With the holiday season just around the corner, it’s that time of year again for hosting guests. If you are currently renting a property and plan to have guests over, there are several things you need to know. The Residential Tenancies Act (RTA) is the law that applies to most renting situations in … [Read more...]
Obtaining Evidence in High Conflict Parenting Disputes, Part 2: Using Experts in Parenting Disputes
In most disputes over parenting time, parents come to reasonable decisions about what is in their child’s best interests. However, a small percentage of disputes are “high conflict”. In high conflict cases, the parents have great difficulty communicating, make decisions together, and treating each … [Read more...]
Genetic Discrimination is Being Addressed in Canadian Law
With many recent advances in technology, testing can disclose information about people’s health that was not available even a few years ago. For example, genetic testing can reveal that a person has a gene mutation that causes or increases the risk of an inherited disorder. This information may be … [Read more...]
Bieber and Beachclub: What is Defamation in the Social Media Era?
On May 16, 2016, the Montreal Gazette and the New York Daily News reported that Stratford-born pop star Justin Bieber had been sued in Montreal by event promoter Team Productions for $650,000 CDN for defamation. Bieber's offending comment was a tweet on August 22, 2015, which would have been the … [Read more...]
Self-Represented Litigants have Mountains to Climb
Self-represented litigants present a host of challenges to some of the core assumptions of the legal system. Here are three of the most significant issues. Access to Justice The right to a fair trial is a principle of fundamental justice in Canada. If the unrepresented litigant is a lay … [Read more...]
Stranger Than We Can Imagine
Stranger Than We Can Imagine – John Higgs’s intriguing and unique tour of the 20th Century. I recommend to readers trying to make sense of the tumultuous twentieth century a fresh historical take – John Higgs’s Stranger Than We Can Imagine: An Alternative History of the Twentieth Century. Its … [Read more...]
Extraordinary Criminal at the Heart of The Man Without Qualities
At our recent meeting of the Who Killed D’Arcy McGee History Club in the hospitable surroundings of the Russian Tea Room in downtown Edmonton we were discussing the early thrillers of Graham Greene, including his short novel The Third Man. Greene had written it after a journey to a bombed and … [Read more...]
Representing Yourself at the Tax Court
The Tax Court of Canada has gone to some lengths to make information available for self-represented taxpayers who want to appeal a tax decision. The website of the Court prominently displays a tab for Self-represented litigants. Under the tab there is a wealth of information about forms, … [Read more...]
BenchPress – Vol 41-1
A Different Divorce A British Columbia Provincial Court judge has divorced himself from a couple who have long been bickering in his court over custody and access issues concering their young child. Judge Bruce Hyer ordered a very detailed and specific parenting plan to take the family … [Read more...]
Divorce and Bankruptcy Law in Canada
Almost one in five insolvencies in Canada (a bankruptcy or consumer proposal) involves someone who has experienced a marital or relationship breakdown. Often the financial problems occurred long before the divorce. Financial pressures often increase after divorce as two households are now trying to … [Read more...]
