The Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced plans this morning for more stringent regulations for listeria testing.

This represents a reverse move from proposed plans earlier this year. It appears the Maple Leaf episode provided the political will to change the policy.

Change is coming to Canada too. . . . [more]

An English court has recently held that the fact that a defamatory comment has been published online does not mean that anyone has read it. The plaintiff must show that the comment has been accessed as well.

In the English case, Brady v. Norman [2008] EWHC 2481 (QB), described on OutLaw.com, the question was one of qualified privilege, and whether some people without an interest in knowing the information had nevertheless been given access to it.

While this is reminiscent in some ways of the Bangoura case in Ontario, where the only visitors to the online defamation appeared . . . [more]

The Australian government has just started a public consultation on the desirability of ratifying the UN E-Communications Convention in that country. The page containing the public notice also offers a link to the consultation paper in PDF or Word.

The American Uniform Law Commission (formerly NCCUSL) has a Committee to study implementation of the Convention in the US. The working group met recently to discuss options for implementation.

In Canada, there appears to be little action since the Uniform Law Conference meeting on the topic in August. Professor Gautrais’ paper on the impact of the Convention on Quebec law . . . [more]

Former Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci has been asked to help mediate the dispute that has paralyzed the work of the Truth And Reconciliation Commission that was set up earlier this year to deal with the historical legacy of the Indian residential school system.

Over the years, thousands of aboriginal students were subjected to physical, sexual and emotional abuse by personnel working for the church authorities that ran the boarding schools on behalf of the Canadian government.

Last month, the work of the Commission was derailed after its head, Justice Harry LaForme, resigned, complaining that he could no longer work . . . [more]

On Tuesday of this week, while the rest of the United States is going to the polls, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear argument in Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations, et al.. (The docket # is 07-582 but the link generated by the U.S.S.C. site is currently giving a 404 error.) This case has its recent origins in the reaction to a few television broadcasts in which performers used profanity, particularly, variations on the word “fuck.” The F.C.C. had a rule permitting “fleeting expletives,” which rule was changed in 2003 to forbid any use of certain words . . . [more]

There might be a downside for Canada if Obama wins, according to some experts.

The Rideau Institute released a report, How the next US president could affect our country, where Rideau president, Steven Staples had some harsh words for both major political parties,

By virtue of conjoined geography, history, economies and political cultures, Canada and the United States are inextricably linked, and it is only a matter of time before the shifts in U.S. politics realign Canada’s politics as well.

One need look no further than the dramatic rise of the U.S. national-security state in the wake of the

Not to take things too lightly, but I had a chance to watch Strange Brew again this week, and I noted a surprising amount of legal content:

• re: the mouse in the bottle that started it all, see M’Alister (or donoghue) v Stevenson [1932] AC 562
• As Bob and Doug make their initial claim for free beer, Bob informs us “Its in the Canadian Criminal Code”
• At several moments, Doug expresses awareness of the legal consequences of whatever ill-considered plan they are undertaking, and his solution is most often to get his brother to drive
• As Pam settles Claude’s hash

According to Out-Law.com this morning:

Companies have to provide a means of contact on their websites in addition to their postal and email addresses, the European Court of Justice has ruled. A telephone number, or a contact form that is answered within 60 minutes, were deemed acceptable.

This holding flows from the E-Commerce Directive, which says that companies:

“shall render easily, directly and permanently accessible to the recipients of the service and competent authorities, at least the following information:

(a) the name of the service provider;

(b) the geographic address at which the service provider is established;

(c)

Teresa Miguel at Yale Law Library’s Foreign and International Blog posted her review and endorsement for the International Law Video Library yesterday. A very interesting project, and great use of video to capture content, knowledge and history.

Teresa’s post also included the following excellent examples from the collection:

• Thomas Buergenthal, Judge at the International Court of Justice, speaks about reservations to treaties.
• Phillippe Kirsch, President of the International Criminal Court, sat down for an interview in September 2005 in which he introduced himself, and went on to give the historical background of the creation of the International Criminal

In view of our election just past, and the one next week of our neighbours to the south, I thought it opportune to raise the topic of election laws, and more specifically, absentee voting.

Several weeks ago, I received in the mail an absentee ballot from the Board of Elections in Lorain County, Ohio. I dutifully filled it out, put it in an envelope, and mailed it in: voilà, my franchise duly exercised. No one asked how long I’d been in Canada (sixteen years), or if I intended to return to the U. S. (unlikely, at this point). As a . . . [more]

A U.S. company, CrimeReports.com, takes statistics given to it by various police departments and geolocates the instances on a Google map. So far as I can tell, Ottawa is the only Canadian city to enlist the company’s services. The Ottawa crime map sets out markers for various crimes — breaking and entering, theft, etc. — the nature of which can be controlled by a selection panel, so that, for instance, you could look at the location of all thefts from a vehicle. You can, as well, adjust the area, the date and the number of instances you wish to . . . [more]

Schedule L of Bill 114 in Ontario, if passed, will effectively over-rule the Ontario Court of Appeal decision in Hare v Hare. The Bill will amend the Limitations Act, 2002, by tying the limitation period to the date of default under a demand loan rather than the date of the loan. The Ontario Bar Association discusses this issue in its October 28th e-newsletter. . . . [more]