-
August 18, 2026
Quebec’s top court has ordered a self-represented family law appellant to pay $1,000 to his ex-wife plus her legal costs on the appeal, following his “deliberate” citation in court of ChatGPT-generated fake case law, including fictitious quotations.
-
August 18, 2026
There is a moment in COVID-benefit judicial review that recurs so often it has become diagnostic. Counsel for the Attorney General is asked, from the bench, to point to the place in the decision where the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) officer engaged with the applicant’s central submission. And counsel cannot point to it because it is not there — so counsel explains instead why the officer did not need to.
-
August 18, 2026
In the case of Northcut v. The King, 2026 TCC 136 (Northcut), an appeal under the Tax Court of Canada’s informal procedure, the amount in dispute was less than $25,000 for each taxation year. Nonetheless, it is a complicated and interesting decision analyzing the intersection of Canadian and United States law, the Canada-U.S. tax treaty including Article XVIII:1 and Article XXV the non-discrimination clause, the Mutual Agreement Procedure (MAP) and the Canadian and U.S. taxation of pension income.
-
August 18, 2026
On July 3, 2026, the Nova Scotia Supreme Court released a significant decision in Halifax (Regional Municipality) v. Rank Inc., 2026 NSSC 217 that clarified certain limits of municipal taxing authority over real estate transactions in the province. The ruling addresses a sometimes-asked question: whether transferring corporate control or partnership interests in entities that hold real property triggers municipal deed transfer tax payable pursuant to the Municipal Government Act (MGA) and, by extension, the Halifax Regional Municipality Charter.
-
August 12, 2026
Of Canadian businesses affected by U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed 50 per cent tariffs on certain CUSMA compliant goods, 77 per cent have said they expect their revenues to drop, according to a new survey by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB).
-
August 12, 2026
Quebec Court of Appeal Justice Geneviève Cotnam, who once recalled “my career as a lawyer didn’t always provide a smooth sailing to the bench,” is Quebec's new top judge, succeeding Quebec Court of Appeal Chief Justice Manon Savard who became a part-time (supernumerary) judge on Aug. 10.
-
August 10, 2026
Parts one and two of this series established the analytical framework governing prediction-market taxation in Canada. Part three addresses the CRA’s existing enforcement infrastructure as applied to prediction-market participants, the civil and criminal divide under R. v. Jarvis, 2002 SCC 73, gross negligence penalty exposure, voluntary disclosures strategy under IC00-1R7, and practical guidance on how practitioners should advise clients in the current absence of specific CRA direction.
-
August 06, 2026
Part one of this series established that the source-of-income analysis under Stewart v. Canada, 2002 SCC 46 is the threshold inquiry for prediction-market participants, and that Leblanc v. The Queen, 2006 TCC 680 — which held that systematic sports lottery wagering did not constitute a business — is the most directly applicable Canadian authority, albeit one whose reasoning does not map cleanly onto the structural features of prediction-market trading. Part two addresses the next analytical layer: assuming a source of income exists, how should the underlying prediction-market contracts be characterized, and what additional tax consequences arise from the cryptocurrency infrastructure through which most major platforms operate?
-
August 06, 2026
A complex and challenging area of law is the intersection of trust law and family law. Ontario law, in contrast to many other common law jurisdictions, has given liberal treatment of a discretionary interest in a trust as property, which can be subject to equalization under our family law legislation. See our prior articles on this subject: Property division and discretionary trusts: Half of nothing is still nothing; and Heads Up: Grappling with Family Law’s Treatment of Discretionary Trust Interests.
-
August 05, 2026
Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner Anton Boegman has issued guidance about when “licensed legal professionals” are required to register their work for foreign principals as “influence activities” in the new public foreign influence registry. The new commissioner issued five interpretation bulletins — including one specifically for lawyers — to give guidance on how to comply with the obligations under the Foreign Influence Transparency and Accountability Act (FITAA) and its regulations, which came into force Aug. 4.