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July 04, 2025
McCarthy Tétrault has welcomed Robert Hayhoe and Nicole D’Aoust as partners in its new Charities and Non-Profits Group, part of its National Tax Group.
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July 04, 2025
In the world of estate administration, the term “renunciation” has a very specific meaning — as noted in the most recent edition of Macdonell, Sheard and Hull on Probate Practice, renunciation refers to a “formal act … whereby an executor having a right to a grant of probate or a person having a right to a grant of administration renounces such right.” In Ontario, s. 34 of the Estates Act also confirms that the rights of executorship will “wholly cease” if a person renounces probate of a will.
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July 03, 2025
New Brunswick’s government wants input from its residents on a future overhaul of the province’s property tax system — a revamp that will focus on transparency and stability in the face of “substantial increases” in property values.
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July 03, 2025
New amendments to Ontario’s Rules of Civil Procedure have brought new obligations for settling parties.
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July 02, 2025
Appeal by appellants from lower court decision finding they were liable to respondents for substantial sums of money for breach of two trusts and from order to pay punitive damages and special costs.
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June 27, 2025
In an immigration and statutory interpretation decision that sheds light on administrative law and how to analyze reasonableness in judicial review cases, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that foreign nationals may appeal removal orders to the Immigration and Refugee Board’s Immigration Appeal Division (IAD) if their visas were current on arrival in Canada, even if their visas expire after their arrival here.
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June 27, 2025
The B.C. Court of Appeal has increased damages awarded to parents who lost their 17-year-old son in a car accident to include compensation for the unpaid work their son was likely to undertake during his university years.
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June 27, 2025
The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) is proposing to ban chargebacks, a practice that allows investment funds, including mutual funds, to require dealers to repay upfront commissions if clients redeem their securities before a set period.
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June 26, 2025
Class gifts can be a very effective tool for will-drafters, given the unique advantages that these gifts possess. Ideally suited to giving assets to multiple beneficiaries, one of the perks of class gifts is that they will not lapse if a member of the beneficiary class predeceases the testator. Rather, the gift will simply be distributed among the remaining class members.
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June 26, 2025
The Federal Court this week “paused” its study permit pilot project and announced that, for judicial reviews of denials of temporary resident visas, study permits and work permits, the default maximum time for hearings will be reduced to 45 minutes and the default maximum written submissions will be limited to 20 pages, starting Sept. 2.
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June 25, 2025
There were more than 7,000 opioid-related drug toxicity deaths in Canada last year — 20 people per day — an overdose crisis primarily driven by a toxic illegal drug supply, according to the latest data reported by the Council of Chief Medical Officers of Health and the Chief Coroners and Chief Medical Examiners.
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June 25, 2025
I once wrote about Ontario’s topical “validating” provision — s. 21.1 of the Succession Law Reform Act (SLRA) — and whether it might risk “emboldening those seeking self-help remedies.” That was in November 2023. More than a year later, the case law has continued to evolve on this provision, and I feel there is wisdom in revisiting it.
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June 24, 2025
Law360 Canada is seeking participants for an anonymous survey on career and life satisfaction in the legal profession. Take the survey in English or French.
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June 20, 2025
Toronto lawyer Angela Ogang had a good excuse not to attend the Ontario Bar Association’s annual awards gala June 19: She’d given birth to her baby the night before.
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June 20, 2025
On June 5, 2025, I spoke as a panellist at the Ontario Bar Association’s webcast, “From Retainer to Reporting Letter: Avoiding Professional Liability and Negligence Claims in Estates Law.” The program included a case law update, a presentation by LAWPRO on the most common claims against lawyers in the area of wills and estates, and a lively discussion among the panellists about common pitfalls faced by lawyers practising in this area.
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June 19, 2025
A novel Federal Court action that tried to compel Ottawa to fix its chronic tardiness in filling superior court vacancies has been dismissed for lack of jurisdiction by the Federal Court of Appeal; however, the law firm that launched the case to help its clients and other litigants says its efforts were not in vain.
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June 19, 2025
McDougall Gauley LLP has announced that Manahil Arshad, Tanner Secord and Dathan Thomas have joined the firm as associates at its Saskatoon office.
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June 17, 2025
Canada announced new sanctions against Russia as leaders of the G7 Western countries met for a second day in Kananaskis, Alta.
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June 17, 2025
In a rare move, the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) has thrown its support behind a Senate public bill (S-218), which proposes a constitutional amendment to restrict and structure the discretion of the federal government to breach Charter rights via the contentious s. 33 “notwithstanding” clause.
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June 17, 2025
Ontario’s Rules of Professional Conduct require lawyers to turn their minds to their clients’ capacity throughout the retainer. However, determining capacity is often much more complex than it initially appears.
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June 16, 2025
Assisting Indigenous clients with estate planning can give rise to questions that simply do not come up when preparing wills for other clients, given the unique property interests that Indigenous clients may hold. Two such property interests that wills and estates practitioners may be unaccustomed to addressing in wills are cultural assets and possessory interests in reserve land.
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June 13, 2025
In a mother-son dispute over a property, the B.C. Court of Appeal has found that the lower court judge committed a palpable and overriding error in interpreting the respondent’s resulting trust claim.
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June 13, 2025
Ontario’s top court has overturned a decision that awarded damages to a man and his partner in a dispute over his parents’ farm, saying the judge in the case was wrong to raise the issue of proprietary estoppel.
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June 13, 2025
The elements of the recent Murdoch family trust dispute are a real-life drama even more interesting than an episode of Succession, thought to be based on the Murdoch family’s trials and tribulations.
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June 11, 2025
One of the first legal steps in managing the estate of a loved one who has passed away can be the need for probate — the court process that confirms the validity of a will and grants authority to the executor to administer the estate.