On June 21, 2019, Bill C-75, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and other Acts and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, received Royal Assent. The Bill was an omnibus legislation that was prompted by the delays caused described in Jordan and Cody.

The effect of this Bill was to remove preliminary inquiries for virtually all offences, expand spousal violence to include intimate partner violence, abolish the use of peremptory challenges for jurors, and hybridize almost all indictable offences under 10 years while increasing the maximum penalty to 2 years for summary . . . [more]

1. Review your multi-year accessibility plans by January 1, 2020

On January 1, 2014, section 4(1) of the Integrated Accessibility Standards, Ontario Regulation 191/11 under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) required the Government of Ontario, Legislative Assembly, designated public sector organizations and large organizations (50 plus employees) to have multi-year accessibility plans in place and posted on their websites (if any), and to provide the plan in an accessible format upon request.

The multi-year accessibility plan must inform and outline the organization’s strategy for preventing and removing barriers faced by persons with disabilities and also for meeting . . . [more]

A short Canadian Press article in The Globe and Mail recently tweaked my interest. It explained that the chief justice had set the fine for not posting the anti-carbon tax stickers the province has required gas station operators to post on pumps at $150. The legislation provides for potentially higher fines. I started thinking about several issues that could arise from this, especially in the context of the anti-carbon tax sticker legislation. . . . [more]

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]

On July 29, 2019, certain provisions of the Budget Implementation Act 2017, No.1 (introduced as Bill C-44) came into force. The new law streamlines the dispute resolution process under the Canada Labour Code in federally regulated workplaces by transferring adjudicative functions under the Employment and Social Development Canada – Labour Program to the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB).

This transfer impacts: . . . [more]

Corporations are essential to the modern economy. They allow for the organization and strategic application of capital in focused manner that allows for wealth to grow, and have been a fundamental legal innovation for the emergence of the capitalist economy.

Of course, corporations as legal entities are a legal fiction that converts what would otherwise be a piece of property into a party with its own free-standing rights. These rights are limited, however, and continue to be defined.

The Court in cases like Irwin Toy Ltd. v. Quebec and British Columbia Securities Commission v. Branch confirmed that although they enjoy . . . [more]

On May 29, 2019, the Northwest Territories tabled Bill 57, An Act to Amend the Employment Standards Act to align with recent changes to certain statutory leaves in the Canada Labour Code and the Employment Insurance Act, as well as to update certain provisions of the Employment Standards Act to better protect Northwest Territories workers. . . . [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]

In December 2017, legislative amendments under the Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 2 (introduced as Bill C-63), to Part III (employment standards) of the Canada Labour Code (the Code) to limit unpaid internships in the federally regulated sector to only those that are part of an educational program were enacted but did not come into force right away. On June 8, 2019, the federal government published proposed regulations in the Canada Gazette to extend standard health and safety protections to unpaid interns and to enact supporting regulations regarding limitations to internships under Part III of the Canada Labour Code. . . . [more]

In preparation for the September 1, 2019, coming into force date of the amendments to Part III (Labour Standards) of the Canada Labour Code, the federal government registered in the Canada Gazette, Part II, Volume 153, Number 12, on June 3, 2019, the consequential amendments to the Canada Labour Standards Regulations. This is intended to align the Regulations with the new and amended Canada Labour Code provisions and to support their implementation. Additional housekeeping amendments are also needed to address other editorial and alignment issues. . . . [more]

This week, Health Canada announced the new amendments to the Cannabis Regulations, which set rules governing for the legal production and sale of edible cannabis, cannabis extracts and cannabis topicals. The amended regulations will come into force on October 17, 2019, but will not be available to Canadians until mid-December 2019, due to the 60-day notice requirement for all federal license holders.

An overview of the amended regulations are available here, with a pdf summary here. The full regulations will be published in the Canada Gazette on June 26, 2019.

Some of the main features include placing . . . [more]

On May 30, 2019, the British Columbia government gave royal assent to an amended version of Bill 8, Employment Standards Amendment Act, 2019 to significantly update the Employment Standards Act, and royal assent to an amended version of Bill 30, Labour Relations Code Amendment Act, 2019 to provide greater protections for unionized workers. According to the government, the changes will better protect workers, bring greater stability for employers and more durable labour relations. . . . [more]