The Complete Brief
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October 08, 2025
Woods welcomes Alexandre Gélinas as eDiscovery director
Woods has added Alexandre Gélinas as a lawyer and its director of eDiscovery.
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October 08, 2025
The Strong Borders Act and the road ahead: Charting Canada’s AML future
In part one of this series (see below for link), we traced the broad ambitions of Bill C-2, the so-called Strong Borders Act. We examined how Canada, under mounting domestic and international pressure, sought to overhaul its anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CTF) framework, repositioning itself against increasingly sophisticated networks of financial crime (Government of Canada, 2025; FATF, 2022). That first instalment highlighted the bill’s sweeping recalibration of the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act (PCMLTFA), its elevation of FINTRAC into a far more muscular regulator, and its attempt to harden Canada’s borders against precursor chemicals, illicit funds and contraband.
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October 08, 2025
R. v. Chand: A cautionary tale of generative AI and judicial intervention
This is the third article in a series building on my earlier discussion of AI hallucinations in the legal context and their prevalence.
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October 08, 2025
Substantial estate compliance: Limit of court’s curative power
In June 2025, my colleague, Michael G. von Keitz, wrote an article that reviewed a trio of cases (Salmon v. Rombough, 2024 ONSC 1186; Re: O’Neill Estate, 2024 ONSC 2228; and Urback v. Canadian Cancer Society et al., 2025 ONSC 3313) each of which further clarified the boundaries of substantial compliance legislation in Ontario.
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October 08, 2025
Miscarriage of Justice Canada targets B.C. government for mishandling wrongful conviction
The adage “justice delayed is justice denied” has a corollary: justice delayed is compensation denied. What happens when our criminal justice system makes a mistake? Fortunately, groups are stepping forward to correct an existing wrong. They are working to ensure that a wrongly convicted individual, Gerald Klassen, will ultimately be compensated for the injustice he endured at the hands of the state.
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October 08, 2025
CIVIL PROCEDURE - Parties - Class or representative actions
Appeal by attorney general from Federal Court decision. There were two questions of law before the Federal Court. First, could the estate of a deceased member of a class action have claimed damages for breach of s. 11(h) Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms right? If the answer to this was yes, did provincial estates statutes providing for an “alive as of” date prohibit or limit recovery of those Charter damages?
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October 07, 2025
New B.C. legislation to ensure prompt payment in construction industry
British Columbia has introduced new prompt-payment legislation that aims to ensure that contractors, subcontractors and workers in the construction industry are paid on time and fairly.
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October 07, 2025
Manitoba moves to block switch to primary-driver car insurance model
Manitoba has introduced legislation to enshrine the current registered-owner car insurance pricing model in law, ensuring Manitoba Public Insurance (MPI) continues to use it despite a regulatory order calling for a switch to a primary-driver model.
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October 07, 2025
Energy experts Antonopoulos, McLaughlin join Osler in Calgary
Osler has welcomed energy law lawyers George Antonopoulos and Mauryah McLaughlin to its national energy group. The new partners will be based in Calgary.
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October 07, 2025
Feds aim to downsize Temporary Foreign Worker Program, noting increased penalties
The federal government has announced measures to reduce reliance on the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program, including a 50 per cent overall reduction in applications to the program and 70 per cent in the low-wage stream. This was done, the statement read, “in context of the tightening labour market in September 2024.”