July 27, 2026
On June 15, the federal government tabled its long-awaited, updated privacy reform law, Bill C-36, the Protecting Privacy and Consumer Data Act (PPCDA). The bill, together with the government’s proposed new online harms legislation, Bill C-34, can be seen as setting forth some specifics onto the generalities of its national AI strategy, “AI for All,” announced June 4.
July 27, 2026
Jurors are fallible. Seemingly minor judicial instructions can be misunderstood, leading to a wrongful conviction. Jurors are ill-equipped to weigh medical evidence and are untrained in evaluating evidence at trial.
July 27, 2026
Appeal by Public Interest Commissioner of Alberta (Commissioner) from a judicial review decision. The fundamental issue in this case was the relationship between the legislative objective of protecting employees who made disclosures and participated in investigations under the Public Interest Disclosure (Whistleblower Protection) Act (PIDA), and the duty of procedural fairness.
July 24, 2026
The Ontario Court of Appeal has overturned a contempt finding and $30,000 fine against the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA), finding that a motion judge misapplied the legal test for contempt and unjustifiably used “dismissive and derogatory” language to characterize the regulator’s conduct.
July 24, 2026
Gowling WLG has welcomed Guillaume Lavoie Ste-Marie as a partner in its intellectual property litigation and strategy group in Montreal.
July 24, 2026
Attorney General Doug Downey has appointed Justice Marlyse Dumel as regional senior justice of the Ontario Court of Justice for the East Region, effective Sept. 25, 2026.
July 24, 2026
The Supreme Court has ruled that several submerged plots in Quebec’s Laurentians region were sold with the adjoining riparian lands — while also outlining a test on how to interpret a provision in the province’s Civil Code that says a seller must deliver a property with “all its accessories.” The conflict the court was weighing in on traces its origins to 1881, when the construction of a dam raised the level of Lac Masson, north of Montreal. A strip of land between the lake and the shore was then flooded and became submerged.
July 24, 2026
The Federal Court has ordered Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to decide an Iranian citizen’s long-delayed study permit application, finding that the roughly 3.5-year wait was unjustified and far exceeded the department’s 60-day service standard.
July 24, 2026
For most of the past decade, the dominant compliance problem in Canada’s digital economy was one of invisibility. Platform income — whether earned through Airbnb, Uber, Etsy, YouTube, or a subscription content service — was self-reported, difficult for the Canada Revenue Agency to verify independently, and largely invisible to the agency’s audit selection algorithms unless the taxpayer’s bank deposits or lifestyle flagged a discrepancy. That environment has changed.
July 24, 2026
The law governing damages arising from the manner of dismissal appeared to be settled nearly two decades ago. In Honda Canada Inc. v. Keays, 2008 SCC 39 (Honda), the Supreme Court of Canada rejected the approach that had developed under Wallace v. United Grain Growers Ltd., (c.o.b. Public Press), [1997] 3 S.C.R. 701 (Wallace), and replaced it with a framework focused on “actual damages.” Under Honda, damages flowing from an employer’s bad faith conduct in the manner of dismissal were to be assessed according to the same principles and in the same way as moral damages rather than through an extension of the employee’s notice period.