In the thesis I’m in the midst of writing, about burdens of proof in litigation between First Nations and the Crown pursuant to s.35(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982, I argue that the Crown invariably takes a position that denies any meaning to the guarantees of Aboriginal and treaty rights in that section, contrary to numerous Supreme Court decisions.

I’ve just come across a statutory example of the same sort of conduct in the Proceedings of the Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples, from May 31, 2010, almost two years ago.

In 2088, Parliament amended the Canadian Human Rights Act ( . . . [more]

It’s May 2-4, even though it’s only May 21, a holiday in Canada. So things will be pretty quiet here on Slaw today. Friends to the south or overseas, talk among yourselves. We’ll be back bright and early tomorrow.

Where I am — Toronto — the holiday is generally known as May 2-4, because: it was created to celebrate the birthday of Queen Victoria, which was May 24th; and “a two-four” is slang for a case of 24 bottles of beer, i.e. that which often accompanies BBQ festivities on this first warm-weather (we hope) holiday in Canada. However, unlike other . . . [more]

Google makes up to 500 changes a year to its algorithm. The newest Google Algorithm change was released on April 24, 2012 and was dubbed Penguin. This update focuses on webspam and eliminating black hat SEO tricks, but it’s likely that other changes to the previous Panda algorithm this year will also be referred to in pop culture as Penguin as well. Web analysts have been closely watching the effects of these changes over the past few weeks.

Entire industries are thriving primarily off of search engine results, and it’s only a matter of time before law firms . . . [more]

A private member’s bill, Bill 96, the Electronic Commerce Amendment Act, 2012, was introduced on May 17, 2012, to amend Ontario’s Electronic Commerce Act.

The bill does three things:

i) It repeals the exclusion of land transfers from the E-Commerce Act (paragraph 31(1)(d) of the Act, s. 2 of the Bill).

ii) It requires for a land transfer that is electronically signed, that

in light of all the circumstances, including any relevant agreement, the purpose for which the document is created and the time the electronic signature is made,

(a) the electronic signature is reliable for the

Altman Weil just released its Altman Weil 2012 Law Firms in Transition Survey. This is the fourth time they have released this survey. While a tad big US law focused, it does clearly show that the bigger firms are waking up to and addressing the profound changes and challenges that are occurring in the practice of big law. A good read for those with a bit of extra time this long (at least here in Ontario!) weekend. . . . [more]

They are, respectively, dropping and falling, these metaphors being used to describe the AUCC/ Access Copyright (AC) deal struck in in mid April. It being a month since that model deal was announced, it seems that mid May was given as a deadline for the schools that previously opted out to express their intent to sign the model deal. The long and strange journey of the AC copyright tariff for universities has been documented here at Slaw and at other locations fairly extensively; if you are interested in this issue you are no doubt aware of the developments. If . . . [more]

The CBC is reporting that Justice Lederer today declared the 2011 federal election results in the riding of Etobicoke Centre to be null and void. The Conservatives won that seat by 26 votes, but, at the instance of Liberal candidate Borys Wrzesnewskyj that result will not stand. A variety of voting irregularities were noted by the court.

The judgment is available on the CBC website, included along with the report (a development I’ve long wanted; congratulations CBC).

The CBC notes that if the judgment is appealed, the matter goes straight to the Supreme Court. . . . [more]

Because two new Supreme Court judges were recently appointed, the Court has released an updated brochure [PDF] containing information about, and photographs of, the building and the judges. Little if any of what’s in here will be news to most lawyers, but you might find it useful to pass on to anyone you’d like to educate about the top court, its jurisdiction and its history.

Some of the historical photographs are interesting, but all of the images could be improved: the PDF renditions are not sharp, and they lack captions. I particularly like the skeletal view of the building as . . . [more]

New, in reference to time, could be one day, one week, or a couple of years. In law librarian terms, I still feel new to my job because it is contantly changing. If like me, you are a librarian who didn’t go to law school, the Canadian Association of Law Libraries can help you cope with the burden of ‘new’.

We have written before about CALL/ACBD’s New Law Librarians’ Institute. The institute is an intensive, week-long program aimed at developing librarians’ skills in the key competencies of law librarianship. The program is an excellent mix of substantive legal topices . . . [more]

I’m not a big gamer. I had a blast with Angry Birds for a bit and then lost the lust for launching the anti-pig petards. So when I’m trying to kill time in the absence of wifi, I’ll turn to good old solitaire — Klondike by threes, if it’s of any interest. I’ve noticed something odd about the game, whether on my desktop, smart phone or tablet. At least, I think I have. The cards the computer serves up don’t seem to be random. I’ll have a four face up at the bottom of one of the columns and . . . [more]

This is a post in a series appearing each Friday, setting out some articles, videos, podcasts and the like that contributors at Slaw are enjoying and that you might find interesting. The articles tend to be longer than blog posts and shorter than books, just right for that stolen half hour on the weekend. It’s also likely that most of them won’t be about law — just right for etc.

Please let us have your recommendations for what we and our readers might like.

The scholarly journal is a form of publishing valued for being tradition-bound rather than path-breaking. The Philosophical Transactions of the 1665, which saw the very launch of this genre in England, is not all that far removed from the Philosophical Transactions A and B today (volumes 370 and 367 respectively). Certainly, in the early years, editor Oldenburg may have handled peer review with less formality, the references in an article may have amounted to referring to a letter from a friend, and the cover may have immodestly referred to its content as that of the ingenious. Yet for all of . . . [more]