Talk:Singh v Canada

Footnote 1 is wrong.
Footnote number 1 in the Singh article is wrong.

The Chief Justice does not break a tie vote at the Supreme Court of Canada. In the event of a tie, the decision of the court below remains in effect. Essentially, the SCC has made no decision in the event of a tie.

In Singh, all the Justices agreed in the result (that Singh should be granted an oral hearing). It was a unanimous decision in the result. There is no majority as to WHY Singh got an oral hearing though.

It is much like Morgentaler. A majority of the Justices declared that the abortion law was constitutionally invalid, so the law was struck down. However, no single decision acquired a majority of the Judges' signatures, so we don't know definitively why the law was struck down. We can only be certain that the law was unconstitutional for SOME reason. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.173.208.92 (talk) 00:21, 19 April 2010 (UTC)


 * The footnote about the Chief Justice having a tie-breaking vote was removed. According to Grey, the decisions are complimentary and both stand as legal authority. – Reidgreg (talk) 05:38, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Citation in first line?
Do we need the citation in the first line? My inclination is “no”, but I thought I’d raise it here, because of MOS:CITEVAR and WP:INLINECLUTTER. My view is that putting a law cite right in the first line isn’t helpful for the average reader. We don’t normally spell out cites right in the lead. WP is not a legal journal. The cite is given in the infobox, and also in the in-line citation in the body of the article, so I don’t think it is needed right in the first line. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 19:02, 4 April 2024 (UTC)


 * To be clear, this is the legal citation [1985] 1 S.C.R. 177 and not a Wikipedia citation. I'm not that familiar with legal citations, I suppose I've been treating it somewhat like an alternate name (unbolded; MOS:LAW says Case citation or law report information is presented in normal font.).  I don't really have an opinion on it but I've seen it in other articles.  I did a random check of 5 other SCC articles and all 5 included the legal citation, 2 of them going so far as to pipe it as an external link (that, I feel, is going too far).  Searching further, I found the same practice with US Supreme Court cases (5/5), somewhat with House of Lords cases (3/5) and not with Australian High Court cases (0/5). Since this seems to be a common practice across SCC articles, I feel it would be appropriate to call an RfC to check for consensus (or searching for a previous RfC on the subject). – Reidgreg (talk) 21:13, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Expensive vs Expansive
In the later lines of the intro, it mentions that this decision made Canada one of the most liberal and EXPENSIVE refugee program, is this as intended? Or was Expansive the word the author was looking for? I did not want to edit the page for fear of expensive truly being the adjective wanted here. (I am not very familiar with Canada's refugee laws) 142.112.42.55 (talk) 20:30, 4 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Expensive to operate/administer. – Reidgreg (talk) 21:16, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Appellate division or Federal Court of Appeal?
Should this article refer to the "Federal Court-Appellate Division" or "Federal Court of Appeal"? Following BRD procedure, in my view, the article should use the term "Federal Court of Appeal".

The Federal Court was created in 1970 by the Federal Court Act, SC 1971, c. 1, as a continuation of the Exchequer Court of Canada, with two divisions, an appellate division and a trial division. The Federal Court Act named the two divisions:


 * 4. The Federal Court of Canada shall hereafter consist of two divisions, called the Federal Court—Appeal Division (which may be referred to as the Court of Appeal or the Federal Court of Appeal) and the Federal Court—Trial Division.

The term "Court of Appeal" was thereafter used by the Court itself. See the headnote to the official report of the FCA Singh decision, which I have provided in a new citation to that decision: "Court of Appeal, Pratte, Urie and Le Dain JJ.— Toronto, February 18, 1983."

The Supreme Court used the term "Federal Court of Appeal". See the headnote of the official SCR report of the Singh decision, also cited in the article: "On appeal from: Federal Court of Appeal". The formal judgment of the SCC also uses the term "Federal Court of Appeal": "The appeals are allowed and the decisions of the Federal Court of Appeal and the Immigration Appeal Board are set aside." A word search of the SCC decision indicates that the term "Federal Court of Appeal" is used 23 times. There are 0 usages of "appellate division" by the Supreme Court.

Since this article is about the Supreme Court decision, in my opinion we should use the term used by the Supreme Court in its decision. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 15:58, 7 April 2024 (UTC)


 * So that I can verify this, could you provide urls instead of the legal citations? When I search for them I get something from 1985, not 1971. – Reidgreg (talk) 21:22, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid the Statutes of Canada aren't available online prior to 2000 as a free service. There is an online service by subscription only, or hard copies. I copied s. 4 manually.  The statutes are available at court house or law school libraries. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 21:59, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I did add the CanLII link to the Federal Court of Appeal, which reproduces the official Federal Courts Reports; the decision uses "Court of Appeal".  Supreme Court decision was already linked. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 22:02, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The SCC decision cites the Federal Court Act as Federal Court Act, R.S.C. 1970 (2nd Supp.), c. 10. That was the statute revision that included the Federal Court Act as passed in 1971.  Since the Act was passed in 1971, just before the RSC 1970 was published, it was included in the 2nd Supp., an additional volume for the RSC 1970.  As far as I'm aware, there is no free online service for the RSC 1970, either. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 22:07, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I checked the hard copy of the RSC 1970 (2nd supp.), c 10. Section 4 in that version read:
 * 4. The Federal Court of Canada shall hereafter consist of two divisions, called the Federal Court—Appeal Division (which may be referred to as the Court of Appeal or Federal Court of Appeal) and the Federal Court—Trial Division
 * That was the version in force at the time of the Singh decision. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 19:27, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Okay, sounds good. Just be careful with piping the link and it might be good to include a wikicomment on this to avoid confusion (perhaps noting this talk page discussion). – Reidgreg (talk) 15:52, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Non-defining cat
Hi. About the recent revert, since this is an immigration case I thought it apt to add the cat. Do let me know what exactly is the specific problem.

Thanks. Gotitbro (talk) 04:24, 29 April 2024 (UTC)


 * (This is in regard to the addition of Category:Indian diaspora in Canada [henceforth IDC] to the article.) Read WP:NONDEF.  Categories should be for defining characteristics of the article subject.  Do sources about the subject "commonly and consistently" mention IDC?  No.  Is the IDC something that could or should be mentioned in the article lead?  No.  Should the IDC category be added to the article?  No. Should you have already known this since I linked the guideline when I reverted?  Yes. – Reidgreg (talk) 05:03, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, I was aware of the guideline and considering that it is an immigration case a mention in the lead should not not be that far off; the same applies to in-depth sources which do list the info. And there is no need to be abrasive in your reply, AGF? Asking for a rationale beyond bland policy links is not to much of an ask on a collaborative project.
 * Anyhow, I do not have anything further to say about this. Gotitbro (talk) 10:03, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * So long as you don't make silly edits, I'm fine with that. – Reidgreg (talk) 13:43, 29 April 2024 (UTC)