Eric Adams, BA (McGill), LLB (Dalhousie), SJD (University of Toronto)

About

Eric M. Adams, BA (McGill), LLB (Dalhousie), SJD (Toronto), is a Professor at the University of Alberta, Faculty of Law. He served as Vice Dean at the Faculty from 2019-2022. Professor Adams publishes widely in the fields of constitutional law, legal history, employment law, human rights, and legal education. His multidisciplinary research engages all aspects of Canadian constitutional law, theory, and history, and includes studies of the classic cases, Christie v York, Roncarelli v Duplessis, and R v Drybones. He has won multiple awards for his teaching and research including the John T. Saywell Prize for Canadian Constitutional Legal History, a Provost’s Award for Early Career Teaching Excellence, best article prizes from the Canadian Association of Law Teachers and the Canadian Historical Association, and a Killam Annual Professorship for excellence in research, teaching, and service. In 2023, he received the Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee Medal for services to advanced education. He has delivered talks and keynote addresses across Canada and around the world including the Youard Lecture in Legal History at the University of Oxford. He is currently working on several projects extending from his research on the legal history of Japanese Canadians. A frequent media commentator, his many editorials have appeared in newspapers across the country.

Research

• Constitutional Law and theory
• Legal History
• Labour and Employment Law

Select Publications

• "Ford Focus: Constitutional Context and the Notwithstanding Clause" (2024) 32:3 Constitutional Forum 33.
• "Bruce Ziff's Legal History" (2023) 61:1 Alberta Law Review 111.
• "Physiological Responses to Treadmill Exercise in Size-Matched Male and Female Firefighter Applicants (2023) 66 Ergonomics (with C Ehnes, M Scarlett, R Dreger, and S Petersen).
• “Nothwithstanding History: the Rights-Protecting Purposes of Section 33 of the Charter” (2022) 25:2 Review of Constitutional Studies 121 (with Erin Bower)
• “Constitutional Wrongs: the Wartime Constitution and Japanese Canadians” in Barry Wright, Susan Binnie & Eric Tucker eds, Canadian State Trials, Volume V: World War, Cold War, and Challenges to Sovereignty, 1939-1990 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022) 44 (with Jordan Stanger-Ross)
• “Touch of Evil: Disagreements at the Heart of the Criminal Law Power” (2022) 104 Supreme Court Law Review (2d) 67
• “The Validity and Reliability of a Treadmill Test for Structural Firefighter Applicants” (2022) 64(4) Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 340 (with M Scarlett, C Ehnes, R Dreger, & S Petersen)
• “Evidence for validity and reliability, and development of performance standards and cut-scores for job-related tests of physical aptitude for structural firefighers” (2021) 63(11) Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 992 (with M Scarlett, T Rogers, R Dreger, & S Petersen)
• “Seeing Double: Peace, Order, and Good Government and the Impact of Federal Greenhouse Gas Emissions Legislation on Provincial Jurisdiction” (2020) 29(1) Constitutional Forum 1 (with Andrew Leach).
• "'Equally Applicable to Scotsmen': Racism, Equality, and Habeas Corpus in the Legal History of Japanese Canadians" in Jordan Stanger-Ross ed, Landscapes of Injustice: A New Perspective on the Internment and Dispossession of Japanese Canadians (Montreal-Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020)
