The 2019 Ontario Budget, released in March, introduced a number of sweeping changes, including a focus on “Ensuring Agencies are Relevant, Efficient and Effective.”

One of these proposed changes was to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board (CICB), to replace the quasi-judicial tribunal model established under the Compensation for Victims of Crime Act with an administrative model. This as then introduced and passed under Bill 100, Protecting What Matters Most Act (Budget Measures). The rationale, as with much of the legal reforms in this budget, is to reduce the expenses related to the adversarial process and expend resources directly . . . [more]

Prior to Ontario’s most recent provincial election, I didn’t know much about Pro Bono Ontario (“PBO”), a registered charity since 2001 which serves just under 30,000 clients each year from 11 locations. I wasn’t a litigator, and my clients were large corporations, not regular, everyday Canadians, so it wasn’t part of my world. But earlier this year, PBO gave a most impressive presentation to the Legal Innovators Roundtable describing how it was achieving maximum impact with a modest budget through its Free Legal Advice Hotline, using a thoughtful blend of volunteers as well as old and new technology. It sounded . . . [more]

In British Columbia, the Legal Services Society has launched a free, online service called “The Family Resolution Centre”. It is part of My Law BC (delivered by legal aid provider Legal Services Society).

The Family Resolution Centre program of My Law BC helps separated couples create parenting plans online. The parenting plans deal with parenting time, vacations, and other childcare needs. Alternatively, couples can request up to five hours of free assistance from a mediator. It is the first service of its kind in Canada. It can be accessed from mylawbc.com under “Mediation Tool”.

Tools like the Family . . . [more]

Earlier this month, the Ontario Court of Appeal affirmed a broad view of public interest standing in Alford v. Canada (Attorney General) when it reversed a trial level decision denying Alford standing to challenge as unconstitutional a particular provision of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act. . . . [more]

When I first heard about the confusion around the Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision in Hilson v. 1336365 Alberta Ltd. (“the withdrawal decision”), I, like many others (I assume), thought, “how could this have happened?” I sat for a while as a vice-chair of the Ontario Labour Relations Board and as alternate chair of the Ontario Pay Equity Tribunal, very often on a panel of three adjudicators. I decided to track the making of a decision, as I know it, at least, to see where the mistake may have occurred. . . . [more]

The Conflict of Interest Act (the “Act”) is likely one of the most reviewed pieces of legislation this week, as a result of the release of the the Trudeau II Report. The characterizations of the Report, and the underlying lessons that may be gleaned, risk being lost to partisan narratives absent close scrutiny.

The history of attempts to define rules around conflicts of interest go back to at least the 1970s, but despite several discussion papers, task forces, committees, inquiries, and reports, very little was actually achieved for over three decades.

The first of these was a green paper introduced . . . [more]

Recently, the chief justice of Canada, The Honourable Robert Wagner, suggested that appointments to the appellate courts might beneficially echo the process for appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada, with the introduction of legislative hearings into the nominee. As reported in The Globe and Mail, the chief justice argued that public nomination hearings would add to the transparency that he is seeking to bring to the judicial process and would increase trust in the judiciary; he explained, “the best way to avoid bias and prejudice is to inform the people.” Based on the process for SCC nominees, is . . . [more]

The Ontario Court of Appeal recently held in Petersoo v. Petersoo that a family law arbitrator should not ensure that a represented party is aware of an issue that is raised in the arbitration. This contrasts with Moore v. Apollo Health [and] Beauty Care, in which the Court of Appeal determined in 2017 that a judge who did not ensure that an unrepresented plaintiff who had intended to raise a claim had failed in his responsibility. . . . [more]

Parenting coordination was first developed in California in the 1980s as a response to family law cases characterized by elevated levels of conflict and repeated trips to court. The Special Master Program, as it was then known, was established to help parents resolve ongoing child-related disputes through a combination of consensus-building and decision-making, steering parents away from court and providing a more holistic, balanced alternative to the conflict and expense of adversarial court processes.

Under this program, parents were referred to mental health professionals who sought to resolve parenting disputes through mediation but, if mediation failed, were empowered to resolve . . . [more]

Integrity Commissioner J. David Wake recently indicated that he could investigate the Ford government’s appointments of people with whom the Premier’s former chief of staff, Dean French, had some form of association or, indeed, all previous appointments. (Mr. French resigned as the premier’s chief of staff after news of appointments initially broke.) However, Mr. Wake also stated that he could report only to the premier and not release his findings to the public. Yet the public has an interest in such cases, perhaps particularly one that appears to be so extensive, and not only in the appointments themselves, but . . . [more]

The past decade has generally seen a significant contraction in the admission of legal graduates in the U.S., largely influenced by broader economic trends. The ABA Journal reported in 2017,

For nearly 40 years starting in 1971, law schools had an average first-year class size of 246 students, peaking to 262 in 2010. Since then, that average has dropped 31 percent to an average of 182 students.

This trend reversed last year, which has been attributed in part to greater political polarization in the U.S., especially around key legal and constitutional issues. The Law School Admission Council volume comparisons over . . . [more]

The impact of the Ford government’s 30% cut to legal aid has now been made explicit and that impact is to pare down the clinics’ contributions to access to justice. The cuts to the criminal justice system are important, but it is also crucial to understand how the cuts to the clinics affect those living in poverty in their everyday lives. (For the impact of cuts in other areas, see Legal Aid Ontario’s announcement.) . . . [more]