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November 03, 2026
In estate litigation, clients often come with a sense of urgency seeking to collect relevant information, documentation and assets. They might need to see a copy of a will that is being withheld unjustifiably. They may suspect that a once joint investment account is being drained by a nefarious sibling. Ultimately, they want to know about and have access to absolutely everything to understand the scale of the estate and to ensure that it does not slip away. There are court orders that can assist with that.
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November 02, 2026
Limited licence legal practitioners can “lighten the load” for lawyers — and in doing so allow for more people to access assistance, participants heard during a recent Law Society of Saskatchewan (LSS) webinar.
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October 30, 2026
For generations, an estate trustee stepping into an administration has started with the paperwork in front of them: the will, the bank statements that happened to be lying around, the prior trustee’s inventory (if applicable). That starting point is not going away. But as estate trustees — and particularly neutral and succeeding trustees who inherit an administration someone else began — come under closer scrutiny, a question is emerging: is documented, independent verification of what the estate actually owns and owes becoming an expected part of the duty of inquiry?
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October 30, 2026
Appeals by nine Settling Parties from the order excluding them from preserved proceeds; appeal by the Pichelli Group from the apportionment among investors who proceeded to trial; and motion by the Settling Party Appellants for leave to appeal costs.
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October 29, 2026
Let’s face it folks. Our legal system caters to the rich and, on occasion, the middle class. Most of society cannot afford good lawyers and are on their own navigating our legal system. There is a simple reason for this. Lawyers like to earn good money. It is impossible to do that serving clients who cannot afford to pay hundreds — or thousands — of dollars an hour.
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October 27, 2026
The federal Liberal government has introduced promised Criminal Code amendments to legalize medical assistance in dying (in specified circumstances) for legally incompetent persons who validly make advance requests for MAID while they are still competent. On Oct. 27, federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser introduced Bill C-41, the proposed MAID Safeguards Act, that would decriminalize the actions of doctors and nurse practitioners who carry out advance requests for MAID, provided that these medical practitioners have complied with specific safeguards and conditions, including requirements put in place by the applicable province or territory.
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October 26, 2026
The Tax Court’s treatment of a son added to title for mortgage financing revives an unresolved tension over s. 160, bare trusts and the value of legal ownership without beneficial ownership.
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October 23, 2026
When a person who goes by more than one name passes away, it is important to provide not only their legal name when applying for a certificate of appointment of estate trustee, but to also provide alternate names that the deceased used.
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October 23, 2026
For the first time in more than 50 years, the Court of Appeal for Ontario has updated its test for leave to appeal from a decision of the Divisional Court. In Knauff v. Ontario (Human Rights Tribunal), 2026 ONCA 653, a five-judge panel confirmed that the test for leave is whether the proposed appeal raises an arguable question of law or mixed law and fact that is of sufficient public importance to warrant consideration by the Court of Appeal.
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October 21, 2026
Dementia Justice Canada is urging Parliament to require an independent legal assessment before medical assistance in dying is administered under an advance request, warning that people who have lost decision-making capacity need protection from coercion, undue influence and abuse.
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October 21, 2026
Estate litigation can take months or years to resolve, but mortgage obligations do not wait. For estate trustees and beneficiaries, the core challenge is preserving the value of estate property while competing claims are litigated.
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October 21, 2026
For decades, the estate freeze has been a staple of succession planning for Canadian business families. The mechanics are familiar to any tax or estate practitioner: the owner exchanges growth shares for fixed-value preferred shares, and a newly settled family trust subscribes for fresh common shares that will capture all future growth. The tax benefits are well understood.
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October 20, 2026
Paul Reid has joined Fasken as a partner in its litigation and dispute resolution group, based in the firm’s Tsuut’ina, Alta., office.
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October 20, 2026
Outside of defence procurement, the Ontario Superior Court is perhaps the most dysfunctional government entity in Canada. Given that responsibility for the court is divided between the federal and provincial governments, that judges have decreed themselves above transparency or accountability, and that the system lacks meaningful feedback mechanisms, that result is largely to be expected. Still, watching this dysfunction play out in a small claims sheriff’s sale demonstrates a system plumbing new lows.
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October 20, 2026
With increasing longevity comes a host of challenging issues. One of them is maintaining an up-to-date estate plan.
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October 14, 2026
Alexander Holburn Beaudin + Lang LLP (Alexander Holburn) has launched a family law group in Vancouver with the addition of partners Jane Reid and Rosemary Gallo.
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October 13, 2026
Appeal by Harjit from orders dismissing his civil claim and cancelling a certificate of pending litigation against his late father Swinder’s residential property.
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October 08, 2026
Megan Walwyn has joined McEwan Partners as an associate in Vancouver.
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October 08, 2026
With the rapid progress of artificial intelligence in the legal field, we often hear the same question arise again and again: will AI replace the need for estate planning lawyers? It’s a fair question now that legal tech is able to draft a variety of documents, conduct legal research and review huge volumes of information in seconds.
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October 08, 2026
Part one of this series traced how charities and non-profit organizations are governed by two different, and now increasingly divergent, tests for advocacy activity under the Income Tax Act.
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October 07, 2026
Federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser says the Liberal majority government will introduce “in weeks” groundbreaking legislation to permit persons with serious medical conditions to consent in advance to medical assistance in dying (MAID), i.e. before they lose their capacity to consent to the procedure. The planned bill would also bar MAID access on an “indeterminate basis” to persons whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness, he said.
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October 07, 2026
Scarfone Hawkins LLP has welcomed James Price, Reilly McIlhone, Tania Robinson and Andrew Spelman as associate lawyers in its Hamilton office.
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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).
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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.
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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.