One Sunday each month we bring you a summary from Supreme Advocacy LLP of recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers a weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, to which you may subscribe. It’s a summary of all Appeals, Oral Judgments and Leaves to Appeal granted from July 20 – August 31, 2023 inclusive.

Appeals

Criminal Law: Self-Represented Accused; Role of Amicus
R. v. Kahsai, 2023 SCC 20 (40044)

In exceptional circumstances, the trial judge retains wide discretion to appoint an amicus curiae with adversarial functions that can respond to the needs of . . . [more]

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.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : L’appel du jugement qui a déclaré la compagnie appelante coupable de négligence criminelle ayant causé la mort d’un camionneur pour avoir omis d’entretenir le système de freinage de son camion est rejeté; même si la demande de l’enquêteur fondée sur l’article 59 de la Loi sur l’accès . . . [more]

Having a new idea or insight form in our mind feels great. Each “aha” comes with a release of dopamine that gives us a sensation of pleasure.

Unfortunately, most good ideas don’t progress beyond the initial insight. Goals, no matter how worthy, take a lot of time and resources to implement.

It can be a long and tedious process to put plans into action. It is one thing to have an idea for a book and quite another to undertake the arduous effort to write and publish it.

That is why I was excited this month to speak with lawyer . . . [more]

Written by Daniel Standing LL.B., Content Editor, First Reference

When someone is hired for a particular job, but their duties don’t totally align with what the job was to entail, disputes can arise. One way trouble can manifest itself is on the pay stub, like in 2023 BCEST 51. There, a worker was hired as a construction project manager but ended up working mainly as a labourer, including long hours of overtime. Under British Columbia Employment Standards Act, he was entitled to overtime pay only if he met the definition of employee; those characterized as managers were excluded, . . . [more]

On August 30^th each year, the world is reminded that hundreds of thousands of people in at least 85 countries don’t know where their loved ones are, or even whether they are alive or dead. For the victims of enforced disappearance and their families, every day is the Day of the Disappeared.

The unrelenting uncertainty and anguish of not knowing the truth of what has happened to their family member is a recognized form of torture for both the disappeared and their families. The crime of enforced disappearance cuts off the disappeared from any access to legal . . . [more]

Firms need to be diligent to avoid being the victim of fraud, particularly when receiving fund transfer instructions from clients via email. The prudent advice provided by law societies and/or lawyer’s insurance when transferring funds is to verify emailed instructions through direct telephone or in-person contact. The telephone contact should be initiated by the firm by using the number on file to avoid the communications being intercepted by a fraudster.

Two recent examples highlight this importance. The Lawyers Indemnity Fund in B.C. recently reported that a firm’s diligent adherence to protocol saved them from a funds transfer fraud. When a . . . [more]

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.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : L’appelant, qui a été déclaré coupable notamment de voies de fait et d’agression sexuelle, a droit à un nouveau procès puisque le juge n’a pas effectué une analyse sérieuse de la crédibilité de celui-ci et de la plaignante et semble s’être appuyé sur des préjugés liés aux . . . [more]

Several times each month, we are pleased to republish a recent book review from the Canadian Law Library Review (CLLR). CLLR is the official journal of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL/ACBD), and its reviews cover both practice-oriented and academic publications related to the law.

Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice: The Gerald Stanley and Colten Boushie Case. By Kent Roach. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022. xxii, 309 p. Includes bibliographic references and index. ISBN 9780228012122 (softcover) $27.95. <mqup.ca>.

Reviewed by F. Tim Knight
Associate Librarian, Head of Technical Services
Osgoode Hall Law School, York . . . [more]

In Canada (Attorney General) v. Benjamin Moore & Co., 2023 FCA 168 the Federal Court of Appeal had to assess the effort by the Federal Court to clarify the rule around subject matter objections for computer-implemented inventions. This remains a pressing issue as inventors of computerized inventions continue to seek patent protection in Canada. The Federal Court of Appeal declined to take the opportunity to clarify the rules that would be applicable because the parties and intervenors could not provide a consistent statement of the rules they thought should apply.

The background is that Benjamin Moore had been declined . . . [more]

If you read my column from April and thought: “Yes, writing a book is exactly what I want to do with all my free time for the next one+ years”, then you may be wondering how to get to the next step of actually writing a book. Firstly, I want to include the caveat that so far my oeuvre amounts to one book, and these kinds of methodologies are personal, so please customize or outright ignore this advice as you think is appropriate for you. This post is about what worked for me.

Firstly, I will say that I designed . . . [more]