One of the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice’s primary mandates is improving access to justice. How do consumer issues relate to access to justice? For consumers, access to justice is partly about holding retailers and suppliers accountable for the promises they make and for the safety of their products and services. In 2014, the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice (CFCJ) conducted the “Everyday Legal Problems and the Cost of Justice in Canada” survey with over 3000 participants across Canada. According to the CFCJ data, access to consumer justice is an issue. While formal justice mechanisms for . . . [more]

Canada entered 2015 internationally condemned as a climate laggard, and enters 2016 with a new government that received praise for its role in the Paris Climate negotiations. But the country’s work on climate change is far from done. The government has promised, within 90 days after the Paris talks, to sit down with the Premiers to develop a national framework on climate change.

In this post we review the Paris Agreement, its strengths and shortcomings, and what it means for Canada.

Evaluating the Paris Climate Agreement

In December the nations of the world gathered in Paris to negotiate a new . . . [more]

“The traditional professions will be dismantled, leaving most (but not all) professionals to be replaced by less expert people and high-performing systems.” This is the central message of The Future of Professions, a new book from Richard and Daniel Susskind. Machines, they argue, will take over much professional work. Even when the machines cannot do so alone, the Susskinds expect that they will allow laypeople, paraprofessionals, and the clients themselves do the necessary work.

One way or the other, highly-trained and expensive human professionals will be mostly cut out of the value chain. The future of the professions, in . . . [more]

Whether you greeted the ascendancy of Justin Trudeau’s Liberals with rainbow-tinted visions of angels and unicorns or you prophesied Canada’s sulfuric descent into a pit of doom, all agree on one inviolable truth: change is coming.

Trudeau, and his newly appointed Justice Minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould, face a ticking clock on a phalanx of legal challenges and legislative amendments many of which require immediate attention.

Marijuana

Whether it’s legalization or some form of decriminalization, this is a promise that Trudeau’s youthful fans – who turned out to vote for the party in record numbers – are not likely to sit quietly . . . [more]

In a recent speech to the world’s insurance companies, Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England (and formerly of the Bank of Canada), warned of the risks of lawsuits “by parties who have suffered loss or damage from the effects of climate change [who] seek compensation from those they hold responsible.”

While not presenting such lawsuits as a sure thing, Mr. Carney alluded to multi-billion dollar lawsuits against the Asbestos industry and said that the risks of such litigation “will only increase as the science and evidence of climate change hardens.”

West Coast Environmental Law made a . . . [more]

On September 15, 2015 the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice (CFCJ) published Civil Non-Family Cases Filed in the Supreme Court of BC – Research Results and Lessons Learned. This study is one piece of a larger, five year “Cost of Justice” research initiative being undertaken by CFCJ with the goal of defining the economic and social costs of justice on two fronts: the cost of delivering access to justice, and the cost of not delivering access to justice.

The study was conducted by Focus Consultants of Victoria, B.C. in 2014 and 2015 in the Supreme Court of . . . [more]

The following national problem should be part of every party’s federal election platform: the majority of the population cannot afford legal services at a reasonable cost—the legal advice of a lawyer is not affordable.

This is the most serious and damaging problem that Canada’s justice system and the legal profession have ever faced.

The abundant in-depth analytical literature provides this definition of the problem: “The majority of the population cannot obtain legal services at reasonable cost.” Or, the legal profession has priced itself beyond the majority of the population.

It is a problem caused by the obsolescence of the . . . [more]

Will the National Energy Board (“NEB”) listen to evidence about climate change when deciding whether to permit an oil pipeline? No, no, and no.

The federal Conservatives have dramatically narrowed Canada’s environmental laws, in a concerted effort to force through approval of oil pipelines, to get Alberta’s bitumen to international markets. They did this through the infamous Omnibus Bills, especially C-38[1] in 2012. Among these changes were amendments to the National Energy Board Act[2] (the “NEB Act”), to limit public participation in NEB hearings. Now, Canadian courts have rejected constitutional challenges to these amendments.

Who will the NEB . . . [more]

Budgets have no bottoms. Promises know no bounds. No baby has gone un-kissed. It must be Federal election time in Canada.

With political pandering at a fever pitch and politicians tripping over themselves to promise the earth, moon and stars to an election-weary electorate, it is an ideal time to exercise some wish-list thinking when it comes to criminal justice reform.

For all the bumps and bruises suffered by the ruling Conservatives at least one aspect of their message continues to garner broad popular support – ‘tough-on-crime’. With the outlier exception of legalizing marijuana, only the most suicidal politician would . . . [more]

The Legal problems of Canadians are not evenly distributed. Data from the 2014 CFCJ survey – Everyday Legal Problems in Canada – indicates that a disproportionate percentage of persons who experience legal problems bear the burden of a significant amount of all legal problems— 10% of persons who have at least one legal problem experience 1/3 of all legal problems. Additionally, data indicates that a large cross-section of persons who experience legal problems are among the poorest in Canadian society. The CFCJ survey also confirms that overall, there is a high prevalence of everyday legal problems within Canadian society, with . . . [more]

Should young persons be optimistic about the future?

Does history set the context for the present and the future? Is the past prologue?

Based on history, I submit that a young person should be optimistic about our future.

Some of our history that supports an optimistic outlook are :

1. improvements in the health sciences and life expectancy;
2. the growth of educational opportunities;
3. the consolidation of governments;
4. the growth of democratic government;
5. the decline in violence over the centuries;
6. the decline of wars by the major powers;
7. the expansion of global trade.

1. Health:

In Canada our life expectancy has increased . . . [more]

A few days ago, on 11 August, the co-facilitators of the process that had to produce the successors to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) sent a letter to the President of the UN General Assembly that their mission had been accomplished. In diplomatic speak: an outcome document containing a draft of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) had been adopted by consensus. In the diplomatic universe this means that the Heads of State and Government and High Representatives will rubberstamp the document when they meet at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from 25-27 September 2015 for the UN’s 70 . . . [more]