CASL, the Canadian anti-spam legislation, came into force on July 1, 2014. July 1, 2017 will be an important date for CASL, as a private right of action will become available. Anyone (class actions are likely) will be able to sue CASL violators. Statutory damages means that it won’t be necessary to prove actual damages.

CASL is a complex, illogical statute. Many businesses don’t comply because they don’t think emails they send could possibly be considered spam. After all, spam is about illicit drugs, diets and deals scams, right? Not according to CASL.

Nor do they understand they must keep . . . [more]

From time to time governments make law by referring to non-governmental rules. These are often technical matters on which standards are developed by outside experts. For example, a regulation might require manufacturers to comply with a safety standard of the Canadian General Standards Board or the International Standards Organization.

When this happens, should the government have to ensure that the outside standards be accessible to those affected by them? Many standards bodies finance their operation at least in part through the sale of their standards. In other words, access to the text of the standards is not free. Is that . . . [more]

Our beloved Minister McCallum is on yet another tour, meeting with employers and stakeholders in the Atlantic provinces to boost a pilot project: Atlantic Growth Strategy. During the presentation, our Minister indicated, “We are committed to streamlining things, to getting rid of silly rules […]” I supposed I am still shell-shocked from the rhetoric of our previous government but I cannot overstate the change in perspective from our current Minister compared to past Ministers.

Minister McCallum did not elaborate on which of our current immigration rules are the “silly” rules. Based on conversations with clients, I regularly hear, “and . . . [more]

The Manitoba government has responded to the agreement in principle to expand the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) concluded June 20, 2016. Manitoba’s Finance Minister Cameron Friesen wants all provincial and federal finance ministers to take more time to talk about the enhanced Canada Pension Plan before finalizing the agreement by July 15, 2016. . . . [more]

After pushing it through the Senate on Friday morning, the House of Commons finally voted for Bill C-14 on Friday afternoon. The Department of Justice has created a Q&A page on the Bill and some of the related issue.

The Senate attempted to modify Bill C-14 to adjust the issue of reasonable foreseeability, but were unsuccessful in doing so. This issue was especially important in light of a recent decision by the Alberta Court of Appeal, which indicated this criteria was not necessary under the 2015 Carter decision.

The Department of Justice has responded to this concern in an . . . [more]

LégisQuébec, the website that contains official versions of Quebec laws and regulations, this week went totally free.

The site which offers access to current and former versions of Québec statutes and regulations used to require a subscription for many of its more advanced features.

The revised site has documents in HTML, PDF or EPUB formats.

The material includes the consolidated statutes and regulations for Quebec, historic versions of legislation and regulations, the Table of Amendments to Statutes and the Table of Amendments to Regulations. Information on what period is covered by the historical versions is available in the FAQ . . . [more]

On June 6, 2016, the Ontario government announced that changes to the Customer Service Standard under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) will come into force on July 1, 2016, and apply to all organizations providing goods, services or facilities in the province. . . . [more]

On May 17, 2016, the federal government tabled Bill C-16, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code to add gender identity and gender expression to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination. . . . [more]

In Quebec, to practise a profession or hold a professional title governed by the Professional Code, a person must have a permit and be a member in good standing of the professional order that governs the exercise of the profession. Quebec has 46 professional orders that supervise the practice of 54 regulated professions.

In response to recommendations in the Charbonneau Commission report on granting and management of public contracts in the construction industry, on May 11, 2016, the Quebec government tabled Bill 98, An Act to amend various legislation mainly with respect to admission to professions and the governance of . . . [more]

It was recently reported in the media that after signing a peace bond, Jian Ghomeshi apologized in court on May 11, 2016, for his “sexually inappropriate conduct” towards a former co-worker who accused him of sexually assaulting her. Following the apology, the Crown withdrew the criminal charge of sexual assault for which Ghomeshi was slated to stand trial on June 6, 2016. . . . [more]

I attended an event last night where Duncan Stewart of Deloitte talked about their TMT predictions for 2016.

It reinforced for me that the future of tech and what it will do for us is potentially awesome. But also at the same time the amount of information that is being collected and stored about each of us is staggering. That creates real privacy challenges, and real possibilities for abuse. And because the information is there, there is a tendency for government and business alike to want to use it.

One scary aspect is that the more we get used . . . [more]

The Charter of the French Language currently allows for the exclusive use of trademarks in languages other than French unless a French version of the trademark has been registered. Seeing an increase in the presence of trademarks in a language other than French displayed on outdoor signage all over the province, the Québec Minister of Culture and Communications and Minister Responsible for the Protection and Promotion of the French Language, Hélène David, tabled proposed amendments to regulations under the Charter of the French Language (Loi 101). The amendments are to ensure a greater visibility of French in the display of . . . [more]