Yesterday (June 12) in Vancouver, leaders of BC’s justice system came together to endorse the Access to Justice Triple Aim.

The one goal of improving access to justice in BC has three interrelated elements:

1. improving population access to justice
2. improving the user experience of access to justice and
3. improving costs (as they relate to access to justice).

Each participating organization has committed to a common goal to improve access to justice in BC and to action to pursue that goal. How organizations choose to act is for them to decide within the context of their respective mandates.

Implicit in . . . [more]

Recently, a Nova Scotia Human Rights Board of Inquiry awarded a record $593,417 in damages, including $105,650 for injury to dignity and $433,077 for wage loss, to a former Halifax transit worker employed as a mechanic who suffered racial harassment and discrimination at work.

In a previous ruling released in March 2018, Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission board of inquiry chair Lynn Connors found widespread racial discrimination and a poisoned work environment at Halifax Transit’s garage. The Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) was found vicariously liable for the actions of their employees.

Connors stated,

“I find based on the facts

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. Jacobs v. McElhanney Land Surveys Ltd., 2019 ABCA 220

[86] To determine whether there is a significant advance – important or notable progress – a court must assess at the start and end points of the applicable period the degree to which the factual and legal issues dividing the parties have been identified and the progress made in ascertaining the relevant . . . [more]

For this month’s CFCJ Slaw blog, we asked Saba Samanian, a recent graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School to provide her perspective on a topic related to the future of the legal profession. Read on to learn what she has to say about law, technology, access justice and how she is thinking about her responsibility to be technically competent as she enters the profession.

As a recent graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School, and as someone who has an interest in technology and innovation, I often find myself thinking about how the two can intersect. While I have been looking . . . [more]

“Law is reason free from passion.” – Aristotle

As a precedent based system, law lends itself nicely to predictive analytics. In predictive analytics, historical data is used to build a mathematical model. This model can then be used to predict what will happen next.

As case law becomes easier to access, many companies are developing predictive analytic tools based on case law. Predictive analytics can be focused on different areas of law. For example, predicting the outcomes of cases in employment, tax, insurance, or family law. Another area predictive analytics can be focused on are on the actors. For example, . . . [more]

Much has been said about what is wrong with the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP), particularly in relation to certain categories of workers, whether fundamentally about the notion of “migrant worker” or about details of the program. One of the serious problems with the program has been the way in which workers have been tied to particular employers. A recent change, allowing workers to change employers, has the potential to address one of the negative aspects of the system. . . . [more]

I recently went looking for a simple definition of arbitration and ended up going around in circles.

Wiktionary, the online dictionary, defines arbitrate as to either make a judgement in a dispute as an arbitrator, or to submit a dispute to such a judgment. Arbitrator is then defined as a person to whom the authority to settle or judge a dispute is delegated.

The Oxford English Dictionary is even less helpful. It defines arbitrate as to “reach an authoritative judgement or settlement.” Arbitration is “the use of an arbitrator to settle a dispute,” and arbitrator is “an independent person or . . . [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

Whistleblower
Neil Guthrie

In law and business, this now means an employee who snitches on bad practices by co-workers (especially the higher-ups) but who is protected from recrimination by legislative provisions like s 27 of the federal Digital Privacy Act and s 66.1 of the Competition Act, or, in the US, s 922 of Dodd-Frank. … . . . [more]

In 1991, the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. McCraw reviewed the threat of a criminally accused to inflict bodily harm, and discussed how rape is an act of violence, and not just a sexual act,

It is difficult if not impossible to distinguish the sexual component of the act of rape from the context of violence in which it occurs. Rape throughout the ages has been synonymous with an act of forcibly imposing the will of the more powerful assailant upon the weaker victim. Necessarily implied in the act of rape is the imposition of the assailant’s will

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.

COMMERCIAL (DROIT) : Les paragraphes 1 et 12 de l’article 2 de la Loi concernant la lutte contre le tabagisme sont inopérants, dans la mesure où ils interdisent la démonstration et l’utilisation des produits de vapotage à l’intérieur des boutiques spécialisées et des cliniques de cessation tabagique; sont également inopérants . . . [more]

For the past couple years, Courthouse Libraries BC (CLBC) has been working with a committee of BC family law professionals to help them realize their vision for a “Family Law Organizer”. As of June 2019, CLBC is pleased to announce FLO’s relaunch with a much improved (and larger) collection of features and resources to connect and help practitioners. FLO’s community statement reads:

FLO is a community of legal professionals established to improve the practice of family law by encouraging dialogue and the free exchange of knowledge, building relationships within the family law bar and related professions, sharing precedents, papers and