Monday’s Mix

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from more than 80 recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. Barry Sookman 2. The Court 3. Excess Copyright 4. Legal Post Blog 5. Hull & Hull Blog

Barry Sookman
Cloud computing services not subject to PST says BC court: Hootsuite Inc. v British Columbia (Finance)

Are cloud computing services subject to provincial sales tax? According to a recent decision of the BC Supreme Court in Hootsuite Inc. v British Columbia (Finance), 2023 BCSC 358 the cloud computing services AWS Support, EC2 and S3, and AWS direct connect are not subject to provincial sales tax under the Provincial Sales Tax Act, S.B.C. 2012, c. 35 [PSTA]. In short, these services are not taxable as, depending on the service, they are not the purchase of software programs, they constitute the purchase of on-demand infrastructure (IaaS), …

The Court
CMAC Rules Military Judges Are Not Independent or Impartial: R v Christmas

On February 2, 2023, the Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) granted leave to appeal from the Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada (“CMAC”) in the case of R v Christmas, 2020 CM 3009 [Christmas]. In this case, the CMAC considers whether a military officer’s s. 11(d) Charter right “to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal” was infringed in the context of court martial disciplinary hearings. …

Excess Copyright
Copyright Board Rules of Practice and Procedure: Plus Ça Change, Plus C’est La Même Chose?

After years of concern about extraordinary delays and other problems that led a Senate Committee to label the Copyright Board back in 2016 as “dated, dysfunctional and in dire need of reform”, the Board has finally come up with some supposedly new “Copyright Board Rules of Practice and Procedure: SOR/2023-24” …

Legal Post Blog
How King Charles got dragged into Disney’s fight with the governor of Florida

The Magic Kingdom is rife with royal footprints, from Cinderella Castle to the paid actors who bring Walt Disney Co.’s famous princesses, princes and evil queens to life. Now, one real-life royal has been thrown into the fray. …

Hull & Hull Blog
OBA Elder Law Day 2023

Hull & Hull lawyers Sydney Osmar, Tsvetomira Niklin, and myself attended the Ontario Bar Association’s Elder Law Day on March 28, 2023. This half-day event was full of exceptional speakers across a wide range of issues impacting estates and elder law practitioners chaired by Kim Gale and Matthew Rendely. Here is a quick recap of what we learned about: …

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*Randomness here is created by Random.org and its list randomizing function.