On June 21, 2019, Bill C-75, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and other Acts and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, received Royal Assent. The Bill was an omnibus legislation that was prompted by the delays caused described in Jordan and Cody.

The effect of this Bill was to remove preliminary inquiries for virtually all offences, expand spousal violence to include intimate partner violence, abolish the use of peremptory challenges for jurors, and hybridize almost all indictable offences under 10 years while increasing the maximum penalty to 2 years for summary . . . [more]

Every week we present the summary of a decision handed down by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and considered to be of interest to our readers throughout Canada. SOQUIJ is attached to the Québec Department of Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

CONTRAT DE SERVICES :La théorie du manquement à une obligation essentielle est toujours valable en droit québécois; elle permet d’écarter l’application d’une clause de limitation de responsabilité qui vise une telle obligation.

Intitulé : 6362222 Canada inc. c. Prelco inc., 2019 QCCA 1457
Juridiction : Cour d’appel (C.A.), Québec, 200-09-009366-169 . . . [more]

Some of you may have noticed that after over 25 years of being hosted exclusively under the Lexum domain at https://scc-csc.lexum.com, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) judgments are now also available under the Court’s own domain at https://decisions.scc-csc.ca. On top of the new URL, the database has been graphically integrated with the SCC institutional website, making it easier to navigate between judgments and the rest of the information published online by the court.

Renée Thériault, the Court’s Executive Legal Officer, says “This initiative is part of the Court’s continued efforts to make case-related information more accessible . . . [more]

Each Friday, we share the latest job listings from Slaw Jobs, which features employment opportunities from across the country. Find out more about these positions by following the links below, or learn how you can use Slaw Jobs to gain valuable exposure for your job ads, while supporting the great Canadian legal commentary at Slaw.ca.

Current postings on Slaw Jobs (newest first):

• Family Lawyer (4-6 years) (Full-time) | Chilliwack, BC
  (Waterstone Law Group)
• Civil Litigation Associate (3-5 years) (Full-time) | Langley, BC
  (Waterstone Law Group)
• Wills and Estates Lawyer (4-6 years) (Full-time)| Langley, BC
  (Waterstone Law Group)
• IT & Privacy

1. Review your multi-year accessibility plans by January 1, 2020

On January 1, 2014, section 4(1) of the Integrated Accessibility Standards, Ontario Regulation 191/11 under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) required the Government of Ontario, Legislative Assembly, designated public sector organizations and large organizations (50 plus employees) to have multi-year accessibility plans in place and posted on their websites (if any), and to provide the plan in an accessible format upon request.

The multi-year accessibility plan must inform and outline the organization’s strategy for preventing and removing barriers faced by persons with disabilities and also for meeting . . . [more]

Periodically on Thursdays, we present a significant excerpt, usually from a recently published book or journal article. In every case the proper permissions have been obtained. If you are a publisher who would like to participate in this feature, please let us know via the site’s contact form.

Kayanerenkó:wa–The Great Law of Peace

Kayanesenh Paul Williams has been involved in protecting and explaining Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe, and Wabanaki land, environmental, and cultural rights for forty years, as negotiator, lawyer, and historian.

ISBN: 978-0-88755-821-4 (Paper) / 978-0-88755-193-2 (Cloth)
Publisher: University of Manitoba Press
Page Count: 472 Pages
Publication Date: October 2018
Price: . . . [more]

On May 17, 2019, Canada and the United States agreed to remove reciprocal trade restrictions on steel and aluminum – the U.S. “national security” tariffs and Canada’s countermeasures. In Canada, the removal of the U.S. Section 232 tariffs without the maintenance of residual quotas or export restrictions (the initial U.S. condition) was considered an important “win.” While Canada did succeed in this regard, it did agree to “snap back” provisions; the tariffs can be re-introduced on a product-by-product basis in the event of a “surge” of imports of steel and aluminum beyond historic levels due to imports from third countries. . . . [more]

Several times each month, we are pleased to republish a recent book review from the Canadian Law Library Review (CLLR). CLLR is the official journal of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL/ACBD), and its reviews cover both practice-oriented and academic publications related to the law.

The Challenge of Children’s Rights for Canada. By Katherine Covell, R. Brian Howe & J.C. Blockhuis. 2nd ed. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2018. x, 246 p. Includes index and bibliography. ISBN 978-1-7712-355-6 (softcover) $44.99.

Reviewed by Jennifer Walker
Head Librarian
County of Carleton Law Association
In CLLR 44:3 . . . [more]

Social media are everywhere that the Internet is. As comprehensive methods of communication, they are naturally attractive to those with things to communicate: advertisers, proselytizers and politicians. This column examines the status of social media use by the latter class, and in particular, the degree to which they can control their use once they start.

We have looked previously (if briefly) at whether politicians’ use of social media turns their communications (in whatever form) into “official documents” for purposes of laws governing public records, like archival responsibility, privacy rules and subjection to access to information requests. There is a smattering . . . [more]

Each Wednesday we tell you which three English-language cases and which French-language case have been the most viewed* on CanLII and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about.

For this last week:

1. Andros v. Colliers Macaulay Nicolls Inc., 2019 ONCA 679

[20] It is not possible to simply void the part of a termination clause that offends the ESA. If a termination clause purports to contract out of an employment standard without clearly substituting a greater benefit in its place, the entire termination clause is void: North v. Metaswitch Networks Corporation . . . [more]

A short Canadian Press article in The Globe and Mail recently tweaked my interest. It explained that the chief justice had set the fine for not posting the anti-carbon tax stickers the province has required gas station operators to post on pumps at $150. The legislation provides for potentially higher fines. I started thinking about several issues that could arise from this, especially in the context of the anti-carbon tax sticker legislation. . . . [more]