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.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : Le juge de première instance, qui a erré dans l’analyse du témoignage de la victime dans une affaire de leurre, ne pouvait par ailleurs fonder sa décision sur le résultat de ses recherches concernant la signification de l’expression «BZ» employée dans les messages texte sans avoir au . . . [more]

As a supplement to our Sunday Summary each month, Supreme Advocacy LLP in Ottawa presents Supreme One-Liners, a super-short descriptive guide to the most recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers its more comprehensive weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, summarizing all Appeals, Oral Judgments and Leaves to Appeal granted.

Appeals

Class Actions: Securities; Secondary Market Disclosure
Lundin Mining Corp. v. Markowich, 2025 SCC 39 (40853)

“Material change” broadly interpreted re securities disclosure. . . . [more]

Transformative change is underway in the Canadian lawyer licensing system. Two of the country’s largest law societies have signalled the impending end of high-stakes, multiple-choice legal-knowledge exams as the primary test of lawyer licensure.

In Ontario, a September report from the Law Society of Ontario (LSO)’s Professional Development and Competence Committee proposed that the current multiple-choice barrister and solicitor exams be replaced with a “mandatory skills-based course with assessments for all licensing candidates.”

The committee identified a lengthy list of problems and challenges associated with the written exam system, including:

• Written exams fail to assess core practice skills like interviewing,

I recently met a 1L who is interested in immigration and refugee law. She cold-called my office and I agreed to meet with her. She is well travelled and she has a passion for social justice. She did extensive research into the area and she was well prepared. She asked what she can be doing during her law degree to put herself on good footing for this type of practice. Good question. My first thought was to learn active listening and develop the skills of a social worker. I’ll explain.

We have many (many!) international students and foreign workers who . . . [more]

This submission is part of a column swap with the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) bimonthly member magazine, AALL Spectrum. Published six times a year, AALL Spectrum is designed to further professional development and education within the legal information industry. Slaw and the AALL Spectrum board have agreed to hand-select several columns each year as part of this exchange. 

The Data Rescue Project is an archetypal librarian story. A community of data librarians, researchers, concerned individuals, and organizations sprang into action to preserve U.S. federal government data after it began disappearing from websites at a rapid pace in . . . [more]

As has been widely reported over the past two weeks, the Law Society of Ontario is considering eliminating the existing bar exams and replacing them with “a mandatory skills-based course with assessments”.

The LSO is currently seeking feedback from lawyers and the public on its proposal to replace the existing barrister and solicitor examinations with an online course involving training and instruction as well as both interim and final assessments by trained lawyers.

Ontario’s Attorney General, Doug Downey, came out strongly against reform, tweeting:

“An objective, written and rigorous test is an important part of proving new lawyers are ready

Google Street View is a great resource that can be used for a number of different purposes (e.g. travel planning).

While legal research is not really something normally associated with Street View, I’ve used it to confirm whether an address really exists and, if if it exists, what kind of address it is. For example, when it says “suite 270” in an address, is there really a suite with that number or is it the number of a PO Box? 

The ability to go back in time on Street View is also helpful. At the bottom right of the screen . . . [more]

In my last column, I moved away from regulatory analysis to explore how artificial intelligence may affect specific functions within the legal profession. In this piece, I return to the theme of risk and broaden the discussion to consider the challenges AI presents across all regulated professions.

The rapid development of generative artificial intelligence has already begun to reshape practice across a wide range of professions. For regulated professionals in Canada, including lawyers, physicians, engineers, and others governed by statutory, ethical, and fiduciary duties, these advances bring both significant promise and considerable risk. However, the legal and regulatory frameworks are . . . [more]

“Reserves do not improve with age. The longer a decision sits unwritten, the heavier it becomes.”

When the Honourable Deena Baltman (retired) offered this observation during a recent continuing professional development session for Deputy Judges, she articulated something that every judge knows but rarely voices. Her presentation, titled Managing Reserves, was pragmatic and concrete: write promptly, ideally within 48 hours; avoid over-reserving; schedule writing time ruthlessly; resist the temptation to wait for motivation, inspiration, or provocation.

Yet what has stayed with me is not just the efficiency of her techniques but the unspoken premise beneath them: that timeliness in . . . [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.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : Même si la déclaration antérieure de la victime — laquelle, au moment de la continuation de son contre-interrogatoire, a décidé de se rétracter et de retirer toutes ses accusations contre l’accusé — n’aurait pas dû être recevable à titre de preuve au fond, cette erreur est sans . . . [more]