Leonid Sirota
Legal academic; mostly Canadian and comparative public law. Associate Professor @unirdg-law.bsky.social; Senior Fellow, Macdonald Laurier Institute; blogger, doubleaspect.blog
- This is what the Elections Canada results page looks like at the moment. I do not think they should be highlighting a "winner", let alone a "winner" who falls short of a majority. This is a judgment for Parliament, not for the people counting the votes.
- Your periodic reminder that there is no duty to vote: macdonaldlaurier.ca/prioritizing.... Don't reward people who haven't earned it.
- Why would anyone compare two populist blowhards with a three-year-old's understanding of economics, fondness for foreign dictators, and hatred towards minorities? It's a mystery!
- As often, a mix of interesting constitutional law observations and rather puzzling claims (the comparison between Trump and Corbyn) by @doubleaspect.blog
- ICYMI: The UK shed Boris Johnson and Liz Truss with comparative ease, which the US seems unable to do to Donald Trump. Does that mean the British constitution is better than its American counterpart? doubleaspect.blog/2025/04/22/w...
- New post by @markpmancini.bsky.social on the importance of procedure and legal orderliness. doubleaspect.blog/2025/04/22/f...
- New post: a response to @lordnortonlouth.bsky.social's discusson of the constitutional differences between the UK and the US and their role in countering obnoxious leadership.
- The anecdotes will differ, but the underlying message is one that Canadians need to take onboard, especially if the Liberal government wins re-election.
- There has been a failure of introspection on the left—a failure to understand why so many Democrat-run states and cities have become how-not-to case studies, Jesse Singal writes: thedispatch.com/article/demo...
- From the two-things-can-be-true-at-once series: 1) The SCC's decison striking down the law allowing for effectively no-parole life sentences was rubbish (see: doubleaspect.blog/2022/06/08/u...); 2) The notwithstanding clause should *never* be used (see e.g. doubleaspect.blog/2017/05/10/c...).
- New post: welcoming a new a crop of legal/connstitutional blogs, in Canada and elsewhere. (With shoutouts notably to @plagasse.bsky.social, @vanessamacdonnell.bsky.social, @emmettmacfarlane.com, and @mathieucarpentier.bsky.social!)
- New post: on the reasons for having due process, including for law-breakers.
- Summum bonum est!
- I'm delighted that my new article "In Praise of Common Good Constitutionalism: the Case for the Vermeulean Executive" has now been published in the Annals of the Academia Aquinensis of Budapest. Full text available here: tinyurl.com/2ean3xwn
- Please don't crucify me for my typos. Can we have due process (i.e. an edit function) please?
- As I have written (doubleaspect.blog/2025/03/24/v...) this is Gaius Verres crucifyinig Roman citizens. But Verres had the decency (or at least self-interest) to run away when exposed. His spiritual heirs just tell the praetor and sneer. As Cicero said on another occasion, O tempora! O mores! 1/2
- As I have written (doubleaspect.blog/2025/03/24/v...) this is Gaius Verres crucifyinig Roman citizens. But Verres had the decency (or at least self-interest) to run away when exposed. His spiritual heirs just tell the praetor and sneer. As Cicero said on another occasion, O tempora! O mores! 1/2
- AUT is where I used to work. Professor Quince was, briefly, my dean. I am lucky not to be there anymore, and sorry for anyone trying to do good work under this sort of "leadership".
- The grotesque Henry VIII powers the BC government tried to grab under the guise of fighting back against Donald Trump are withdrawn... for now at least. ICYMI, here's what @markpmancini.bsky.social and I wrote about it: nationalpost.com/opinion/opin...
- More clarification on Bill 7: - Part 4 is being severed from the bill - The rest of Bill 7 will proceed - Another bill with modified powers outlined in Part 4 will eventually be introduced "It's unlikely that we'll be able to introduce anything before the end of the session," Eby says #bcpoli
- ICYMI: Cicero understood the importance of procedural safeguards; the people who claim to be the heirs to the classical natural law tradition today are content to make specious excuses for their destruction.
- New post: of course due process isn't an end in itself, but purporting to call attention to this in order in order to condone lawlessness is something that legal classics warned us against.
- Apropos of, oh nothing I guess, your periodic reminder that you don't have to vote. I'm not quite calling for abstention (though most people would in fact do everyone a favour by abstaining), but I do want to encourage you to think about whether anyone has actually deserved your vote.
- ICYMI: @markpmancini.bsky.social and I in the National Post, about British Columbia government's attempt to cut the legislature out of law-making, democracy and the Rule of Law be damned.
- The latest from @markpmancini.bsky.social and yours truly, in the National Post, on the preposterous Henry VIII clause in BC's just-introduced Economci Stabilization Bill. We didn't write the headline, but it sums things up nicely. The clause is an outrage against democracy and needs to go.
- This gem of a Henry VIII clause is in BC's Bill 7, the Economic Stabilization (Tariff Response) Bill (www.leg.bc.ca/parliamentar...). If enacted, this would give away all legislative power to the executive, with no meaningful scrutiny possible by either the legislature or the judiciary.
- New post: my thoughts on the Federal Court of Canada dismissing the challenge to the prorogation of Parliament ― the right outcome, a flawed decision, but rather better than it might have been.
- But of course he's putting up retaliatory tariffs. So... the Canadian government has chosen to do this to Canadians, righ? Right: doubleaspect.blog/2025/02/03/w...
- A shitty Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. My take on the petition demanding that Elon Musk be deprived of his citizenship, now in The Line.
- Isn't social media just wonderful? An anonymous clown can confidently lecture a legal academic on "the law" which he can't even name, in response to a detailed blog post that explains exactly what the relevant law says.
- The SCC is leaving the other place, but not, apparently, coming here. Are they afraid I'll keep up my snarky comments?
- ICYMI: My post on Elon Musk and the disgraceful calls to take away his Canadian citizenship. They are a legally untenable demand for political retribution. Giving way to them would be a step towards making Canada into precisely the sort of pupulist nightmare Mr. Musk's critics rightly fear.
