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

Ontario has recently been a hotbed of decisions considering the validity of termination clauses in employment contracts. At issue in Lamontagne v J.L. Richards & Associates Limited, 2021 ONSC 2133 (CanLII) was whether a termination clause ousted the employee’s entitlement to common law reasonable notice of termination. If it was sufficiently clear, the employer would win. If it was ambiguous, then the employee would have access to the more generous common law entitlement of reasonable notice. Read on to find out how the court decided the issue.

Background

Annick Lamontagne was . . . [more]

Each semester my students must meet with me to discuss their research, and each semester I put a great deal of thought into how to arrange these meetings. I love the individual attention I can give each student in these meetings, and yet, scheduling these meetings always feels like a nightmare. Sometimes I think I have not properly explained the parameters of our scheduling system, but more often it is their lack of attention to detail that leads to my students showing up late, scheduling meetings when they are already scheduled to be in other classes, or otherwise failing to . . . [more]

“Our administrative law is a never-ending construction site where one crew builds structures and then a later crew tears them down to build anew, seemingly without an overall plan.”

Justice David Stratas, “The Canadian Law of Judicial Review: A Plea for Doctrinal Coherence and Consistency”

“The “Quest”, shall we say, for a unified theory of Administrative Law is a constant yearning or aspiration but such a theory, in my view, is probably unattainable, in large measure because there occurs, all along, these repeated shifts in values, and these cognitive or epistemic shifts, in what we consider just or

Each Wednesday we tell you which three English-language cases and which French-language case have been the most viewed* on CanLII and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about.

For this last week:

1. Northern Regional Health Authority v. Horrocks, 2021 SCC 42

[1] Labour relations legislation across Canada requires every collective agreement to include a clause providing for the final settlement of all differences concerning the interpretation, application or alleged violation of the agreement, by arbitration or otherwise. The precedents of this Court have maintained that the jurisdiction conferred upon the decision‑maker appointed thereunder . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on practice, research, writing and technology.

Research & Writing

Figuring Out Geographic Areas in the Canadian Census
Susannah Tredwell

The Canadian census is carried out every five years (you may remember filling it out earlier this year) and, in addition to basic demographic information, covers such areas as housing and employment. If you’re trying to find census information on a more granular level than simply for the country as a whole, the first thing that . . . [more]

Knowing which dispute resolution process to recommend to a client requires a lawyer to know whether there is family violence or a significant power imbalance. The only way to competently provide that legal advice is to have the relevant information by screening for family violence. The recent amendments to the Divorce Act, RSC 1985, c 3 (2^nd Supp) and the Supreme Court of Canada decision, Colucci v Colucci, 2021 SCC 24 suggest that lawyers are required to screen for family violence to be able to competently comply with their statutory obligations. This new legal context also indicates . . . [more]

This submission is part of a column swap with the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) bimonthly member magazine, AALL Spectrum. Published six times a year, AALL Spectrum is designed to further professional development and education within the legal information industry. Slaw and the AALL Spectrum board have agreed to hand-select several columns each year as part of this exchange. 

A recent Law.com article by Dan Clark highlighted a startling finding: “General counsel are increasingly looking for law firms that can collect and deliver data so corporations can improve their decision-making about risks and spending. But they are often . . . [more]

Although litigation is frequently characterized as adversarial, some of the realities in the criminal justice system are slightly more nuanced. Crown counsel represent the public’s interest, and not that of a victim or complainant. Obviously the public has an interest on those impacted by a crime, but Crown counsel do not directly represent those parties or those interests.

In 1954, Justice Rand explained this in the Supreme Court of Canada decision, Boucher v. The Queen, 1954 CanLII 3 (SCC), as follows,

It cannot be over-emphasized that the purpose of a criminal prosecution is not to obtain a conviction,

Every week we present the summary of a decision handed down by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and considered to be of interest to our readers throughout Canada. SOQUIJ is attached to the Québec Department of Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : Les objectifs visant à renforcer la protection de la santé des jurés et à favoriser le déroulement efficace et ininterrompu du procès constituent une «raison valable» au sens du pouvoir de dispense des candidats jurés prévu à l’article 632 c) C.Cr. et justifient la sélection d’un jury . . . [more]

One Sunday each month we bring you a summary from Supreme Advocacy LLP of recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers a weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, to which you may subscribe. It’s a summary of all Appeals, Oral Judgments and Leaves to Appeal granted from August 20 to October 20, 2021 inclusive.

Appeals

Courts/Media: Publication Bans
Canadian Broadcasting Corp. v. Manitoba, 2019 MBCA 122, 2021 SCC 33 (38992)

The Court of Appeal here had ordered a continuing publication ban in its judgment on the merits without a hearing to . . . [more]

Parenting coordination can be difficult work. The people for whom parenting coordination is a cost-effective alternative to litigation, because no one provides this sort of service for free and parenting coordination gets expensive quickly, tend to be overly invested in their dysfunctional relationship with the other parent; they usually prefer the all-or-nothing gamble of conflict over the humiliation of compromise, and happily see every disagreement as the perfect hill upon which to die.

I understand that resolving disputes about family law matters is trying and capable of triggering strong emotional responses, especially when a dispute concerns children and decisions about . . . [more]