The Alberta Fair Registration Practices Act is proclaimed in force on March 1, 2020, to speed up the process of newcomers getting their credentials recognized so they can work in the careers they trained for, and remove unfair barriers. . . . [more]

There is, as yet, no official consolidation of the current Divorce Act and Bill C-78 as passed by Parliament, and I understand that one isn’t likely to be coming soon. This isn’t a problem for many, but it is a problem for me and for anyone else who produces public and professional legal education materials.

Since the changes are coming into effect on 1 July 2020, just five short months from the date of writing, I’m taking the opportunity the amendments suggest and rewriting the Clicklaw wikibook JP Boyd on Family Law from stem to stern, and, well, a consolidation . . . [more]

After a jury found Gerald Stanley not guilty of second-degree murder in the shooting death of Colten Boushie, the federal government amended the Criminal Code to eliminate peremptory challenges in the selection of juries, as well as a change in the trier of challenges for cause. Judges took different views about whether this change was prospective or retrospective. As the Ontario Court of Appeal has now ruled on this matter in Chouhan, many cases, decided on the wrong side of the issue, are likely to be appealed. Indeed at least one, an individual convicted for sexual assault, already . . . [more]

The federal Accessible Transportation for Persons with Disabilities Regulations (ATPDR) was registered under the federal Accessible Canada Act (ACA) on June 25, 2019. Most provisions of the ATPDR will come into force on June 25, 2020, while other more complex requirements (i.e., self-serve kiosks) will be phased in over three years (June 25, 2020, June 25, 2021 and June 25, 2022). This is the only accessibility standard currently registered under the ACA. . . . [more]

By Lewis Waring, Paralegal and Student-at-Law, Editor, First Reference Inc.

In Canada Post Corp v Canadian Union of Postal Workers, 2019 SCC 67 (“Canada Post”), the Supreme Court of Canada (“Court”) limited federally regulated employers’ duty to conduct safety inspections. Namely, the Court found that such employers only had a duty to inspect in workplaces over which they exercise control. Canada Post was an application of judicial review of a decision by the Occupational Health and Safety Tribunal of Canada (“OHSTC”). The rule-at-issue was Canada Labour Code, RSC 1985, c L-2, Part II, s 125(1)(z. 12) (“CLC”), which . . . [more]

By Lewis Waring, Licensed Paralegal and Student-at-Law, Editor, First Reference Inc.

In Greig v Desjardins Financial Security Life Assurance Company, the Superior Court of British Columbia (SCBC) considered a defendant’s handling of a plaintiff’s claim for LTD benefits. SCBC held that the Defendant’s handling of the Plaintiff’s claim for long-term disability (LTD) benefits was bad enough to violate its fiduciary duty and awarded the Plaintiff $50,000 in aggravated damages and $200,000 in punitive damages, accordingly. . . . [more]

In its report of November 5, 2018, a review panel of the Canadian Judicial Council (CJC) found Justice Patrick Smith, a supernumerary judge of the Ontario Superior Court, had acted breached the Judges Act and the CJC’s Ethical Principles for Judges (these are currently under review) by taking a position that was susceptible to controversy, that of unpaid interim dean (academic) at the Boris Laskin Faculty of Law. The Review Panel concluded, however, that his conduct did not warrant removal from the bench. In November 2018, I posted a comment on my blog, Idlemusings, about “the Patrick Smith case”, . . . [more]

Written by Lewis Waring, Paralegal, Editor, First Reference Inc.

In Groves v UTS Consultants Inc, 2019 ONSC 5605 (“Groves”), the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (“SCJ”) held that an employer cannot contract out of its obligations under the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (“ESA”) by including a “saving clause” in its employment contract. Moreover, a contract that attempts to make an employer exempt from its obligations under the ESA is unenforceable, and, in Groves, the SCJ merely applied this uncontroversial principle to what is known as a saving clause. . . . [more]

Commentators on private member’s Bill 207, Conscience Rights (Health Care Providers) Protection Act, introduced in the Alberta Legislative Assembly on November 7, 2019, have disagreed about whether it is different from the current system in Alberta.

Here I consider the extent to which it would be different from the current requirements of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA). I also consider how it would give doctors (and other health professionals) the greatest freedom in Canada to refuse to treat patients on religious and conscientious grounds and fail to put the interests of patients first, as . . . [more]

Just as the Toronto medical officer of health called for limiting the exemptions to Ontario’s mandatory vaccine regime for school children to only one, on medical grounds (although this has not been received positively by the provincial health minister), Vaccine Choice Canada and five mothers have challenged the requirement that in order to attend public school, children must receive vaccinations.

The Immunization of School Pupils Act already includes grounds for exemption for medical, religious and conscientious grounds; however, the group challenging the legislation consider the exemptions — and therefore the legislation — contravene their rights, in part because of the . . . [more]

The Quebec Court of Appeal has ruled against Sikh truck drivers who sought an exemption from wearing personal protective equipment – a helmet – as required by their employers because their religion requires them to wear a turban.

The Court ruled that workplace safety must take precedence over temporary impacts on freedom of religion.

According to Wikipedia, wearing a Sikh dastaar, or turban, is mandatory for all Sikh men. Among the Sikhs, the dastaar is an article of faith that represents honour, self-respect, courage, spirituality, and piety (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dastar).

Quick facts

In 2016, three Sikh truck drivers sought to be exempted . . . [more]

In Truchon c. Attorney General of Canada, 2019 QCCS 3792 (CanLII), a decision of the Quebec Superior Court, The Honourable Christine Baudouin, JCS held that the end of life requirement under section 26 of Quebec’s End-of-Life Care Act and the “reasonable foreseeability of natural death” requirement under the Criminal Code‘s medically-assisted death requirement are both unconstitutional as contravening section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (and that the federal provision contravenes section 7; she did not consider whether the Quebec provision contavened section 7). The facts underpinning the challenges were the same. Nevertheless, should the . . . [more]