A lawyer’s ability to complain to a judge about the judge’s behaviour in court is about to be reviewed by the Supreme Court of Canada. The SCC will hear the appeal in Doré v Bernard. Gilles Doré was penalized by the Barreau du Québec for his letter to the judge of a case in which Mr. Doré had been counsel. Though the letter was marked private, the judge sent it to his Chief Justice, who sent it to the Barreau. More details are in this story in the Montreal Gazette. The text of the letter leads off the . . . [more]

The Canadian Centre for Elder Law, a division of the BC Law Institute at UBC, has released A Practical Guide to Elder Abuse and Neglect Law in Canada:

This comprehensive resource includes snapshots of the law in each of the thirteen provinces and territories, a comparative table that allows for quick reference, a set of guiding principles for working with vulnerable adults, and sections that discuss mandatory reporting of abuse and neglect, rules around confidentiality of personal and health information, and the relationship between mental capacity and elder abuse.  The guide also contains a lengthy list of resource agencies.

On January 4 the Canadian Air Transportation and Security Authority caught their first terrorist with the new Rapiscan at the Calgary airport.

Sorry, did I say terrorist? I meant Granny. She was detained for a secondary search when it was discovered the gel contained in her prosthetic breast was likley more than 3 oz. “Being in public, and being touched like that, it was really, really not called for,” she said.

After all, I was coming home from Christmas with my kids [in Calgary]. I didn’t go into a different country, I didn’t go across the country. I went on

As with oatmeal cookies, pints of beer, and bags of wine gums, I keep coming back to them. Can’t really stay away long. Oh, I go graphic as often as I can and audio too. But words whistle me in quite regularly in these Friday Fillips. And here I am again banging on about words.

Only last April I “bloviated” about “swale” and “decrement.” A kind reader, Paul Dawson, suggested that if I liked odd words that much I might enjoy the website World Wide Words. I did. I do. And now you might, too.

It’s the work — . . . [more]

Nothing marks the beginning of the year like RRSP season and a plethora of mutual fund ads boasting performance with imagery that suggests you could be sailing a fancy yacht as a youthful retiree. 

Don’t get me wrong, the possibility of excellent investment performance and becoming the captain of your own expensive yacht sounds great, but many of these ads overlook the significance of the fees associated with mutual fund investments. It suggests to me that companies that don’t emphasize the competitiveness of their fees have something to hide.

You may have heard a few years ago that a study . . . [more]

Michel Bastarache, a former Supreme Court of Canada Justice, submitted his official report yesterday into allegations of influence peddling in the nomination of municipal and provincial court judges in Quebec.

The commission that he led had been created by Quebec Premier Jean Charest after the province’s former Justice Minister Marc Bellemare alleged that he been forced to name three judges to the bench at the behest of Quebec Liberal Party organizers and fundraisers.

Bastarache rejected the allegations but he did document gaps in the judicial nomination process in Quebec in terms of transparency, writing that the process was vulnerable to . . . [more]

At a meeting of lawyers yesterday, I heard one senior member refer to the decision of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales in R v. Chaytor [2010] EWCA Crim 1910 as one of the best judgments he had read in a great many years. Intrigued, I took a look, and now I want to pass on to you the suggestion that you, too, read the judgment.

As the title of this post says, the case concerns a defence of parliamentary privilege. Criminal charges of fraud were laid against three members of the U.K. Parliament and one member of . . . [more]

The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal recently released its decision as to whether marriage commissioners—as civil servants—can opt out of performing same-sex marriages. Why is this an issue? In 2004, the Supreme Court of Canada rendered a landmark decision confirming the legal validity of same-sex marriage. Parliament then enacted legislation redefining marriage to include such unions. This led some marriage commissioners in Saskatchewan to refuse to solemnize same-sex marriages on the basis that they could not provide services in this regard without acting in violation of their personal religious beliefs.

The Saskatchewan government found this unacceptable. Since many religions do not . . . [more]

Lawyers frequently lament to me that they wish they could focus on the practice of law, rather than being perpetually barraged with new and un-billable marketing and technology demands. There is a palpable longing for the halcyon days when such a pure life was allegedly attainable. The fundamental approach to marketing in the golden age — still deeply rooted in many lawyers’ DNA — was “Do good work.” 

Full-stop. Put another way, the prevailing ethos was “by one’s expertise shall ye be known.” Smart lawyers excelled. Smart lawyers who also happened to have a way with people were superstars. 

Against . . . [more]

I just listened to a teleseminar by the Canadian IT-Law Association on the Anti-spam act, primarily discussing the CRTC’s role. Here are a few points that were raised.

The act is expected to come into force in September. Regulations may be published for comment as early as late February or March.

The regulations will be crucial. It will be important to look at them during draft stage and comment where necessary.

There will be an overlap in jurisdiction between the CRTC, Privacy Commissioner, and Competition Bureau, though CRTC is primary.

The CRTC role as enforcer is fairly new. The . . . [more]

What are the pressing topics on which international law should be developed regarding electronic commerce? Are your clients running into difficulties, or areas of uncertainty, that could be resolved by a harmonized approach among our trading partners?

The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) is asking these questions. UNCITRAL has been the source of much innovation in e-com law over the years, notably with its Model Law on Electronic Commerce (1996) [PDF] that is the basis of Canadian, American and much other law on that topic.

UNCITRAL is holding a colloquium in New York next month (Feb 14 . . . [more]

Although I have the benefit of a number of internal online research guides where I work, I occasionally find myself resorting to my free legal research and writing site.

However, in so doing, I realized my site inadvertently emphasized Canadian law to the exclusion of most other foreign law. As such, I have updated the case law, legislation and government pages to include links to more British, American (and other common law) sites. I hope this will be more useful for researchers and I welcome suggestions for improving the site.

I have also added the 3 law-related movies . . . [more]