The Canadian Open Government Initiative was announced on March 18, 2011. The project focuses on 3 main streams:

• Open Data, which is about offering Government data in more useful and machine-readable formats to enable citizens, the private sector and non-government organizations to leverage it in innovative and value-added ways.
• Open Information, which is about proactively releasing information, including on Government activities, to Canadians on an ongoing basis. It is about proactively making Government information easier to find and accessible for Canadians.
• Open Dialogue, which is about giving Canadians a stronger say in Government policies and priorities, and expanding engagement

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Prostitution law is back in the news, almost a year after the Supreme Court released its dramatic decision in Canada v. Bedford. The Court found the main provisions of Canada’s prostitution law unconstitutional, struck them down and gave the government one year to introduce a law that doesn’t offend the Constitution...

CASL – Canada’s new anti-spam legislation – becomes law on July 1. It is a sledgehammer to kill a fly approach to spam that requires attention by almost every business and not for profit. In my view, the significant amount of time, effort, and money that it will take for legitimate businesses and not for profits to comply with the act will come nowhere close to justifying any meagre benefit.

Many business have complied, many are just waking up to it now, and many are ignoring it. It doesn’t help that the act has a broad definition of spam that . . . [more]

On the heels of the European Court of Justice’s decision, discussed on Slaw here and here, to require Google to suppress links to particular web sites that had ‘irrelevant and outdated’ personal information about a complainant, and US courts’ refusal to do the same, the British Columbia Supreme Court has now gone a step further: it has ordered Google to ensure that searches for particular topics or a particular company do not find the company defendant in the action before it.

The principals of the defendant company were accused of stealing trade secrets of the plaintiff and of . . . [more]

This is a follow-up to last week’s Slaw.ca post Law Library of Congress Report on Restrictions on Genetically Modified Organisms.

The Law Library of Congress has recently released two other comparative law reports. They are:

• Child Restraint and Seat Belt Regulations: “This report contains citations to the laws on seat belt use in Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Bahamas, Brazil, Canada, China, Cyprus, Egypt, England and Wales, Fiji, Ghana, Indonesia, Kiribati, Malta, Nauru, Netherlands, New Zealand, Oman, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, and Vietnam, with information on provisions concerning children where available.”

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Sub Nomine the Sub Nom rule is one of those delightful pieces of legal Latin that I quite enjoy. I like that two words in Latin can effectively sum up a legal thought that takes at least a sentence or two in English. Sub Nom is Latin for “under the name of” or in everyday parlance, “also known as”. The most recent case from the SCC that has caused a stir in legal circles, R v Spencer, 2014 SCC 43 in which the SCC rules that police organizations cannot simply ask ISPs for the IP information of subscribers and . . . [more]

In Canada, jurisdiction over employment law is normally within the authority of each province or territory, unless the employer or activity falls under the federal jurisdiction. This is a straightforward distinction under normal circumstances, but, in certain areas, it remains unclear. This was the case in Fox Lake Cree Nation v. Anderson, 2013, in which the Federal Court of Canada set aside the order of an adjudicator appointed by the Canadian Labour Ministry because that adjudicator did not have the jurisdiction to hear the complaint made by the terminated employee.

Manitoba lawyers recently received a memo from the Law Society’s Insurance Department reminding them that it’s time to pay their 2014/15 liability insurance premium.

That memo also contains the annual reminder to practising, insured lawyers to “Speak now or forever hold your peace” with respect to known or potential claims. The Law Society reminds lawyers that:

Because our Professional Liability Insurance coverage is written on a claims-made basis, if you know of any circumstances which might possibly, at some point in the future, give rise to an insurance claim against you and you want coverage under your Insurance Policy, then

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Far too often – at least in my opinion – courts and legislators don’t seem to understand technology related issues or how the law should fit with them. The Supreme Court of Canada, however, got it right with Spencer, which basically says that internet users have a reasonable expectation of anonymity in their online activities. Last Fall the SCC sent a similar message in the Vu case saying that a general search warrant for a home was not sufficient to search a computer found there. And that trend will hopefully continue with its upcoming Fearon decision on the ability . . . [more]

The Supreme Court of Canada has released its judgment in the Spencer case. It held that the police had no legal right to ask an ISP for subscriber information, as that would violate the subscriber’s reasonable expectation of privacy. The type of information that could be gleaned from the information went beyond the mere name and address into browsing practices, i.e. sensitive information in which the subscriber might reasonably expect anonymity.

The section of PIPEDA that allows custodians of data to disclose the data to law enforcement officials without telling the data subject, did not apply where the search . . . [more]

The Law Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. has published a new comparative law report on Restrictions on Genetically Modified Organisms.

The report analyzes legislation on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and genetically modified (GM) plants and foods in Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, England and Wales, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Russian Federation, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, and the United States.

There is also a bibliography.

Earlier comparative law reports from the Law Library of Congress have covered topics such as:

• Adjudication of Sexual Offenses in Military Justice

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The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has ruled that employees of Ontario’s Office of the Worker Adviser and Office of the Employer Adviser who provide legal services relating to the Occupational Health and Safety Act must be licensed paralegals. The Offices of the Worker and Employer Advisers provide certain legal services under the OHSA to employees and employers in non-union environments.