The Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled that a provision of the Mortgages Act (“MA”) which allows lenders to set aside tenancy agreements for the purpose of taking possession of real property does not conflict with the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 (“RTA”) and can be used by lenders to set aside “sweetheart” tenancy agreements that are designed to discourage the lender from taking possession or adversely affecting the value of the lender’s interest in the property.

In the instant case, the TD Bank took a mortgage on a condominium unit in July, 2011. On November 1, 2012 the owner defaulted . . . [more]

I don’t know much about Taylor Swift (or TayTay/Swifty/Tayter Tot/T-Swizzle depending on fan-preference), but I take pride that most of what I do know comes from a delightfully small number of sources:

• My six-year old daughter (more “stream of consciousness fan fiction” than literal news)
• The Dover Police Department—this YouTube video in particular
• The ingenious OpenDataTaylorSwift Twitter account (@ts_institute) — light on Taylor Swift data (Tay-lore?), true, but a truly great dig into the Open Data world… see!

https://twitter.com/t_s_institute/status/770301838574882816

https://twitter.com/t_s_institute/status/770226313344999425

• The Trial Lawyers Association of BC’s Twitter account (@tla_bc), who unexpectedly made this list this morning

LAWPRO is seeing an increase in claims against Ontario lawyers by franchisees and franchisors. These claims tend to involve significant damages which often approach or exceed the available limits under the primary LAWPRO policy.

Franchises are governed by the Arthur Wishart Act (Franchise Disclosure), 2000 (the “Act”) which was enacted by the Ontario government to provide protection to franchisees in relation to their dealings with franchisors, and to address the imbalance of power that exists between the parties.

Franchisees often share similar characteristics: They are not sophisticated business people or are not experienced with franchises; they are running a “mom-and . . . [more]

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from seventy 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. Mack’s Criminal Law  2. Blogue du CRL 3. All about Information  4. Slater Vecchio Connected  5. The Stream

Mack’s Criminal Law
Looked like a gun, walked like a gun, quacked like a gun

Dirie and Omar were both convicted of weapons possession offences. The sole issue at trial was . . . [more]

None of us is really sure what bitcoin is, or what it’s fully used for. It seems the courts are just as confused.

A judge in Florida v Espinoza recently stated the following in regards to a police sting involving Bitcoin:

Nothing in our frame of references allows us to accurately define or describe Bitcoin…

Bitcoin may have some attributes in common with what we commonly refer to as money, but differ in many important aspects. While Bitcoin can be exchanged for items of value, they are not a commonly used means of exchange. They are accepted by some

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 : L’article 596 C.C.Q. et les autres articles du titre troisième du Livre deuxième (art. 585 à 596.1) du Code civil du Québec trouvent application en matière de divorce, sauf exceptions prévues à la Loi sur le divorce ou incompatibilité avec celle-ci, de sorte que le juge de première . . . [more]

The Canadian Research Institute for Law and the Family had the opportunity to survey the participants of the 2014 National Family Law Program in Whistler, BC, a popular and well-attended legal education program that attracts hundreds of judges and lawyers from across the country. Among other things, we asked lawyers how their files typically resolved and the results were astonishing.

Probably the most important conclusion to be drawn from the 176 responses to our survey was that less than a tenth of lawyers’ files are resolved at trial (9.3%). The lion’s share of our files are resolved through negotiation (40.7%) . . . [more]

Do you have people you can rely to help you when you have an FCIL research question? If yes, great! If no, or even if yes, read on because I’m about to drop some knowledge about which “people resources” are the best and what they are. These resources are helpful if you are a foreign, comparative, and international law (FCIL) librarian or legal information professional or specialist or someone who works with FCIL materials or a generalist who gets FCIL-related questions re from time to time. You can start out small (one-on-one) or go big (listservs, conferences, twitchats, associations, interest . . . [more]

Each Thursday we present a significant excerpt, usually from a recently published book or journal article. In every case the proper permissions have been obtained. If you are a publisher who would like to participate in this feature, please let us know via the site’s contact form.

The Earth is Our Mother: Freedom of Religion and the Preservation of Aboriginal Sacred Sites in Canada
(2017) 62:3 McGill Law Journal (forthcoming)

Natasha Bakht, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law, Common Law Section, Ottawa
Lynda Collins, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law, Common Law Section, Ottawa

Excerpt: Abstract, . . . [more]

Increasingly, professional services are available through global online platforms. It’s a popular concept and Upwork is a leading example.

Upwork is a global freelancing platform with twelve million registered independents (sellers) and five million registered clients (buyers). The result of a merger between two mega-sites (eLance and oDesk), Upwork is probably the world’s largest such platform.

Through Upwork, businesses find and work remotely with independent professionals all over the world. Hirers can find freelancers in the areas of app and software design, engineering and data science, business and administrative services, creative services such as writing and graphic design and even . . . [more]

Unlocking Intellectual Property

Last May, Vancouver Foundation, Canada’s largest community foundation, announced it would develop and adopt an open licensing policy. This is a big deal for an organization that spends over $50 million yearly on its grantees and programs. The right policy could amplify the impact of the Foundation’s spending, and create knock-on benefits shared by other groups working for good causes. On the flip side, a flawed one could dilute the incentives (real or perceived) for grantees expected to share success, credit and perhaps even intellectual property with unknown others.

Meanwhile, Clicklaw Wikibooks, a project I . . . [more]