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May 01, 2026
The Supreme Court of Canada has rejected 8-1 a law professor’s constitutional challenge to s. 12 of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) Act, which eliminates all parliamentary privilege immunity claims that might otherwise have been advanced by committee members or ex-members in defending themselves against allegations that they improperly disclosed information obtained through their role on the statutory committee that oversees Canada’s national security and intelligence apparatus.
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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
Increasingly, U.S. government entities appear to be utilizing technology to screen visa and other immigration benefit applicants. In some cases, this has become very public and transparent. For example, most people are aware that phones and other electronic devices can be screened when coming into the United States.
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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 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
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 21, 2026
British Columbia has announced it is opting into a temporary federal measure allowing rural employers to retain low-wage temporary foreign workers beyond the federal 10 per cent cap, according to a release issued April 20.
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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 16, 2026
When children are growing up and living at home, most families could not foresee the challenges involved when one or even all of them end up living in the U.S. Children often decide to live permanently in the U.S. to pursue employment opportunities following post-secondary education in the U.S. Or sometimes, they meet their future spouse while attending a U.S. university, co-habit or marry, have children and settle in the U.S.
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April 14, 2026
I can tell AI is a fan of the U.S. EB-5 investor green card because I have been receiving a number of questions and calls about it lately. AI and I do not agree on the EB-5.
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April 13, 2026
The Supreme Court of Canada’s spring docket presents the nine judges with a wide range of appeals, including the last cases to be heard by soon-to-retire Justice Sheilah Martin and her colleagues in their iconic 1940s-era Ottawa courthouse, which is slated for a multi-year major update. The Supreme Court’s new spring session, scheduled from April 13 to May 22, 2026, features 14 appeals, 10 of which involve criminal law issues.
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April 10, 2026
Toronto’s Osgoode Hall Law School has unveiled a new million-dollar fund to help support access to justice research and students pursuing careers in the area of public interest.
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April 10, 2026
There were a number of significant developments in Canadian telecommunications regulation in 2025. Key developments included: the introduction and retraction of lawful access legislation; the reintroduction of cybersecurity legislation; judicial decisions on the jurisdiction of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC or Commission) and government liability in tort; and, regulatory decisions on direct-to-cell, wholesale broadband, broadband subsidy requirements and outage reporting. Decisions are also pending on a number of CRTC proceedings on retail consumer wireless and internet service marketing obligations.
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April 08, 2026
Most of us who have grown up in Canada, whether we realize it or not, have always taken the rule of law for granted. We never really thought about it, or what it even was, but that is precisely the point. It has always just been there, like oxygen. You don’t think about oxygen until you have trouble breathing. We as a society are now having trouble breathing.
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April 02, 2026
Canadian immigration and nationality policy are rooted in the objective of supporting individuals and families in building meaningful and long-standing connections with Canada. Through its multiplicity of immigration pathways, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has developed innovative programs and shifted immigration policy to provide opportunities for individuals to build their lives in Canada, or if required, to renounce Canadian citizenship.
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April 01, 2026
The federal government says Ukrainians who arrived in Canada pursuant to the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel (CUAET) and related measures now have an additional year — until March 31, 2027 — to apply to extend temporarily their work permits for up to three years.
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April 01, 2026
The Carney government has opted to stick with the predecessor Liberal government’s requirement that the prime minister be handed a shortlist of at least three bilingual qualified candidates to fill an impending western/northern vacancy on the Supreme Court of Canada, despite the inability of the advisory committee that created the shortlist for the last such vacancy to recommend more than two bilingual qualified jurists.
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April 01, 2026
The passage of Bill C‑12, the Strengthening Canada’s Immigration System and Borders Act, reflects a reality that immigration lawyers increasingly confront in practice. Canada’s immigration system faces persistent pressures from fraud, irregular migration and national security risks that legacy statutory tools were not designed to manage at scale. Against that backdrop, Parliament’s objective in enacting Bill C‑12 — strengthening border integrity, deterring abuse and maintaining public confidence — is not only legitimate, but necessary.
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March 31, 2026
The Canadian Judicial Council (CJC), which oversees the professional conduct of the country’s 1,184 federally appointed judges, says that five judges were reprimanded or received other disciplinary sanctions last year.
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March 31, 2026
The Government of Alberta announced that it will introduce a motion calling for “constitutional amendments that give the province a say in superior court appointments.”
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March 31, 2026
Most foreign nationals who make applications to the U.S. government for immigration status expect that their applications will be approved. But many of those same foreign nationals do not know that even if they provide every page of required documents and answer every question on the forms to perfection, they may still be denied the benefit sought. That is because of the discretion afforded to officers who work for the U.S. government’s immigration-related agencies, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (USDHS) and U.S. Department of State (USDOS).
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March 30, 2026
On March 30, Prime Minister Mark Carney launched the process to “select the next judge of the Supreme Court of Canada, who will fill the vacancy created by the upcoming retirement of Justice Sheilah L. Martin.”
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March 30, 2026
Canada has enacted sweeping changes to its immigration and asylum system after the Strengthening Canada’s Immigration System and Borders Act (Bill C-12) received royal assent on March 26. The new law gives Ottawa broader powers to manage asylum claims, streamline processing and intervene in immigration programs when needed.
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March 27, 2026
On March 26, the Strengthening Canada’s Immigration System and Borders Act (Bill C-12), received royal assent. According to a government release, the Act strengthens Canada’s immigration and asylum systems, providing law enforcement agencies with “more tools to keep our borders secure, combat transnational organized crime, illegal fentanyl and illicit financing.”
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March 27, 2026
Policymakers should heed the alarm bells raised by Canada’s Auditor General in a new report on the International Student Program reforms. The 2026 Auditor General’s report, International Student Program Reforms, reveals that recent efforts to cap study permits curbed international student inflows but also triggered unintended consequences and exposed significant policy gaps. These findings underscore an urgent need for smarter policy design, better federal-provincial coordination and stronger program integrity measures to ensure that efforts to manage student immigration do not inadvertently undermine Canada’s broader immigration goals.