Commentators on private member’s Bill 207, Conscience Rights (Health Care Providers) Protection Act, introduced in the Alberta Legislative Assembly on November 7, 2019, have disagreed about whether it is different from the current system in Alberta.

Here I consider the extent to which it would be different from the current requirements of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA). I also consider how it would give doctors (and other health professionals) the greatest freedom in Canada to refuse to treat patients on religious and conscientious grounds and fail to put the interests of patients first, as . . . [more]

Just as the Toronto medical officer of health called for limiting the exemptions to Ontario’s mandatory vaccine regime for school children to only one, on medical grounds (although this has not been received positively by the provincial health minister), Vaccine Choice Canada and five mothers have challenged the requirement that in order to attend public school, children must receive vaccinations.

The Immunization of School Pupils Act already includes grounds for exemption for medical, religious and conscientious grounds; however, the group challenging the legislation consider the exemptions — and therefore the legislation — contravene their rights, in part because of the . . . [more]

The Quebec Court of Appeal has ruled against Sikh truck drivers who sought an exemption from wearing personal protective equipment – a helmet – as required by their employers because their religion requires them to wear a turban.

The Court ruled that workplace safety must take precedence over temporary impacts on freedom of religion.

According to Wikipedia, wearing a Sikh dastaar, or turban, is mandatory for all Sikh men. Among the Sikhs, the dastaar is an article of faith that represents honour, self-respect, courage, spirituality, and piety (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dastar).

Quick facts

In 2016, three Sikh truck drivers sought to be exempted . . . [more]

In Truchon c. Attorney General of Canada, 2019 QCCS 3792 (CanLII), a decision of the Quebec Superior Court, The Honourable Christine Baudouin, JCS held that the end of life requirement under section 26 of Quebec’s End-of-Life Care Act and the “reasonable foreseeability of natural death” requirement under the Criminal Code‘s medically-assisted death requirement are both unconstitutional as contravening section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (and that the federal provision contravenes section 7; she did not consider whether the Quebec provision contavened section 7). The facts underpinning the challenges were the same. Nevertheless, should the . . . [more]

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]

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]

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]

The 2019 Ontario Budget, released in March, introduced a number of sweeping changes, including a focus on “Ensuring Agencies are Relevant, Efficient and Effective.”

One of these proposed changes was to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board (CICB), to replace the quasi-judicial tribunal model established under the Compensation for Victims of Crime Act with an administrative model. This as then introduced and passed under Bill 100, Protecting What Matters Most Act (Budget Measures). The rationale, as with much of the legal reforms in this budget, is to reduce the expenses related to the adversarial process and expend resources directly . . . [more]

On July 29, 2019, certain provisions of the Budget Implementation Act 2017, No.1 (introduced as Bill C-44) came into force. The new law streamlines the dispute resolution process under the Canada Labour Code in federally regulated workplaces by transferring adjudicative functions under the Employment and Social Development Canada – Labour Program to the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB).

This transfer impacts: . . . [more]

Corporations are essential to the modern economy. They allow for the organization and strategic application of capital in focused manner that allows for wealth to grow, and have been a fundamental legal innovation for the emergence of the capitalist economy.

Of course, corporations as legal entities are a legal fiction that converts what would otherwise be a piece of property into a party with its own free-standing rights. These rights are limited, however, and continue to be defined.

The Court in cases like Irwin Toy Ltd. v. Quebec and British Columbia Securities Commission v. Branch confirmed that although they enjoy . . . [more]

On May 29, 2019, the Northwest Territories tabled Bill 57, An Act to Amend the Employment Standards Act to align with recent changes to certain statutory leaves in the Canada Labour Code and the Employment Insurance Act, as well as to update certain provisions of the Employment Standards Act to better protect Northwest Territories workers. . . . [more]

Integrity Commissioner J. David Wake recently indicated that he could investigate the Ford government’s appointments of people with whom the Premier’s former chief of staff, Dean French, had some form of association or, indeed, all previous appointments. (Mr. French resigned as the premier’s chief of staff after news of appointments initially broke.) However, Mr. Wake also stated that he could report only to the premier and not release his findings to the public. Yet the public has an interest in such cases, perhaps particularly one that appears to be so extensive, and not only in the appointments themselves, but . . . [more]