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May 05, 2026
Aird & Berlis LLP has been joined by a new partner Darren Haines, according to a statement by the firm, is a member of the Indigenous practice, real estate and projects & infrastructure groups.
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May 04, 2026
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!”
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May 04, 2026
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.
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May 04, 2026
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.
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May 01, 2026
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.
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April 30, 2026
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.”
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April 29, 2026
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.
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April 28, 2026
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.
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April 28, 2026
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.
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April 28, 2026
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.
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April 28, 2026
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.
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April 28, 2026
Over the past several years, Indigenous issues and reconciliation efforts have started to move out of the shadows and into the forefront of Canadian minds. However, the heightened attention following the May 27, 2021, media release by the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation, which revealed a ground-penetrating radar discovery of 215 unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, has since steadily declined, despite the ongoing overrepresentation of Indigenous Peoples in the legal system, continued inequities in child welfare and persistent barriers to accessing culturally appropriate supports.
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April 28, 2026
On Jan. 28, 2026, the Toronto Superior Court of Justice’s online booking system displayed no available dates for a Civil Case Conference. On Jan. 29, the wait was eight days. By Feb. 3, it was 210 days. Same court, same hearing type. Three wildly different outcomes in a week.
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April 24, 2026
The Ontario government has fast-tracked legislation through the provincial legislature that makes significant changes to the province’s freedom of information (FOI) laws, a move observers are calling “undemocratic” and dangerous.
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April 24, 2026
On April 2, the British Columbia Court of Appeal released a landmark ruling in Nuchatlaht v. British Columbia, 2026 BCCA 137. The court granted the Nuchatlaht Aboriginal title to the entirety of the area claimed in the case — approximately 210 square kilometres of Nootka Island off the west coast of Vancouver Island.
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April 24, 2026
Young lawyers expect to spend their early years learning how to research, draft, negotiate and advocate in court. Those skills are difficult, but at least they are taught openly. A senior lawyer will hopefully demonstrate how to structure a factum, mark up your work and explain what “good” looks like.
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April 24, 2026
A recent case is a clear example of a failed commercial real estate transaction affirming that the “time is of the essence” clause must be complied with, even amid pandemic challenges, and that COVID-19 does not constitute an excuse for non-performance of contractual obligations.
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April 23, 2026
Taking its cues from a handful of other provinces, Saskatchewan has introduced legislation that would add associate judges to its Court of King’s Bench.
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April 23, 2026
Ontario has introduced legislation to restrict foreign acquisition of farmland and make it easier for farmers to lease or access arable land in northern Ontario, according to an April 22 release.
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April 20, 2026
This month, the Ontario Bar Association (OBA) launched its Rule of Law campaign in which local lawyers host discussions in their communities to help the public better understand the rule of law and its everyday importance to democracy.
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April 20, 2026
With AI, lawyers can turn to AI agents to answer questions, locate files, find facts (or make them up) and automate certain functions. AI chatbots appear analogous to intelligent articling students.
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April 17, 2026
MLT Aikins has welcomed Steven Prysunka as an associate in its Edmonton office.
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April 17, 2026
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) has announced that the six-month trend in housing starts decreased by 2.9 per cent in March to 248,378 units. It said the measure was the moving average of the seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of total housing starts for all areas in Canada.
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April 17, 2026
The British Columbia Court of Appeal has overturned an order requiring former residents of manufactured houses to physically remove their homes from the reserve lands they were ordered to vacate.
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April 17, 2026
This British Columbia Court of Appeal case highlights how the enforcement powers of the strata plan for unpaid strata fees and the egregious conduct of the homeowner can lead to the dismissal of the appeal (Zhang v. Strata Plan BCS 4288, 2026 BCCA 55). The homeowner, Shimin Zhang (Zhang), is the appellant and the Strata Plan (Strata) is the respondent in the appeal.