Access to Justice
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Featured
Ontario committed to expanding Unified Family Courts but Toronto still lacking
Ontario’s government is vowing to continue working towards the expansion of Unified Family Courts across the province. But a local lawyer says that until a UFC is placed in the Toronto area, millions are being left to navigate a confusing, “two-tiered” family court system.
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July 26, 2024
SCC’s 9-0 judgment on interpreting historic treaties a big win for First Nations, their counsel say
Live up to the honour of the Crown and its “sacred” treaty promises — or the courts will step in.
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July 26, 2024
Appeal court decision addresses problems with repeat offender
When a cloistered group of nuns had a member of the group unable to fit into their society, the musical The Sound of Music had them break into song, singing “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?” The City of Calgary also had a problematic resident who did not fit into its society but was much more dangerous than Maria von Trapp.
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July 25, 2024
Court of Appeal decision underscores significance of obeying police instruction
On March 23, 2017, the Canadian Press reported that Angel McCool, then a 30-year-old Stratford woman, was charged with obstruction of police after her GMC utility vehicle was stopped on Highway 401 in Thames Centre, Ont.
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July 25, 2024
Legal status of Tibetans migrants in Canadian refugee law
Tibetans living in exile in India, Nepal and Bhutan often call themselves stateless refugees since they lost their country following China’s invasion of Tibet in the 1950s, and they still cannot return to their Tibetan homeland due to the lack of freedom and human rights and the ongoing persecution and cultural genocide by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the Tibetan plateau of the Himalayas. Their lack of freedom and risk of harm, including persecution in the form of detention, torture and even death or disappearance, is reported yearly by Freedom House, Amnesty International, the U.S. International Committee on Religious Freedom and other non-Tibetan organizations. Many of these Tibetans have come to Canada seeking refugee protection.
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July 24, 2024
Duty of tech competence, AI adoption by lawyers | Connie L. Braun and Juliana Saxberg
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has dominated legal tech conversations for several years, and for good reason. Widespread consumer adoption of ChatGPT and other generative AI products has delivered a host of unprecedented legal and tech risks to Canadian entities. Governments and regulators in Canada and abroad continue to scramble to regulate the responsible use of AI tools, even though their use is already thoroughly embedded in Canadian and global business, government and legal system operations. As a result, the typical Canadian entity’s AI compliance dossier is an unfinished patchwork of aspirational codes and aging regulatory instruments that were designed when Y2K was considered a big enterprise tech risk.
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July 19, 2024
Saskatchewan giving money for female offender reintegration
Saskatchewan is spending money in a bid to improve the chances of female offenders reintegrating into society after leaving custody.
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July 18, 2024
Pros and cons to Saskatchewan’s mandatory mediation, says family lawyer
A Saskatchewan family lawyer is praising the province’s mandatory dispute resolution program — but is critical of the fact that parting spouses have to pay to use it. Anna Singer, of Scharfstein LLP, said Saskatchewan’s Mandatory Family Dispute Resolution program “has been very positive” in its requirement that divorcing couples attempt mediation before going through the lengthy and expensive process of hashing out their differences in court.
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July 17, 2024
Have Criminal Code changes made prostitution safer?
During a visit to a penitentiary in the Netherlands, the warden of the institution advised it was the only prison in the country holding sex offenders. “How many are there?” I asked. The answer I received was 13. Of course, Amsterdam has the famous “red-light district.”
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July 16, 2024
Compassion for pets and owners due in Ontario divorce law following B.C. changes | Barry Nussbaum
Summer is here, and down at Harbourfront, Torontonians can be seen walking their dogs — or, for the more pampered poodles, being pushed around in strollers.
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July 16, 2024
Pasteurized judges | Norman Douglas
I am guilty as charged. I have no excuses. I throw myself on the mercy of this readership.