Each month, we tell you which five English-language cases and French-language cases have been the most viewed* on CanLII in the previous month and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about using CanLII-published AI-generated summaries of the case or case excerpts.

For this past month, the five most-consulted English-language decisions were:

1. R. v. Cope, 2026 SCC 32

AI-generated summary:

Facts: An Indigenous man stops taking prescribed medication and resumes illicit drug use. He violently assaults his Indigenous intimate partner in public, causing serious facial and torso injuries. He pleads guilty to aggravated assault and related breaches of release conditions. The sentencing court orders an Indigenous Background Report and a sentencing circle, which recommends a holistic, treatment-focused approach.

Procedural History: Nova Scotia Provincial Court (Driscoll Prov. Ct. J.), 30 January 2023: Five years’ imprisonment for aggravated assault and eight months for breaches. 2024 NSCA 59 (Nova Scotia Court of Appeal): Sentence reduced to three years’ imprisonment, less 18 months’ remand credit.

Parties’ Submissions: Appellant (Crown): The Court of Appeal fails to defer to the sentencing judge’s weighing of mental health and other relevant factors. Sentencing circle recommendations are only one information source, and departures need not be specifically justified. The substituted sentence undercuts Parliament’s direction under ss. 718.04 and 718.201 and should often increase custody length. Respondent: Sentencing errors justify appellate intervention, including insufficient individualization given mental health difficulties. The sentencing judge unduly relies on the sentencing range in R. v. Tourville, 2011 ONSC 1677 and fails to engage sentencing circle recommendations.

Legal Issues: How should sentencing integrate ss. 718.04, 718.201, and 718.2(e) of the Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46? Did the Court of Appeal properly intervene in the sentence under the applicable deference framework?

Disposition: Appeal dismissed; the Court of Appeal’s substituted sentence stands.

Reasons: By O’Bonsawin J. (Karakatsanis, Martin, Kasirer and Moreau JJ. concurring): Ss. 718.04, 718.201, and 718.2(e) of the Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46 operate together, and reconciliation guides their harmonious application. The required approach follows three steps: assess gravity and responsibility in Indigenous context, prioritize deterrence and denunciation, then select a just sanction. A sentence of imprisonment is required given the offence’s gravity and the victim’s vulnerability. The sentencing judge commits an error in principle by not linking mental illness to moral blameworthiness for the aggravated assault. The sentencing judge also fails to meaningfully engage the sentencing circle’s perspectives, including on mental health and community programming. Those errors impact sentence length, and appellate intervention is warranted. Three years’ imprisonment, less remand credit, properly denounces and deters while facilitating earlier access to community programming. No basis exists to interfere with the three-year sentence on further appeal.

By Rowe and Jamal JJ. (Wagner C.J. and Côté J. concurring): Sentencing attracts significant deference, and an appellate court may intervene only for demonstrable unfitness or an error in principle impacting sentence. Ss. 718.04 and 718.201 generally call for harsher sentences for abuse of vulnerable Indigenous women and intimate partners. Mental illness mitigates only if the offender establishes, on a balance of probabilities, causal or contributory connection to the offence. A sentencing judge need not expressly address sentencing circle recommendations beyond what is required for the Gladue analysis. The sentencing judge properly weighs aggravating and mitigating factors and finds incarceration necessary for public safety and denunciation and deterrence. The Court of Appeal improperly reweighs factors and should not have reduced the five-year sentence.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. Atkinsréalis Construction (Pacific) Inc. v. GIP Construction Ontario East Ltd., 2026 ONSC 5666

AI-generated summary:

Facts: The parties agree to arbitrate multiple construction-related claims arising from delays on an Ottawa transit project. The applicant, as prime contractor, retains the respondent as roadworks subcontractor, and both allege delay-related impacts. The parties jointly appoint an experienced construction arbitrator, and each serves affidavits and expert reports before the hearing. After several hearing days, the applicant challenges the arbitrator’s continued participation for reasonable apprehension of bias.

Procedural History: Arbitrator’s decision dated April 18, 2026: Challenge under s. 13 dismissed, with comprehensive reasons.

Parties’ Submissions: Applicant: The applicant seeks removal of the arbitrator under s. 13 of the Arbitration Act, 1991, SO 1991, c 17, alleging circumstances giving rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias. Respondent: The respondent relies on contextual factors, including the arbitrator’s expertise, the parties’ agreement to an active approach, and the appointment terms permitting questioning.

Legal Issues: Do circumstances exist that may give rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias warranting removal under the Arbitration Act, 1991? Does the arbitrator’s questioning, in context, impermissibly “descend into the arena” and undermine procedural fairness? Does the applicant’s failure to contemporaneously object defeat the removal application in these circumstances?

Disposition: Application granted and the arbitrator removed pursuant to ss. 13(1) and 15(1) of the Arbitration Act, 1991, SO 1991, c 17. The parties are directed to exchange written costs submissions for the recusal motion and this application, on the prescribed timetable.

Reasons: By FL Myers J: An arbitration must treat parties equally and fairly under s. 19 of the Arbitration Act, 1991, SO 1991, c 17, and that obligation cannot be contracted out. Neutrality is required, and removal is available where circumstances may give rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias. Questioning that amounts to cross-examination risks usurping counsel’s role and undermining the appearance of neutrality, and intention does not control the bias analysis. The record shows the arbitrator conducts prepared, skilled cross-examinations of key applicant witnesses, including leading questions and credibility attacks aligned with the respondent’s position. In context, these interventions create a reasonable apprehension of bias for a reasonably informed observer and indicate an unfair proceeding. The parties’ agreement to “a somewhat more inquisitorial approach” and the appointment terms authorizing questioning do not authorize the arbitrator to cross-examine or shed neutrality. The failure to object is not fatal absent a finding of tactical motive, and the arbitrator’s own reasons contain inconsistent holdings on the point. Removal is therefore ordered under ss. 13(1) and 15(1) of the Arbitration Act, 1991.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

3. Hemmings v. Padmore, 2026 SCC 34

AI-generated summary:

Facts: A pregnant patient suffers cardiac arrest during an emergency caesarean section and sustains severe permanent brain injury. She and family members sue her obstetrician, the on-duty anesthesiologist, and the hospital for negligent pregnancy and delivery care. The hospital is sued vicariously for a nurse’s telephone advice and directly for medical-record management. The parties agree on damages, and the trial proceeds only on liability.

Procedural History: 2022 ONSC 2674 (Ontario Superior Court of Justice): Obstetrician and anesthesiologist found liable; hospital found vicariously and directly liable; one obstetrician found non-negligent and another non-liable. 2024 ONCA 318 (Ontario Court of Appeal), 2024: Appeals allowed for obstetrician and hospital and actions dismissed against them; anesthesiologist’s appeal dismissed and sole liability attributed to him.

Parties’ Submissions: Appellants/Respondents (the Plaintiffs): Trial findings on nurse’s factual causation and defendants’ remoteness merit deference, and the Court of Appeal wrongly required foreseeability of the precise injury sequence. Respondent (Hospital): The trial judge made no finding that earlier attendance would avoid injury, and cardiac arrest from anesthetic complications is not reasonably foreseeable to the nurse. Respondent (Obstetrician): No reasonable obstetrician early in pregnancy foresees cardiac arrest from anesthetic complications, and the trial judge’s remoteness findings are incomplete and inconsistent. Appellant (Anesthesiologist): The trial reasons are insufficient, and there is no evidentiary basis for but-for causation based solely on conversion to general anesthetic.

Legal Issues: Did the trial judge err in factual causation concerning the nurse’s alleged negligence? Did the trial judge err in remoteness concerning the obstetrician and the nurse? Are the trial judge’s reasons sufficient regarding the anesthesiologist’s liability? Did the trial judge err in finding but-for causation against the anesthesiologist for the conversion to general anesthetic?

Disposition: The plaintiffs’ appeal is dismissed. The anesthesiologist’s appeal is dismissed. The actions against the obstetrician and hospital remain dismissed, and the anesthesiologist remains liable. No costs are awarded, and each party bears its own appeal costs.

Reasons: By Rowe and O’Bonsawin JJ. (Jamal J. concurring): Factual causation and remoteness are distinct negligence inquiries, and only factual causation addresses a strictly causal question. The “but for” test governs factual causation, and complex cases may require explicit counterfactual reasoning to exclude “fault or no fault” outcomes. Remoteness turns on reasonable foreseeability of the actual injury, requiring a “real risk” greater than a mere possibility. The nurse-related factual causation finding fails because the counterfactual is not addressed and the evidence on earlier intervention’s effect is equivocal. The remoteness analysis fails because foreseeability of a real risk of anesthetic-complication cardiac arrest is not assessed for each defendant’s circumstances. The unchallenged conclusion that the on-duty obstetrician could not reasonably foresee the injury is not reconciled with foreseeability findings against earlier-care providers, making the plaintiffs’ remoteness case fail on this record. The trial reasons on the anesthesiologist’s conversion breach are factually and legally sufficient when read contextually with the record. But-for causation is supported by evidence linking conversion to general anesthetic to the arrest, and the counterfactual is sufficiently inferable given temporal proximity and the accepted evidence.

By Martin J. (Karakatsanis and Moreau JJ. concurring): No reviewable error arises for the obstetrician’s liability, and individualized remoteness does not require reconciliation with other defendants’ different circumstances. The trial record supports that the patient would have terminated the pregnancy if properly advised, establishing factual causation for the obstetrician. The hospital decision remains correct because factual causation and remoteness are not properly established for the nurse.

