Lawyers are distinct from other professionals like medicine in that the license provided is inherently broad, and limited only by the restrictions the lawyer places upon themselves.

For example, the Model Code states at 3.1-1 that a competent lawyer “means a lawyer who has and applies relevant knowledge, skills and attributes in a manner appropriate to each matter undertaken on behalf of a client and the nature and terms of the lawyer’s engagement…” Those knowledge, skills, and attributes can be defined or applied in many different ways, especially where a lawyer is working with other lawyers who have different or . . . [more]

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.

FAMILLE : La personne qui prétend être le parent biologique d’un enfant devrait être visée par l’expression «l’un de ses parents» se trouvant à l’article 3147 C.C.Q., qui traite de la compétence des autorités québécoises en matière de filiation.

Intitulé : Droit de la famille — 211290, 2021 QCCA 1123 . . . [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 June 18 – July 16, 2021 inclusive.

Appeals

Aboriginal Law: Flooding; Equitable Compensation
Southwind v. Canada, 2021 SCC 28 (38795)

The trial judge here valued flooded land based on its value in 1929, with 10 percent valued as waterfront land and 90 percent valued as bushland. . . . [more]

Each Friday, we share the latest job listings from Slaw Jobs, which features employment opportunities from across the country. Find out more about these positions by following the links below, or learn how you can use Slaw Jobs to gain valuable exposure for your job ads, while supporting the great Canadian legal commentary at Slaw.ca.

Current postings on Slaw Jobs:

• Hospitality Clerk (Full-time) | Vancouver, BC
  (Bennett Jones)
• Legal Assistant, Resource Team (Corporate & Litigation) (Contract role) | Edmonton, AB
  (Bennett Jones)
• Director, Legal (Full-time) | Toronto, ON
  (Insurance Bureau of Canada)
• Law Librarian (Full-time) | Calgary, AB
  (Bennett Jones)

The state of Michigan has demanded that a Canadian company, Enbridge Energy Company (Enbridge), close the portion permitted by an easement of its oil pipeline—Line 5—that crosses the Straits of Mackinac, which joins Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Line 5 is an interstate, interprovincial, and international pipeline, owned and operated by Enbridge. It is used to transport petroleum products from Wisconsin, through Michigan, to Ontario, Québec, and further locations in Canada.[1]

Michigan’s Notice of Termination of the easement applies to a 4-mile portion of dual lines along the lake floor and ordered Enbridge to cease operation by May 12, . . . [more]

From proteststo scientific analysis, old growth forests have been much in the news in British Columbia in recent months. What does a legal lens bring to this debate?

Past analyses undertaken by West Coast Environmental Law have laid bare the multifaceted ways in which BC’s laws are “hardwired for failure” when it comes to safeguarding the resilience of ecological systems and human communities in the face of cumulative impacts from resource development and climate change. Legal barriers identified include:

• Historic legal or policy caps on how much land may be protected and/or how great an impact on resource

Several times each month, we are pleased to republish a recent book review from the Canadian Law Library Review (CLLR). CLLR is the official journal of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL/ACBD), and its reviews cover both practice-oriented and academic publications related to the law.

The Canadian Law of Obligations: Access to Justice. Edited by Hilary Young. Toronto: LexisNexis Canada, 2020. xxx, 255 p. Includes illustrations, bibliographic references, and index. ISBN 9780433505754 (softcover) $130.00. 

Reviewed by Emily Nickerson
Law & Business Librarian
Diana M. Priestly Law Library, University of Victoria
In CLLR 46:2

The Canadian . . . [more]

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. Pourshian v. Walt Disney Company, 2021 ONSC 4840 (CanLII)

[48] In my view, these are pleading issues that are not properly addressed on a jurisdiction motion. As held by the Court of Appeal in Rothmans, at para. 106, “the motion judge is not required to subject the pleadings to the scrutiny applicable on a rule 21 motion”. In this case, . . . [more]

In my coverage of intellectual property issues in scholarly publishing, I have made passing reference in this column to my work with the Public Knowledge Project (PKP). It represents my more practical and applied efforts to address the intellectual property issues that trouble scholarly publishing. From this perspective, what PKP has been doing for more than two decades now is to test various ways in which copyright can better serve research and scholarship. This turns out to be largely about redirecting copyright against itself.

What this has meant in practice is that PKP develops software for online scholarly publishing platforms . . . [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

Searching Older Issues of the Canada Gazette
Susannah Tredwell

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) recently updated its historical Canada Gazette database to improve the search experience. This database contains the issues of the Canada Gazette published between 1841 (when it replaced the Upper Canada Gazette and the Lower Canada Gazette) and 1997. … . . . [more]