Access to Justice
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April 29, 2025
Toronto company launches legal challenge against federal cannabis advertising regulations
In what one lawyer is describing as a Canadian first, a Toronto-based cannabis products producer has launched a Charter challenge against federal cannabis advertising regulations that it says limit its “freedom of expression and [its] ability to engage in meaningful, competitive commerce.”
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April 29, 2025
Windsor Law’s workplace safety insurance course begins May 6, 2025
Kudos to Windsor Law dean Reem A. Bahdi and assistant dean Lisa Trabucco for having the foresight and initiative to introduce professional education programs. I’m so pleased their first course offering is a much-needed workplace safety insurance law program.
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April 29, 2025
Ontario Trial Lawyers Association concerned about pace, recommendations of civil rules review
The Ontario Trial Lawyers Association (OTLA) is raising alarm bells about a recent report from a task force recommending a sweeping overhaul of the province’s civil rules, with the organization’s president-elect saying many of the recommendations and the pace of the consultation process itself are problematic.
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April 28, 2025
Ontario’s ‘tough-on-crime’ proposals for judicial selection could backfire, lawyers warn
Two leaders with Ontario’s criminal justice bar are concerned that new “tough-on-crime” measures announced by Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government could serve to undermine the province’s criminal justice system rather than strengthen it.
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April 28, 2025
Colour of right, principal and secondary parties under discussion in N.B. appeal
A couple, Kevin Melanson, 48, and Christina Melanson, 40, of Sackville, N.B., were sentenced to three years in prison for a violent robbery at the now-defunct Fredericton business Buddy’s Cannabis Clinic, in June 2018. Kevin had invested $25,000 in Buddy’s, and he understood he had lost his investment.
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April 28, 2025
When the system came for me, my co-counsel was AI
In July 2023, I was detained and charged by an officer of the Toronto Police Service during a low-speed parking manoeuvre in downtown Toronto. My dashcam footage contradicted the officer’s claims. Still, I was detained for nearly an hour, falsely accused of impaired driving and issued four additional traffic charges. What followed was a two-year ordeal filled with obstruction, delay and procedural abuse by the Toronto Police Service and the City of Toronto’s legal counsel.
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April 24, 2025
Drug conviction appeal results in modified sentence
A joint operation between the Ontario Provincial Police and the North Bay police resulted in multiple arrests and the seizure of drugs, cash, cars and electronics. When published reports of this takedown appeared in 2020, 30-year-old Justin Glynn was named as one of the people arrested.
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April 24, 2025
Quebec court approves Phoenix system class action settlement for non-union federal employees
The Quebec Superior Court has approved a settlement for a class action over compensation errors that non-unionized and casual federal public servants faced as a result of the Phoenix pay system, which was launched in 2016.
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April 24, 2025
Why video evidence failed to win Alberta sex assault appeal
When an accused Alberta man was charged with three counts of sexual assault by a former partner, he thought he might have a good defence if he could get around Canada’s “rape shield law,” s. 276 of the Criminal Code. His defence at trial was that he had an honest but mistaken belief that the partner had consented to the sexual advances.
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April 24, 2025
Wait! Hear me out
I am listening to a Filipino song called Bulag Pipi at Bingi by Freddie Aguilar. The lyrics express the idea that the real world is not far from the life of deaf, blind and mute — it suggests that what one is going through is not unusual or isolated. However, the other side of me is worrying that I am starting to realize how loud the volume is. Am I starting to have noise-induced hearing loss?
Access to justice: The language of the litigant counts | Ruphine Djuissi
Access to justice in French is a critical issue for Francophones across Canada, particularly with respect to the availability of legal services in French, the quality of interpretation and translation, and equal language rights. It also includes access to French-speaking lawyers and court documents written in French. It is important to ensure that Francophones have access to legal services in their mother tongue or first official language.
Ontario committed to expanding Unified Family Courts but Toronto still lacking
Ontario’s government is vowing to continue working towards the expansion of Unified Family Courts across the province. But a local lawyer says that until a UFC is placed in the Toronto area, millions are being left to navigate a confusing, “two-tiered” family court system.