Family

  • July 11, 2025

    Choosing a mediator/arbitrator: Balancing expertise v. bias

    Choosing a mediator/arbitrator with subject-matter expertise requires extra care to avoid potential conflicts arising from existing professional relationships between the arbitrator, parties’ counsel and experts.

  • July 11, 2025

    Quebec immigration shift: Skilled worker program revamp, family sponsorship freeze

    Quebec’s immigration landscape is undergoing a profound transformation with the long-anticipated launch of the new Skilled Worker Selection Program (PSTQ) and a contentious suspension of family reunification sponsorships for certain categories. These changes collectively mark a strategic recalibration of the province’s immigration priorities — one that strongly emphasizes economic integration while drawing criticism for restricting family unity pathways.

  • July 10, 2025

    What’s in a name? Including femicide in the Criminal Code

    Recently, federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser indicated he would be “open” to including the term “femicide” in the Criminal Code, possibly as part of a number of reforms he expects to present to Parliament in the fall.

  • July 10, 2025

    ‘External monitor’ sees progress & challenges in military’s handling of its sexual misconduct crisis

    Ottawa has renewed its pledge to abolish, for the most part, the military justice system’s jurisdiction over sexual offence investigations and prosecutions involving military members. Meanwhile, the military has not delivered on the government’s aim to transfer most existing military sexual offence cases to Canada’s civilian courts — explaining that complainants and provincial authorities have not agreed to the transfers, according to a new report released by the Department of National Defence (DND).

  • July 09, 2025

    From duty to liability: The evolution of trustee responsibility in Ontario courts

    The recent case of MacBeth Estate from the Ontario Court of Appeal (MacBeth Estate v. MacBeth, 2025 ONCA 360) is a reminder of the personal liability that estate trustees may be exposed to if their actions warrant it — and an example of how the court will address estate disputes where there has been a breakdown in trust between the estate trustee and a beneficiary.

  • July 07, 2025

    A common mistake in statutory interpretation

    In the training that I deliver on statutory interpretation, I caution against relying on prior interpretations of a statutory provision or a related provision without first doing your own interpretive analysis of the provision. In Pepa v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2025 SCC 21, the Supreme Court of Canada overturned a tribunal decision that made this mistake.

  • July 04, 2025

    High-conflict divorce drives up legal costs unnecessarily

    While high-conflict family law trials are not the norm, they continue to overwhelm the justice system in numbers that seem to be escalating. J.P. v. K.S., 2025 BCCA 112 is such a case.

  • June 30, 2025

    Saskatchewan furthering commitment to national plan tackling gender-based violence

    Saskatchewan is providing more than half a million dollars to several initiatives as part of the province’s ongoing rollout of a national plan to eradicate gender-based violence — with a chunk of the funds going toward an event promoting the “exchange of ideas” between lawyers, law enforcement and advocates.

  • June 30, 2025

    Alcohol-related driving offences in Canada: Immigration risks and visa application challenges

    Canada’s impaired driving laws are among the strictest in the world for the threshold of blood alcohol concentration that can trigger criminal inadmissibility under our justice and immigration laws. The legal blood alcohol concentration (BAC) threshold for impaired driving is 0.08 per cent and has significant and potentially harsh consequences for both permanent residence holders and temporary immigration applicants. A single conviction for impaired driving under the Criminal Code is treated as “serious criminality” rendering an applicant inadmissible to Canada under Canadian immigration law.

  • June 30, 2025

    Saskatchewan regulator’s 2024 report highlights mental health, AI, competency

    Saskatchewan’s legal regulator was active last year in continuing its goals of increasing competency, minding members’ mental health and guiding lawyers in the use of artificial intelligence. The Law Society of Saskatchewan (LSS) laid out progress in these areas and others as part of its recently released annual report for 2024.