By Wagner C.J.: The trial reasons conflate factual causation and remoteness, undermining the liability findings and requiring dismissal of the anesthesiologist claim. The causal analysis does not properly apply the but-for test to the anesthesiologist’s identified breach and omits the necessary counterfactual findings. Remoteness principles remain distinct, and foreseeability does not depend on predicting another tortfeasor’s negligence.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

4. Moffatt v. Air Canada, 2024 BCCRT 149

Case excerpt:

[27] Air Canada argues it cannot be held liable for information provided by one of its agents, servants, or representatives – including a chatbot. It does not explain why it believes that is the case. In effect, Air Canada suggests the chatbot is a separate legal entity that is responsible for its own actions. This is a remarkable submission. While a chatbot has an interactive component, it is still just a part of Air Canada’s website. It should be obvious to Air Canada that it is responsible for all the information on its website. It makes no difference whether the information comes from a static page or a chatbot.

[28] I find Air Canada did not take reasonable care to ensure its chatbot was accurate. While Air Canada argues Mr. Moffatt could find the correct information on another part of its website, it does not explain why the webpage titled “Bereavement travel” was inherently more trustworthy than its chatbot. It also does not explain why customers should have to double-check information found in one part of its website on another part of its website.

[…]

[33] Mr. Moffatt is entitled to be put in the position they would have been in if the misrepresentation had not been made. The measure of damages is generally considered the difference between the price paid and the actual market value at the time of the sale.

[…]

[44] Within 14 days of the date of this order, I order Air Canada to pay Mr. Moffatt a total of $812.02, broken down as follows:

a. $650.88 in damages,

b. $36.14 in pre-judgment interest under the Court Order Interest Act, and

c. $125 in CRT fees.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

5. 1182573 B.C. Ltd. v Gerber, 2026 BCCA 399

AI-generated summary:

Facts: A seller assigns its contractual rights to another company, and both corporate entities sue the purchasers regarding a disputed dock-application success fee. The corporate plaintiffs file pleadings asserting a claimed proprietary interest and register a certificate of pending litigation against the purchasers’ land. The purchasers apply for security for costs and seek relief concerning lengthy and duplicative notices to admit served by the plaintiffs. A Supreme Court order requires staged security for costs and stays the action pending initial payment, while directing revised notices to admit and response timelines. The plaintiffs file a notice of appeal without seeking leave, and the purchasers apply to quash for want of required leave.

Procedural History: Supreme Court of British Columbia, Vancouver Docket S260656, April 17, 2026: Security for costs of $20,000 ordered in stages with a stay pending initial payment, and directions issued regarding notices to admit.

Parties’ Submissions: Appellants (Plaintiffs): Leave to appeal is unnecessary because the appeal also challenges notice-to-admit directions, which they characterize as substantive orders, and Yang v Shi is said not to apply. Respondents (Defendants): The appeal should be quashed because the order is a limited appeal order requiring leave, which was not sought.

Legal Issues: Is leave to appeal required from the security for costs and notice-to-admit directions in the April 17, 2026 order? If leave is required, should the notice of appeal be treated as an application for leave to appeal? If leave is considered, should leave to appeal be granted?

Disposition: Respondents’ application to quash the appeal is dismissed. The notice of appeal is converted to an application for leave to appeal. Leave to appeal is dismissed.

Reasons: By The Honourable Justice Griffin: Leave is required because orders concerning notices to admit fall under Part 7 or extension-of-time orders within CA Rule 11. Where the companion order also requires leave, the security-for-costs component likewise requires leave under CA Rule 11(f). Section 13(2) of the Court of Appeal Act, SBC 2021, c 6 and CA Rule 22 mean no appeal exists until leave is granted. A discretion exists to convert a notice of appeal to a leave application notwithstanding the failure to seek leave promptly. Leniency is warranted given the respondents’ initial position disputing that notice-to-admit orders existed before the order was settled. The notice of appeal is therefore converted, and the parties agree the leave application can be heard. The leave criteria in Goldman and related authorities govern, and discretionary orders face a substantial merit threshold. Disagreement with the result does not show an error in principle, evidentiary insufficiency, or injustice justifying appellate intervention. The chambers judge’s conclusion that the corporate plaintiffs lack readily recoverable assets sufficient to satisfy costs is supported by the record and his reasoning. The security order is proportionate, and the staged $20,000 amount is reasonable, without established likelihood of stifling the claim. The notice-to-admit directions are discretionary, justified to focus requests, and proportionate given the narrow contract dispute and the scope of sought admissions.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

***

The three most-consulted French-language decisions were:

1. Bourse de l’Immobilier Multilogements inc. c. Société Centris inc., 2026 QCCS 3305

AI-generated summary:

Faits: Une défenderesse intente un recours injonctif distinct en alléguant le piratage de données de son site web par l’autre partie. Une injonction interlocutoire est prononcée suivant une entente, et le dossier d’injonction demeure ensuite inactif. Les défendeurs dans le dossier d’injonction intentent ensuite un nouveau recours réclamant un jugement déclaratoire, puis ajoutent une réclamation de 2 287 991,34 $. La défenderesse demande le rejet pour irrecevabilité et abus, en invoquant le Code de procédure civile (Cpc).

Historique procédural: Cour supérieure du Québec, 21 décembre 2022 (dossier no 500-17-123431-226) : Injonction interlocutoire prononcée suivant une entente. Cour supérieure du Québec, 9 décembre 2025 : Demande d’être relevés du défaut d’inscrire et demande de prolongation du délai d’inscription rejetées dans le dossier d’injonction.

Prétentions des parties: Demandeurs : Ils sollicitent trois déclarations, notamment l’absence de violation des droits invoqués, leur bonne foi et l’absence de droit de propriété intellectuelle sur des annonces publiques, puis réclament 2 287 991,34 $ en dommages-intérêts. Défenderesse : Elle demande le rejet de la demande, soutenant l’irrecevabilité (art. 168 Cpc) et l’abus de procédure (art. 51 Cpc).

Questions de droit: Les conditions d’ouverture à un jugement déclaratoire, selon l’art. 142 Cpc, sont-elles remplies? Les conclusions déclaratoires sont-elles recevables au sens de l’art. 168 Cpc?
Les dernières modifications, visées par l’art. 206 Cpc, corrigent-elles la situation? La nouvelle réclamation de dommages-intérêts est-elle recevable en tout état de cause? Les trois versions de la demande introductive constituent-elles un abus de procédure au sens de l’art. 51 Cpc?

Dispositif: Demande en rejet de la défenderesse accueillie. Trois versions de la demande introductive rejetées pour irrecevabilité et abus. Trois versions de la demande introductive déclarées abusives. Frais de justice accordés.

Motifs: Par l’honorable Azimuddin Hussain, J.C.S. : Les critères applicables au jugement déclaratoire découlent de l’art. 142 Cpc, et l’utilité pratique constitue une exigence centrale. L’art. 10 Cpc exclut les questions théoriques lorsque le jugement ne mettrait pas fin à l’incertitude. L’absence de difficulté réelle et de trouble précis empêche l’ouverture au jugement déclaratoire. Aucune difficulté actuelle n’existe entre les parties, et les demandeurs sollicitent des déclarations théoriques sur une situation hypothétique. Une contestation du caractère prétendument téméraire du recours injonctif s’articule plutôt comme un recours en dommages-intérêts, avec une théorie de cause complète. L’indécision alléguée quant à l’auteur du préjudice prétendu rend le véhicule déclaratoire inapte, car il ne revient pas de fournir une opinion juridique. Les conclusions déclaratoires demeurent irrecevables faute d’allégations factuelles suffisamment précises, en contravention de l’art. 99 Cpc. La conclusion sur la bonne foi manque de pertinence juridique au regard des reproches allégués au dossier d’injonction. La demande de dommages-intérêts visant la défenderesse demeure incohérente et irrecevable, notamment à cause des admissions sur le motif et la cible de la réclamation. L’ensemble des trois versions de la demande introductive constitue un abus, la procédure recherchant une opinion plutôt que le règlement d’un différend réel. L’inactivité suivie de changements majeurs et tardifs, ainsi que la conduite procédurale globale, justifient l’intervention prévue à l’art. 51 Cpc. La demande de prolongation du délai d’inscrire pour instruction et jugement devient sans objet.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. Société d’assurance Beneva inc. c. Ville de Sherbrooke, 2026 QCCA 1301

AI-generated summary:

Faits: Des immeubles assurés par l’appelante subissent des dommages après le bris d’une conduite d’aqueduc appartenant à l’intimée. L’appelante indemnise ses assurés et exerce un recours subrogatoire pour réclamer 115 000 $ à l’intimée. Le recours invoque l’art. 1467 C.c.Q. au motif que le bris équivaut à une ruine d’immeuble. L’appelante soutient que le bris résulte d’un défaut d’entretien ou d’un vice de construction, ou que ces éléments peuvent être présumés.

Historique procédural: 2025 QCCS 1841 (Cour supérieure, district de Saint-François), 5 juin 2025 : Demande introductive d’instance en dommages-intérêts rejetée.

Prétentions des parties: Appelante (assureur subrogé) : Elle soutient que le bris constitue une « ruine » et résulte d’un défaut d’entretien ou d’un vice de construction, ou que les faits permettent de le présumer. Intimée (Ville) : Elle nie que le bris puisse être qualifié de ruine et plaide que l’appelante ne prouve ni vice de construction ni défaut d’entretien.

