A sold-out audience of lawyers, judges, academics and others gathered in Winnipeg last week for a Journey to of Reconciliation as part of the 2016 Isaac Pitblado Lectures. This event was a first step for The Law Society of Manitoba in meeting the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Action #27:

We call upon the Federation of Law Societies of Canada to ensure that lawyers receive appropriate cultural competency training, which includes the history and legacy of residential schools, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Treaties and Aboriginal rights, Indigenous law, and Aboriginal– Crown relations. This

The great passion of Canadian law is standard of review. Judging by last week’s 5:4 decision in Edmonton (City) v Edmonton East (Capilano) Shopping Centres Ltd., 2016 SCC 47, we can’t get enough litigation and case law on the subject.

First, a note about the style of cause, which is determined by the vagaries of court practices. The order of the parties should really be reversed, because it was Edmonton East (Capilano) Shopping Centres Ltd. (the “Company”) that started the case by filing a complaint with the Assessment Review Board (the “Board”) for the City of Edmonton (the . . . [more]

What does it all mean? Many people are asking themselves that on this day after the US general election.

If your personal ‘what does it all mean’ relates to the laws of Alberta (and why wouldn’t it) there is a new tool to assist you with an answer. The Alberta Queen’s Printer is now providing ‘high level descriptions’ to provide context to search and browse results for legislative information.

Wondering what the Judicature Act is all about? The description offers:

This act provides for the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeal of Alberta and the Court of Queen’s Bench of

Each Wednesday we tell you which three English-language cases and which French-language case have been the most viewed* on CanLII and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about.

For this last week:

1. R. v. Pelletier, 2016 ONCJ 628

[9] I will not detail in my decision the trauma you have suffered. Physical, sexual, and emotional trauma. Even when you were so young. A child. To do so in such a public way as in a judicial decision will not help you heal. I will say this though. Ms. Hughes testified that in the . . . [more]

An unusual five-member panel of the Federal Court of Appeal re-considered the appropriate standard of review in the Federal Court. The decision simplified the standard of review by focusing on the Housen standard described the Supreme Court of Canada (see 2002 SCC 33). The court also emphasized the importance of prothonotaries in the Federal Court, which is of particular significance to intellectual property proceedings which are almost always case managed by a prothonotary.

The court decided to expand its usual three member panel to a five-member panel in order to revisit its earlier Aqua-Gem decision (Canada v. Aqua-Gem . . . [more]