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In 2018, the historical musical play SLĀV generated many political comments in Québec's mass media. Using a semi-emergent content analysis, this exploratory article describes the thesis offered by some protagonists in the newspapers who mainly stated polarized opinions or political proposals, based their arguments on distorted or undefined concepts and engaged in a dialogical stalemate. Deliberately or not, debaters acted as if the aporia generated by the parallel conduct of their monologues ensured the effectiveness of their interventions; as if their interventions were to convince others to adopt their positions, as if the real and formal aims of the debate were diverging. It is less necessary to convince an opponant (formal aims) than to persuade a third party (real aims); everything happens as if this petitio principii was a means to that end. The article concludes that the misappropriation of the concept "cultural appropriation" in the public space calls for the problematization and analysis of media productions relating to the past which suggest or reinforce identities and call for action.

Keywords: appropriation culturelle, fictions historiques, liberté d'expression, pensée historienne, questions socialement vives, cultural appropriation, historical fictions, freedom of speech, historical thinking, sensitive questions

The Supreme Court of Canada's decision in R v Khill provided a novel moral framework for self-defence. Whereas self-defence was previously categorized as a justification, the Court now maintains that it constitutes an excuse in some cases. In other cases, the Court suggests self-defence sits between justification and excuse, captured by a principle I elsewhere call “moral permissibility”. The Court's choice to adopt a more robust relationship between the moral principles underlying justification/excuse and self-defence is principled. However, the basis for that conclusion—the application of moral philosophy to the law of criminal defences—applies with equal force to the law of duress and necessity. Unfortunately, the statutory duress defence and section 8(3) of the Criminal Code limit the juristic scope of those defences. Although these restrictions may be challenged under section 7 of the Charter, this challenge will likely fail as defendants need not be denied a defence. Instead, they will be denied a proper moral assessment of their actions. To instill greater coherency into the law, it is prudent to repeal the statutory duress defence. This approach would allow courts to utilize the broad wording of the new “defence of person” provision to develop the law of self-defence, necessity, and duress in line with the moral philosophy underlying these defences. Constitutionalizing the principles underlying criminal defences can nevertheless serve two broader purposes: mitigating the tendency of courts and counsel to unduly rely upon other less transparent (jury nullification) or heavy-handed (judicial review) legal devices to avoid conviction.

On November 28, 1729, the Natchez killed by surprise more than 200 French colonists, their neighbours and partners for several years, in a post located 250 km north of New Orleans, Louisiana. This article examines, from an anthropological perspective, the reasons for such a massacre. Why did the French presence spark such brutal action, in the form of collective murder? The article challenges the thesis of resistance to the colonial yoke, questioning how the Natchez found a place for settlers in their society. It thus emphasizes sacrifice as it prevails as a domestic ritual among the Natchez, and the contagious nature of death in this society, while placing the attack of 1729 within a made-up Native American history, in the lower valley of the Mississippi, of aborted ethnic cohabitations, which end in blood. The Franco-Natchez alliance, marked by spatial contiguity and daily interactions, may have emerged from an Indigenous device of dualist integration which finally came to a standstill.

Keywords: Natchez, Louisiane, massacre, sacrifice, dualisme

Cette thèse vise à comprendre la place qu'occupent les cours criminelles de niveau inférieur dans la vie des membres des classes populaires montréalaises au tournant du XXe siècle, les diverses raisons qui font en sorte que ces derniers se retrouvent devant ces instances comme accusés ou comme plaignants et la façon dont ils sont traités par ces tribunaux. Afin de mener notre analyse, nous avons choisi d'examiner principalement les activités de la Cour de police et de la Cour du Recorder de Montréal durant la période située entre 1891 et 1921. Le choix de ces institutions se justifie par le fait que ce sont à travers elles que transitent la très grande majorité des individus accusés devant la justice criminelle ou qui y déposent des …

Following the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in R v Smith (1987), which struck down a mandatory minimum sentence (MMS) for drug trafficking, it took nearly three decades before the Court would nullify another MMS. This 28-year span saw the Court exhibit judicial restraint and deference to the government regarding the constitutionality of MMS. However, in 2015, the Court invalidated an MMS enacted by the Harper government in R v Nur. The MMS in Nur was one of over 40 MMS provisions introduced by the Harper government between 2006 and 2015.