Questions de droit: Les faits prouvés font-ils naître une présomption de vice de construction ou de défaut d’entretien au sens de l’art. 1467 C.c.Q.? Le juge de première instance a-t-il erré en refusant d’inférer cette présomption à partir des faits indiciels?

Dispositif: Appel accueilli, avec les frais de justice. Jugement de première instance infirmé. Demande introductive d’instance accueillie et condamnation de 115 000 $ avec intérêts au taux légal, dès l’assignation. Indemnité additionnelle refusée, faute d’avoir été réclamée.

Motifs: Par Martin Vauclair, J.C.A.; Stephen W. Hamilton, J.C.A. et Éric Hardy, J.C.A. : L’art. 1467 C.c.Q. exige notamment une ruine résultant d’un défaut d’entretien ou d’un vice de construction. Les trois premières conditions sont tenues pour remplies, dont la ruine découlant du bris de la conduite. La preuve d’expert est écartée et cette conclusion n’est pas contestée en appel. Les faits indiciels retenus ne suffisent pas selon le premier juge pour présumer un défaut d’entretien ou un vice de construction. Le bris d’une conduite enfouie, sans cause externe explicative, avant la fin de sa vie utile, fait naître une présomption de vice ou de défaut. Cette inférence constitue la seule conclusion raisonnable et probable tirée des faits retenus. L’erreur réside dans l’application de la norme juridique aux faits prouvés. Cette erreur justifie l’intervention et commande d’accueillir l’action subrogatoire. Les intérêts au taux légal s’appliquent, mais sans indemnité additionnelle non réclamée.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

3. Lessard c. Université de Montréal, 2026 QCCS 3559

AI-generated summary:

Faits: Une étudiante en médecine vétérinaire demande divers accommodements en raison de limitations liées à trois accidents automobiles. Deux ententes conclues en 2013 et 2018 encadrent des mesures d’accommodement et son cheminement à temps partiel. En août 2026, l’horaire final d’automne 2026 déclenche une demande d’ordonnance de sauvegarde visant la charge académique, les examens et les stages (par 9–10). L’étudiante soutient que l’Université applique une approche restrictive et refuse un dialogue conforme aux accommodements raisonnables.

Historique procédural: 2026 QCCS 190 (Cour supérieure du Québec), 27 janvier 2026 : Injonction interlocutoire refusée pour l’essentiel, sauf examens à distance et engagements pour Hiver 2026.
2026 QCCS 3017 (Cour supérieure du Québec) : Avis de gestion; refus d’ordonner un plan de cheminement, car cela dépasse la gestion d’instance. Cour supérieure du Québec, 26 mars 2026 : Ordonnance de gestion sur la communication des dossiers médicaux et l’organisation de l’instance. Cour supérieure du Québec, 18 juin 2026 : Ordonnance de gestion sur la communication des dossiers médicaux et l’organisation de l’instance.

Prétentions des parties: Demanderesse : Elle invoque le droit à l’égalité et aux accommodements raisonnables et reproche une absence de dialogue individualisé, demandant des mesures sur crédits réels, examens à distance et aménagement des stages. Défenderesse (Université) : Elle admet le handicap et le droit à des accommodements, mais soutient que leurs modalités relèvent de l’Université, invoque le statu quo du jugement Bundaru et conteste l’urgence, l’apparence de droit et les demandes sur examens et stages.

Questions de droit: Les critères d’une ordonnance de sauvegarde sont-ils satisfaits dans un litige fondé sur des droits protégés par la Charte? L’Université respecte-t-elle, prima facie, son obligation d’accommodement raisonnable, sur les volets procédural et substantiel? La limite de 5 à 8 crédits par session doit-elle refléter la charge réelle plutôt qu’une comptabilisation administrative? Faut-il ordonner des démarches ou mesures immédiates concernant les modalités d’examen et une période de repos liée aux stages?

Dispositif: Demande d’ordonnance de sauvegarde accueillie en partie. Cours à zéro crédit DMV 36011 annulé. Délai maximal de trois semaines pour entente sur examens et repos entre stages et cours, sinon le juge demeure saisi. Frais à suivre.

Motifs: Par l’honorable Bruno Guillot-Hurtubise, J.C.S. : Les quatre critères applicables à une ordonnance de sauvegarde régissent l’analyse, avec une modulation en présence de droits fondamentaux. Les questions soulevées sont sérieuses et portent sur des accommodements spécifiques, le droit général à l’accommodement étant admis. Le cadre de discrimination découle de l’art. 10 et de l’art. 12 de la Charte des droits et libertés de la personne, RLRQ, c.C-12. L’obligation d’accommodement repose sur un processus évolutif, individualisé et collaboratif, comportant un volet procédural et un volet substantiel. Une mise en balance fondée sur la date butoir du 1er juin 2029 ne peut, prima facie, limiter d’emblée les accommodements requis pour les besoins actuels . L’urgence découle de l’année académique déjà engagée et de mesures requises immédiatement. La limite de crédits prévue à l’Entente vise la charge réelle et ne se réduit pas à une règle comptable permettant d’ajouter un cours à zéro crédit. L’absence de démonstration de contrainte excessive, autre que l’échéance de 2029, justifie le retrait du cours DMV 36011. Un délai additionnel permet un dialogue sur les examens et la période de repos entre stages et cours, avec maintien de la saisine en cas d’échec des discussions.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

4. Autorité des marchés publics c. Excavation National inc., 2026 QCCA 1310

AI-generated summary:

Faits: Une entreprise présente une demande d’autorisation de contracter avec un organisme public auprès de l’Autorité des marchés publics. Une enquête mène à un avis d’examen, fondé sur des préoccupations d’intégrité et des demandes de documents. L’Autorité transmet ensuite un préavis de refus fondé sur des manquements allégués à l’intégrité. L’entreprise conteste les reproches et soumet des observations, incluant un plan de mesures correctrices proposé. L’Autorité refuse l’autorisation, conclut à l’absence d’intégrité et entraîne l’inscription au registre des entreprises non admissibles.

Historique procédural: 2023-DAMP-2093 (Autorité des marchés publics), 16 novembre 2023 : Refus d’autorisation, conclusion de manquements d’intégrité et inscription au Registre des entreprises non admissibles aux contrats publics. 2025 QCCS 2827 (Cour supérieure du Québec), 4 août 2025 : Pourvoi en contrôle judiciaire accueilli en partie, uniquement quant au refus d’envisager des mesures correctrices. 2025 QCCA 1175 (Cour d’appel du Québec), [date non précisée] : Permission d’appeler accordée sur la question des mesures correctrices.

Prétentions des parties: Appelante (Autorité des marchés publics) : La Cour supérieure applique en réalité la norme de la décision correcte et substitue son interprétation des dispositions sur les mesures correctrices; elle redéfinit aussi les manquements et conclut à tort à une violation de l’équité procédurale. Intimée (Entreprise demanderesse) : Le refus d’envisager des mesures correctrices contredit la lettre et l’intention de la Loi sur les contrats des organismes publics, RLRQ, c. C-65.1 (L.c.o.p.), ainsi que les guides de l’Autorité; la décision serait insuffisamment motivée et l’équité procédurale aurait été violée.

Questions de droit: L’Autorité viole-t-elle l’équité procédurale en n’annonçant pas qu’elle exclut des mesures correctrices? Le refus d’imposer ou d’envisager des mesures correctrices est-il déraisonnable selon la norme applicable? La Cour supérieure a-t-elle appliqué la mauvaise méthode de contrôle en substituant son analyse à celle de l’Autorité?

Dispositif: Appel accueilli. Jugement de première instance infirmé quant à la sanction et pourvoi en contrôle judiciaire rejeté. Décision administrative du 16 novembre 2023 rétablie. Frais de justice accordés contre l’intimée, en première instance et en appel.

Motifs: Par la juge Bich, J.C.A. (les juges Beaupré, J.C.A. et Lachance, J.C.A., y souscrivant) : Le litige relève d’une demande d’autorisation régie par les art. 21.27, 21.36 et 21.37 L.c.o.p., non par les art. 21.48.1 à 21.48.4 L.c.o.p. Le préavis de refus transmis conformément à l’art. 21.37 L.c.o.p. et à l’art. 5 de la Loi sur la justice administrative (L.j.a.), RLRQ, c. J-3 satisfait aux exigences procédurales. L’intimée dispose d’une occasion réelle de présenter observations et documents, y compris sur d’éventuelles mesures correctrices. L’envoi d’un préavis de refus implique que des mesures correctrices ne sont pas envisagées à ce stade, sans exiger un préavis distinct sur ce point. La L.c.o.p. n’impose pas un processus en deux étapes séparant manquements et sanction. Même sous l’art. 21.48.4 L.c.o.p., l’absence de mesures correctrices peut être conclue sans autre préavis lorsque le préavis requis a été donné. La Cour supérieure identifie la norme de la décision raisonnable, mais l’applique comme une décision correcte en raisonnant de novo et en substituant sa lecture de la loi et des faits. Les mesures correctrices relèvent d’un pouvoir discrétionnaire large, tant sous l’art. 21.36 que sous l’art. 21.48.4 L.c.o.p., selon la « situation propre » de l’entreprise. Les motifs de l’Autorité sont compréhensibles lorsque lus globalement, compte tenu de la gravité des manquements retenus et du fait que les mesures proposées ne remédient pas à ces manquements. La décision ne s’appuie pas sur des liens avec le crime organisé, puisque ce point est écarté comme superflu dans la décision administrative finale. Le cumul de tentatives répétées de dissimulation d’un dirigeant et de stratagèmes liés à un sous-contrat public soutient raisonnablement le refus de toute mesure correctrice et le rejet de la demande. L’évolution entre l’avis d’examen, le préavis et la décision reflète la prise en compte des observations de l’entreprise, sans vice justifiant l’intervention. L’intimée peut, sous certaines conditions prévues par la L.c.o.p., présenter ultérieurement une nouvelle demande d’autorisation.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

5. Association des ressources intermédiaires d’hébergement du Québec (ARIHQ) c. Santé Québec – Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux du Centre-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréal, 2026 QCCS 1360

AI-generated summary:

Faits: Une ressource intermédiaire offre des services d’hébergement à un établissement de santé, selon une entente nationale incorporée à des ententes particulières. Une mésentente survient et porte sur une rétribution alléguée impayée pour une période antérieure à l’intégration du premier usager. Un avis de mésentente est transmis près de trois ans après des refus de paiement, puis un avis d’arbitrage suit. L’établissement soulève le dépassement du délai pour produire l’avis de mésentente et demande le rejet préliminaire de l’arbitrage.

