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Exposing the corporate myth: A re-thinking of the legal conception of corporate personhood

Resource type
Thesis type
(Thesis) M.A.
Date created
2020-09-30
Authors/Contributors
Abstract
This thesis provides a critical view of the way the Supreme Court of Canada (the "SCC") has applied rights and freedoms under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the "Charter") to corporations. I argue that a close reading of SCC cases involving corporations seeking protections under the Charter reveals that the SCC is bound by a conception of corporate personhood that binds judicial decision-making. This result seems to stem from the SCC's unconscious use of language that is consistent with Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. This results in a slavish commitment to revealing the truth of corporations and applying the Charter accordingly. In place of this, I argue that Wittgenstein's subsequent approach to language in the Philosophical Investigations helps reveal that corporations are not objects with internal states of affairs; rather, "corporation persons" is just another language game. Seeing language this way helps do away with a commitment to truth about corporations and frees the SCC to see them as economic tools that are subject to our control.
Document
Identifier
etd21174
Copyright statement
Copyright is held by the author(s).
Permissions
This thesis may be printed or downloaded for non-commercial research and scholarly purposes.
Supervisor or Senior Supervisor
Thesis advisor: Gandesha, Samir
Language
English
Member of collection
Download file Size
input_data\21077\etd21174.pdf 755.61 KB

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