The Lawyers Weekly - August 6, 2010

required to book a matter by
approximately 50 per cent.”
Although admitting that
members of the ministry’s Court
Services Division had met with
representatives of Court Canada
to explore whether OSCAR could
usefully be deployed to Motions
courts, they had warned that if
scheduling required the same
double-entry problem the system
would not work.
“In any event, the [December]
agreement with Court Canada
was limited to the potential use
of OSCAR at 393 and 330 Uni-
versity Avenue courts.”
The ministry said that if Courts
Canada had expended funds in
anticipation of OSCAR’s deploy-
ment “it did so without any direc-
tion from Ontario at a time when
it was well aware of the terms of
the Agreement with Ontario.”
As for the allegations that the
ministry was interfering with
OSCAR’s operations, the state-
ment said that while court staff
since April have stopped double-
booking FRANK data on
OSCAR, “all persons wishing to
book on OSCAR were able to
continue to do so and schedules
containing these matters were
published. No matters booked on
OSCAR were deleted.”
Plaintiff’s counsel Martin Tep-
litsky of Toronto’s Teplitsky Col-
son LLP told The Lawyers Weekly
he sees the ultimate province-
wide deployment of OSCAR as “a
win-win situation for everyone”
that would reduce the workload
of ministry staff.

Selick
Continued From Page 5

But how ridiculous is that? Of course Canadians should have the liberty to make such decisions for themselves. If we can’t be trusted with the responsibility for minutiae like that, why should we be considered competent to handle the grand, important issues? How will we ever acquire the necessary wisdom and character for important decisions if we can’t practise on the small stuff?

And if the average citizen can’t be trusted to govern himself on such issues, what quali-fies our elected representatives to govern the entire populace on them? Does winning an election bestow instant infallibility upon a politician who the day before was deemed too stupid to determine his own hairstyle?

Perhaps it was inconceivable,
back in the late 1980s, that any-
one would ever try to legislate
men’s ponytails or women’s sun-
tans. Canadians had hitherto
enjoyed such bountiful personal
liberty that we took it for
granted. A quarter century has
stealthily changed all that.
Regulations now encroach per-
vasively on every sphere of
human activity. Many newcom-
ers to Canada hail from places
where it is taken for granted
that the state will legislate hair-
styles and suntans.

Karen Selick is the litigation
director for the Canadian Con-
stitution Foundation.

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