Historique procédural: Sentence arbitrale, 8 août 2025 : Demande d’arbitrage rejetée, au motif du non-respect des délais d’une procédure convenue. Cour supérieure du Québec, 11 décembre 2025 : Instances des demanderesses jointes pour instruction commune et jugement sur la même preuve.

Prétentions des parties: Demanderesses : Elles demandent l’annulation de la sentence, alléguant une contrariété à l’ordre public en raison de l’art. 2884 Code civil du Québec (« C.c.Q. ») et un non-respect de la procédure arbitrale, la sentence reposant sur des autorités inexistantes suggérant l’usage d’IA. Défenderesse : Elle soutient que l’utilisation de l’intelligence artificielle n’est pas un motif d’annulation prévu à l’art. 646 Code de procédure civile (« C.p.c. »).

Questions de droit: Une erreur alléguée sur l’art. 2884 C.c.Q. rend-elle la sentence « contraire à l’ordre public » au sens de l’art. 646 C.p.c.? L’appui de la sentence sur des références doctrinales et jurisprudentielles inexistantes constitue-t-il un non-respect de la « procédure arbitrale applicable » (art. 646 C.p.c.)?

Dispositif: Sentence arbitrale du 8 août 2025 annulée. Nouveau choix d’un arbitre ordonné dans les 60 jours. Frais de justice accordés.

Motifs: Par l’honorable Martin F. Sheehan, j.c.s. : La demande en annulation constitue l’unique moyen de se pourvoir contre une sentence arbitrale. Les motifs d’annulation prévus à l’art. 646 C.p.c. sont exhaustifs et ne permettent pas l’examen du fond. La contrariété à l’ordre public vise le résultat de la sentence, non l’exactitude du raisonnement. Une erreur de droit, même relative à une règle d’ordre public comme l’art. 2884 C.c.Q., ne justifie pas l’annulation. Le délai en litige concerne l’obligation d’aviser la mésentente, et sa qualification en déchéance est écartée. La validité d’un préavis contractuel est reconnue en jurisprudence, de sorte que le dispositif n’est pas inconciliable avec l’ordre public. Une violation importante de la procédure arbitrale convenue peut justifier l’annulation si elle affecte l’intégrité du processus. Les parties choisissent l’arbitre et s’attendent à ce que la décision émane de celui-ci, sans délégation du pouvoir décisionnel. Les références doctrinales et jurisprudentielles déterminantes dans la sentence s’avèrent inexistantes, ce qui appuie la conclusion d’une délégation et d’une abdication du rôle décisionnel. Le manquement est important et a probablement eu un impact sur le résultat, justifiant l’annulation.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

* As of February 2025, we measure the number of unique pageviews that a case gets; as well, a case once mentioned won’t appear again for three months.

The post Wednesday: What’s Hot on CanLII? – October 2026 appeared first on Slaw.

The first of my series of Slaw contributions was entitled “Legal and Professional Publishing – It’s the Money, Stupid” and, it being from an era long-since forgotten, focused on the madness of small, low or negligible-profit law publishers trying to compete with the market giants. Of course, everything has changed since then, with all the focus being on new start-ups being massively funded and quickly acquiring outrageous market values. Yet, making actual profits from trading is something else. Extant owners and shareholders, if they are lucky, are able to profit hugely, as the startups in question are traded from one disreputable owner to the next, eventually landing, probably, at the likes of RELX, Thomson Reuters or Wolters Kluwer, at which point their historic trading losses are forgiven and forgotten. Still, it is worth asking about the money, that is real money, from actual customers; it’s a funny old game, feral capitalism.

Not a high-flying artificial intelligence-driven publisher, supported by venture capitalists, but, merely by way of example and not to focus excessively on it, looking at the sale, in England, of Globe Law and Business, one has to wonder why, just as Thomson Reuters sells off a majority interest in its $490m global print business, now known as Westbridge Print, such a tiny entity is acquired by RELX? I would not be greatly surprised if, before not too long, it were to disappear as a brand and some of its existing products, and maybe some of those who rely on it for their incomes, were to be discontinued. Knowing personally and having much affection for some of the people in question, I truly hope that is not the case. Some such transactions, at face value, can lead to the view that sometimes, though not always, the purpose in starting a small business is not to grow profitably, nor to create well-paying jobs for employees, nor change the world for the better, nor make a difference, but rather, just to sell it to a big business, with the harsh reality and consequences of profitability, or rather the lack of it, coming subsequently.

The newly entitled Westbridge Print views itself as a provider of information, primarily in print format and via ProView, to legal and tax professionals, governments, law schools and corporations. It also seeks to leverage its capabilities through offering commercial printing services to a range of book publishers. The business serves customers primarily in the USA, Canada and the UK.

At the same time and somewhat more logically, major, established information businesses usually understand that there is a time to build organically and a time to make overpriced acquisitions and then have all the cost and risk of trying to integrate them successfully to fit existing systems and satisfy the needs of existing customers. Yet, legal information publishing has had its share of unsuccessful attempts at profitably integrating acquisitions. It would not be surprising to see a shift in favour of organic growth, as might be inferred from recent developments at Thomson Reuters, with the launch of Thomson, a proprietary large language model built specifically for professional work. With this, and parallel initiatives at RELX (Lexis Nexis) and even Wolters Kluwer, if they listen to what customers actually want, and if they do not annihilate us all first, they may well increase the life of the competitive duopoly and, into the future, leave less room for noisy upstarts, particularly those whose boastfulness sometimes matches their incompetence. Critically, as others have discovered painfully, the grownups have the combination of money, knowhow, content, independence and professionalism to achieve this. Yet, if ROSS Intelligence were to have its way, Thomson Reuters might be wounded by the sheer number of times that it has to return to the Appeals Court in never-ending AI-related litigation. TR’s headache might be even worsening significantly, as it faces the possibility of a class action arising from having paid $650m to acquire Casetext in 2023.The allegation, apparently, is that it used the acquisition to neutralise a competitive threat, having eliminated Casetext as a competitor. It seems as if continued and endless and possibly vexatious litigation over matters such as this can be somewhat safely predicted.

As to the proceeds of highly profitable law publishing, including those derived from disposals and transfers, as is the case universally, they are not flowing in the direction of those whose interests deserve to be prioritised, notably the customers, suppliers and the everyday employees of the industry. While, for example, Legal 500/Legalease, apparently, according to Wikipedia, a London living wage employer, has had its employees striking over low pay, while at the same time its flagship legal directory published a new edition containing a glitch which resulted in the posting of much publicised and ridiculed unfiltered and embarrassing remarks, one might ponder upon quality and standards in a machine-driven world.

As ever, the billionaire and multi-millionaire technology-fascists and their wannabes, the unworthy, the unscrupulous, the highest-level directors and self-obsessed owners are those in receipt of the greatest rewards for the least contribution. Plus ça change.

On what might turn out to be a more positive note, the announcement that Informa PLC intends to purchase, from Blackstone, the latter’s business-to-business competitor, Clarion and to separate Informa from Taylor & Francis, its publishing business. It would appear that a sale or spin-off of the publishing business are under consideration. For purposes of law publishing, the relevance of the Taylor & Francis news is that it is a substantial law publisher, via the T&F and Routledge brands, publishing an enviable, impressive and market-leading portfolio of titles primarily, but not at all exclusively in maritime, insurance and commercial law. The surprise is that the separation was not done many years ago and more recently when Lloyds of London Press/Lloyds List, together with i-Law were sold by Informa. I believe that much of the content presently hosted on i-Law is licensed from Informa and without that, there would be little left on the electronic platform. Taylor & Francis is said to have revenues approaching $1 billion, growing at about 4% a year. Therefore, by any measure, it is significant as a stand-alone business, a disposal and acquisition or as a candidate for break-up, given its range of markets, such as legal and professional ones, which it serves. I have no doubt that there would be third-party interest in it, and speculation abounds on the topic, but I struggle to see it as a unified entity in the future.

And finally, in the USA, Vancouver-headquartered Clio has acquired Learned Hand, an AI company building technology specifically for judges and courts.

The post Funny Money, Some of It Squandered, in Law Publishing appeared first on Slaw.

More and more people are seeking that access to justice efforts be people-centred: They should be designed around people’s needs, culturally aware and responsive. This can mean legal and other services being co-designed with those who will use them. It can also mean organizations collaborating across sectors, rather than expecting individuals to navigate disconnected systems.

