ADR

Wednesday, September 13, 2023 @ 3:38 PM

Canada’s more than 155,000 legal professionals — with a global reputation for successfully challenging multiple unconstitutional state incursions on the bar’s independence and ethical duties to clients — went to court again Sept. 11, this time battling what they contend is yet another bid by Ottawa over the past 25 years to turn them into state agents, in this instance by mandating that legal professionals report to federal tax authorities confidential client information about certain client tax transactions that might constitute tax avoidance. ... [read more]

Monday, September 11, 2023 @ 3:10 PM

A British Columbia First Nation’s 30-year quest for justice to the Supreme Court of Canada and beyond — that sought reparations for an 1860 illegal land grab that expelled its members from their traditional village lands, pushing many to the brink of starvation — has garnered a formal public apology from Canada, following a $135-million specific claim settlement last year. ... [read more]

Thursday, September 07, 2023 @ 2:37 PM

The Liberal government has established a “Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions,” following all-party agreement to the new commission of inquiry’s terms of reference and its commissioner. ... [read more]

Tuesday, September 05, 2023 @ 4:45 PM

Faced with loud complaints that Ottawa chronically takes too long to fill vacancies on the superior courts, the Liberal government has announced that new members of its 17 judicial advisory committees (JACs) which vet applications for the bench across Canada will serve for three years, rather than two, while the JACs’ evaluations of individual applicants as “highly recommended,” “recommended” and “unable to recommend” for the federal benches are similarly extended to three years from two, as of Aug. 1. ... [read more]

Tuesday, September 05, 2023 @ 1:27 PM

Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) tools, such as ChatGPT, have been a hot topic for the legal profession over the past year, with courts, associations and law schools grappling with the implications of the technology. A new report, issued by LexisNexis Canada, noted that a vast majority of the Canadian legal market had “significant” concerns about the ethical implications of generative AI and over half of the profession, as well as students, believe it will “change law schools and the way law is taught and studied.” ... [read more]

Friday, September 01, 2023 @ 9:42 AM

The Canadian Bar Association (CBA) on Sept. 1 announced that John Stefaniuk of Winnipeg has begun his year-long tenure as the 95th president of the 127-year-old association of more than 38,000 lawyers, notaries, law professors and law students across Canada. ... [read more]

Thursday, August 24, 2023 @ 5:34 PM

The Trudeau government has taken an average of 11 months to fill dozens of empty spots on the bench so far this year, discloses a Law360 Canada examination of 435 judicial vacancies, which reveals as well that Ottawa “saves” the federal treasury tens of millions of dollars annually, on average, by not making timely judicial appointments. ... [read more]

Wednesday, August 23, 2023 @ 4:08 PM

The Ontario Superior Court has ruled that an arbitrator should decide whether corporate lenders owned by individual co-owners of a project should be required to be parties to arbitration regarding project contributions. ... [read more]

Friday, August 11, 2023 @ 9:54 AM

A Quebec government proposal to increase the hourly fees of family mediators for the first time in more than a decade is far from sufficient to stem the exodus of professionals participating in the government program that offers free family mediation, affirms the head of a mediation organization. ... [read more]

Tuesday, August 08, 2023 @ 1:49 PM

The British Columbia Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal concerning an arbitration clause in a case where the appellants spent money on loot boxes for potential prizes found in the video game Pokémon Go. ... [read more]