The Quebec government has followed up on its plans to legalize doctor-assisted suicide. On June 12, 2013, the government tabled in the National Assembly Bill 52, An Act respecting end-of-life care, which besides its main goal of ensuring that end-of-life patients are provided with care “that is respectful of their dignity and their autonomy,” establishes specific requirements for certain types of medical assistance to die.

This morning, the Supreme Court of Canada handed down its fourth significant decision on conflicts of interest, the scope of duties of loyalty, and the appropriate division of responsibility between courts and law societies as regulators of professional conduct. It rejected arguments for liberalizing the so-called bright-line rule, but clarified its operation.

The case reopened the “bright-line rule” and the so-called “professional litigant exception, ” formulated by former Justice Ian Binnie in R. v. Neil, and re-affirmed in Strother v. 3464920 Canada Inc. It provides:

… a lawyer may not represent one client whose interests are directly adverse

. . . [more]

Last week Tomee Sojourner, who happens to be a lesbian, filed a complaint of bias against the judge who had presided over a hearing at the Québec Rental Board of a complaint by Ms Sojourner’s landlord. In the words of the news release on the website of Montreal’s Center for Research-Action on Race (Ms Sojourner is Black):

According to her complaint with the Council, the presiding judge, Luce De Palma, repeatedly referred to her as a man (by calling her “il”, “lui” et “monsieur Sojourner”), despite being reminded by Ms. Sojourner and the landlord’s representative that she is a woman.

. . . [more]

According to a story in today’s New York Times, the US Postal Service has a program to photographed the exterior of every single piece of mail they processed — something like 160 billion pieces a year — and provides that data to “law enforcement” upon request. So if you were thinking to evade Prism by brushing up on your letter writing skills . . . return to sender.

The “Mail Isolation Control and Tracking” program simply provides the information available on “covers” without the necessity of recourse to a judge. The article notes that challenges to this practice have . . . [more]

An article in today’s Globe and Mail reports on a judgment by Ontario Superior Court justice D. M. Brown in which he severely criticizes the high cost of access to the courts in Canada: “Ontario courts ‘only open to the rich,’ judge warns,” by James Bradshaw.

The particular decision, York University v. Michael Markicevic, 2013 ONSC 4311, involves a request by one defendant to discharge a certificate of pending litigation registered against her real property and is part of a larger action by York against Markicevic and others concerning their alleged misuse of university resources. Let . . . [more]

It is common, when the question is raised of how to best respond to the influx of self-represented litigants (“SRL”) in court and other legal proceedings, to see the issue described as a challenge or burden upon the profession. Verbs used to describe the response of lawyers or judges to the SRL often include words like “manage” or “survive” and others that carry similar connotations of a problem in need of a solution.

But the SRL is not a problem; self-representing litigants are rather a symptom of a complex bundle of problems in the design and functioning of our legal . . . [more]

One of the costs to the justice system is the failure of many who are accused of summary conviction offences to appear at scheduled court hearings. A group of researchers in the US studied the effect on the no-show rate of sending out reminder postcards. These would be cheaper than the reminder phone calls typically used in many jurisdictions. The study sample was roughly 8,000 “misdemeanants” in Nebraska, a selection of whom received one of three postcards, each with somewhat different wording (as to consequences of failure to appear). The results are described thus in the current issue [PDF] of . . . [more]

If I were to start to discuss politicians and expense scandals your mind would likely turn to events in Ottawa; however, here in Nova Scotia, we have been there, done that and so have that T-Shirt. The popular topic earlier this week was whether or not the legislature was going to be recalled in order to expel a sitting MLA. In the end that did not happen, but if it had, it would not have been the first time in Nova Scotia.

Twenty-six years ago in 1986, An Act Respecting Reasonable Limits for Membership in the House of Assembly, . . . [more]

Willie Nellson is performing in Confederation Park on the summer solstice this Friday. In anticipation I’ve had my favourite Willie Nelson song stuck in my head all week: (yes this blog post is mostly an excuse to play this song).

A few years ago around the time of my call to the bar I sent my parents a video of myself doing a karaoke to this song. They were proud parents of a lawyer-to-be and thought they’d appreciate Willie’s advice to mothers that they should make their kids be “doctors and lawyers and such” (and more central to the song, . . . [more]

Today, the Women Lawyers Forum of the Manitoba Bar Association is gathering to honour and celebrate women appointed to the Bench in Manitoba or retiring from the Bench. Celebrating Success is an annual event to acknowledge the contribution these members of the judiciary have made to our profession, and to the cause of gender equality.

The event today recognizes Judge Cynthia Devine and Judge Margaret Wiebe, both appointed to the Provincial Court and Madam Justice Diana Cameron, promoted to the Court of Appeal from the Court of Queen’s Bench.

While it is always a lovely evening, I find . . . [more]

The Quebec Soccer Federation (QSF)/ Fédération de Soccer du Québec (FSQ) has reversed its ban against turbans, relieving tensions reverberating across the country.

The move only came though after a suspension by the Canadian Soccer Association (CSA) on June 10, and a statement by on Friday by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) that it allowed soccer players to wear the religious headgear. Sikhs in Quebec were dismayed over being excluded from the sport, and Canadians outside of Quebec questioned the approach of the organization.

The incident served as a flash point over the issues of integration, accommodation and . . . [more]

So do I need to point out that the NSA cell phone snooping story broke on the 64th anniversary of the publication of Orwell’s 1984?

By all accounts, privacy is dead, the question is do people care? Personally, I do; but I cannot deny that if you go online then you must accept that you are leaving a trail, but that does not mean that we have to exchange our love of the interwebs and mobile computing in exchange for our privacy.

I observed this comment by a friend of mine and I feel it needs to be spread more . . . [more]