Such ambitions are also reflected in international frameworks. In Making Justice Systems More Effective and People Centred, a 2025 report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), they call for justice pathways that respond to people’s circumstances, including through cross-boundary and multidisciplinary collaboration. The OECD’s related work on measuring people-centred justice raises a key question: How will we know whether justice systems are becoming more responsive?

Amici Curiae Friendship Society (AC) offers a place to begin answering that question. For AC, responsiveness (often by avoiding an overly prescriptive approach) is not simply a feature of a service, it is a way of working and a culture. Intentionally meeting with old friends to ask them what their justice gaps are matters, because needs change over time.

For me, I still prefer pounding the pavement to meet with others, my well-worn shoes will attest to that.

On our road trip to Kamloops last September, an immigration service provider who has been referring clients to us for four years now, shared their challenge: The Federal government keeps changing the rules for migrant workers. Without missing a beat, they felt comfortable enough to say: “Are you able to …. And while you are at it, would you consider helping us with …..”

Our unscheduled visit to two Indigenous community groups during our visit yielded the same type of requests. I am sure that we would not have had such rich conversations and shared justice challenges over Zoom.

Travelling 800 kilometres to hear service providers tell us in person matters.

We note there is a tension between the responsive approach and the traditional hands off practice. In the face of rapid technological, social and environmental change and complexity and in accordance with trauma-informed practice principles, we increasingly say legal professionals should be culturally aware, support agency, apply strengths-based approaches and be open to co-design. Nevertheless, we observe that institutions reward distance, predictability, formal boundaries, carefully managed risk and tidy outputs. These practices and associated habits may have developed out of legitimate purposes such as fairness, accountability, consistency and integrity. However, when they become a default response, they make it harder to address issues in the “grey areas” where barriers take shape as well as to support clients where they are at, in the present moment.

Our founding board chair, Justice Groves, likes to remind me that AC was born in 2011, during a time when desk order divorce applications from temporary foreign workers were being rejected, and AC had to fashion a novel approach to make these applications more likely to succeed. We know grey.

So, if the legal sector’s ways of working haven’t changed as much as our language has, how do we get there?

Applying responsive design starts with curiosity: What is happening for people in this community? Who already understands the problem? What are we missing? It creates connections across roles and institutions. It looks for something useful that can be tried now, while remaining willing to learn and adapt.

Crucially, it involves the willingness to take risks.

AC’s work with community organizations in Vancouver’s Chinatown and Downtown Eastside illustrates this approach. Rather than assume what people needed, AC engaged with organizations already supporting communities navigating the legal system. That is why AC hosted its first Pan-Asian Community of Practice in November 2025, and subsequently published the Pan-Asian Justice Report. This engagement helped surface practical needs, which led to opportunities for service providers to exchange knowledge, strengthen referral pathways and learn from one another.

We also recognize something that generic service design can overlook: There is no generic person at the centre of the justice system. People encounter legal problems through particular languages, cultures, citizenship status or migration circumstances, family relationships and life experiences that involve other sectors and institutions. A response that works for one community may not work for another. Responsiveness, therefore, requires more than translating information or adding an advisory group. It requires sustained relationships with people and organizations whose knowledge is rooted in those communities. We know that many like-minded organizations are already working tirelessly to address and dismantle barriers to justice faced by the community, but many expressed the need for time and opportunity to build relationships with other organizations to create collaborative synergies instead of working in silos, competing for resources, and experiencing burnout.

From the outside, this way of working can look messy. The next step may emerge through a conversation; a referral relationship may develop before a formal program exists; a small connection may lead to an opportunity nobody anticipated. But this kind of messiness is not evidence of a lack of forethought or organization. In a complex system, it is often evidence that people are truly listening, connecting the dots and actively responding.

Indeed, relationships matter when they change what becomes possible to achieve equity. When information travels between organizations, referrals can become more customised and useful. When a community’s experiences reach those who are part of one or more institutional structures, an unmet need can receive a shared, practical response.

The referral pathway developed with the Immigration Refugee Legal Clinic, Migrant Workers Centre, and AC is evidence of a relationship becoming a tangible access point. To strike a referral system, we met months after the Community of Practice. We expect the system to become operational in early 2027.

AC’s relationship with the Migrant Workers Centre was forged in 2011. These days, we have a volunteer embedded in their Saturday legal clinic that allows us to understand the justice gaps of their clients, particularly those who are working without immigration status, under a closed work permit, or under a vulnerable worker open work permit. Where appropriate, our volunteer books them an appointment for our services. On the spot.

What, then, should we measure? Not only the number of people served, referrals made or sessions delivered. Those outputs matter, but they do not tell the whole story. We may want to ask whether or not individuals had a smooth connection to suitable resources; whether or not organizations are able to provide sufficient and appropriate supports; whether or not societal and community-based knowledge is actively integrated into and enhances institutional structures; and whether or not the system learns and adapts when its existing approaches fall short. These are not soft measures. These are measures of system capacity: The capacity to notice, reflect and respond to improve access to justice.

AC’s experience shows that a focus on relationships and a willingness to do things differently make effective responses possible. Given that responsiveness has become a defining feature of people-centred justice, we suggest that one of the most important measurement questions is, “When someone tells us the system is not working for them, how capable are we of changing what happens next?” Ultimately, this requires not only better frameworks, but also greater institutional and human willingness to be curious, connected and creative.

We are hosting our second Community of Practice in February 2027, you’re invited to come be part of our conversation.

The post Responsive Design: AC’s Approach to an Emergent Measure of Access to Justice appeared first on Slaw.

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from more than 80 recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. Environmental Law and Litigation 2. Canadian Combat Sports Law Blog 3. Eloise Gratton 4. Michael Geist 5. Family Health Law Blog

Environmental Law and Litigation
The Canadian consumer: Regional differences and buying behaviour

A franchise system opens its first Canadian location in the Greater Toronto Area and performs in line with projections. The same brand, the same price points, the same marketing message, opens eighteen months later in a mature site in Alberta with comparable foot traffic and comparable operating costs. Sales run materially below the Toronto comparable. A franchisor investigating the gap often looks first at the operator. The better explanation is usually regional: price sensitivity, service-speed expectations, and brand-switching behaviour vary across Canada, and a pricing and marketing strategy validated in one metro does not automatically perform in another. …

Canadian Combat Sports Law Blog
Ontario Legalizes Professional Muay Thai

Today Ontario announced that they will “officially begin sanctioning professional Muay Thai“. Below is the full announcement: Hello Everyone, I’m pleased to share an important update for Ontario’s combative sports community. Effective October 1, 2026, the Ontario Athletic Commission (OAC) will officially begin sanctioning professional Muay Thai events across Ontario and will be responsible …

Eloise Gratton
Using Personal Information for Innovation and AI (Queen’s Law intensive program – November 20th)

I am delighted to be contributing to Queen’s Law intensive program Emerging Directions in AI and Privacy Law. I am scheduled to provide a virtual class on Friday, November 20, 2026, from 10:00 am to 11:25 am (EST). My session will focus on Using Personal Information for Innovation and AI, covering consent vs. legitimate interests, predictions and inferences, and related governance nuances (including a discussion on Bill C-36). …

Michael Geist
Ofcom Did the Work Canada Plans to Skip: What the UK’s Age Verification Report Reveals About the Bill C-34 Social Media Ban

The most contentious aspect of the government’s Bill C-34 social media ban for under-16s is that millions of Canadians will need mandated age verification to create social media accounts. The bill tacitly acknowledges that this raises privacy concerns, as it includes a mandatory consultation with the Privacy Commissioner and leaves the future Digital Safety Commission to set the necessary standards. But as I wrote in June, the problem is that the government plans to bring the ban into force before the Commission even exists, meaning the age verification will proceed without established standards or the privacy consultation the bill itself requires. The United Kingdom, …

Family Health Law Blog
When a Surrogate Refuses an Abortion: What a Tragic U.S. Case Can Teach Us About Surrogacy in Canada

A recent surrogacy case in the United States is tragic on just about every level. It is also a case that intended parents, surrogates and the professionals who work with them can learn from. According to reporting on the case, a surrogate was carrying a child for intended parents when, at around 20 weeks, the baby was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a serious congenital heart defect. The intended parents wanted the pregnancy terminated. The surrogate did not. …

_________________________

*Randomness here is created by Random.org and its list randomizing function.

The post Monday’s Mix appeared first on Slaw.

The purpose of this piece is to introduce a new national paper from the Action Committee on Access to Justice, Towards Justice as a Common Good.[1]

For transparency, I am a co-author of this paper, together with the Chair of the Action Committee, the Honourable Andromache Karakatsanis, Supreme Court of Canada, Véronique Morissette, Executive Director of the Action Committee, and Brea Lowenberger, Strategic Advisor of the Action Committee.

