Oral Histories (MLJ Vol. 41(2), 2018).

“Learning about Indigenous law and culture should be a dimension of our programming that is experienced widely and, in an environment where it is not seen as a niche learning area, but rather as an integral part of our overall program which all students see as a positive part of their growth,” said Schwartz.

“It’s typical of the kind of synergies we’re always trying to achieve among the teaching, research and service we provide to our communities,” he said. “As international business is increasingly e-commerce, we added a course in that area to our regular Asper Chair rotation of courses at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Law. We can now use the new book as a tool to help teach it.”

Several years ago at the Asper Chair’s annual IntLaw Conference, Schwartz gave a talk on the topic of cybersecurity in the aftermath of an incident where large Toronto firms had been subject to offshore cyber-attacks. Subsequently, with the help of three law students, he set about producing this guidebook.

“One of my inspirations was the American Bar Association’s Cybsecurity Handbook,” Schwartz explained.  “I thought something comparable would be useful to our practising legal community here in Canada.” 

The guidebook has been released as a special issue of the Asper Review (Volume 21) and will be available in e-book and print format in a variety of open-access or print-on-demand forums, including Amazon.ca.

Volume 20 of the Asper Review was also released last week, and includes an in-depth study on the drivers of secession movements in modern times titled “Revolt of the Rich: How Economic Considerations Influence Separatism in the Age of the Supranational Union.” Co-authored by Schwartz with Éamonn Carroll and Kulvinder Samrai, the article proposes some high-level ideas and tries to prove them through a detailed study of dozens of secession movements. “One idea is that separatist movements have to be viewed in the context of the whole hierarchy of organizations from local government to states within a union to countries to regional organization and global organizations,” Schwartz explained. “Another might be surprising – that separatist movements are largely driven by business and trade factors, not only ethnic tension.”

They are often “revolts of the rich,” he said, “efforts by relatively more prosperous parts of a country to escape what they see as heavy-handed measures by a central government to redistribute their wealth to other parts of the country or otherwise overregulate.”

Schwartz hopes the ideas presented in the piece will have global application. “In some interviews, I have used these ideas to discuss events in Canada, like the re-emergence of a separatism movement in Alberta,” he said.

Both these new volumes of the Asper Review come as Schwartz wraps up co-teaching the annual Asper International Program on Israeli Law and Society, which normally provides Canadian students with the opportunity to visit Israel and attend classes at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  “Our focus had been on the legal and  business dimensions of the emergence of Israel as the Start-Up Nation – a hub of high-tech start up enterprises,” said Schwartz. “The last two years, due to COVID, we shifted the emphasis to “Decision Making in Times of Crisis.”

Despite the necessary changes to the program, almost two dozen law school students from Robson Hall participated.