October 06, 2026
Intergenerational estate freezes have long served as a bedrock mechanism for Canadian business owners seeking to defer tax and shelter wealth across generations. For years, corporate planners and family litigators assumed that routing future growth through a post-marriage discretionary family trust would cloak that interest as an excluded “gift after marriage” under Ontario’s Family Law Act (FLA).
October 06, 2026
This is the first of a two-part series on the compliance landscape facing organizations that engage in policy advocacy, whether structured as 1) registered charities, 2) non-profit organizations or 3) commercial entities.
October 02, 2026
The Supreme Court’s fall session is packed with interesting appeals in diverse areas of law including class actions, contracts, Crown immunity and Charter rights. The top court’s session begins Oct. 5 with an “opening of the court” ceremony in the West Memorial Building at 344 Wellington Street in Ottawa.
October 01, 2026
The British Columbia Court of Appeal has upheld an oppression finding against a family company, ruling that a shareholder’s limited expectations while her father controlled the business did not restrict her entitlement to equitable treatment after her brother assumed control.
October 01, 2026
Hafeez A. Khan has been appointed a judge of the Court of King’s Bench of Manitoba, Family Division, in Winnipeg.
October 01, 2026
Mental health, job stress and keeping up with AI remain “front of mind” for the new president of Manitoba’s law society.
October 01, 2026
Many people may be surprised and pleased to learn that there is a new path to becoming a Canadian citizen. The Government of Canada passed Bill C-3, An Act to Amend the Citizenship Act (2025), on Dec. 15, 2025. Before this legislation came into effect, Canadian citizenship by descent was limited to the first generation born outside Canada. For example, Emily was born or naturalized in Canada, and she could pass her citizenship to her child, Duncan, born outside of Canada.
September 30, 2026
For executors, managing a deceased’s commercial covenants requires fulfilling the dead’s obligations without exposing the trustee to personal liability. It is incumbent on lawyers to inform, advise and protect their clients regarding these obligations.
September 30, 2026
Supreme Court of Canada Justice Suzanne Côté says she finds intervener advocacy on Zoom to be as effective as oral submissions made in the courtroom, but she is also alive to contrary arguments made by legal organizations, such as the Canadian Bar Association and The Advocates’ Society.
September 28, 2026
Section 84.1 of the Income Tax Act, the intergenerational transfer rules, has since 2024 contained a working exception for sales of a private company to a child’s corporation. Paragraph 84.1(2)(e) deems the vendor and the purchaser corporation to deal at arm’s length where the conditions of either ss. 84.1(2.31) or (2.32) are met, which switches off the deemed dividend and leaves the vendor with a capital gain eligible for the lifetime capital gains exemption — $1,275,000 for 2026. The conditions are not tax conditions. They are a statutory description of a vendor who has left the business, and the vendor’s counsel, not the accountant, is the one who has to make the client match it.