My last post here before the summer break was on the OBA end of term speech by Alan Lenczner which lamented the condition of the Ontario civil justice system, and in particular, delays in obtaining hearing dates.

On 15 August the executive of the OBA civil litigation section passed a unanimous resolution to the effect that it believes the civil litigation system in Ontario is in “disarray”, that “corrective action is needed urgently” and requesting that the OBA Board and Council take immediate steps to address the matter effectively”.

The OBA has now established a Court Delay working group. Its . . . [more]

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada's award-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from forty-one 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. The Court   2. Wise Law Blog   3. Youth & Work   4. Entertainment & Media Law Signal    5. Off the Shelf

Mobile technology offers opportunities to be more efficient. One area that has seen a lot of improvement is mobile printing. I’m not thinking about taking a portable printer with you, but printing to your office while mobile over the Internet. This is sometimes called “cloud” printing but the use of cloud is marketing guff.

The Wi-Fi-enabled printer has been with us for years, but there is more to it than printing across your internal network from your laptop, tablet, or phone. The basic use case is that you are away from your office and need to have something emerge . . . [more]

Chaque semaine, nous vous présentons un résumé d'une décision d'un tribunal québécois qui nous est fournis par la Société québécoise d'information juridique (SOQUIJ) et ayant un intérêt pancanadien. SOQUIJ relève du ministre de la Justice du Québec, et elle analyse, organise, enrichit et diffuse le droit au Québec.

Every week we present a summary of a decision by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and selected 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.

Pénal : L'article 16 de la Loi réglementant certaines drogues et autres substances ne prévoit pas l'exception de l'effet démesuré à l'égard des biens meubles; la demande de confiscation de biens infractionnels, à savoir une somme 10\000\$ saisie et un véhicule automobile, est accueillie.

A small groundswell of citizens in High River, Alberta are noting their objections to the actions of the RCMP during an emergency flood this past June. In a meeting this week with the RCMP the residents question why searches by the military and RCMP resulted in property damage and seizure of firearms. The RCMP justify their actions by stating they were conducting searches of the homes to ensure no residents or pets were left behind during the evacuation.

The RCMP has the authority under s. 487.11 of the Criminal Code to enter homes to save lives. But their authority at . . . [more]

This week's summaries concern: Construction of wills / Aboriginal treaty rights / Regulation of drug sales via the internet / Small claims court and set off:

Lucy McSweeney, the Children’s Lawyer for Ontario, joins this years list of individuals being recognized as Leaders to be Proud Of and champions of diversity by Out on Bay Street. Lucy received this year’s Professional Leadership Award.

Lucy McSweeney was appointed by the Ontario Government as the Children’s Lawyer for Ontario in 2010. The Office of the Children’s Lawyer is part of Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General and provides legal services on behalf of children under the age of 18. The Office is unique as it offers the most comprehensive government-funded legal service to children in the world. The . . . [more]

Every so often you’ll see an article that declares that word x in language y is untranslatable into language z — this last almost always being English. The truth of it is that most of these statements are simply wrong and often show themselves to be wrong as they proceed to tell you what word x means in English. It is the case, of course, that we don’t always have a single word in English that serves the same function as the single word in the exotic language, so sometimes it takes us a few words to express pretty much . . . [more]

Whether you are starting your career, are mid-career or are winding down, you should take time to recharge. Ever since 1975, one of my favorite ways to refresh lagging enthusiasm for the rigors and routines of work has been to go to the annual meeting of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL). In the early days I was energized by meeting new people and learning new skills. As the years rolled by, my excitement was in honing skills and in catching up with the many friends I made over the course of my career. Now that I am retired, . . . [more]

[We experienced trouble this week obtaining statistics in time to be published on Wednesday.] 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. Brooks (Re) 2013 CanLII 54306 (ON RC)
   

   1. This Ontario Racing Commission (ORC) Hearing as it now proceeds is in response to:

   • Written request by Jeffrey Brooks (Brooks) relating to Standardbred Ruling 23/2010 immediately suspending Jeffrey Brooks’ ORC licence G368T7 on January 28, 2010, Racing Commission Act 2000

. . . [more]

The most recent issue of the Weekly Checklist of Canadian Government Publications refers to a number of publications from the Canadian Judicial Council relating to court management and the management of case information.

They include papers on systems to manage digital court documents, the determination of costs in civil litigation involving digital information and e-discovery, as well as a comparative analysis of court administrative systems in Australia, Canada, England and Wales, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Scotland:

• Court Information Management: “Traditionally, courts have relied on the availability of filed documents – both paper based or

. . . [more]

I had naively assumed that if you were pardoned for having committed, and being convicted of, a criminal offence, that was that: you and society were square and the slate was clean. An article in today’s Globe and Mail, “Ottawa revokes pardon for man accused in Via train plot” by Colin Freeze, disabused me of that notion. The truth of the matter is that the clearing of the record is conditional.

Under s.2.1 of the Criminal Records Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. C-47, the Parole Board of Canada “has exclusive jurisdiction and absolute discretion to order, refuse . . . [more]