Research Streams

Charity and Law in Canada

The renewed LCC’s first research project will address charity and law in Canada.

Charity is part of everyday life for people across Canada. Charitable behaviour, charitable giving, charitable interactions: all are understood to reflect human generosity and concern for collective welfare. Charity is central to an extraordinarily wide range of sectors, actions, commitments, and projects.

Charities are the organizations that make this possible. They too are part of everyday life for Canadians. From small to large, local to international, charities exercise significant responsibility in the governance and flourishing of a contemporary and diversified society. 

How does law in Canada - in multiple forms and at various levels - facilitate charity as a practice and support the functioning of charities?  The Law Commission of Canada proposes to explore a wide range of related questions within a project dedicated to charity in Canadian law and the law of Canadian charities. They reflect preoccupations and priorities shared by individuals, communities, and institutions with whom the Commission has already engaged and to whom the Commission will continue to listen and respond. They illustrate intersecting issues related to legal definitions, co-existing sources of authority and governance, and the effective regulation of an extremely complex and multi-faceted set of activities, needs, and functions. Related matters of law include those situated in taxation, national security, criminal responsibility, constitutional law, electoral governance, corporate structures, banking regulation, labour relations, estate planning, and civil liability.  

As the Commission develops this project, there will be room to identify places where repair may be needed, where better knowledge and understanding are possible, where communication and cooperation should be improved, and where we can look to the future of Canada and the precious role that charity and charities play in ensuring that future is bright.

Prison Law in Canada

The Law Commission of Canada will commission a series of reports on selected topics related to law in the lives of incarcerated individuals in Canada.  This collection of critical papers will focus on specific issues and identify areas of, and paths to, reform.

Along with this collection, the LCC will host a series of focus circles. These focus circles will bring together individuals with varied expertise and experience related to incarceration and law. They will foster productive exchange, serve to enrich knowledge and understanding, and generate questions and issues deserving of attention and analysis.

Significance

Although the carceral system is central to our understanding of criminal justice, the spaces it occupies remain largely invisible to most Canadians; the justice systems that operate within detention centers, jails, prisons and penitentiaries are largely unseen and often not understood.

Through this project, the LCC seeks to illuminate these hidden spaces. It will do so by examining the meaning and effects of loss of freedom and conditions of incarceration, and the importance of hope to sustain incarcerated individuals both within the walls of their institutions and upon reentry into society.  Issues of access to education and mental health services, of maintaining connections to communities outside prisons, of humanity and responsibility in carceral institutions are all significant for Canadians who care about law and justice.

The LCC’s Focus

The effects of incarceration are felt by prisoners, certainly, but prisoners carry their experiences from within these institutions into the outside world. In this way, the experiences of prisoners are inextricably linked with those of Canadians as a whole. This project will consider questions relating to state accountability and good governance of carceral institutions, as well as the role that the carceral system and the law relating to that system play in creating a just, safe and secure society.

As the LCC meets with participants in the correctional system, we will identify areas of research to pursue. Meetings will take the form of focus circles with prisoners, criminal lawyers, academics, correctional services, law enforcement, relevant governmental departments, representatives of civil society, and others with a stake, expertise, and interest in the world of corrections. As we learn about pressing issues that call for interrogation, the LCC will assess where its input will be most beneficial, and commission reports on those issues. Our reports will be based on solid empirical and jurisprudential research, take into account a variety of relevant academic disciplines, and will provide critical analysis and paths to reform.

Both the reports and the focus circles will reinforce and build on connections between fact-based, cross-disciplinary inquiry and concrete impact on people, institutions and Canadian society. The aim of this process is to produce a unique collection of high quality, interdisciplinary, and practice-relevant reports on issues requiring attention, reflection and action now and into the future.

The Law Commission’s prison law project will shine a light on incarceration in Canada as a place to examine living law, pursuing justice and renewing hope.

Beyond Tomorrow Reports

Law for Canada’s Next Generations

2025 signals the start of the second quarter of the 21st century. Meaningful participation in law and the collective pursuit of justice are crucial elements in ensuring a strong and promising future for Canada. To mark the new year, the Law Commission of Canada initiates the Beyond Tomorrow Reports, dedicated to exploring directions in law for Canada’s coming generations.

The Law Commission, an independent and non-partisan agency, is committed to engaging the people of Canada in the ongoing and dynamic evolution of law. Since its restart in 2023, the Commission has held "Listen and Learn" sessions throughout the country. The resulting "What We Heard" documents provide an overview of the preoccupations and projects of individuals and institutions as they imagine and construct responses to future challenges. We have learned from participants the importance of embracing complicated conversations, addressing breakdown of trust, contributing to common endeavours, and fostering constructive change. The Beyond Tomorrow Reports initiative extends our "listen and learn" approach by issuing an open invitation to scholars and experts across Canada to submit proposals within the Commission’s framework for engaging with law and shaping law reform.

Commissioned and published on a periodic basis, Beyond Tomorrow Reports will identify and address challenges and issues in law for Canada’s next generation and beyond. Authors will contribute to imagining, facilitating, and guiding the implementation of reform with lasting impact. Each report will draw on critical informed research to articulate constructive pathways and possibilities for law in the future. Collaborative engagement with community-based actors will be incorporated into the production of the reports. This signature combination of research, outreach and transformation underscores the Law Commission’s accountability to the people of Canada. We look forward to supporting and sharing these reports on law for Canada’s next generations.

The Call for submission of proposals, including further background and details regarding parameters and process, can be found here.