A frequent posting on the Canadian Association of Law Libraries listserv (CALL-L) is a request for an English translation of a Canadian court decision written in French, typically from a Quebec court.

Although the CALL-L Archives contains some of the information that follows, it does not contain all of this information. In addition, responses in the Archives are not accessible by non-subscribers and hence are not indexed by Internet search engines. As such, my goal with this post — with the help of any SLAW readers adding additional information or clarifications in the Comments section below — is to update . . . [more]

One of the tasks a law librarian might carry out is legislation monitoring. At the Field Libraries we keep a detailed spreadsheet of which bills lawyers or clients may want status updates for, we monitor legislation from any jurisdiction and we email interested parties whenever there is a status change for a bill. We also watch for regulations, proclamations, government news releases and other published legislation hints. It is one of those tasks that is best carried out by a small organized team so that only the relevant information is disseminated to the many. I confess to a geeky interest . . . [more]

We learn last week that the Cornish pasty is safe at last from plain pasties passing themselves off as being from Cornwall, thanks to a decision by the European Union to give that delicacy Protected Geographical Indication status. In this it joins 19 other UK products and over a thousand from elsewhere in Europe protected by GI (“geographical indication”), DO (“designation of origin”), or TSG (“traditional speciality guaranteed”) status under European law.

There’s a designation database available online that you can search or browse by country, product and protection type.

A very few non-European nations can be found in the . . . [more]

The European Union has begun a public consultation on online authentication in the context of its review of its Electronic Signature Directive of 1999.

An early assertion in the press release is this: “difficulties in verifying people’s identities and signatures are a significant factor holding back the development of the EU’s online economy.”

Is this true, in your view or in your experience? How often is identification of the other party to a transaction, or authentication of an identity one already knows, a concern, compared to, for example, the solvency of the party, the quality of the goods offered, the . . . [more]

The Supreme Court of Canada has issued a Special Edition of its Bulletin of Proceedings containing a statistical overview of its activities for the period 2000-2010.

There are stats for cases filed, applications for leave submitted, appeals heard, judgments (including number of unanimous vs. split decisions), and average time lapses (time lines in the life of a case at the Court). . . . [more]

by Emir Aly Crowne*

This is a response to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s remarks at the University of Western Ontario, Faculty of Law given on February 11, 2011. It is appropriate that the Minister’s initials are j/k, because had I not known better, I would have taken them to be a joke. But his remarks are from it. In fact — and quite ironically — his remarks strike at the very values that we, as Canadians, prize: freedom, democracy and the rule of law. Audrey Macklin and Lorne Waldman have already addressed some of these issues in their op-ed . . . [more]

In a previous blog post I discussed the recent Saskatchewan Court of Appeal decision on whether marriage commissioners—as civil servants—can opt out of performing same-sex marriages. The Court found that legislative amendments, which would have allowed Saskatchewan’s marriage commissioners to refuse to perform same-sex marriages on religious grounds, were discriminatory and unconstitutional. A discussion from the post ensued, and John Gregory’s comments into how civil marriage ceremonies are provided in Ontario required me to delve deeper into the issue.

After some research, I found out that the following statement I made is not quite accurate:

Saskatchewan Justice Minister Don Morgan

On Monday an agreement was concluded between the Teslin Tlingit First Nation, the federal government, and the government of Yukon, according the First Nation the power to pass certain laws and to administer justice on its lands. Yukon has signed a number of self-government agreements with First Nations, the Teslin Tlingit among them, but this is the first justice agreement, and the first in Canada. According to the CBC report, the new justice system will apply to the First Nation’s citizens, wherever they may be in Yukon, and also to non-citizens who are on Teslin Tlingit lands.

The text . . . [more]

When the Quebec Civil Code came into force in 1994, replacing the Civil Code of Lower Canada, the Department of Justice began a process to review federal law with an eye to harmonizing it with the new code, essentially in areas where federal law deals with matters that in other respects fall within “property and civil rights within the province.” According to the recent legislative summary [PDF] from the Legal and Legislative Affairs Division Parliamentary Information and Research Service, the aim seems more to acknowledge and “respect” the civil law tradition than it does to correct terminology that has been . . . [more]

The British Columbia Supreme Court released Loychuk v. Cougar Mountain Adventures Ltd., 2011 BCSC 193 on Friday, clearing the Defendant zipline company located outside of Whistler Mountain from injuries sustained by the Plaintiffs on August 18, 2007.

One of the Plaintiffs was proceeding down the zipline, which places users in a harness that travels up to 100 km an hour, but did not reach the next platform. She was essentially stranded about 500 metres before the end of the run, which formed the basis for the Plaintiffs claiming a limited measure of control.

The second Plaintiff, who incidentally . . . [more]

The European Union has been thinking about the disharmony of its consumer laws and the disincentive that this can pose to cross-border commerce, particularly e-commerce. This disincentive may be greater because the Rome Treaty requires that consumer disputes be resolved in the courts of the consumer’s residence according to the law of that place. B2C e-commerce among EU countries is not expanding along with domestic B2C e-commerce.

The EU has come up with a proposal to have a ‘28th law’ (in addition to the law of the 27 member states), being a common consumer law that could be opted into . . . [more]

Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin spoke last week at the University of Toronto’s Access to Civil Justice for Middle Income Canadians Colloquium about how ordinary people risk being priced out of the justice system. In her speech, she called on governments, academics, judges and lawyers to work to ensure better access to justice for all Canadians.

Her speech and the colloquium attracted some media attention:

• Access to justice becoming a privilege of the rich, judge warns (Globe and Mail, February 10, 2011)
• Legal system doesn’t work for ordinary people, top judge says (Vancouver Sun, February 14, 2011)