With the legalization of cannabis in Canada, and greater transparency around the use of drugs, public health officials have greater interest in tracking the use and dependence of the population on various substances.

The 2017 Canadian Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey, which is conducted every 2 years, found that the prevalence of one of six illegal drugs was 15%, or 4.5 million people. At the time, cannabis was still illegal, and many researchers intend to observe whether the vast majority of these people, 4.4 million, increase or remain the same after legalization.

The survey found that alcohol use was . . . [more]

Written by Lewis Waring, Paralegal, Editor, First Reference Inc.

In Groves v UTS Consultants Inc, 2019 ONSC 5605 (“Groves”), the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (“SCJ”) held that an employer cannot contract out of its obligations under the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (“ESA”) by including a “saving clause” in its employment contract. Moreover, a contract that attempts to make an employer exempt from its obligations under the ESA is unenforceable, and, in Groves, the SCJ merely applied this uncontroversial principle to what is known as a saving clause. . . . [more]

It’s really not surprising that a court would find an organization that calls itself “Church of Atheism” is not a religion. But one has to ask, why couldn’t the Church of Atheism be a religion; it had many of the attributes — kind of. What is “religion”, anyway? Does it depend on context? The Federal Court of Appeal in Church of Atheism of Central Canada v. Canada (National Revenue) waded into the meaning of religion when it upheld the Minister of National Revenue’s decision that the Church of Atheism was not a religion and thus not eligible for charitable status . . . [more]

Written by Daniel Standing LL.B., Editor, First Reference Inc.

The recent case of the Federal Court of Canada, Chapman v Canada (Attorney General), 2019 FC 975 (CanLII) involved the issue of procedural fairness in the context of a disciplinary investigation. A complaint of wrongdoing was made against a high-ranking public servant who was not provided any particulars of the allegation. Due to a variety of factors, the Court determined that the employee had been denied an opportunity to fully respond to the allegations. As there had been a breach of procedural fairness, the Court ordered that the matter be . . . [more]

Will we ever reach a point when how women dress or whether they don’t immediately rush to tell someone they’ve been sexually assaulted are not interpreted as superceding consent in determining whether a sexual assault has occurred? It’s been some 20 years since the Supreme Court of Canada, particularly L’Heureux-Dube J. in dissent, but also the majority, in Seaboyer emphasized the distorting role myths and stereotypes play in deciding sexual assault cases. The recent Court of Appeal decision in R. v. Lacombe tells us that some (in this case lower court) judges have still not heard the message. . . . [more]

Post-secondary education is about more than just obtaining a degree.

The critical thinking skills, and insights into new areas, comes about not only through the formal coursework that students enroll, but in the activities that occur on campus. In fact, those students who exclusively focus on their coursework, to the exclusion of other experiences, rarely develop many of the skill sets and perspectives that are necessary for their careers and the rest of their lives.

However, post-secondary education is also expensive, and the provincial government in Ontario introduced a number of reforms to try to make it more affordable. One . . . [more]

Written by Lewis Waring, Paralegal and student-at-law, Editor, First Reference

In Stress-Crete Limited v Harriman, 2019 ONSC 2773 (“Stress-Crete”), the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (“the Court”) partially granted an injunction to an employer against its former employee, upholding two out of three restrictive covenants present in the parties’ employment contract. Namely, the Court upheld the contract’s non-solicitation clause and confidentiality clause, but refused to uphold its non-competition clause. In partially granting this injunction, the Court in Stress-Crete confirmed and clarified the law’s approach to restrictive covenants, that such clauses are unenforceable unless reasonable and are to be . . . [more]

Earlier this month, the Ontario Divisional Court released its decision (by the Court) in Canadian Federation of Students v. Ontario, striking down the Ontario government’s “Student Choice Initiative” (SCI), which permitted students to opt out of certain ancillary fees that would otherwise have been collected by university and college student unions. The Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) (a national student organization, made up of student associations when students have given approval, that is student funded) and The York Federation of Students (YFS) sought judicial review to quash the directives. The Divisional Court decision had to address the government’s attempt . . . [more]

Housing affordability has become a policy priority for Canadians. For the first time, Statistics Canada has measured wait-lists for social and affordable housing, in an attempt to determine the extent of the crisis.

The results of the Canadian Housing Survey, 2018, were released this week providing the first set of results,

The place we call home, whether it be a small high-rise flat downtown or a large house on the edge of town, is one of the defining features of our lives.

The housing landscape in Canada has changed markedly over the past decade. There has been a shift

Written by Daniel Standing LL.B., Editor at First Reference Inc.

In a recent “right to sue application,” Decision No. 550/19, the Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal considered whether a truck driver who sustained an injury at the workplace a short time after his work assignment ended was entitled to sue the employer. In reaching its conclusion that the right to sue was taken away by legislation, the Tribunal made key findings on the issues of whether the truck driver was a worker or an independent contractor and whether the injury was sustained in the course of the . . . [more]

Commentators on private member’s Bill 207, Conscience Rights (Health Care Providers) Protection Act, introduced in the Alberta Legislative Assembly on November 7, 2019, have disagreed about whether it is different from the current system in Alberta.

Here I consider the extent to which it would be different from the current requirements of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA). I also consider how it would give doctors (and other health professionals) the greatest freedom in Canada to refuse to treat patients on religious and conscientious grounds and fail to put the interests of patients first, as . . . [more]

Limitations in personal injury litigation can be contentious, especially since the nature of the damages suffered by a plaintiff may not necessarily be known at the initial time of loss. This is especially true in claims that include chronic pain, as these types of medical conditions are not diagnosed until several weeks after an injury.

In these contexts, a plaintiff may rely on discoverability to exceed the two year presumptive limitation found in s. 4 of the Limitations Act. Courts have extended this notion of discoverability even further, the Ontario Divisional Court finding in Pereira v. Contardo that the . . . [more]