Innovative project to produce first research on impact of limited scope legal services. http://albertalegalservices.com/ Rob Harvie QC and John-Paul Boyd, Executive Director of the Canadian Research Institute for Law and the Family, today announced the launch of the Alberta Limited … [Read more...]
Age Discrimination and the Alberta Human Rights Act
Recently, the Alberta government agreed to add protection for age discrimination in the Alberta Human Rights Act (AHRA) in two areas—tenancy and services, goods and accommodation customarily available to the public. This was the result of a Consent Order on January 13, 2017 in the case of Ruth Maria … [Read more...]
The Environment and Aboriginal Rights
In my inaugural column for LawNow (here) I suggested five reasons that environmental law can be challenging to understand. One of those reasons was that it requires some understanding of Aboriginal law, a complex subject in its own right. Even if I were up to the task, it would be impossible to … [Read more...]
Minimum Notice Limitations are Enforceable
Introduction In Canada, employment is a legal contract. The collective agreement in unionized workplaces represents the ultimate comprehensive contract between employer and employer. It sets out the rights and obligations between the parties, including how employment-related disputes are to be … [Read more...]
Student Loans Under the Bankruptcy & Insolvency Act
The Bankruptcy & Insolvency Act of Canada (the Act or BIA) eliminates most unsecured debts like credit card debt, bank loans, lines of credit and payday loans. There are, however, certain debts that are excluded under the Act. Student debts are often confusing because some debts can be … [Read more...]
Obtaining Evidence in High Conflict Parenting Disputes, Part 4: Parenting Coordination
In Part 2 of this series, Sarah Dargatz wrote briefly about parenting coordination, one of the interventions available in family law cases before the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench. In this article, the final part of this series, I will talk about how parenting coordination is used in British … [Read more...]
Oh, S***! Court of Appeal Rules on One Man’s Bowel Movements and Charter Rights
In R. v Poirier [2016] ONCA 582 the Ontario Court of Appeal excluded the drugs excreted from Mr. Poirier’s rectum because of the manner of the police investigation that led to its discovery. Without that evidence, Mr. Poirier was acquitted of all charges. Mr. Poirier was arrested after five … [Read more...]
Pregnancy Discrimination Remains an Issue
Whenever I teach undergrad students about gender discrimination, they are often quite shocked to discover that as recently as the 1970s, there was a Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) ruling that found that discrimination on the basis of pregnancy was not a form of gender discrimination (See: Bliss v … [Read more...]
1984 and None Turn Back: Two Timely Novels
George Orwell’s dystopian classic, 1984, published less than a year before the English novelist and journalist’s untimely death in 1950, has had extraordinary staying power. Indeed, twice in recent times it has raced up the bestsellers lists, to the Number 1 position at Amazon in 2013 after the … [Read more...]
Who’s The Boss? – Jurisdiction Over the Environment in Canada
In the last issue of LawNow I talked about some of the reasons environmental law can be challenging to understand. One of those reasons was that different levels of government in Canada have power to make rules about different things. In this article I want to discuss the basics of who has … [Read more...]