I want to start this column by reiterating how damaging the Law Society of Ontario web linking agreement is. It’s part of the terms of use of the Law Society’s website and it prohibits links to the entire website (except to http://www.lso.ca) without the Law Society’s prior written consent. Google this legal notice because I am not linking to it. (By the way, did Google get LSO’s written consent before indexing its website?) I am not even going to post a screenshot here because of restrictions that the Law Society purports to assert in its terms of use. Find all . . . [more]

Several times each month, we are pleased to republish a recent book review from the Canadian Law Library Review (CLLR). CLLR is the official journal of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL/ACBD), and its reviews cover both practice-oriented and academic publications related to the law.

Abortion: History, Politics, and Reproductive Justice after Morgentaler. Edited by Shannon Stettner, Kristin Burnett & Travis Hay. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017. vi, 372 p. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7748-3574-9 (paper) $34.95.

Reviewed by Megan Siu
Community Development & Educational Specialist
Centre for Public Legal Education Alberta (CPLEA)
In . . . [more]

Upon writing Practicalities of Securing a Law Book Publishing Agreement, I pondered on an aspect of that actual or potential experience which was addressed therein in only four bullet points, namely the issue of what is expected from publishers. It is the publisher, for the most part, which sets the rules of the game and drives the contractual conditions and process. As this is often a corporate entity negotiating with an individual, who is normally not represented by a publishing agent or a media lawyer, the parties are rarely equal, in terms of power and resources. There is . . . [more]

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. Alberta Union of Provincial Employees v Alberta, 2019 ABCA 411

[45] In this case, in assessing what remedy was appropriate, Arbitrator Moreau decided that the employment relationship was not viable for the “lack of truthfulness” in three different contexts: during the interviews with the employer (the conduct for which he was disciplined by the employer); during the proceedings before Arbitrator Moreau; . . . [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]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on practice, research, writing and technology.

Research & Writing

Finding Information About Private Acts
Susannah Tredwell

“Private acts” are acts that are passed to deal specifically with the private interests of a person, company, or organization; for example the Acme Assurance Company Incorporation Act, S.C. 1931, c. 71 is a private act. Private acts can be found both federally and provincially. …

Practice

How Do You Get Other Lawyers – or Yourself – to Write . . . [more]

It is no secret that that self-regulation can be compromised by the tension between the public interest and the interest of the regulated profession[i]. This tension leads some to say that self-regulation is inherently flawed and should come to an end.

In this column, I suggest that:

• it may be useful to recognize that conflicting professional interests are more in tension in some areas than in others and accordingly to look for ways to mitigate that tension where it is potentially problematic
• there may be limited measures that can be used to mitigate such tension without having to

The Ontario Court of Appeal recently released a brief decision in Demetriou v. AIG Insurance Company of Canada, overturning a decision on a summary judgment motion.

The claim involved a man who had traveled to a resort in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Unfortunately he did no leave his ring at home, and wore it on a gold chain around his neck. This was a special ring, one that had been passed on to him by his maternal grandmother, and he had been provided it by his parents so that one day he could give it to one of his . . . [more]

One Sunday each month OnPoint Legal Research provides Slaw with an extended summary of, and counsel’s commentary on, an important case from the British Columbia, Alberta, or Ontario court of appeal.

Pacific Centre for Reproductive Medicine v. Medical Services Commission, 2019 BCCA 315

AREAS OF LAW:  Constitutional; Public; Human Rights

~The Medical Services Commission decision to deny a private medical clinic approval as a diagnostic facility was reasonable and the clinic provided an insufficient evidentiary foundation to establish its claim that the denial breached rights under s. 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms for the clinic’s . . . [more]

Every week we present the summary of a decision handed down by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and considered to be of interest to our readers throughout Canada. SOQUIJ is attached to the Québec Department of Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

CONSTITUTIONNEL (DROIT) : L’argument des appelants au soutien de leur demande de déclaration d’inconstitutionnalité de la Loi de 2013 sur la succession au trône, voulant que cette loi modifie la charge de la Reine et qu’elle n’ait pas été adoptée suivant la bonne procédure, est rejeté.

Intitulé : Motard . . . [more]

In Keatley Surveying, the small issue of whether a statutory regime of land titles registration involving the filing and dissemination of land surveys was addressed through a much larger question of copyright ownership of those land surveys. Ownership in the copyright of land surveys became the basis for maintaining the integrity of a land titles system when it could have been addressed through the statutory obligation exception in the Copyright Act.

Teranet is a statutorily empowered third party manager of Ontario’s land registry system. Land surveys registered on title are scanned and digitized, then made available to the . . . [more]