Reading Time: 4 minutes The Alberta Water Council is interesting because of its role and how it makes decisions – by consensus only. This article is about two things. First it briefly describes the Alberta Water Council. Second, it talks about consensus decision-making – a way groups can work together toward a common goal even when their interests appear […]
NAFTA vs. USCMA: Is Canada’s water a good or a right?
Reading Time: 5 minutes The impact of the new USCMA on Canada’s water, as compared to NAFTA’s provisions, remains to be seen. While Canada has 20% of the world’s freshwater, less than half of this freshwater (7%) is renewable. The world, including our American neighbours, is struggling with water crises in many places. As Canadians, we should understand how […]
You Can Officiate Your Friends’ Weddings!
Reading Time: 5 minutes Did you know you can officiate your friends’ and family members’ marriage ceremonies in Alberta? The provincial government recently changed its policies to allow members of the public to perform wedding ceremonies.
Property Laws You’ve Maybe Never Heard Of
Reading Time: 7 minutes Did you know that each province in Canada has different property laws? Property laws deal with buying and selling land, dividing property at the end of a relationship, property liens and claims, registering interests in property, buying and selling goods, inheritances, etc.
What You Didn’t Know was a Crime in Canada
Reading Time: 4 minutes The Government of Canada recently gave the Criminal Code a legal face lift after conducting a detailed review to eliminate all the excess and outdated (err, weird) laws. But there still remains some interesting, unique and lesser known criminal offences.
The Critical Role of Public Legal Education in Societies Governed by the Rule of Law
Reading Time: 4 minutes At some point in high school, we learn that we live in a nomocracy, which is a fancy ten-cent word for a society governed by the rule of law. The whole “governed by the rule of law” thing is an especially important quality of democracies like ours. It includes the following rights: the right to […]
BearPaw Media and Education: Indigenous public legal education in Alberta
Reading Time: 5 minutes What is BearPaw Media and Education? As a department of Native Counselling Services of Alberta (NCSA), we produce and distribute free, multimedia Indigenous public legal education and information (PLEI). Our resources are for Indigenous people, by Indigenous people in Alberta and include culturally-relevant videos, publications and workshops. Our goal is to increase the confidence and […]
Public Legal Education: Unexamined theory constrains practice
Reading Time: 8 minutes Nothing is so practical as good theory. ~ Kurt Lewin When Public Legal Education (PLE) began to take shape in Canada, it was an innovative, disruptive form of legal service. We were definitely thinking ‘outside the box’. So far out, in fact, that the mere thought of educating the public about the law was threatening to […]
A2J and Public Legal Education in 2020 in Alberta
Reading Time: 7 minutes What is justice? It is widely stated that we have an access to justice (A2J) crisis in Canada. You will get a variety of answers, though, if you ask people what they think this means and what we can do about it. As Lois Gander points out in her article in this issue of LawNow, […]
Getting Your Film onto the Screen
Reading Time: 6 minutes So, you have an idea for a great movie and think it has “legs”. Where do you start? Let’s look at it like any product to be sold in the marketplace. To understand how to make and market your movie, there are three basic questions that you need to answer: What are you selling? Who […]