This Towards Justice as a Common Good paper is designed to provide new energy and a renewed vision for access to justice in Canada.[2]

People-Centred Justice

Significant strides have been made regarding access to justice over the past decades. Helpfully framed by what Macdonald described as access to justice “waves”,[3] we have a better understanding about how to think about access to justice and the need to focus on both the people and institutions that provide legal services, as well as – perhaps most important – those who need and use the justice system. In so doing, we also know more about the legal problems people experience, and the paths they take to address those challenges.[4] In Canada, for example, based on the national “Cost of Justice” research we did at the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice, we know that most Canadians will experience a significant legal issue over the course of their lifetime.[5] Further, legal problems often lead to further legal challenges, are often connected to social and economic conditions, and are experienced more heavily by marginalized individuals and communities.[6] We also know that, for those who experience legal problems, less than 20% receive legal help; and of those who do attempt to resolve their problems, less than 7% report appearing before courts or tribunals to deal with their legal problems.[7]

In terms of costs, we know that legal problems lead to significant monetary and other costs for individuals, as well as significant systemic costs on health, social, and other services.[8] As such, we know that better access to justice creates positive social returns on public investments (in terms of savings in health care, social services, etc.).[9] We are also starting to understand more about the long-term benefits of access to justice on the overall lives and well-being of individuals and communities.[10]

Taken together, our increased focus on the needs and experiences of everyday people – what we understand as a paradigm shift toward people-centred justice – is now relatively widely accepted across courts, governments, the legal profession, and the academy.[11]

As we commented in the Action Committee’s Roadmap for Change report more than a decade ago,[12] and as articulated by Justice Karakatsanis in her widely cited Hryniak decision,[13] for this change in focus to occur, a culture shift has been required: one that takes seriously not only the tools available from legal service providers (courts, tribunals, lawyers, experts, etc.), but also – and centrally – the needs and experiences of legal service users (people, organizations, communities, etc.). After all, it is individuals and communities that access to justice is ultimately about.

Overall, we now have a better understanding that: legal problems are often mixed with social and economic conditions; more attention on user needs and experiences is beneficial; early intervention is important for user outcomes and institutional resources; service opportunities often expand through interdisciplinary collaborations between traditional services (lawyers, courts, etc.) and non-traditional providers (community organizations, paralegals, intermediaries, etc.); access to appropriate legal services and assistance often leads to better outcomes; creating opportunities for empowerment and prevention is often helpful; evidence-based thinking is required; and proper resources are necessary. Importantly, we are also seeing significant access to justice activity and energy in the work of an increasing number of researchers and organizations globally as well.[14]

Challenges Remain

However, notwithstanding this important and increasingly well-documented people-centred justice paradigm shift, massive access to justice challenges remain. For years, the state of access to justice in Canada has been regularly described in terms of a crisis.[15] Former Chief Justice of Canada Beverley McLachlin stated in 2012 that “we do not have adequate access to justice in Canada”.[16] The following year, the Action Committee called out the “serious access to justice problem” in Canada.[17] This fall, in his foreword to this Towards Justice as a Common Good paper, the current Chief Justice of Canada, the Right Honourable Richard Wagner, PC, states, when speaking about current access to justice challenges, that: “too many individuals and communities continue to encounter significant barriers when looking for help.”[18] We also know this challenge is not limited to Canada. According to the Task Force on Justice, approximately two thirds of the world’s population lack meaningful access to justice.[19]

Notwithstanding that Canada arguably has the best judges, lawyers, justice administrators, academics, and other justice sector stakeholders in the world, the general public still does not have timely and affordable access to the necessary tools of justice (courts, legal providers, and related justice and community services, etc.).[20] By way of one example, the Advocates’ Society – in its Delay No Longer report – provided various statements about access to justice challenges, including the following:

In Ontario, it currently takes almost 1.5 years for a motion longer than 2 hours to be heard by a judge in Toronto; more than 1.5 years after the trial management conference (or more than 4 to 5 years from the issuance of the original application) for a 3-week family law trial to be heard by a judge in Brampton; and more than 4 to 5 years for a civil action to proceed from commencement to trial.[21]

Building on what the Canadian Bar Association called for in 2013, it is still the case that Canada has a “need for significant change to improve access to justice”.[22] 

Towards Justice as a Common Good

It is at this point that the Action Committee’s new Towards Justice as a Common Good paper hopes to add to the conversation. The purpose of our paper, recognizing recent strides but also acknowledging ongoing challenges, is to advance a renewed vision for access to justice in Canada.

At the outset, it is important to acknowledge that our paper builds on the learning and experience developed by decades of work done by client-centred, front-line service providers in the legal aid and legal services sectors; an increasingly sophisticated (although still developing) body of legal needs and access to justice research; and – perhaps most important – the lived realities of people and communities from different regions and backgrounds across this diverse country. It is this extensive work, this body of knowledge, and these lived realities, to which the Action Committee has devoted its energy and engagement over the past decade and more, including on our most recent listening tour across Canada.[23]

Following the introduction, which frames a values-based approach to access to justice, our Towards Justice as a Common Good paper includes two main parts: part one includes a vision for access to justice as a common good; and part two includes a set of principles offered to accelerate the paradigm shift towards justice as a common good.[24] The paper ends with some brief concluding reflections.

Vision

The purpose of this first part of our paper is to discuss what we mean by a renewed vision for access to justice. We see justice as a common good, framing it as a shared public foundation, necessary for the proper functioning of the rule of law, democratic life, the realization of rights and fairness, together with individual and community trust and well–being.[25]

The paper takes as a starting point the understanding that access to justice is not only about resolving disputes, but also about helping people and communities to meet their basic needs, exercise their rights, and enjoy meaningful participation in society. In many ways, it is about access to some meaningful notion of the good life.[26]

Our Towards Justice as a Common Good paper is framed around core values set out in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms,[27] and the defining place it holds in Canadian society. Specifically, we identify the Charter values of dignity, true equality, and fairness, and then situate access to justice as a fundamental right – the core mechanism – through which those values take on meaning in the lives of people and, together, in communities. As such, we recognize that access to justice is a core aspect of a free and democratic society. It is the mechanism through which people experience the rule of law in daily life. Basic human needs – food, water, housing, safety, education, health, etc. – should be provided justly and through laws and rules that reflect our shared values. As such, justice should be understood as a basic human need.[28]

The purpose of this renewed vision for access to justice is not to replace the people-centred justice paradigm; rather, we suggest understanding, situating, and mobilizing that paradigm in terms of justice as a common good.[29]

This approach recognizes that everyone wants, and everyone deserves justice to promote well-being in their daily lives. It is also a way of collectively understanding justice as essential public infrastructure: the basic social tools and structures that make living together in society possible and meaningful. This public infrastructure should be accessible, prevention-oriented, outcome-focused, and sustained through collective responsibility, which enables all of us to experience justice in our daily lives.[30]

Seeing access to justice as both an individual and as a collective need, responsibility, and opportunity, we briefly draw potential parallels to Canada’s experience in its approach to health care. As we think about how to better serve the legal needs and collective justice well-being of Canadians, we might benefit from looking at the lessons learned in how we generally understand health and well-being as a common good. The point is not to call for one specific model or economic allocation; rather, we are inviting readers to think creatively about the potential of providing meaningful access to justice, not only in terms of individual rights and needs, but also in terms of community well-being derived through social and economic benefits and efficiencies.[31]

Overall, by focusing on a vision of justice as a common good, we see justice not only as a tool to provide help for individuals in crisis, but also as a shared system that helps build a fair, just, and truly equal society for all. This vision is designed to speak to all stakeholders: governments, courts and tribunals, the legal profession, community organizations, educators and researchers, funders, professionals across sectors, and perhaps most important, the public. In so doing, we ask everyone to think deliberatively, collaboratively, and creatively about how we design and deliver justice information, education, pathways, and services to best serve the public.[32]

Action

The purpose of this second part of our paper is to help accelerate a paradigm shift towards justice as a common good. Specifically, we seek to connect vision and action by suggesting how the values associated with justice as a common good – dignity, true equality, and fairness, together with collective responsibility – have been and can be put into practice. Learning from national and international research, practice, expertise, and experience, we identify principles and practices for action, which are deliberatively grounded in the expertise and experiences of both justice system users, and legal system experts and providers.[33]

To connect vision to action, part two of the paper is framed around five primary principles, together with further points of consideration and reflection. Each of the five sections also includes some examples of ideas and initiatives that we have heard about and seen from across Canada and around the world, together with some further questions for consideration when looking to move these principles further forward.

Without fully developing all aspects of part two of our paper here, set out below are the five main principles and primary points of consideration for justice system design and reform, which our paper suggests may be helpful for better advancing justice as a common good.

• Legal empowerment and prevention, including:
  • legal consciousness;
  • legal literacy; and
  • legal capability.

• Networks of pathways to legal help and resolution, with attention to:
  • the value of early and integrated pathways;
  • understanding the diversity of users, communities, regions and circumstances;
  • involvement of a wide range of traditional and non-traditional actors;
  • the continuing and evolving role of courts and tribunals, recognizing the ongoing value of public justice; and
  • continuity and alignment of pathways.

• Designing services around people’s needs and lived experiences, with attention to:
  • participatory engagement and cultural responsiveness;
  • accessibility;
  • timely, fair, proportionate, and affordable justice; and
  • continuous learning and improvement (including with the benefit of subject-matter expertise).

• Evidence-based culture, with attention to:
  • evolving measurement and evaluation methods;
  • advancing capacity and coordination;
  • actively using data to inform decisions and policies; and
  • developing local and national infrastructure strategies.

• Sustainable resourcing.[34]

It is important to acknowledge that part two of our paper is not a set of instructions or a blueprint. It does not purport to provide a comprehensive list or set of “best practices”. It builds on various examples and experiences, some of which are already in place; and further, it includes points of reflection, some of which are already being considered. However, overall, this part of our paper seeks to encourage readers to consider how these principles and considerations relate to their own roles, contexts, and day–to–day work, and how we might – together – make meaningful strides to address the remaining access to justice challenges in this country and move justice forward as a common good.[35]

Conclusion

So why should we care about access to justice? Simply put: a lack of meaningful access to justice remains one of the greatest challenges for the rule of law. Given today’s local and global social, political, and economic challenges, the ability for people to meet their basic needs, exercise their rights, and participate fully in their communities has never been more important.[36]

Meaningful access to justice is necessary, not only for the proper functioning of basic institutions of society (governments, democracies, public regulators, business relations, the reliable exchange of goods and services, the peaceful transfer of power, etc.); not only because better access to justice creates positive social returns on public investments (savings in health care, social services, etc.);[37] but because meaningful access to justice leads to better lives for individuals and communities. Put simply, meaningful access to justice should matter for everyone.

