Real Estate

  • May 04, 2026

    Treaty medal and the Crown: No one’s bending the knee

    First-year property law, 1988. Two hundred students. I could feel the energy in the room of young people excited to have made it into UBC law school. Professor Tod enters and slams the door. Walks over to the podium and scans the room while saying, “All title is vested in the Crown.” I felt like he was looking directly at me or even searching for visibly First Nation students as if to say, “We will not be tolerating any uppity Indians in this course!”

  • May 04, 2026

    Ontario’s government wants to keep you in the dark: What are they hiding?

    Roughly every four years, voters elect a government and grant it significant powers and responsibilities. But winning an election does not mean one has been given carte blanche to act as they see fit until the next election. Governments must exercise public power in accordance with the Constitution, and voters have the right to know how elected officials are using this power. Ontario’s rushed amendments to freedom of information and privacy laws enacted a few days ago through the government’s Bill 97, Plan to Protect Ontario Act (Budget Measures), 2026 directly attack both of these fundamental democratic principles.

  • May 04, 2026

    CIVIL PROCEDURE - Striking out pleadings or allegations - Failure to disclose a cause of action or defence - Costs

    Appeal by Strata from a chambers judge’s refusal to strike the respondents’ negligence claim. The underlying litigation concerned disputes over governance of a strata property, including allegations against the 2019 and 2020 Strata Council members relating to conflict of interest issues, lease renewals with Victoria Regent Hotel Ltd., and a 2021 Release.

  • May 01, 2026

    Bar says it ‘likely’ will appeal B.C. ruling that lawyer independence doesn’t require self-regulation

    Heralding a significant shift in the Canadian legal landscape, the British Columbia Supreme Court has rejected the legal profession’s constitutional challenge to the B.C. Legal Professions Act — legislation that would end more than 150 years of lawyer self-governance and self-regulation by benchers elected from the provincial bar.

  • April 30, 2026

    Feds announce Team Canada Strong, a plan to recruit up to 100,000 skilled trades workers

    Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced a new measure called Team Canada Strong, a $6-billion nationwide effort to “recruit, train and hire 80,000 to 100,000 new Red Seal trades workers in the next five years.”

  • April 29, 2026

    Court stays order requiring township to issue fill permit pending appeal

    The Ontario Court of Appeal has granted a township’s motion for a stay of an order forcing it to issue a fill permit, ruling that denying the stay could render the municipality’s appeal moot.

  • April 28, 2026

    Ottawa’s economic update proposes apprentice wage subsidies, tax & criminal changes to build ‘Canada Strong’

    The Carney government says it plans to make it a criminal offence to operate a cryptocurrency automated teller machine (ATM) and that it will push ahead with controversial amendments to enable “law enforcement” to search and seize mail.

  • April 28, 2026

    Typography for lawyers

    In my last article, I wrote about visualization in law. But visualization is not limited to diagrams or tables. Text itself is visual, and its organization can improve reader engagement and comprehension. This is typography.

  • April 28, 2026

    Court finds appeal moot after vesting order registered on title

    In a property ownership case, the Ontario Court of Appeal has held that an appeal from a vesting order was moot once the order was registered on title, despite the appellant pursuing a stay motion pending appeal.

  • April 28, 2026

    INTERESTS IN LAND - Equitable interests - Resulting trusts - Ownership

    Appeal by appellants (Satnam and Jaswinder) from the dismissal of their claim to a 50 per cent beneficial ownership interest in the Farwell Crescent property (Farwell). Satnam advanced $55,000 toward the down payment when Sukhvinder purchased Farwell, but the appellants were not placed on title.