McLaren

- The law of torts reflects most clearly the tension within any legal system between the desire for certainty in state rules and the need for flexibility in responding to changing social realities

- Dickson extended significantly the boundaries of liability in negligence law. He advanced liability for corporations whose irresponsible (faulty) operations presented special risks for children, by creating an affirmative duty to be safe. - Dickson’s decisions during the 1980s were also marked by an expansion of liability for public authorities for failure to exercise their powers with due care. He considers that public authorities also internalize the cost of damage. However, with this continuous expansion of tort to new situations, the court is tempted to “manipulate concepts and facts” to find liability, which “removes any sense of predictability.

- In //Saskatchewan Wheat Pool,// Dickson was reluctant to accommodate the growth of negligence in the area of strict liability. He rejected the British approach to strict liability for breach of statute and preferred a negligence approach.

- Also, Dickson’s approach was also criticized on an apparent contradiction between the judgment in //Cherneskey v. Armadale Publishers// and //Harrison v. Carswell//. In the first case, his dissent would have allowed newspaper publishers to invoke the defence of fair comment for publishing a “defamatory” letter. In //Harrison//, on the other hand, his majority judgment upheld a conviction of a picketer outside a shopping mall during a labour dispute. Although Dickson favoured a “rights approach” on each case, he was also deferential to the legislature : he court should not usurp the legislature’s role.