Tax
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March 21, 2024
Feds seek to improve procurement after subcontractors illegally bill for $5 million
Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) is taking measures to fight fraud by federal contractors, including the introduction of a new Office of Supplier Integrity and Compliance.
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March 21, 2024
Electoral reform bill targets dark money, foreign interference, deep fakes, other AI misinformation
Ottawa’s proposed overhaul of the Canada Elections Act includes new false and misleading speech offences and administrative monetary penalties (AMPs); new and expanded prohibitions targeting foreign interference and the misuse of AI and deep fakes to fuel disinformation and voter suppression; and new third-party contribution rules the federal government says will “increase transparency and mitigate dark or foreign funds in Canada’s election system.”
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March 21, 2024
Politicization of tribunal appointments worse than that of judicial appointments | Brian Cook
Recent moves by the current government to politicize the process of appointing judges have caused significant concern. The process for appointing adjudicators who sit on Ontario’s adjudicative tribunals is much worse. The government has been criticized for making political appointments to the committee responsible for making judicial appointment recommendations. There is no such committee, and virtually no other form of oversight for appointments to adjudicative tribunals.
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March 19, 2024
Ottawa appeals declaration of constitutional requirement for timely federal judicial appointments
“Stay in your lane” — those words might encapsulate the thrust of the federal government’s message to the Federal Court in Ottawa's appeal of a recent groundbreaking judgment, which declared that the prime minister and federal justice minister are constitutionally obliged to fix the lengthy federal judicial appointment delays that have for years bedeviled litigants, lawyers and judges.
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March 18, 2024
Fiduciary accounting for Ontario trustees: Guide for executors, attorneys for property
The duty to account refers to the obligation of persons acting in a fiduciary capacity, such as a trustee, executor or attorney or guardian for property, to keep records of the assets and liabilities they are managing on behalf of others and be able to accurately report their activities and results when required. The obligation first arose from equity and common law.
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March 18, 2024
Appeal and judicial review of a tribunal decision | Sara Blake
The Supreme Court of Canada has breathed life into an Ontario statutory provision that has been mostly ignored since it came into effect in 1972. Section 2(1) of the Judicial Review Procedure Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. J.1 (JRPA), authorizes the Divisional Court to grant relief on judicial review “despite any right of appeal.” For 40 years, Ontario courts consistently overlooked this provision, instead preferring to exercise their discretion to deny a remedy on judicial review because it regards a right of appeal to the court as an adequate alternative remedy.
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March 15, 2024
Supreme Court rules limited statutory rights of appeal do not preclude access to judicial review
In a 9-0 judgment supportive of litigants’ access to judicial review, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that a limited statutory right of appeal in a case does not preclude judicial review for matters not the subject of appeal, i.e. where there is an appeal right limited to questions of law, judicial review is available for questions of fact or mixed fact and law.
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March 14, 2024
FCA upholds refusal to certify class action against Ottawa alleging discriminatory immigration fees
The Federal Court of Appeal has upheld the non-certification and striking out of claims of a proposed class action which contends that certain application fees for Canadian citizenship and permanent residence are analogous to a discriminatory “head tax” on those not born in Canada, in violation of the Charter’s s. 15(1) equality rights guarantee.
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March 12, 2024
Jan. 1, 2026: U.S. estate tax heading toward a cliff
There is increasing uncertainty about the future of U.S. estate tax. On the one hand, under U.S. legislation that temporarily halved the lifetime exemption amount passed during the Trump administration, the lifetime exclusion amount is set to decrease on Jan. 1, 2026, to US$5 million adjusted for inflation since 2011, unless legislation is passed by Congress.
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March 12, 2024
Whistleblower programs gaining ground in Canada’s corporate sector, say researchers
They’ve been lionized — and sometimes villainized. But corporate whistleblowers in Canada are gradually gaining greater protection as more companies introduce in-house informant programs to reduce the risk of wrongdoing, say researchers in the field.