Supreme Court of Canada Nominee

The Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, announced today the name of the government’s nominee for the Supreme Court of Canada, the Honourable Richard Wagner of the Cour d’appel du Québec.

He’s a 55 year old construction law litigator from Montréal who has been on the Cour supérieure du Québec since 2004, and on the cour d’appel since Febuary 2011.

The nominee has agreed to answer questions from an ad hoc parliamentary committee on Thursday.

For Slaw readers two items on his résumé stand out: he was one of . . . [more]

Slaw carried a post during the summer about jurisprudential solitudes – a gap in knowledge between Quebec’s civil code-based and predominantly French-language legal resources and those in common-law, English-speaking Canada. I find that the barrier tends to run in one direction not both, in that there is more information about the Rest of Canada in Quebec legal circles than vice versa.

In any event, here is a very brief note of three recent decisions of Quebec courts (thanks to a publication by Nicolas Vermeys and Patrick Gingras for Éditions Yvon Blais.) Are there any similar decisions in other Canadian (or . . . [more]

It is a dark time for hockey fans in in North America. The entire season is being threatened by a lockout, imposed by the NHL over their inability to negotiate a new collective agreement with the NHL Players Association (NHLPA). In an effort to stop the lockout, the NHLPA has resorted to some creative legal tactics. Indeed, a few weeks ago, the NHLPA filed for an injunction before the Quebec Labour Relations Board (LRB), arguing that the lockout was a violation of the Quebec Labour Code. Essentially, their argument was that since the NHLPA was not a “certified” union . . . [more]

Last night was the kick-off of the 2012 annual International Association of Libraries meeting at the Law Society of Upper Canada in Toronto. About 120 prominent law librarians from around the world–primarily from academic, legislative and court house libraries–have arrived in Toronto and are enjoying the first day of programming.

The theme of this year’s program is “Canada: The Cultural Mosaic and International Law.” So far we have been welcomed by Ms. Deborah Deller, Clerk of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Dean Lorne Sossin of Osgoode Hall Law School, and The Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, Chief Justice of Canada (via . . . [more]

As I’m sure most of you will know by now, an Alberta judge has caught the world’s eye with a hefty (176 page) decision that, among other things, produced a taxonomy of vexatious litigants who adhere to one cause or another or to a set of supposedly effective trial practices. (See, for example, the stories in the Globe and Mail or the Edmonton Journal.) Meads v. Meads 2012 ABQB 571 can be found on CanLII, of course; and the main object of this post is to point you to this location, so that you can read the judgment, or . . . [more]

When I use a word, said a famous literary character, it means exactly what I say it means, nothing more and nothing less.

The same principle applies to statements of the Supreme Court of Canada. The Court made that abundantly clear in the intervener’s failed attempt to get a rehearing of the Court’s decision in R. v. Marshall, [1999] 3 S.C.R. 456, 1999 CanLII 665 in R. v. Marshall, [1999] 3 SCR 533,  1999 CanLII 666.

But, as Marshall shows, if there’s a dispute about what the Court meant, we don’t get to find out the Supreme . . . [more]

The Supreme Court of Canada has just released the decision in A.B. v. Bragg Communications Inc. 2012 SCC 46 permitting a 15-year-old girl to get the identity of her persecutor from a Nova Scotia service provider and yet remain anonymous.

An unknown person created a fake Facebook profile of the girl that was unflattering and contained explicit sexual references. Facebook eventually removed the profile and rendered up the IP address associated with the account. The local N.S. service provider agreed to give information about the holder of the account if authorized to do so by a court. The girl, through . . . [more]

A recent Saskatchewan Court of Queen's Bench decided that an injured worker should have his case heard on its merit to determine if his medical marijuana should be paid for by workers’ compensation.

Congratulations to Sheri Kiselbach, members of Sex Workers United Against Violence (SWUAV), and our friends at Pivot Legal Society for your recent Supreme Court Victory!

The SCC was unanimous in ruling that Ms. Keselbach, a former sex worker, and SWUAV, a sex worker-led organization, have public interest standing to challenge the constitutionality of the Criminal Code provisions related to sex work.

The access to justice issue was before the Supremes after the BC Court of Appeal rejected with the Federal Government’s argument that the parties lacked standing. The standing debate stems from the fact that neither Ms. Kiselbach, as a . . . [more]

Two current privacy stories are worth mentioning. First, see this CBC news article entitled Political parties operate outside Canada’s privacy laws. The controversy arises from an email sent by a Cabinet Minister to those who signed a petition.

Also see this article entitled Websites leaking customers’ personal info, says privacy watchdog  and the PrivacyCommissioner’s news release. The issue here is the revelation by the Canadian Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, that 1 in 4 of the 25 websites her office looked at were passing on personal information of users to third party advertising and marketing firms without user consent.  . . . [more]

When Sheryl Kiselbach and the Downtown Eastside Sex Workers United Against Violence Society decided to challenge the Criminal Code provisions around prostitution, the chambers judge denied their application for public or private interest standing.

The B.C. Court of Appeal reversed that decision, granting them public interest standing, and this position was upheld this week at the Supreme Court of Canada in Canada (Attorney General) v. Downtown Eastside Sex Workers United Against Violence Society.

The appellant’s factum is available here, and the respondent’s factum available here. The factum of some of the interveners are also available online, such . . . [more]

Not only is Canada long overdue in its statutorily mandated review of PIPEDA, our federal privacy protection law, but it seems as though significant elements of the law may soon be undermined significantly, as the United States Trade Representative is reportedly pushing for strict limitations on privacy protections as part of the Trans Pacific Partnership that Canada recently joined.

Much has already been written about the copyright restrictions the USTR aims to foist on Canada and other signatories through the TPP. For Canada, these are particularly poignant, as they come right on the heels of Canada’s long and hard fought . . . [more]