Fifty years ago, if we were to ask Canadians, “What are your expectations of government?” the answer would likely be: “I expect that my government should make good decisions.” Meeting this expectation by making laws, regulations and policies that treated everyone the same seemed an acceptable standard of fairness.

Within the next 20 years, provincial ombudsman offices came into being in Canada and began responding to complaints about instances where those good substantive decisions were not being made – but something else was happening too. As Canada’s population grew and society became more complex, governments at the federal, provincial and . . . [more]

♫ I’d rather steal than foot the bill, I’d rather die
I’d rather steal than pay the bill, I’d rather lie ♫

Words and music by Vaux, “Identity Theft”

Yesterday was an eye-opening day for me. Someone apparently hacked into my Twitter account and started sending out spam tweets in my name. On the scale of the range of identity theft, this was rather low – as it was solved by changing my Twitter password to something VERY strong and sending out apologies to those who unfortunately, received the spam tweets. But like a vaccine, it inoculated . . . [more]

For some years now I have been visiting the Information Resources and Services II class at my alma mater Grant MacEwan University. The two year diploma program in Library and Information Management (as it was called when I attended) has been delivered in Edmonton since the seventies and is a great jumping off point for careers in many types of information related organizations.

I always enjoy showing legal research methods to library students, most of whom have not been exposed to this area previously. They always ‘get’ that the method for gathering information to answer a legal problem follows . . . [more]

The quintessential work of a parliamentary ombudsman requires the application of fairness principles to the decisions, actions and general conduct of the public service. These principles require that those decisions, actions and conduct be reasonable; consistent with law; just; and not oppressive or improperly discriminatory.

As a practicing lawyer for over twenty years, I am constantly reminded of the benefits of judicial and quasi-judicial avenues to determine citizens’ legal rights. These benefits include a structured procedure to determine legal rights; access to and the application of established precedents, a rich and sometimes codified body of principles to determine what evidence . . . [more]

About two years ago, we were following the progress and release of the One Laptop Per Child program, an organization that was developing a cheap laptop that it wanted to put into the hands of schoolchildren around the world.

While at the time of its release, the XO laptop (as it was called) made a great toy for adults and children alike here in Canada, now that two years have passed, we can start to see the results from the real-world experience of certain countries.

One country that took a lead in distributing this machine to schoolkids was Uruguay. . . . [more]

In the most recent Weekly Checklist of federal government publications, the 2009 annual report by Justice Canada on applications for ministerial review in cases of possible miscarriages of justice is listed:

“Since 1892, the Minister of Justice has had the power, in one form or another, to review a criminal conviction under federal law to determine whether there may have been a miscarriage of justice.”

“Currently, the conviction review process begins when a person submits an application for ministerial review (miscarriages of justice), also known as a ‘conviction review application’.”

“The application for ministerial review must be supported by ‘new

JDSupra launched an iPhone application today, called “Legal Edge,” available for free download on iTunes.

You can stream pleading, documents, and all the regular JDSupra content, but what makes it interesting is that there are firm-specific features as well.

Now if only they can start including Canadian jurisdictions for their pleading documents. . . . [more]

Gigaom has an article about a speech Michael Dell gave yesterday.

He had very positive things to say about Windows 7 – which officially debuts next Thursday the 22nd. I concur with that. I’ve been the test case for Windows 7 at Harrison Pensa, and have found it faster and more stable. It also has features that can make you more productive. Enough so that I often find it frustrating when using my home computer with Vista.

He doesn’t like netbooks, even though Dell makes popular models – citing their small screens and slow performance. Anecdotally I’ve heard comments from . . . [more]

Representing the best interests of the client, the adversarial system, and legally enforceable court decisions — these are the signposts on the well-travelled road to justice in the common law system. All you need is access to the resources necessary to pursue a case through to the end of the process.

But what if you lack those resources?

In the arena of administrative justice, the ombudsman’s office is a sort of “soft-power” alternative to the “hard-power” of the legal system. Accessible via a 1-800 phone call and available free of charge, this route may be the only option available to . . . [more]

Can you assert a confidentiality or privacy claim when you have willingly put the information you seek to protect on someone else’s computer system?

This question is important given the full-scale adoption of distributed computing. Yes, I mean cloud computing. But I also mean to address the issue of ISP disclosures to the police and the issue of employers who look at “personal” employee communications. These are all scenarios where a person claiming that certain information is confidential is not the owner of the medium on which it is stored. This common scenario is what makes mine an important question, . . . [more]

The Quebec Ombudsman is entrusted by the National Assembly with supervising the administration of government, protecting rights and strengthening the rule of law and the democratic values that . . . [more]

Heritage Law had our first firm retreat last Friday October 9th at River Rock Casino in Richmond, BC. Allison Wolf was our facilitator and did an excellent job.

It was somewhat of a coming of age event for a firm started four years ago as a solo. Practice areas have changed, people have come and gone, two children have been born – and now four lawyers and five staff were sitting around a table discussing strengths, goals and the path ahead. It was a particularly unique event for us as we are a virtual firm and many of our paralegal . . . [more]