This is the third and final post in a series considering the constitutionality of intraprovincial/territorial border closures. In Part I, I set out the background to the closures, with a summary of which provinces had closed their borders to travellers from other provinces/territories and those implementing other non-closure procedures. In Part II, I considered the constitutionality of the closure provisions (including the federal closure of Canadian borders) under sections 6 and 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In this final post, I look at the enforcement provisions relating both to the closure of borders . . . [more]

Relationships are a funny thing. We all know people that we cannot see for years and then decided to grab a coffee and everything just works. It feels like you see that person every day. Other people we see everyday and may take for granted just how close we are.

Seeing people isn’t as easy as it used to be. It takes more effort. It takes technology. It takes a desire on both parties to be together.

Marketing has always taken effort. Where you place your efforts will be a determining factor in your success as we move through the . . . [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.

Technology

Online Whiteboard for Collaboration
Lesha Van Der Bij

With everyone working from home, I have been looking for better tools to collaborate with my team. I recently found one that is super cool – Miro. Miro enables users to map out a workflow, brainstorm new ideas or develop a business strategy on a shared online whiteboard. …

Research & Writing

Face Mask
Neil Guthrie

Never write or say . . . [more]

Everyone I connect with from legal is flat out busy. One of the challenges with being flat out busy is that you get so involved doing the tasks in front of you and don’t necessarily consider better ways of doing those tasks. This week and next, the Canadian Association of Law Libraries Virtual Conference Series continues. Cost: $0 Opportunity: $priceless.

Please join us on Friday to celebrate excellence in Legal Publishing! . . . [more]

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from more than 80 recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. Crossroad Family Law Blog 2. The Lean Law Firm 3. Rule of Law 4. Barry Sookman 5. RT Blog

Crossroad Family Law Blog
How do I get a restraining order in Alberta during COVID-19?

It is now clear that incidences of domestic violence seem to be increasing . . . [more]

On March 19, 2020, the Government of Ontario created a new regulation under the Employment Standards Act, which created a new emergency leave to protect workers who were sick from COVID-19. This was an important protection to ensure that workers were not dismissed as a result of being sick during the pandemic.

As the pandemic drags on, and social isolation and distancing rules create significant economic barriers for businesses, many lawyers have been considering whether there would be an enormous wave of employment litigation following the conclusion of the pandemic. Many employers have had to reduce wages, modify the . . . [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 Ju stice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

FAILLITE ET INSOLVABILITÉ : Vu l’état d’urgence sanitaire, il convient d’accueillir la demande d’ordonnance omnibus produite par la surintendante des faillites et visant à assurer une plus grande flexibilité dans tous les dossiers de faillite de la province de Québec.

Intitulé : Proposition de St-Pierre, 2020 QCCS 1374
Juridiction . . . [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 (newest first):

• Managing Director (Full-time) | Toronto, ON
  (Legal Information and Resource Network (LIRN)

[See the full text of this article on the SSRN. This one is related to my two previous Slaw posts dated: July 25, 2019, and April 9, 2020]

Law society bencher-based[i] management structure: (1) has caused and perpetuates the very destructive access to justice problem (the A2J problem) of unaffordable lawyers’ services for middle- and lower-income people; which has a cause-and-effect relationship with, (2) increasing the negative consequences of society’s equally destructive income-inequality problem. Law societies are thereby abandoning that majority of society such that those many millions of people will have no choice but to . . . [more]

You’ve likely come across Peter Sankoff’s #100interns project over the past few months. Peter executed a very successful campaign of connecting law students with various practitioners, small firms and educational institutions around the country.

Students with an interest in Criminal law were paired with practitioners or researchers; giving them the experience they would normally have found during summer intern positions. The idea of filling this “COVID gap” for law students is incredibly admirable; though the project has since finished, and was limited to those seeking criminal law experience.

Over the past couple weeks I have been contacted about two student-led . . . [more]

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

On March 26, 2020, the Supreme Court of Canada granted leave to appeal the decision of the Alberta Court of Appeal in Canada v. Canada North Group Inc., 2019 ABCA 314 (CanLII). The decision canvasses the priority that attaches to money that is borrowed in restructuring proceedings to preserve value in an insolvent company. The decision considered whether these charges rank ahead of other claims that are also granted priority under federal legislation. The issue, therefore, was the relative ranking of “super-priority” court-ordered charges in proceedings under the Companies’ Creditors . . . [more]

When lawyers turned the calendar page to January 2020, they could not have dreamt of the two-fold nightmare that would descend upon the profession so quickly. A global pandemic and a tanking economy at the same time? We thought we had seen the end of hard times when we finally emerged from The Great Recession in 2009. Some of our lawyer friends still have lines of credit to pay down from that recession.

While government leaders say the economy will “come roaring back” or “I’ll bring the economy back,” most lawyers are skeptical, to say the least.

The New Normal