Family
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October 31, 2025
Split SCC strikes down one-year mandatory minimums for accessing or possessing child pornography
Dividing over what is too “remote” a hypothetical scenario to qualify as “reasonable” when sentencing judges are assessing the constitutionality of a mandatory minimum penalty (MMP), the Supreme Court of Canada ruled 5-4 that the one-year MMPs for accessing or possessing child pornography are unconstitutional as they would be grossly disproportionate in some hypothetical, but reasonably foreseeable, circumstances.
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October 31, 2025
My critique of Clare’s Law
Clare’s Law is a policy developed to notify a person if their current or ex-partner has any previous history of domestic violence or abusive behaviour. The policy was named after Clare Wood, a British woman who was murdered by her abusive ex-boyfriend in 2009.
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October 31, 2025
Bill C-12 threatens thousands of business incubator applications under Start-Up Visa program
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is poised to undertake a sweeping overhaul of its immigration application processing through the enactment of Bill C-12, introduced on Oct. 7, 2025. This legislation builds on and expands the priorities originally set out in Bill C-2, granting IRCC unprecedented authority to cancel pending applications across numerous immigration streams.
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October 30, 2025
New Brunswick considering changes to Wills Act
New Brunswick is planning changes to legislation governing wills to give judges more room to interpret them, create greater clarity on the law by getting rid of old rules and allow 16-year-olds to officially document their last wishes.
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October 30, 2025
Court provides detailed analysis of income determination for corporate shareholders
Justice Briana Hardwick of the British Columbia Supreme Court, formerly highly respected family law counsel, released her Reasons in S.D.N. v. E.G.N., 2025 BCSC 1994 on Oct. 10, a treatise on the determination of income of a party who is a majority shareholder of multiple corporations, in the context of a child support application.
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October 30, 2025
Business succession à la Hallmark
I love watching Hallmark romance movies. (Yes, I am a guy.) My wife and former associate, Maureen McKay, does not. They are too sickly sweet for her taste.
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October 30, 2025
Black magic and black letter: Legal tales of witchcraft, ghosts and haunted houses
It was not a dark and stormy night. It was actually a pleasant fall morning, and I probably should have been entering my dockets. But the Halloween spirit was in the air, and it moved me to see what Canadian law has to say about the occult. Read on if you dare. I promise there won’t be anything as frightening as the Income Tax Act.
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October 29, 2025
Commons committee invites public input on improving peace bonds, recognizance orders
A House of Commons committee is soliciting submissions by Nov. 28 to inform its new study of how the safety of women and children is affected by Canada’s bail and sentencing regimes, and how Criminal Code s. 810 (recognizance orders or peace bonds) can be improved to help keep women and children safe.
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October 29, 2025
Bill C-223: Bad ideas on child relocation
Bill C-223 is a private member’s bill to amend the Divorce Act brought forward by Liberal MP Lisa Hepfner, with the help of the National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL). Not enough lawyers and other family law professionals know about the bill or its contents. Bill C-223 is mostly about family violence and parenting. Some provisions about relocation have been tacked on, which I’ll cover here.
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October 29, 2025
The 99th anniversary of the Great Stork Derby
What if we told you having the most babies in a decade could make you a millionaire? In 1926, this wasn’t a hypothetical, it was the premise of one of the most bizarre contests in legal history.