We understand that leadership, courage, innovation, collaboration, and imagination will be required.[38]

Overall, our goal in this Towards Justice as a Common Good paper is to describe a justice system that supports people across their full life journey – from preventing legal problems to resolving them fairly and efficiently. It pushes the justice system to continually improve systems based on what people need and experience. It outlines the features of legal and related services grounded in a vision of justice as a common good. It focusses on both process and outcomes. It recognizes the importance of both traditional and non-traditional actors and stakeholders. And it treats access to justice as a shared public infrastructure, designed to advance well-being and avoid and resolve legal disputes with dignity, true equality, and fairness.[39]

—

Trevor CW Farrow
Dean & Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School
Chair, Canadian Forum on Civil Justice

_________________

[1] Hon Andromache Karakatsanis, Trevor CW Farrow, Véronique Morissette & Brea Lowenberger, A Vision for Access to Justice: Towards Justice as a Common Good, a paper prepared for the Action Committee on Access to Justice (Ottawa: Action Committee on Access to Justice, 13 October 2026) (“Towards Justice as a Common Good”).

[2] Parts of this introductory piece reproduce – directly or indirectly – parts of our Towards Justice as a Common Good paper.

[3] Roderick A Macdonald, “Access to Justice in Canada Today: Scope, Scale and Ambitions” in Julia Bass, WA Bogart & Frederick H Zemans, eds, Access to Justice for a New Century – The Way Forward (Toronto: LSUC, 2005) at 19.

[4] For pioneering work, see e.g. Hazel Genn et al, Paths to Justice: What People do and Think About Going to Law (Oxford, UK: Hart, 1999); Pascoe Pleasence et al, Causes of Action: Civil Law and Social Justice (Norwich, UK: Legal Services Commission, 2004); Ab Currie, “A National Survey of the Civil Justice Problems of Low- and Moderate Income Canadians: Incidence and Patterns” (2006) 13:3 Int’l J Legal Prof 217.

[5] Trevor CW Farrow et al, Everyday Legal Problems and the Costs of Justice in Canada: Overview Report (Toronto: Canadian Forum on Civil Justice, 2016) at 2 (“Everyday Legal Problems”). See also the Government of Canada, “The Canadian Legal Problems Survey” (Ottawa: Government of Canada, 2021).

[6] See e.g. generally Everyday Legal Problems, ibid.

[7] Everyday Legal Problems, ibid at 9.

[8] Everyday Legal Problems, ibid at 12-19.

[9] See e.g. Lisa Moore & Trevor CW Farrow, Investing in Justice: Literature Review in Support of the Case for Improved Access (Toronto: Canadian Forum on Civil Justice, August 2019) (“Investing in Justice”).

[10] Trevor CW Farrow, Lisa Moore & Ab Currie, “Measuring the Impacts of Legal Services: Bibliography, Network and Methodology” (Toronto: Canadian Forum on Civil Justice, June 2020); Lisa Moore, “Measuring Impacts of Legal Services: A Literature Review on Research Design and Methodology” (Toronto: Canadian Forum on Civil Justice, June 2020); Lisa Moore, “Understanding the Impacts of Access to Legal Help” Slaw (26 November 2020). This “Measuring the Impact of Legal Service Interventions” research, through the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice, is ongoing.

[11] Towards Justice as a Common Good, supra note 1 at 15.

[12] Action Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family Matters, Access to Civil & Family Justice: A Roadmap for Change (Ottawa: Action Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family Matters, 2013) (“Roadmap for Change”) at pt 2.

[13] Hryniak v Mauldin, 2014 SCC 7, para 2.

[14] See e.g. World Justice Project; OECD, “Access to Justice”.

[15] See generally, Trevor CW Farrow & Lesley A Jacobs, eds, The Justice Crisis: The Cost and Value of Accessing Law (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2020) (“Justice Crisis”) at 4-5.

[16] Rt Hon Beverley McLachlin, PC, “Foreword” in Michael Trebilcock, Anthony Duggan & Lorne Sossin, eds, Middle Income Access to Justice (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012) at ix.

[17] Roadmap for Change, supra note 12 at iii.

[18] Rt Hon Richard Wagner, PC, in Towards Justice as a Common Good, supra note 1 at 5.

[19] Task Force on Justice, Justice for All – Final Report (New York: Center on International Cooperation, 2019) at 18. See further World Justice Project, “Measuring the Justice Gap: A People-Centered Assessment of Unmet Justice Needs Around the World” (6 February 2019) at 5. See recently World Justice Project, WJP Rule of Law Index (2026).

[20] For a recent global comparison, see e.g. World Justice Project, WJP Rule of Law Index (2026).

[21] The Advocates’ Society, Delay No Longer. The Time to Act is Now. A Call for Action on Delay in the Civil Justice System (Toronto: Advocates’ Society, 2023) at 3.

[22] Canadian Bar Association, Reaching Equal Justice: An Invitation to Envision and Act (Ottawa: Canadian Bar Association, August 2013) at 1. See also Roadmap for Change, supra note 12.

[23] See e.g. Action Committee on Access to Justice.

[24] Towards Justice as a Common Good, supra note 1 at pts 1, 2.

[25] Towards Justice as a Common Good, supra note 1 at 8-10, 11-13, 16-18.

[26] See earlier Trevor CW Farrow, “What is Access to Justice?” (2014) 51 Osgoode Hall LJ 957 at 982-984.

[27] Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, pt 1 of the Constitution Act, 1982, being sched B to the Canada Act 1982 (UK), 1982, c 11.

[28] Towards Justice as a Common Good, supra note 1 at 8-9, 13-15, 17-18.

[29] Ibid at 8, 15-17.

[30] Ibid. at 8-9, 18.

[31] Ibid at 16-17. For related discussions, see e.g. Trevor CW Farrow, “Access to justice and the legal profession: Three questions” (Spring 2024) Advocates’ J 6 at 9; Trevor CW Farrow & Lesley A Jacobs, “Taking Meaningful Access to Justice in Canada Seriously” in Justice Crisis, supra note 15 at 3.

[32] Towards Justice as a Common Good, ibid at 8-9, 16-18.

[33] Ibid at 9, 19-21.

[34] Ibid at 20-36.

[35] Ibid at 21.

[36] Ibid at 36.

[37] See generally Investing in Justice, supra note 9.

[38] Towards Justice as a Common Good, supra note 1 at 36-37.

[39] Ibid at 9, 36-37.

The post A New Vision for Access to Justice appeared first on Slaw.

Every week we present the summary of a decision handed down by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and considered to be of interest to our readers throughout Canada. SOQUIJ is attached to the Québec Department of Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : Lorsqu’on applique en l’espèce la définition usuelle du mot «importer» et que l’on retient que la cocaïne a été importée au Canada au moment où elle a franchi la frontière, la déclaration de culpabilité de l’appelant doit être confirmée.

Intitulé : Donciu c. R., 2026 QCCA 1289
Juridiction : Cour d’appel (C.A.), Montréal
Décision de : Juges Michel Beaupré, Benoît Moore, Guy Cournoyer, Lori Renée Weitzman et Myriam Lachance
Date : 30 septembre 2026

Résumé

PÉNAL (DROIT) — infraction — infractions en matière de drogues et autres substances — substances — importation et exportation — importation — cocaïne (64 kg) — interprétation de «importer» — application de Bell c. R. (C.S. Can., 1983-11-24), SOQUIJ AZ-83111080, J.E. 83-1164, [1983] 2 R.C.S. 471 — moment où l’importation de drogues se termine — franchissement de la frontière — appréciation de la preuve — preuve circonstancielle — comportement postérieur à l’infraction — connaissance de la nature de la substance — intention — exclusion de la preuve — droit à la protection contre la détention ou l’emprisonnement arbitraires — protection contre les fouilles, les perquisitions ou les saisies abusives — arrestation — légalité — absence d’autorisation judiciaire abusive — motifs raisonnables — droit à l’assistance d’un avocat — délai raisonnable — violation des droits constitutionnels — absence de lien causal — appel — absence d’erreur.

PÉNAL (DROIT) — preuve pénale — exclusion de la preuve — droit à la protection contre la détention ou l’emprisonnement arbitraires — protection contre les fouilles, les perquisitions ou les saisies abusives — arrestation — légalité — absence d’autorisation judiciaire abusive — motifs raisonnables — droit à l’assistance d’un avocat — délai raisonnable — droit d’être informé des motifs de sa détention — violation des droits constitutionnels — critères établis dans R. c. Grant (C.S. Can., 2009-07-17), 2009 CSC 32, SOQUIJ AZ-50566222, J.E. 2009-1379, [2009] 2 R.C.S. 353 — incidence de la violation sur les droits de l’accusé — absence de lien causal — mise en balance des facteurs — appréciation de la preuve — preuve circonstancielle — comportement postérieur à l’infraction — importation de cocaïne — possession à des fins de trafic — appel — absence d’erreur.