• “Constitutional Stories: Japanese Canadians and the Constitution of Canada” (2018) 35:1-2 Australasian Canadian Studies 3.
• “Judicial Agency and Anxiety: a Constitutional History of R v Drybones” (2018) 39 National Journal of Constitutional Law 63.
• “The Law of Food Allergy and Accommodation in Canadian Schools” (2018) 14 Allergy, Asthma & Clinical Immunology 67 (with B Murdoch and T Caulfield).
• “Canadian Constitutional Interpretation” in Cameron Hutchison, The Fundamentals of Statutory Interpretation (Toronto: Lexis/Nexis, 2018).
• “Canada’s Constitutional Coming of Age, 1900-1920” in Errol Mendes ed, Canada’s Constitutional Democracy: The 150th Anniversary Celebration (Toronto: Lexis/Nexis, 2017) 65.
• “Promises of Law: The Unlawful Dispossession of Japanese Canadians” (2017) 54:3 Osgoode Hall Law Journal 687 (with Jordan Stanger-Ross)
• “Judging the Limits of Cooperative Federalism” (2016) 76 Supreme Court Law Review (2d) 27
• “The Dean Who Went to Law School: Searching for Purpose in North American Legal Education, 1930-1950” (2016) 54: 1 Alberta Law Review 1
• “Human Rights at Work: Physical Standards for Employment and Human Rights Law” (2016) 41(6) Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism 63
• “Canadian Constitutional Identities” (2015) 38(2) Dalhousie Law Journal 311
• “Constitutional Nationalism: Law, Politics, and Culture on the Road to Patriation” in Steve Patten & Lois Harder eds., Patriation and its Consequences: Constitution Making in Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2015) 49
• “Back to the Future of Law School” (2014) 51 Alberta Law Review 695
• “Errors of Fact and Law: Race, Space, and Hockey in Christie v. York” (2012) 62 University of Toronto Law Journal 463
• “Running from a Bear: Coordinate Constitutional Interpretation in Canada” (2012) 3(3) Journal of Transnational Law 324
• “Constitutional Battles between Parliament and the Executive: the Canadian Prorogation Crisis” (2011) 43 Hosei Riron Journal of Law & Politics 144
• “Crossing Borders: American Influences on Canada’s Constitutional Rights Revolution” in Norman Domeier, et. al, eds., Inter-Trans-Supra? Legal Relations and Power Structures in History (Saarbrucken: AkademikerVerlag, 2011) 285
• “Building a Law of Human Rights: Roncarelli v. Duplessis in Canadian Constitutional Culture” (2010) 55 McGill Law Journal 437
• “The Constitutionality of Prorogation” (2009) 18:1 Constitutional Forum constitutionel 17
• “Guardians of Liberty: R.M.W. Chitty and the Wartime Idea of Constitutional Rights” in Constance Backhouse and Wesley Pue eds., The Promise and Perils of Law: Lawyers in Canadian History (Toronto: Irwin law, 2009) 173
• “Canada’s ‘Newer Constitutional Law’ and the Idea of Constitutional Rights” (2006) 51 McGill Law Journal 435
• “‘Arbitrary, Anachronistic and Harsh’ Constitutional Jurisdiction in Relation to Non-Status Indians’ in Legal Aspects of Aboriginal Business Development (Toronto: Lexis/Nexis, 2005) 167 (with J. Magnet and A. Lokan)
• “Ghosts in Court: Jonathan Belcher and the Proclamation of 1762” (2004) 27 Dalhousie Law Journal 321
• “Balancing Probabilities: The Overlooked Complexity of the Civil Standard of Proof” in Special Lectures 2003: The Law of Evidence (Toronto: Irwin Law, 2004) 455 (with L. Rothstein and R. Centa)

