CASL - the new Canadian anti-spam act - comes into force July 1. It contains extensive, complex provisions that apply to the sending of any email that has a hint of a commercial purpose (a “CEM”). In the short term it may increase the amount of email we get. We have all received emails from mail lists we are on asking us to confirm our consent. But there is another reason we may get more. The reason goes like this:

CASL requires express or implied consent from the recipient before a CEM can be sent.

The act contains a . . . [more]

From April to June 2014, the Ontario Ministry of Labour is conducting an employment standards inspection blitz targeting organizations that employ unpaid interns. The goal is to ensure worker rights are protected and enhance employers’ awareness of their responsibilities. . . . [more]

The government of Canada has introduced a bill to amend PIPEDA on privacy matters. The bill appears to be largely the same as Bill C-29 from 2010. It imposes a duty on organizations that have custody of personal information to disclose to the Privacy Commissioner and to affected individuals the fact of any breach of security affecting that personal information, if the breach creates a ‘significant risk of serious harm’ to the individual. Both terms (significant risk and serious harm are defined, or at least given more flavour, in the bill.)

(7) For the purpose of this section, “significant

. . . [more]

Effective April 1, 2014, Manitoba’s Public Trustee Act is repealed and replaced with The Public Guardian and Trustee Act (C.C.S.M. c.P205).

The new legislation was introduced last spring as Bill 36 and received Royal Assent in December 2013 without amendment. The explanatory note to the Bill summarizes the changes made to the pre-existing legislative scheme as follows:

This Bill replaces the existing Public Trustee Act. Key changes include the following:

• The name “Public Trustee” is changed to “Public Guardian and Trustee”.
• The Public Guardian and Trustee’s functions are clarified and listed. They include acting as a trustee, estate administrator, litigation

. . . [more]

I’m guessing that of the readers of Slaw that there is a substantial subset that are fans of the BBC series Sherlock. So, fair warning if you haven’t seen the 3rd episode of Season 3 – “His Last Vow”, stop reading before you make the jump.

Now that I am sad that there will not be any new episodes for about two years, I have been thinking more about past episodes and I have a very simple question based on Episode 3. Let’s just say for the sake of my flight of fancy that Mary shoots Charles Augustus Magnussen and . . . [more]

Ontario utilizes a “loser pays” legal system in which the losing party is usually ordered by the court to pay a portion of the successful party’s legal fees. As a result, regardless of who wins, someone ends up with a piece of paper requiring the other party to pay money.

Assuming that the losing party does not voluntarily cut a cheque, a bank garnishment ought to be the most straightforward and direct means to collect. I emphasize the word “ought”.

Put simply, once a bank is served with a Notice of Garnishment it is required to seize any funds the . . . [more]

The title being a snippet of the Irish Proverb: “May you have the hindsight to know where you’ve been, the foresight to know where you are going, and the insight to know when you have gone too far.” Why that title? Well on Monday of this week it was the 17th, better known as St. Patrick’s Day. We all know St. Paddy’s Day (anyone else notice the push back at “St. Patty’s” day this year that I have not noticed previously?) is named after Saint Patrick who reputedly led the snakes out of Ireland and we all know the festivities . . . [more]

A colleague of mine at First Reference, Adam Gorley, wrote an article about the Standing Committee on the Status of Women’s study on sexual harassment in Federal workplaces. I thought I would share this very interesting article here on Slaw. . . . [more]

Quebec’s new Code of Civil Procedure received royal assent with amendments on February 21, 2014, and is expected to come into force by proclamation in fall 2015. . . . [more]

A couple of weeks ago Monday (the third Monday in February to be exact) as I toiled away at my desk here in Nova Scotia it occurred to me that my electronic distractions were uncharacteristically quiet that day. My twitter feed was silent, and my inbox was actually manageable. I did not spare this much thought until later in the day when it dawned on me that in most of the of country it was a statutory holiday, be it Family Day or Islander Day or Louis Riel Day. My bitterness at being one of the few jurisdictions that required . . . [more]

When the Accessibility Standards Advisory Council/Standards Development Committee was formed in 2013, one of its first orders of business was to review the Customer Service Standard as required under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 (AODA). The AODA requires that each accessibility standard be reviewed five years after it becomes law to determine whether the standard is working as intended and to allow for adjustments to be made as required. The council has proposed several changes to the Customer Service Standard and is asking interested stakeholders for feedback. . . . [more]

A coalition of unions led by the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ) has won a court challenge against certain provisions of the 2009 reform of Quebec’s Pay Equity Act. The provisions in question require employers subject to the Act to audit pay equity in their businesses every five years, but not continuously. In other words, since 2009, Quebec employers have been required to perform a pay equity audit at the end of each five-year period, prepare a list of events that generated wage adjustments (e.g., promotions), and only pay the wage adjustments due at that time rather than when the adjustments occurred. The first audits would have taken place this year. . . . [more]