The U.S.-based blog Free Government Information was launched a few years ago by a group of academic librarians who wanted to raise public awareness of the importance of better access to all forms of government information.

They occasionally have guest bloggers and this month’s guest will be a real treat for history buffs, archive geeks, hard core freedom of information fans and investigative reporter types: Malcolm Byrne from the National Security Archive, a non-governmental organization based at George Washington University that specializes in declassified documents.

His first post is about the Archive’s work on the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis . . . [more]

I was reading at a fairly innocuous post on Lawyers.com today, titled “The Advantages of Selling Your Own Home“, and noted the DIY nature of the topic. The coverage was fair; comparing the pluses and minuses of selling your own home, and few would likely find it controversial. I can see how many realtors would even tolerate it, as it describes a small section of the marketplace; and the numbers don’t lie — few people clearly have the time or savvy to sell their own home.

However, I would say this: if this was my site, I wouldn’t . . . [more]

The law’s a wordy thing, but from time to time it resorts to images to get its point across, as we’ve pointed out occasionally here on Slaw. The idea is, most often, that an image or a graphic representation can be taken in all at once — as a gestalt — which is assumed to happen more quickly than the decoding that takes place as we move (leaping, it turns out) through a text from left to right. This is one reason graphic laws find themselves on traffic signs.

But what seems obvious to one observer — the “draftsperson,” say . . . [more]

A recent case from Nova Scotia raises some interesting points around the defence of due diligence in administrative penalty cases for health and safety cases.

Call me Carl.

For a week in August, I played the role of law student intern to the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. My kids were thrilled because it meant they could call me Carl – just like the student intern to Major Monagram on the Disney XD cartoon Phineas and Ferb. While I was not blessed with a theme song like my namesake, I did get a great experience and possibly an early peek on New York state’s latest advance in the promotion of access to justice.

It was only weeks after my experience . . . [more]

Across Canada tomorrow there are multiple vigils being held on behalf of Sisters in Spirit, a national campaign to honour the lives of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. The Sisters in Spirit campaign was initially funded by Status of Women in order to address violence against Aboriginal women and girls, but expanded to include murdered and missing Aboriginal women and girls. Federal funding for the Sisters in Spirit campaign ended in 2010.

In 1988, a Manitoba provincial inquiry (“the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry”) examined the death of Helen Betty Osborne and found that her murder was clearly motivated by . . . [more]

Important Message from the Senate and the House of Commons of Canada
Published on: Fri, 09/28/2012
Last Modified: Fri, 09/28/2012 – 2:25pm

The Senate of Canada and the House of Commons have informed us that as of September 17, 2012, their publications will be available in electronic format only. Therefore, Publishing and Depository Services will no longer sell and distribute Parliamentary publications in paper format as of that date.

We are working closely with the Senate of Canada and the House of Commons to make these publications available in PDF format in our electronic publication collection available on our Web . . . [more]

This is just a brief note to say that I’ve updated the Canadian Case Commentary site, which now contains Supreme Court judgments released by the end of June, 2012, i.e. up to Clements v. Clements. (This comes as close to the present as seems sensible, given that the latest commentary recorded was published merely a week ago.)

I invite those of you who haven’t had a chance to learn of this project to visit the site. You’ll find navigation easy: there’s a killer search function and a hyperlinked table of cases.

Fifteen judgments were added to the database, for . . . [more]

It is becoming more common for businesses and not for profits to require criminal record checks for new employees and volunteers, and to have current employees and volunteers update them every few years. This stems from liability and safety concerns. To avoid, for example, someone who has a violent criminal record from being around children, or someone convicted of fraud handling money. 

As this process becomes more common, it has arguably raised the bar for liability standards, thus making it even more common. At least one government provider of grants to the arts sector has stated that it won’t give . . . [more]

This morning’s Globe and Mail features a prominent advertisement for Queen’s University:

The bold statement is hard to miss:

But is it quite true? To get a definitive answer we will need to wait for Kerri Froc‘s book. She is writing the first comprehensive examination of its history, interpretation and potential application with the goal of ensuring the Charter delivers on its promise of a fair, equal and democratic society for all Canadians.

In the interim, we can argue about why cases like M. v. H., 1999 CanLII 686 (SCC), [1999] 2 SCR 3, won by Martha . . . [more]

The Sixteenth Annual Canadian Information Technology Law Association (“IT.CAN”) Conference will be held in Montreal on October 29-30.

IT.CAN has 350 members from across the country who are concerned with IT law. The annual conference is the organization’s major event to help attendees stay current in this rapidly developing area of law.

The full conference brochure including registration details is available on the IT.CAN website. If you have any questions about the program, get in touch with Lisa Ptack, IT.CAN Executive Director at lisa.ptack@rogers.com. . . . [more]

If you ask many lawyers why they went to law school, the answer is often “Because I got in.” In other words, armed with a shiny bachelor’s degree in English Lit, Physics or Anthropology, they need another professional designation to make them employable. I was one of those grads many decades ago with a passion for medieval history. I knew, that sadly, I was likely the only person interested in the life of Charles The Bold.

Bachelor degrees, especially in the Arts, equip us well to be successful law students. My history degree taught me excellent research and writing skills . . . [more]