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Bâtir une stratégie d’utilisation des médias sociaux n’est pas de tout repos si l’on n’a pas les moyens d’engager des experts pour nous aider. En partageant l’expérience d’Éducaloi, j’espère pouvoir être utile à d’autres personnes ou organismes qui sont en réflexion quant à l’utilisation des médias sociaux.

Il y a maintenant deux ans, Éducaloi a décidé de se lancer sur les médias sociaux. En une seule journée de juillet 2009, nous ouvrions une page Facebook, un compte Twitter et une chaîne YouTube.

N’ayant pas les ressources disponibles ni la possibilité de répondre aux questions juridiques . . . [more]

Access to justice issues in the Canadian civil justice system are often framed around affordability, geography, and the quality of service provision. Affordability is most often linked to the high costs of privately provided legal services and the underfunding of legal aid. Geography has recently been shown to be relevant in major studies in Alberta and Ontario, one by the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice, the other by the Ontario Civil Legal Needs Project. Both emphasized that lawyers and paralegals are overwhelming concentrated in large urban centres. The quality of public service provision has been an issue in the case . . . [more]

In my last column  on 19 August 2011, I commented on the riots that took place in English cities. Soon after the riots, Prime Minister David Cameron, stated his conviction that the riots were the result of a broken society and gangs, which he quickly moved to declare war on. Since then, government, academics and the voluntary and community sectors have been performing an autopsy on the riots and this post outlines with regard to young people’s involvement, some preliminary findings; asks what we can learn from the past and overseas, and what investigations are currently underway.

Ministry of Justice . . . [more]

[with Meredith James]

Is it acceptable for legal pollution levels to be higher in some neighbourhoods than in others? In the US, pollution is often concentrated in areas of colour, including the famous Cancer Alley. Changing this is called “environmental justice”, and is an important priority for US EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.

(Ecojustice has framed the same issue as a Charter challenge in its work on behalf of two members of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation. It argues that Ministry of the Environment ongoing approval of multiple sources of pollution surrounding their Sarnia reserve violates their rights to life, liberty and . . . [more]

As you can imagine, the personalities you may meet over the course of a career in criminal law can be – ahem – colourful. I have frequently marvelled at some of the outrageous things I have seen defendants and complainants say and do but often forgotten in the rich cast of characters that populate a criminal trial is the crown witness. Commonly relegated to side-show status, in many trials a crown witness deserves top billing on the docket marquee along with the accused and complainant. This is particularly so for that most intriguing of animals – the confidential informant (“C.I.”). . . . [more]

Back in the 80’s – well before the availability of such innovative distractions and time wasters as the internet, Netflix, DisneyXD or PVRs – the late afternoon viewing options for pre-teen couch-potatoes were pretty sparse. Worse still, most of what was available often tried to impart important life lessons to impressionable young minds. Anyone remember the ABC After School Specials?

Some of those lessons must have stuck, because I can no longer hear someone say “now I know” (or some such) without reflexively adding the GI Joe inspired response: “and knowing is half the battle!”

So it . . . [more]

Anyone looking for a sign of the times for the state of access to justice in British Columbia will find at least 100 of them sprinkled throughout the province. In its efforts to provide maximum accessibility to some measure of free legal counsel for low- and modest-income British Columbians, Access Pro Bono (BC’s largest pro bono legal service provider) operates pro bono legal advice clinics in 100 different locations across BC— in communities stretching from the 59^th parallel down to the American border, from the Rocky Mountains over to the Pacific shores. Pro bono clinics are now more common . . . [more]

The Supreme Court’s decision in Alberta (Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development) v. Cunningham has left me scratching my head a bit. It overturned an Alberta Court of Appeal decision that seemed quite sensible to me. (One of the things that got me thinking about “double dipping” — since it was one of the respondents’ arguments.)

The case arose because the Cunninghams, long-time residents of an Alberta Métis settlement, were removed from the settlement membership list after they registered as Indians. The Cunninghams had sought to be registered under the amended Indian Act in order to get access to . . . [more]

[ français / English ]

Le locuteur de plusieurs langues peut généralement comprendre la complexité du travail de traduction. Il sait qu’un bon traducteur ne va jamais traduire mot à mot une phrase d’une langue à l’autre. Il faut plutôt refaire la phrase selon la structure grammaticale de la langue de traduction, les sens différents d’un mot dans cette langue ou les expressions idiomatiques propres. Sans oublier que parfois, la phrase originale contient des référents culturels qui n’auraient pas de sens dans l’autre langue.

Lorsqu’on fait de la vulgarisation et de l’information juridique, c’est encore plus complexe. Souvent, afin de . . . [more]

When I first began working with First Nations political organizations, a childhood friend who had become a rising star in the Ottawa public service told me, “Indian Affairs (DIAND) is the funny farm of the civil service.” Sadly, in the several decades since that conversation very little has changed. On the contrary the very qualities that won DIAND that award have, more recently, made Aboriginal land claims process, and particularly “specific claims” the Alice in Wonderland (AIW) of the Canadian Judicial System. It is this dubious quality, and particularly its significance for the judicial system that I want to share . . . [more]

The police cannot force someone to talk and then use the answers against them; can environmental regulators do so?

The courts have always allowed them to. In 1969, the Ontario Court of Appeal convicted Strand Electric [1968 CarswellOnt 291, [1969] 1 O.R. 190, [1969] 2 C.C.C. 264] of failing to maintain a scaffold in good condition contrary to the Construction Safety Act. The only evidence against the company was an oral statement made by its supervisor to a government inspector, a statement that he was required to make under the Act. The Court ruled that since the Company had a . . . [more]

In the various provincial election campaigns across the country, there is little attention being paid to the funding of the civil justice system. Among elected officials, the dominant paradigm is one that sees funding of the civil justice system as an obligatory expense for the government. The costs appear unlimited and ever increasing. The challenge within this paradigm is how to minimize this expensive item while still meeting their basic obligations. The results are evident in court delays, the ever increasing number of self-represented litigants, increasing restrictions on access to legal aid, and a myriad of unresolved civil disputes in . . . [more]