Family
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March 01, 2024
Reports on harassment, specialization, helpline released for Ontario Convocation
Almost all of the Law Society of Ontario’s most recent Convocation was held behind closed doors, but several reports were published detailing numbers around harassment complaints against lawyers, members becoming certified specialists and those making use of the regulator’s practice helpline.
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March 01, 2024
CUSTODY, PARENTING, AND ACCESS - Best interests of child - Conduct of parents - Risk of future harm
Appeal by mother from order that their three-year-old child, A, was habitually resident in Pakistan and that mother should return A to Pakistan.
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March 01, 2024
Define ‘tough judge’ | Norman Douglas
There are many countries in the world with tough judges. Perhaps these countries have a lower crime rate — we don’t know, because what goes on in their criminal courts is kept secret.
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March 01, 2024
Tax treatment of marital status
Canada’s tax system is complex. A slight change in characterization can lead to a myriad of implications, one of those being marital status. Those legally married are in a de jure or legally sanctioned relationship. Common-law couples are in a de facto relationship based on a factual determination.
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March 01, 2024
Criminalizing coercive control: Part two | Pamela Cross
Over the past 40 years, we have seen the many ways in which the criminal law has failed survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV). Criminal law interventions and initiatives — new laws, changes to laws, new court processes, education for those who implement and interpret the law, different approaches to bail and to punishments for those found guilty — have failed to make significant inroads on the rates of IPV and, in some cases, have made things worse for those subjected to it.
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February 29, 2024
Canada implements new visa requirements on travellers from Mexico
Citing a recent “spike” in unsuccessful asylum claims made in Canada by Mexican citizens and the need to preserve “the integrity of our immigration system,” the federal government is starting to require visitor visas for Mexicans who do not hold valid U.S. non-immigrant visas or who have not held a Canadian visa in the past 10 years and are travelling by air on a Mexican passport.
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February 29, 2024
SCC won’t hear judge’s appeal of judicial council’s recommendation that he be fired by Parliament
Quebec Superior Court Justice Gérard Dugré — whose firing was recommended 14 months ago by the Canadian Judicial Council (CJC) due to his dilatory decisions and in-court misconduct — must decide whether to resign or take his defence on to federal Justice Minister Arif Virani and possibly Parliament, following the Supreme Court’s dismissal of his request to appeal the CJC’s decision recommending his removal.
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February 29, 2024
Legal experts ask Alberta to withdraw proposals for transgender youth, citing Charter concerns
Legal academics from across Alberta are raising red flags over a suite of proposed policies which would require parental notification when children alter their names or pronouns and place limits on gender-affirming care for youth, saying they could open the province up to constitutional challenges.
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February 29, 2024
Criminalizing coercive control: Part one | Pamela Cross
We’ve heard a lot about coercive control in the past few years. Its first big appearance in the legal world came with the 2021 revisions to the Divorce Act which included, among other changes, a definition of family violence that included the phrase “a pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour.”
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February 28, 2024
Costs for bad faith in family law – protecting not just litigants, but lawyers too
We know that the concept of “good faith” is woven throughout the entire family law system. As noted in Leopold v. Leopold, [2000] O.J. No. 4604, litigants who negotiate to resolve their affairs are subject to a contractual duty of good faith and objective fairness. Among other things, they must provide full financial disclosure, and reveal any material facts relevant to settlement.