Editorials and Online Media

• "The spirit of Florida's 'Don't Say Gay' laws seems to be spreading in Alberta" (9 February 2024) The Globe and Mail A11.
• "Let's not tie government's hands in the next crisis" (21 November 2023) Edmonton Journal A6.
• "Danielle Smith's ill-advised call sends a troubling message about the rule of law" (6 April 2023) The Globe and Mail A13.
• “Danielle Smith’s sovereignty act dreams will eventually have to confront constitutional reality”” (10 December 2022) The Globe and Mail A6.
• “Danielle Smith didn’t give us a watered-down version of Alberta’s Sovereignty Act” (29 November 2022) CBC Opinion.
• "Madu crossed a line that must not be crossed" (28 January 2022) Edmonton Journal
• "Why referendums don't always produce constitutional change" (5 January 2022) Canadian Bar Association National Magazine
• "Jason Kenney's equalization referendum is built on a crucial misinterpretation" (28 June 2021) The Globe and Mail A11
• "COVID restrictions aren't suspending Charter rights in Alberta" (12 December 2020) Edmonton Journal
• "The least democratic aspects of Canada's Constitution may provide the best defence of our election process" (13 November 2020) CBC Opinion
• "The poetry of peace, order and good government must be made practical, too" (22 September 2020) The Globe and Mail 
• “What a minority government would mean” (17 October 2019) The Globe and Mail A13.
• “Prorogation: A View From Canada” Oxford Human Rights Hub, 3 September 2019
• “Quebec’s religious symbols ban is striking not for its novelty, but for its unfortunate familiarity” (5 April 2019) CBC Opinion
• “How do we balance rights in cases of medically assisted dying?” (7 November 2018) The Globe and Mail A15.
• “Canada’s Constitution and the contradiction that works” (5 May 2018) The Globe and Mail O11.
• "Fred Christie Case" The Canadian Encyclopedia. Toronto: Historica Canada, 2018.
• “Plate-gate: listen to the ghosts of the past, present, and future” (16 December 2017) The Globe and Mail A17.
• “Remembering promises: lessons from the 75th anniversary of the dispossession of Japanese Canadians” (27 March 2017) Vancouver Sun A13 (with Jordan Stanger-Ross) – reprinted in The Edmonton Journal and Montreal Gazette
• “The Legacy of Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin – Part I: Reflecting a Chief Justice” Blog of the International Journal of Constitutional Law, 4 December 2017
• “The founders always feared a Trump” (3 November 2016) The Globe and Mail A11
• “Constitutional Jurisdiction over the Metis: the question now is what to do with it” (15 April 2016) The Globe and Mail
• “Don’t let Alberta schools controversy become a battle of rights” (23 January 2016) The Globe and Mail
• “Lessons from the Japanese Canadian internments: Policies built on fear won’t make us safer” (19 January 2016) The Globe and Mail A11 (with Jordan Stanger-Ross and Laura Madokoro)
• “Calm will follow minority vote storm” (17 October 2015) Edmonton Journal A17
• “Minority governments: the constitutional rules of the game” (18 September 2015) The Globe and Mail
• “Bus driver’s rights must be accommodated” (2 September 2015) Calgary Herald
• “Time for unions to forgive the constitution” (10 July 2015) Ottawa Citizen
• “Albertans: Get to know our Lieutenant-Governor” (4 May 2015) The Globe and Mail
• “SCC labour rulings not revolutionary: it’s the Charter going to work” (3 February 2015) The Globe and Mail
• “How Albertans schooled Prentice on gay rights” (5 December 2014) The Globe and Mail
• “Let’s remember our best selves” (29 October 2014) Edmonton Journal
• “We don’t need term limits. Voters take care of that” (29 August 2014) The Globe and Mail

Teaching

Constitutional Law

Advanced Constitutional Law

Employment Law

LAW 435A - Constitutional Law

An introduction to the legal framework governing the exercise of power by the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the Canadian state, covering who has the power to make new laws, the power to implement laws, and the power to adjudicate disputes. The limitations imposed on these powers by the rules of federalism and by the provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms are also considered. An introduction to the constitutional provisions concerning Indigenous peoples in Canada is also included.

LAW 435B - Constitutional Law

An introduction to the legal framework governing the exercise of power by the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the Canadian state, covering who has the power to make new laws, the power to implement laws, and the power to adjudicate disputes. The limitations imposed on these powers by the rules of federalism and by the provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms are also considered. An introduction to the constitutional provisions concerning Indigenous peoples in Canada is also included.

LAW 503 - Employment Law

An exploration of theoretical and legal issues bearing on employment outside the unionized/collective-bargaining context, including employment as a legal relationship, independent contractors, dismissal with and without just cause, damages, and the impact of key statutes. Emerging issues shall be explored, such as the protection of confidential information, the duty of good faith, discrimination, and post-employment obligations. This course complements the Labour Law course.

LAW 533 - Advanced Problems in Constitutional Law

Entails an examination of various current problems in constitutional law. Topics covered in past years include Criminal Justice and the Charter, Comparative Constitutional Law, and Federal/Provincial Law.

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