Environmental regulators and tribunals bear substantial responsibilities and make important decisions regarding development in Canada. If they won’t listen to opponents of a project, will they breach the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

The issue has been raised before the courts recently regarding both a pipeline approval before the National Energy Board and regulation of ongoing fracking activities before the Alberta Energy Regulator. The AER replaced the Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB), and provides “full-lifecycle regulatory oversight of energy resource development in Alberta – from application and construction to abandonment and reclamation, and everything in between.”

The mandate . . . [more]

The November 2013 issue of Connected is now available online.

The bulletin covers news about the impact of social media on courts. Most of the items are about the United States, but there is occasional coverage of other jurisdictions.

The bulletin is published by the Virginia-based National Center for State Courts and the Conference of Court Public Information Officers.

In this issue:

• Michigan court to begin using social media to contact hard-to-reach parties
• Texas Judge bans social media use for child custody litigants
• How are governments using Instagram?
• Arizona Supreme Court launches new veterans’ clearinghouse website

  . . . [more]

They laughed at me when I suggested that law firms should move to open concept offices for all lawyers with fun amenities like rooftop terraces.

Not possible! they yelled.

We could never get any work done! they sneered.

We need our offices! they pompously carolled.

We’re not techies working for Google! they laughed.

Now Australian law firm, Corrs Chambers Westgarth, with offices across Australia employing over 500 lawyers has proven them all wrong.

Walking into Corrs’ new Sydney office at state-of-the-art new office tower, 8 Chifley Place was like walking into a dream.

No private offices. None. . . . [more]

On November 27, 2013, Quebec’s National Employment Insurance Review Commission released its report regarding the impact of the federal government's 2012 changes to the Employment Insurance (EI) program. The report makes 30 recommendations, with three key recommendations calling for the provincial and federal governments to negotiate an agreement giving Quebec the power to manage its own EI system to meet the needs of the province’s labour market.

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.

Competition and Antitrust Laws in Canada: Mergers, Joint Ventures and Competitor Collaborations
Brian A Facey, Cassandra Brown
Toronto: LexisNexis Canada, 2013

Excerpt from Chapter 1

Looking back at Canada’s experience with competition law provides only limited insights into its current application. Indeed, the history of Canadian competition law is littered with unsuccessful attempts . . . [more]

Last year on Slaw, Steve Matthews wrote ten tips for building a law firm publishing culture. One of his tips included using an editorial calendar as a useful tool to keep track of who was writing what in the firm and when, but also to include guidelines, set reminders, and help identify opportunities, and in my last post on using Evernote as a marketing tool, I mentioned that lawyers may want to keep their editorial calendar within Evernote.

Editorial calendars help you plan content and ensure that you are posting consistently. They are also handy tools to help . . . [more]

Look around everywhere you turn is heartache
It’s everywhere that you go (look around)
You try everything you can to escape
The pain of life that you know (life that you know)
“Vogue” Madonna

Legal Publishing is vogueing again and Madonna’s lyrics must have been written for the legal publishing industry!

Here at Law Librarians News publishing legal books is a development that has come back into play in a big way in the last 12 weeks or so.

Management at various publishers may well raise their eyebrows at our comments if and when they read this. But it really . . . [more]

The latest word is that Canada’s anti-spam legislation will be in force on July 1, 2014, with the software provisions coming into force in January 2015. The final regulations will be published in the Canada Gazette on December 18.

More information about the law can be found in previous articles here.

Proponents of the law feel that it is going to have a substantial effect on the fight against spam. But as I have said before, my personal view is that the legislation as drafted is ill-conceived and will be a compliance nightmare for businesses and charities.

Stay . . . [more]

Lawyers who practice family law in Winnipeg are familiar with the Tuesday morning motions court, known as the “zoo” for reasons that will soon be obvious. For those unfamiliar with this docket court, the recent decision of Associate Chief Justice Rivoalen in Skinner v. Skinner is instructive:

[10] There is a lot going on as the Family Motions Coordinator, parties and their lawyers navigate their way through the typical Family Uncontested Motions melée, and not only because there are so many matters on the List. Moreover, the Court’s registry staff, clerks, sheriffs, stand-by master and judges are fully engaged….

[11]

. . . [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. Meads v. Meads 2012 ABQB 571
   

   [1] This Court has developed a new awareness and understanding of a category of vexatious litigant. As we shall see, while there is often a lack of homogeneity, and some individuals or groups have no name or special identity, they (by their own admission or by descriptions given by others) often fall into the following descriptions: Detaxers;

. . . [more]

If you’ve never given much thought to your life insurance, there’s a chance you’re paying too much. Here are 7 tips that could help you save thousands on your life insurance costs.

1. Your excellent health could qualify you for discounted rates

Most insurers can offer discounted life insurance rates to applicants with a combination of much better than average medical test results, no family history of serious diseases, and healthy lifestyle choices. Commonly referred to as Preferred or Elite, these lower rates are subject to strict underwriting rules. As a result, most people can’t qualify; but if you do, . . . [more]

It has been suggested to me, at a couple of levels of hearsay, that that “the US government had to implement a provision to require the financial institutions to accept electronic signatures on agreements of purchase and sale [of land] for the purposes of financing.”

Can anyone tell me what is behind this statement? I have several questions, besides this general one:

• ‘had to implement’ – meaning ‘as a condition of validity’? or ‘to make some particular policy effective’?
• ‘to require the financial institutions to accept e-signatures’ – really? Mandatory acceptance of e-signatures? *Any* e-signatures or only those with

. . . [more]