One of my favorite jokes involves a visitor lost in rural Scotland. The tourist comes upon a farmer and asks the farmer for directions to Edinburgh. The farmer pauses, appears deep in thought, and then says[1] “I don’t think that I would start from here”.

Challenges to reform

I’ve been listening to an interesting podcast series called Revolutions that discusses the English, American, French, Haitian, 1848 European, Spanish American, Mexican, and Russian revolutions[2]. The series is interesting in its consideration of the transition from feudal to industrial economies and the parallel development of liberal and socialist thought. . . . [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

Use Search Filters on CanLII
Alex Tsang

Applying filters to your search results is a great way of narrowing them down and can help save time you might otherwise spend scrolling through hundreds or even thousands of results! … . . . [more]

It is axiomatic that nobody should be above the law, and perhaps equally accepted that law enforcement is a necessary component for ensuring adherence to the law.

However, public confidence requires that police officers who use excessive force are also dealt with appropriately by the courts, and that their roles within the justice system does not result in complete immunity from prosecution.

The Manitoba Court of Appeal recently released a decision in R v Letkeman, which reviewed the non-custodial sentence imposed on an RCMP officer. The accused was sentenced to a 3-year probation order for criminal negligence causing bodily . . . [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.

SOCIAL (DROIT) : Un prestataire de la sécurité du revenu doit réclamer dès que possible sa rente de retraite et ne peut, contrairement à tout autre cotisant, choisir à son gré le moment du versement de sa rente; il n’y a pas là de traitement discriminatoire.

Intitulé : R.O. c. . . . [more]

Our justice system isn’t all bad, and in some ways it’s getting better. Some things in the system might have to be difficult and complicated, because life is complicated and so is the law. But there are also plenty of things that seem unnecessarily difficult and complicated. I’m talking about things that could be fixed without a lot of controversy or money, just by thinking carefully about how they affect the system’s users.

One that has always irritated me is Rule 4 (“Court Documents”) in Ontario’s Rules of Civil Procedure. It lays out all of the technical requirements for . . . [more]

Each Friday, we share the latest job listings from Slaw Jobs, which features employment opportunities from across the country. Find out more about these positions by following the links below, or learn how you can use Slaw Jobs to gain valuable exposure for your job ads, while supporting the great Canadian legal commentary at Slaw.ca.

Current postings on Slaw Jobs:

• Senior Specialist, Marketing Projects (Full-time) | Calgary, AB or Vancouver, BC
  (Bennett Jones)
• Hospitality Clerk (Full-time) | Vancouver, BC
  (Bennett Jones)
• Legal Assistant, Resource Team (Corporate & Litigation) (Contract role) | Edmonton, AB
  (Bennett Jones)
• Director, Legal (Full-time) | Toronto,

Written by Daniel Standing LL.B., Editor, First Reference Inc.

COVID-19 has caused much suffering and death worldwide since its discovery in late 2019. Part of Canada’s response has been tightening restrictions on those who enter Canada by air by enacting emergency orders under the federal Quarantine Act. These measures were the focus of a wide-ranging Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Charter) attack by several applicants in the Federal Court case of Spencer v Canada (Health), 2021 FC 621 (CanLII). With two limited exceptions, Chief Justice Paul Crampton rejected the claims that the emergency orders were unconstitutional. The . . . [more]

Periodically on Thursdays, we present a significant excerpt, usually from a recently published book or journal article. In every case the proper permissions have been obtained. If you are a publisher who would like to participate in this feature, please let us know via the site’s contact form.

Constitutional Pariah: Reference re Senate Reform and the Future of Parliament

Author: Emmett Macfarlane
ISBN: 9780774866224
Publisher: UBC Press
Series: Landmark Cases in Canadian Law
Page Count: 198
Publication Date: April 2021
Regular Price: $27.95 (paperback) | Series subscriber price: $22.00

Excerpt: From Chapter 1 [Footnotes omitted. They can be found in . . . [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.

Wounded Feelings: Litigating Emotions in Quebec, 1870–1950. By Eric H. Reiter. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019. xiii, 482 p. Includes illustrations, bibliographic reference, and index. ISBN 9781487506551 (hardcover) $55.00; ISBN 9781487526986 (softcover) $44.95. 

Reviewed by Mary Hemmings
Law Librarian and Instructor
Faculty of Law, Thompson Rivers University
In CLLR 46:2 . . . [more]

In mediation, it is always a delicate question how much the mediator should try to shape an agreement, or leave it entirely to the parties.

This is especially true when the parties the parties are very close to agreement and reach an impasse. I think most mediators would agree that the impasse can often be broken by challenging the parties’ assumptions – and their assessments of positions and interests – that lead them to say: “This far and no further.”

Maybe one side feels that it has been making more concessions than the other. And, usually, each side believes its . . . [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. Skoblenick v. Aviva General Insurance Company, 2021 ONSC 5340

[21] One might not ordinarily expect, in the exercise of professional courtesy between counsel, that a request for an adjournment of examinations to accommodate the personal schedule of one counsel would lead to a claim for costs thrown away. However, there was no obligation on the defendant to consent to the adjournment request. . . . [more]

In my last post, I discussed whether private employers and other entities can require proof of vaccinations (spoiler alert: I concluded they can, subject to human rights requirements). In this post, I consider how normal expectations of privacy in the workplace are giving way to requirements intended to control the spread of Covid-19. . . . [more]