Breaking Deadlocks: How sealed bidding resolves real estate disputes in family law
Sealed bidding involves parties submitting secret bids without knowing what others are bidding. This process can break deadlocks in family law disputes over real estate as it promotes fairness and maximizes property value. In family law, figuring out who keeps specific real estate can be challenging. Both parties are often emotionally attached to the property […]
Alberta’s Compassionate Intervention Act and Charter Rights
In 2025, Alberta passed the Compassionate Intervention Act, which allows designated individuals to ask the court to admit someone for drug treatment without that person’s consent. Some critics say it violates several Charter rights. In 2024, 1,414 people died in Alberta from drug poisoning, including 1,182 from opioid overdoses. In 2025, the Government of Alberta […]
Will the Alberta Legislature use the Charter’s Notwithstanding Clause to shield controversial Education Act changes?
The Alberta government may use the notwithstanding clause to protect new controversial laws, including those requiring parents to be notified if their child wishes to use new, gender-related preferred names or pronouns at school. In November 2024, LawNow published Student Charter Rights in the Wake of Bill 27, an article about Bill 27: Education Amendment […]
Interprovincial Parenting Applications: Which court decides?
When co-parents live in different provinces and parenting issues arise, they can try to come to an agreement themselves or with the help of a professional. If not, there are legal processes to figure out which court should decide. EDITOR’S NOTE This article was first published in LawNow on November 5, 2014. It was reviewed and […]
Introducing Preventive Legal Services: Seeing law differently
Preventive law (also known as “preventative law”) is an approach to law that empowers people about their legal rights and responsibilities, while minimizing the risks of litigation. In the cyberpunk science fiction film, The Matrix, there’s an iconic scene where the main character, Neo, meets the mysterious Morpheus character for the first time. Morpheus holds […]
To Bail or Not To Bail? That is the Question
Bail reform in Canada is once again a hot topic. Understanding Constitutional protections and what the Criminal Code says about bail and the bail process is a critical first step to the discussion. The political cries for bail reform are once again ringing through the streets of major cities in our country. Most notably, in […]
Canada’s Legal Leaders in Human Rights Continue the Fight for Fairness
The recent passing of Canadian human rights lawyer Susan Eng provides an opportunity to reflect on the status of human rights in Canada as well as the work of Eng and other human rights lawyers fighting for fairness. Many people may think of human rights as being shaped by David-versus-Goliath struggles of individuals seeking to […]
Shedding light on economic evictions
There is developing case law in Alberta that says landlords cannot raise rent to indirectly evict a tenant, known as an “economic eviction”. Economic evictions happen when a landlord tries to evict a tenant by raising the rent. It is common knowledge that Alberta’s Residential Tenancies Act doesn’t limit how much a landlord can increase rent after […]
