Last year, I posted about the minimum wage in Canada. That same debate has also flared in the United States. During the recent state of the union address, U.S. President Barack Obama argued for an increase in the minimum wage in the United States. The Federal minimum wage in the US is $7.25, which applies to jobs covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (generally applying to employees engaged in interstate commerce). For US employees governed by state law, the minimum wage can go from $5.25 (Wyoming) to $9.19 (Washington State). In Canada, the vast majority of employees are . . . [more]

I appreciate the efforts of Canadian Senators to fix problems with legislation – specifically those which make legislative research more interesting.

One example of the Seante fixing legislation, is the Statutes Repeal Act, S.C. 2008, c.20 which in the words of Simon Fodden “sweeps up behind our legislators, killing off statutes that were passed and assented to nine years or more ago but that were never proclaimed in force“. I love the Statutes Repeal Act. It helps to make my job interesting.

In October of 2012, the Senate again committed to working on fixing legislation – this time . . . [more]

One of the many great things about the United States, from a lawmaker’s point of view at least, is that they comprise fifty-one legislatures attempting to tackle the problems that face us (in the West, at least) with a net of words. It’s like a greenhouse or nursery for the legal species. And we up here in slower Canada get to watch to see which cultivars survive politics, real life — and occasionally ridicule.

For example, a bill currently in the hothouses of the Oregon legislature — Oregon Senate Bill 71, A Bill for an Act Relating to Drones; . . . [more]

The Blue Mountain case, which was previously summarized by Yosie when the Divisional Court decision was released, was overturned earlier this month by the Ontario Court of Appeal.

Justice Blair held that the OLRB and Divisional Court interpretation of s. 51(1) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, which requires reporting of workplace injuries and deaths, would render virtually every place in Ontario a “workplace,” simply because a worker may at some time be present. 

The intervenors, Conservation Ontario and Tourism Industry Association of Ontario, had argued that an end-risks analysis without a reasonable connection between a risk . . . [more]

What follows is the sole responsibility of the author. The opinion(s) do not represent, implicitly or explicitly, the positions, policies, or opinions of Slaw or any other institution that I am in any way remotely attached to…. heck I don’t know if the opinions herein reflect that of anybody else period; however, deep breath…. I, Mark Lewis am a supporter of the Canadian Senate… there I said it!

I am not a supporter of feeding at the pork barrel but I am unwilling to throw the baby out with the bath water. The Canadian Senate was designed to serve a . . . [more]

The actions of policing bodies towards community members, and more specifically, towards “victims” of crime, has been impossible to litigate in Ontario. In 2011, in the Wellington v. Ontario decision (2011 ONCA 274), the Court of Appeal firmly stated that there is “a long list of decisions rejecting the proposition that the police owe victims of crime and their families a private law duty of care in relation to the investigation of alleged crimes.” In Wellington v. Ontario, the family of a young man killed by two police officers sought to bring a claim in negligence against the Special Investigations . . . [more]

The case of Ashby Donald et al. France, a decision last month of the European Court of Human Rights (Application n o 36769/08), is interesting in that it asserts a legally relevant tension between copyright law and the freedom of expression guaranteed under Article 10 of the European Convention, which provides:

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right includes freedom to hold opinions and freedom to receive and impart information and ideas without interference there may be public authorities and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting,

A private correspondent has suggested to me that call centres that record incoming calls ‘for quality assurance purposes’ often store the recordings offshore, including in the US. The correspondent wondered if there was any concern that the information in the calls might therefore be subject to investigation or copying by US law enforcement under the PATRIOT Act.

Both the Canadian and the Ontario Privacy Commissioners have commented on allegations of special risk of having personal information in the US because of that statute. Neither have supported the concerns. A recent summary of the discussion is found in the Ontario IPC’s . . . [more]

The Supreme Court of Canada has published its calendar of appeal hearings for February 2013.

To find out more about any particular case
, the Court’s website has a section that allows users to find docket information, case summaries as well as factums from the parties. All you need to do is click on a case name.

It is also possible to follow any hearing live via webcast. Webcasts are then archived on the Court’s website. . . . [more]

Here’s a question raised on a US legal technology list that seems relevant to Canadian law too.

What’s the duty of care of mobile devices as pertains to patches/updates provided by the vendor and/or provider?

Example:

I bought an Android phone in June 2012, which received an over-the-air OS upgrade in late July to Android 4.0.4. This release was provided to me well after the version was released to the public. Also, since that time, 2 other versions of Android (4.1 and 4.2) have been made available. There are known security vulnerabilities in the 4.0.4 release.

Yet I’ve certainly not

In the most keenly awaited commercial decision of recent years, the Supreme Court of Canada this morning held that the Ontario Court of Appeal in Indalex Limited (Re), 2011 ONCA 265 (CanLII) was mistaken in stating that deemed trust provisions to contributions to an underfunded pension scheme trumped the interests of a Debtor in Possession lender.

The central issue involved what priority would be given to pension plan wind-up deficits, particularly in insolvency proceedings involving the plan sponsor. Indalex Limited, and its related companies went into the tank. They obtained protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, . . . [more]

This last of 5 articles on the Anti-Spam Act will set out some of the questions and challenges going forward.

This is the last of a series of 5 articles that will introduce the Act, describe what spam is and is not, talk about collateral provisions, what we can do now, and some of the challenges going forward.

As I said in the first article, if you think the Act won’t affect you because you don’t send mass emails trying to sell random products, and don’t infest other people’s computers with spyware, you would be wrong. It creates tools to . . . [more]