In January of this year, Justice Douglas Gray of the Ontario Superior Court struck down the Town of Oakville’s signs by-law on the grounds that it did not comply with the Charter of Rights. As a remedy, the court also ordered the Town to immediately issue 21 billboard permits to Larry Vann’s Vann Media, a [...]

La compagnie Vann media n’a pas manqué de remarquer les vertes allées de la municipalité bordant le lac Ontario. Mais plutôt que d’apprécier l’absence d’enseignes, l’entreprise qui s’est fait connaître pour imprimer de la publicité sur les boîtes de pizza y a vu une opportunité d’affaire.
Here is the Oakville article, the Quebec City article. We [...]

The Town of Oakville’s strict billboard regulations were struck down by the Ontario Superior Court early this year on Charter of Rights grounds. The Court ordered Oakville to issue permits for about twenty 6′ x 12′ billboards to Vann Media.
On Thursday a hearing took place for Oakville’s appeal and in this blog post we tell [...]

The appeal of the lower court’s decision to quash Oakville’s signs by-law will be heard by the Ontario Court of Appeal at at Osgoode Hall on Thursday May 15th, 10:30am, in Courtroom Two, before Justices Robert Armstrong, Russell Juriansz, and Paul Rouleau.
Oral arguments are scheduled to last six hours.

You can overcome a bad factum with good oral argument, but doing so is an uphill struggle. If you write a good factum, you have a great advantage and you will enhance your own credibility with the court. Judges like to gossip. We remember the good-factum writers and even come to recognize their styles. [...]