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]

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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]

Back in August 2010, Ontario joined the ranks of Provinces who took advantage of amendments to the Criminal Code permitting the creation of reduced suspension terms with ignition of Interlock programs for impaired drivers. When I last wrote about this topic many of the day-to-day details of the program were unclear. With the program having just celebrated its first anniversary, the time is ripe for a short retrospective on how far we’ve come.

First, the basics. The Criminal Code sets out a mandatory twelve month licence suspension for anyone convicted of impaired driving offences. Prior to the enactment of the . . . [more]

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Trop de gens se désolent du manque de conscience citoyenne de certains de nos jeunes, du manque d’implication de nos concitoyens dans les affaires publiques, de la lassitude et de l’incompréhension généralisée face au fonctionnement de nos institutions. Il me semble que nous faisons face à un problème croissant de citoyens qui ne comprennent pas notre système et son fonctionnement.

Cependant, et trop souvent dans le travail que nous faisons chez Éducaloi, certains membres du public voient d’un mauvais œil que nous recevons des fonds des gouvernements dans notre travail… Comme si le fait que . . . [more]

Canada – either the Government or the Parliament of the day – has issued public apologies for its treatment of various groups, primarily ethnic communities for the mistreatment they endured in the hands of previous Governments: Japanese Canadians during WWII; Italian and Ukrainian Canadians during WWI.

Certainly the most dramatic apology was the one offered to the Aboriginal peoples of Canada for the mistreatment of their children over many decades through the residential schools run by various churches under contract with the federal government. Some other time I would like to argue that Parliament needs also to apologize for the . . . [more]

Is the practice of law predominantly a business or a profession? The debate is an old one. When Governor General David Johnston spoke of the practice of law at the recent Canadian Legal Conference in Halifax, he described it as much more than a profit-driven business. He portrayed a noble profession with duties to the client, to justice and to the public interest. He saw a social contract as existing between lawyers and society:

“There are three principal elements to any profession’s social contract. First, the profession is characterized by specialized knowledge that is taught formally and obtained by experience . . . [more]

I never had the opportunity to take Law and Economics, and almost everything I remember from undergraduate economics courses I could have learned at Father Guido Sarducci’s Five Minute University. In spite of my lack of knowledge about the subject I’m beginning to suspect that whatever you’re thinking about, it’s important to follow the money.

I doubt that thinking most Aboriginal issues are about money, rather than constitutional law principles, international law principles, or human rights principles is any kind of insight. But I wonder, are there foundational legal principles about money? For example, is there a legal principle . . . [more]

The riots that started in Tottenham, London on 6^th August and spread throughout London and England for the subsequent 3 days, could not have been predicted. Initially people thought that the shooting of police suspect Mark Duggan had sparked community tensions that eventually boiled over. But this theory has been quickly discounted. Others initially blamed government cuts for causing public anger. Others, including the Prime Minister, David Cameron, blamed a ‘Broken Britain’. None of these theories really provide us with a satisfying answer as to why so many young people looted, vandalised and attacked property and people without . . . [more]