In the most keenly awaited commercial decision of recent years, the Supreme Court of Canada this morning held that the Ontario Court of Appeal in Indalex Limited (Re), 2011 ONCA 265 (CanLII) was mistaken in stating that deemed trust provisions to contributions to an underfunded pension scheme trumped the interests of a Debtor in Possession lender.

The central issue involved what priority would be given to pension plan wind-up deficits, particularly in insolvency proceedings involving the plan sponsor. Indalex Limited, and its related companies went into the tank. They obtained protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, . . . [more]

This last of 5 articles on the Anti-Spam Act will set out some of the questions and challenges going forward.

This is the last of a series of 5 articles that will introduce the Act, describe what spam is and is not, talk about collateral provisions, what we can do now, and some of the challenges going forward.

As I said in the first article, if you think the Act won’t affect you because you don’t send mass emails trying to sell random products, and don’t infest other people’s computers with spyware, you would be wrong. It creates tools to . . . [more]

This week I debated with myself as to whether the fillip should be about piece of meaningless fluff (actually a whole dust bunny of pieces of meaningless fluff) that might be NSFW, or about a weighty question raised by a philosopher in the NYTimes (that probably was in its way NSFW i.e. not satisfactory for weekends). Fluff won. It is, after all, now February, that Thursday of months, when, speaking for myself, the winter thing becomes just a tad teejus and light, whatever its form, might be welcome.

The sub-trivial treat for today comes to us thanks, in part, to . . . [more]

The Canada Health Act requires your provincial Health Insurance Plan to cover your medical costs in your province of residence only. While some of your provincial coverage may extend to medical emergencies incurred outside Canada, you may only be reimbursed for a fraction of the total cost.

For example, the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) will only cover you up to a maximum of $400 per day for cardiac ICU care for an out of country claim. This pales in comparison to the more than $10,000 per day that a typical USA hospital would charge. Even something as simple as . . . [more]

Nick Holmes over at Binary Law has posted an interesting review of the new GOV.UK universal website. The UK government’s attempt to make web surfing for government information “simpler, clearer, faster.”

The website is only partially finished at the moment, with all departments expected to be integrated by April, 2013. Like any large portal, the arrangement of information — along with a dysfunctional site-search functionality, which Holmes touches on a few times — are going to be major hurdles to overcome.

The interesting issue for me, however, is whether they are trying to accomplish too much on a singular . . . [more]

The Association of Parliamentary Libraries in Canada (APLIC) has launched the bilingual Government and Legislative Libraries Online Publications Portal.

It provides access to over 340,000 electronic provincial, territorial and federal government publications and legislative materials dating back in some cases to the mid-1990s.

Users can search by keyword, title, author, and then link to the electronic copies of the materials hosted by the collecting library. Results can be cross‐jurisdictional or limited by jurisdiction or date.

APLIC provides a table describing the types of material as well as the coverage period for each jurisdiction. . . . [more]

On Friday, January 25, 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in a tight majority judgment (five: McLachlin, Deschamps, Abella, Cromwell and Karakatsanis, against four: LeBel, Fish, Rothstein and Moldaver) that the Quebec Civil Code discriminates against common-law spouses because it does not grant them the same rights as married couples in regard to spousal support and division of property. However, and thankfully, the Court does not find that the discriminatory nature of these Civil Code provisions is unconstitutional. According to the Court’s decision, the infringement is a reasonable limit prescribed by law that can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society under section 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Today’s’ article talks about what we can start doing now to be ready when the Act comes into effect.

This is the forth of a series of 5 articles that will introduce the Act, describe what spam is and is not, talk about collateral provisions, what we can do now, and some of the challenges going forward.

At this point it is unclear when the Act will come into force. Expectations range from the next few months to as late as June of 2014. We have been waiting for some time for the regulations to be finalized, as they are . . . [more]

Another year is in the history books as the creaking structure of the Canadian justice system stumbled along under the weight of crushing new legislation and in the face of chronic underfunding. What does 2013 portend? Read on for some predictions of trends to watch for in the New Year.

1. Prison Overcrowding

About a decade ago prison overcrowding was a major news headline in jurisdictions across the country as an under-funded system struggled to deal with a growing population and a steady increase in the number of incarcerated persons. A multi-faceted approach that included an increase in non-custodial sentences . . . [more]

Each Thursday we present a significant excerpt 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.

WHAT PRIVACY IS FOR
by Julie E. Cohen
126 Harv. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2013)

Excerpt: pp. 16-19 of online symposium paper

[Footnotes omitted. They are available in the PDF version of the article, available via the link on the title above.]

Innovation is never a neutral quantity. Technologies and artifacts are shaped by the . . . [more]

A US appeals court has reversed an order banning a convicted sex offender from having a Facebook account. Would such an order be made and upheld in Canada? What limits might be possible, and how would they be enforced? For that matter, how could the order itself be enforced? It’s not hard to get a FB account in another name, though it may be contrary to the terms of service to do so.

Could a no-contact order be made for FB use, e.g. not to friend or comment on any FB page relating to or about a designated person?

Meanwhile, . . . [more]

Here's a quick tech tip I came across yesterday that might come in handy for some people. If you're using a modern browser (and why wouldn't you be?) you can turn it into a text editor by putting what follows into the location bar and then clicking in the window: