The Asper Centre regularly intervenes in appellate cases of constitutional importance before the Supreme Court of Canada and provincial courts of appeal. Through these interventions, the Centre offers principled, research-based submissions that assist courts in interpreting constitutional rights and considering their broader legal and social implications. Working with students, faculty, and pro bono counsel—and at times in partnership with organizations such as Women's Legal Education and Action Fund and National Association of Women and the Law—the Centre seeks to advance thoughtful, rights-focused constitutional jurisprudence.
Since 2011, the Asper Centre has maintained a curated collection of constitutional law decisions from courts of appeal across Canada, highlighting how Charter issues are actively being litigated today. Many of these cases proceed to the Supreme Court of Canada, offering insight into emerging national jurisprudence. In 2019, the collection expanded to include key federalism and s. 35 cases. Cases are organized by core Charter sections to support easy navigation and research. The listings feature the most recent summarized appellate decisions, organized by court and updated on an ongoing basis. Users can also explore archived cases by Charter section and year through the archive links.
This unique resource includes materials from select SCC Charter cases, many of which are not available elsewhere. This project began in 2002 with a small grant from the University of Toronto Courseware Fund. For the initial project, faculty selected 36 important Charter cases.The facta from the cases were scanned and organized by the Bora Laskin Law Library, which had maintained and updated the collection for the use of University of Toronto Faculty of Law students and faculty. The Asper Centre is happy to make this collection available to users of this site for non-commercial purposes in the public interest to foster public knowledge, education and scholarship in respect of constitutional law in Canada.