Senator Goldstein has reintroduced his anti-spam bill in the Senate, as of last month. It is now Bill S-202. A similar bill (I have not compared them) was on the order paper before the last election. (It’s interesting that Senate bills die too when elections are called, considering that the Senate is not elected and the Senators all continue in office despite elections for the House of Commons. Yes, I understand the principle, but its application is not inevitable – though it is not going to change, either.)

You can read the Senator’s comments as he began second reading debate . . . [more]

Internet Law News this morning reports that Australia will propose national legislation to criminalize identity theft.

I am not sure I understand the story. Presumably Australia has laws against fraud. The story mentions using another person’s credit card and stealing personal information to open bank accounts and take out loans in the name of the victim. Would not such actions already be illegal? They certainly would be here.

It is arguable that it should be illegal simply to acquire the personal information, without actually using it – but then would protective or limiting measures be needed to prevent abuse, or . . . [more]

Librarians often debate the prices of law books, wondering why pricing soars beyond normal trade publishing prices. The suspicion is that editorial and marketing costs are not higher than trade costs. Of course one factor is the small size of print runs. Canadian publishers faced with demand for an out of print book (like Bill Estey’s Legal Opinions in Commercial Transactions) will often print just a couple of hundred copies.

Now we’ve actual evidence of a major legal publisher going for print on demand. The costs are, of course, high in relation to page count.

OUP have recently re-issued, . . . [more]

Some background on the current fun and games / constitutional crisis / surrealist psychodrama on Parliament Hill:

• A Q&A on coalition governments (Toronto Star)
• Going where no Governor-General has gone before – In an unprecedented use of her reserve power, Michaëlle Jean could leave the Tory government with its hands tied behind its back (Globe and Mail)
• The Governor-General’s options (Globe and Mail)
• Manoeuvring puts GG in ‘untenable’ position: Expert (Ottawa Citizen)
• The delicate role of the Governor General (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation)
• Ce que peut faire Michaëlle Jean (La Presse)

And then my head exploded… . . . [more]

The Legislation Act, 2006 provided (in section 35) that a copy of a source law or consolidated law is an official copy of the law if accessed from the eLaws website in a prescribed form or format.

The regulation prescribing the form or format has now been filed and published and is effective as of November 30, 2008. A press release from the Ministry of the Attorney General is here.

Section 39 of the Act provides that an official copy is an accurate statement of the law, unless the contrary is proved. For official copies taken from the eLaws . . . [more]

After the excitement of the American primaries and election, we political addicts thought we were going to have to go through withdrawal (or enjoy a respite – a “reassurance” that we really weren’t addicted). But just as we needed a fix, our own constitutional “crisis” comes along. How I wish I were still teaching constitutional law (or Canadian politics, but that was long, long ago in another galaxy). I would tell my students that I put “crisis” in quotation marks for a reason and then I would seize the opportunity to tell them that, recent developments notwithstanding, we still operate . . . [more]

We edge close to a political crisis and constitutional history. Today the Opposition Parties agreed on an Accord on a Cooperative Government to Address the Present Economic Crisis, which should be read together with the Policy Accord to Address the Present Economic Crisis.

Mr. Dion’s letter to Her Excellency is an essential component since together with Mr. Layton’s parallel letter it makes clear that the Prime Minister may have difficulty maintaining the confidence of the House. I liked La Presse’s line: Les partis de l’opposition ont signé la mort imminente du gouvernement Harper.

And while there isn’t . . . [more]

Tip of the hat to Ian Kerr, who points us to Michael Giest’s latest project:

Why Copyright? Canadian Voices on Copyright Law

It’s a film on the significance of copyright as an issue in Canada. It features a wide range of Canadian voices – artists like Gordon Duggan of Appropriation Art; writers like award winning science fiction author Karl Schroeder; musicians like Wide Mouth Mason’s Safwan Javed; business people like Nettwerk Record’s Terry McBride, Lulu.com’s Bob Young, and Skylink Technologies’ Philip Tsui; government appointees like Privacy Commissioner of Canada Jennifer Stoddart and Ian . . . [more]

While on Twitter I recently came across Mari Moreshead who does “client services and community management” for CourtCanada.com. I had never heard of CourtCanada and so checked their website and asked if I might interview her for the purpose of reporting back to Slaw readers.

CourtCanada was started in 2006 by former bankruptcy lawyer Gregory Azeff who is the company’s President and Chairman of the Board of Directors. CourtCanada is currently comprised of two services:

InSolve – a bankruptcy case management system, first beta tested in February 2007 and released in final version January 2008. For cases in the . . . [more]

The Canadian Press is reporting that the planned extension of US passenger screening is going ahead next year. Unlike existing rules, which require airlines to provide passenger information for flights headed to the US, the new rules will require them to provide this information even if the flight is only traversing US airspace. (See: The Canadian Press: New U.S. air security rules create turbulence in Canada.)

This raises a whole host of issues, particularly on the privacy front. The names are being scrubbed against the US no-fly list, which is notoriously of dubious quality. It has interfered with the . . . [more]

As delivered by the wonderfully named Herménégilde Chiasson, yesterday’s Throne Speech in Frederickton contains a paragraph on legal information.

The speech from the throne opened the third session of the 56th Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick.

* Timely access to justice is important and your government will receive the report of the Task Force on Access to Family Justice. It is expected that the report will provide recommendations for improved access to justice, expanded use of alternatives to family court, and increased access to legal information and legal assistance in family law matters. Your government will provide its . . . [more]

The Globe and Mail’s article yesterday on the Alberta Court of Appeal decision in Yugraneft Corp. v. Rexx Management Corp. left me wondering. In Yugraneft, the Court held that an application to register and enforce a foreign arbitral award under the 1958 Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (a.k.a. the New York Convention) is subject to the ordinary limitation period of two years.

The decision has indeed been the source of much concern among Canadian arbitration practitioners; even the decision by the Court of Queen’s Bench in 2007 created quite a stir. My own sense . . . [more]