One Sunday each month we bring you a summary from Supreme Advocacy LLP of recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers a weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, to which you may subscribe. It’s a summary of all Appeals, Oral Judgments and Leaves to Appeal granted from May 16 – June 20, 2024 inclusive.

Appeals

Contracts: Sale of Goods; Exclusion Clauses; Standard of Review
Earthco Soil Mixtures Inc. v. Pine Valley Enterprises Inc., 2022 ONCA 265; 2024 SCC 20 (40197)

The principles in Sattva apply to the contracts herein, subject to the . . . [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 Il existe un conflit irréconciliable entre l’article 10 de la Charte de la langue française et les dispositions linguistiques du Code criminel; ce conflit existe sous 2 formes: il s’agit d’une incompatibilité d’application — l’article 10 de la charte empêche un juge de la cour criminelle de . . . [more]

It seems that the world is experiencing more serious and intractable conflict. Our brains are hardwired to focus on bad news, which is everywhere and which can lead to stress and even despair. As conflict management professionals, what can we do to navigate these stormy times?

I offer a hat tip to Tammy Lenski for linking to this article by William Ury:

3 Ways to Make Conflict Less Destructive

William Ury is well known to most of you as an acclaimed mediator, co-founder of Harvard’s Program on Negotiation, co- author of the famous “Getting to Yes” and author of “Possible . . . [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.

Unwritten Constitutionalism. By Maxime St-Hilaire, Ryan Alford & Kristopher Kinsinger, eds. Toronto: LexisNexis, 2023. xxxvi, 255 p. Includes tables of cases and index. ISBN 9780433528203 (softcover) $125.00.

Reviewed by Melanie Bueckert
Legal Research Counsel

The papers in Unwritten Constitutionalism originated from The Unwritten Principle of Constitutionalism in Canadian Jurisprudence, the . . . [more]

1.

You know the look. A genuine smile, a pleasant surprise, a comfortable pride, man-to-man, he says “Hello! How are you?” a little too loud in a . . . [more]

The House of Commons adjourned for the summer on June 20, 2024. A number of federal bills received Royal Assent the same day, including two omnibus acts, Bill C-59, the Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023, and Bill C-69, the Budget Implementation Act, 2024, No. 1.

While not all the amendments made by these acts came into force on Royal Assent, a number of them did. However, the federal Justice Laws Website has not yet added these changes to the consolidated legislation and, based on previous patterns, the consolidated legislation will take a while to be updated.

As . . . [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.

La juge de la Cour supérieure a correctement conclu que la condamnation antérieure de l’accusée, pour le même événement, en raison d’une infraction de conduite avec les facultés affaiblies par l’alcool (art. 320.14 (1) a) C.Cr.) entraînait l’application de la règle interdisant les condamnations multiples et justifiait l’arrêt des procédures . . . [more]

On May 21, 2024, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea delivered a groundbreaking advisory opinion on state parties’ climate change obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The unanimous opinion found that state parties have legal obligations to implement measures to prevent, reduce and control greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including by enacting laws and regulations. In developing those measures, states must consider the best available science and international treaties like the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

This is the first time an international court . . . [more]

Written by Christina Catenaci, BA, LLB, LLM, PhD, Content Editor, published by First Reference Inc.,

In April 2024, the New Brunswick Labour and Employment Board confirmed the decision of the Director of Employment Standards that an elected municipal councillor with a local government governed by the Local Governance Act was not an employee. He claimed that his six-month suspension was a violation of the Employment Standards Act and that he was owed damages. The Board concluded that the councillor did not meet the definition of “employee.” Therefore, the Board dismissed the councillor’s claim. . . . [more]

Following ChatGPT’s public release in November 2022, there has been growing discussion about how generative AI intersects with lawyers’ professional obligations as found in codes of conduct. I published some early thoughts on this topic in Slaw.ca (see here and here). Several Canadian law societies have now also published guidance. Providing this sort of information is essential, in my view, for building needed tech literacy in the profession, particularly as AI becomes increasingly integrated into common tools that lawyers already use on a daily basis. Unfortunately, we have already seen that appropriate AI use by lawyers is not inevitable . . . [more]

Most of the semi-permanent controversy concerning articling revolves around whether it should be retained as a requirement for lawyer licensure, and if so, how the profession can ensure there are enough articling opportunities for all licensure candidates. Rarely discussed, but relevant to both inquiries, is a simpler question: How long should the articling term last?

It’s revealing that there’s no single answer to that question. Currently, most Canadian jurisdictions impose a 12-month or 52-week articling period, which may include time spent in a bar admission course. In Ontario, however, the articling term is ten months long, and in British . . . [more]