So-called omnibus bills have been in the news a lot this year. The 2012 federal budget that amended dozens of pieces of legislation was referred to by many commentators as an omnibus bill.

What is this legislative creature?

The Library of Parliament recently published a paper entitled Omnibus Bills: Frequently Asked Questions that tries to get to the bottom of the issue:

Omnibus bills have been used for decades by governments of various political stripes as a vehicle to propose certain kinds of legislation to Parliament. While their use is well entrenched in Canadian parliamentary practice, it is nonetheless often

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The Vice-Chair of the Labour Relations Board just decided that there was not a continuity between Zellers’ business for its employees to be successively employed by Target in Canada. Although the employees would perform similar jobs at Target stores as they had at Zellers, and the transaction agreement confirmed the transfer of leases, pharmacy records and the brand waiver, these things were not sufficient to conclude that there would be a handover of these employees. As a result, the union’s application was dismissed.

What’s that? The stuff you say online has no consequences in real life? I bet those officers at your door felt real. torontopolice.on.ca/newsreleases/r…

— Steve Murray (@NPsteve) November 21, 2012

It’s so easy to type words into a little box and hit send. Sometimes the words are backchannel chatter, during a broadcast of something everyone’s watching sort-of together. Other words are ill-considered remarks or comments perhaps more easily posted on a screen than spoken to a face. Sometimes words are directed at someone—or someone’s avatar—but not really to the person. These words can seem virtual, but they’re real and . . . [more]

The internet is a-buzzing: after 60 years of display, a court in Santa Monica, California has ruled that the city did not overstep when it barred, in one of its public parks, an annual traditional nativity scene, as well as any other private displays during this holiday season (read article here).

A U.S. federal judge rejected the Santa Monica Nativity Scenes Committee’s motion to allow the religious display this year. The judge found that the city had banned the display booths for holiday-themed installations in that one specific city park as they were a drain on the city’s resources . . . [more]

The Edmonton Journal headline reads “Edmonton judge’s cut-and-paste findings tossed by appeal court“. The sensational headline is about a decision cited University of Alberta v Chang, 2012 ABCA 324 (linked to the Alberta Courts website).

The appeals were from two chambers decisions:
University of Alberta v. Chang, 2011 ABQB 595 (CanLII), http://canlii.ca/t/fp692
University of Alberta v. Chang, 2011 ABQB 596 (CanLII), http://canlii.ca/t/fp6bv

In the above decisions, the judge granted the applications to dismiss the case for delay and prosecution and dismissed the actions.

The Court of Appeal was very critical of the reasons:

[17] The chambers judge followed

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The Director of Public Prosecutions in the UK may establish a policy about when ‘grossly offensive’ messages on social media would be prosecuted that would consider the reach of the message, i.e. how many people may have been exposed to it. One noted media lawyer has said that’s a bad idea, and the better test is just how offensive the message is, regardless of how many saw it. A discussion of the topic is here.

Under section 127 of the Communications Act it is an offence if someone ‘sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message . . . [more]

A committee representing Federal Court judges, court officials and lawyers is proposing changes to the rules of the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal [press release] to make things easier for self-represented litigants and to cut down on vexatious lawsuits:

“The study proposes new tools to address abusive, inappropriate, disproportionate and wasteful litigation conduct. It also identifies a number of steps – many novel – to improve access to the Federal Courts, particularly by self-represented parties. ”

“The study is the product of a comprehensive policy review of the practices and procedures of the Federal Courts. A national

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The 19th-annual Disability Awareness Week began on November 12, 2012. Fittingly, on November 9, 2012, the Supreme Court of Canada rendered a landmark decision in...

Picking up on a recent post by Prof. David Doorey on his blog, I thought this week that I’d highlight a recent decision by an Ontario court to sentence an employer (the director of the company) to 90 days in jail for repeatedly violating the Ontario Employment Standards Act (discussed also in the Huffington Post) He was also fined $280,000. In a press release, the Ministry of Labour explained as follows:

Between March 2007 and October 2009, 61 employees from six companies, operated by Blondin filed claims with the Ministry of Labour for unpaid wages. An investigation

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We brought you timely news about Iceland’s crowd-sourcing of constitutional reform. Now we invite you to look at what Finland is trying. This time it’s not the constitution but rather legislative initiatives that well up from the citizenry. A project called Avoin Ministeriö (Open Ministry) funded by the Ministry of Public Affairs invites citizens to place a legislative proposal online, where others can then vote to approve or disapprove of the idea. A successful idea will be put before the legislature.

The Slate magazine story on this experiment explains “success” this way:

Each suggested law gets six months to gather

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Universities across the country are struggling with how to deal with their students’ use of social media. I previously covered the Alberta case of  Pridgen v. University of Calgary, where the court quashed a decision by the university to discipline students who made critical comments on Facebook about a professor. Key to this decision was the university’s actions lacked procedural fairness.

Earlier this year the Alberta Court of Appeal upheld this decision, with three separate decisions. Justices McDonald and O’Ferrall indicated that the Charter analysis undertaken by the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta was unnecessary, and upheld the . . . [more]

The first installment of Quebec's 40th Parliament is now in session. Quebec's new Premier Pauline Marois delivered a speech from the throne that established zero tolerance for and a commitment to fight against corruption within the government. The theme: “Integrity”!