PÉNAL (DROIT) — garanties fondamentales du processus pénal — droit à la protection contre la détention ou l’emprisonnement arbitraires — protection contre les fouilles, les perquisitions ou les saisies abusives — exclusion de la preuve — arrestation — légalité — absence d’autorisation judiciaire abusive — motifs raisonnables — droit à l’assistance d’un avocat — délai raisonnable — droit d’être informé des motifs de sa détention — violation des droits constitutionnels — critères établis dans R. c. Grant (C.S. Can., 2009-07-17), 2009 CSC 32, SOQUIJ AZ-50566222, J.E. 2009-1379, [2009] 2 R.C.S. 353 — incidence de la violation sur les droits de l’accusé — absence de lien causal — mise en balance des facteurs — importation de cocaïne — possession à des fins de trafic — appel — absence d’erreur.

DROITS ET LIBERTÉS — droits judiciaires — personne arrêtée ou détenue — droit à la protection contre la détention ou l’emprisonnement arbitraires — exclusion de la preuve — arrestation — légalité — absence d’autorisation judiciaire abusive — motifs raisonnables — droit à l’assistance d’un avocat — délai raisonnable — droit d’être informé des motifs de sa détention — violation des droits constitutionnels — critères établis dans R. c. Grant (C.S. Can., 2009-07-17), 2009 CSC 32, SOQUIJ AZ-50566222, J.E. 2009-1379, [2009] 2 R.C.S. 353 — incidence de la violation sur les droits de l’accusé — absence de lien causal — mise en balance des facteurs — importation de cocaïne — possession à des fins de trafic — appel — absence d’erreur.

DROITS ET LIBERTÉS — réparation du préjudice — droit à l’assistance d’un avocat — délai raisonnable — droit d’être informé des motifs de sa détention — violation des droits constitutionnels — critères établis dans R. c. Grant (C.S. Can., 2009-07-17), 2009 CSC 32, SOQUIJ AZ-50566222, J.E. 2009-1379, [2009] 2 R.C.S. 353 — incidence de la violation sur les droits de l’accusé — absence de lien causal — mise en balance des facteurs — importation de cocaïne — possession à des fins de trafic — appel — absence d’erreur.

DROITS ET LIBERTÉS — droits judiciaires — protection contre les fouilles, les perquisitions ou les saisies abusives — absence d’autorisation judiciaire abusive — perquisition — véhicule — extraction de données — téléphone portable — importation de cocaïne — possession à des fins de trafic — appel — absence d’erreur.

INTERPRÉTATION DES LOIS — méthode d’interprétation moderne — sens ordinaire des mots — interprétation de «importer».

Appel d’une déclaration de culpabilité. Rejeté.

Soixante-quatre kilogrammes de cocaïne cachés dans des étagères à tiroirs ont franchi la frontière canadienne dans un conteneur transporté sur un navire parti du port de Veracruz, au Mexique, à destination du port de Montréal. Informée de la découverte de cette drogue par les autorités douanières, la Gendarmerie royale du Canada a organisé la livraison sous surveillance d’une partie de celle-ci. À cette fin, et avec les autorisations judiciaires requises, elle a installé dans le conteneur des dispositifs de localisation, d’interception des communications privées et d’alarme permettant aux policiers d’être avisés du moment de l’ouverture des portes du conteneur. L’appelant a été arrêté en compagnie d’un complice peu de temps après le départ du camion qui venait de déposer le conteneur dans un entrepôt sous surveillance policière. Il a été déclaré coupable, notamment, d’importation de cocaïne.

Décision

Les policiers avaient des motifs raisonnables justifiant l’arrestation de l’appelant. Celle-ci n’était pas arbitraire au sens de l’article 9 de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés et les autorisations judiciaires délivrées en vue de recueillir la preuve n’étaient pas abusives au sens de l’article 8 de la charte. Finalement, le juge de première instance pouvait conclure que les violations des articles 10 a) et b) de la charte ne justifiaient pas l’exclusion de l’ensemble de la preuve, y compris la drogue.

Quant à la déclaration de culpabilité pour l’infraction d’importation, les parties proposent des approches opposées. Selon l’appelant, il ne pouvait être déclaré coupable de l’importation de la drogue dans la mesure où celle-ci s’était terminée au moment où la drogue avait franchi la frontière canadienne. Pour sa part, la poursuite estime que l’importation s’est terminée au moment de la livraison. Or, la Cour ne partage aucune de ces approches.

Dans Bell c. R. (C.S. Can., 1983-11-24), SOQUIJ AZ-83111080, J.E. 83-1164, [1983] 2 R.C.S. 471, la Cour suprême du Canada a retenu le sens ordinaire du mot «importer», c’est-à-dire introduire ou faire introduire au pays une substance désignée. Elle a aussi tenu compte de l’objectif poursuivi par la Loi sur les stupéfiants alors en vigueur, qui consistait à «enrayer et […] faire disparaître les maux sociaux résultant de l’importation de stupéfiants au pays». Toutefois, elle a précisé qu’il ne fallait pas adopter une définition de l’infraction qui aurait pour effet d’étendre la portée de celle-ci «de manière à comprendre une conduite qu’on ne saurait en réalité qualifier d’importation». Bien que cette analyse précède l’adoption officielle par la Cour suprême de la méthode moderne d’interprétation législative, elle est conforme aux éléments clés de celle-ci en ce qu’elle ne se limite pas au libellé de la disposition qui doit être interprétée et qu’elle tient compte de l’objectif poursuivi par la législation en matière de contrôle de l’importation de drogues.

De plus, à l’instar de l’arrêt R. v. Okojie (C.A. (Ont.), 2021-11-02), 2021 ONCA 773, SOQUIJ AZ-51805672, il convient de rejeter la distinction entre l’importation complète en droit et l’importation complète en fait. Cependant, il ne convient pas d’adopter une interprétation expansive de la notion d’«importation», contrairement à ce que suggère cet arrêt. En effet, tel qu’il est mentionné dans l’arrêt Bell, l’importation se termine lorsque la drogue franchit la frontière canadienne. Elle ne se continue pas au-delà de ce point jusqu’à sa destination. Que la drogue soit sous le contrôle des autorités ne change rien au fait qu’une importation de drogues est complète dès lors que les drogues ont traversé la frontière.

Cela dit, lorsqu’on applique en l’espèce la définition usuelle et que l’on retient que la cocaïne a été importée au Canada au moment où elle a franchi la frontière, la déclaration de culpabilité de l’appelant doit être confirmée. En effet, l’ensemble de la preuve, y compris la preuve circonstancielle (et notamment sa conduite postérieure à l’importation de la cocaïne), étaie amplement la conclusion que l’appelant savait qu’il importait de la cocaïne, et non du tabac comme il le prétendait.

Le texte intégral de la décision est disponible ici

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As a supplement to our Sunday Summary each month, Supreme Advocacy LLP in Ottawa presents Supreme One-Liners, a super-short descriptive guide to the most recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers its more comprehensive weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, summarizing all Appeals, Oral Judgments and Leaves to Appeal granted.

Appeals

Criminal Law: MV Offences

R. v. Moshfeghi Zadeh, 2026 SCC 35 (41996)
Clarifications re serious driving offences.

The post Summaries Sunday: Supreme One-Liners appeared first on Slaw.

The globe-trotting Law via the Internet Conference returned to Canada on October 13 and 14 in Montreal. It was just in time for CanLII’s 25^th anniversary, convened under the theme of Trusted Past, Open Future to share developments and trends in the delivery of legal information across the world.

On day one, University of Ottawa law professor Amy Salyzyn updated us on her research inventorying direct-to-public digital legal tools in Canada.

The inventory is not new (it started in 2016, with updates in 2019, 2021, and 2023)—but it has certainly grown. In 2023, 118 tools were cataloged (you can see the old list here), and in 2026 it’s grown to around 180. These tools are not entirely AI-driven, and the criteria for including one is that they are digital tools for public use, meaning they are interactive rather than simply static sources of legal information (search functions and hyperlinks don’t count as interactive). The inventory also excludes tools built by ministries, courts, and administrative entities (e.g. court form completion apps from government, online tribunals), that are embedded within the justice system itself.

Prof Salyzyn’s comments toward the end of her presentation caught my attention—referencing regulatory legal innovation sandboxes and other UPL (unlicensed practice of law) policy mechanisms.

Her scholarship has studied the connection between legal regulation and AI technology, even before any significant amount of legal AI was being used by lawyers or the public. But early on she encouraged us to think of how legal regulators influence the development of the legal AI, asking how law societies can mitigate risks relating to the quality, privacy and security, and access of these tools, and to what extent it’s within their scope of authority and mandate to even do so—since protecting the lawyers’ monopoly and fostering A2J innovation are competing goals.

I captured a simple question in my notes from Prof Salyzyn’s session: “What is the future of unauthorized practice of law regulation?”

She mentioned briefly the OpenAI UPL litigation from earlier this year, which I think means the Nippon Life Insurance Company of America v. OpenAI Foundation lawsuit. I have some tie-in observations about that case and its UPL claims, but I’ll get to that shortly.

When I got home, I considered this question and concluded this was not the first time I pondered it. I thought it was worth revisiting here.

Who—or what—is practicing law?

Back in November 2017 I posted “Who Dunnit? Artificial Intelligence and Unauthorized Practice.” I led with the story of DoNotPay’s precocious founder, Joshua Browder (AKA the “Spartacus of Camden Council’s by-law enforcement division”). His ticket fighting “robot lawyer” was debuting in North America, generating forms and letters for ordinary people contesting small fines—stuff a lawyer would rarely be engaged to resolve.

I used the DoNotPay story to elaborate on my earlier Slaw post “Of Cybernetic Shysters, Artificial Intelligence and Guardians of the Rule of Law.” The thesis of that even older post (from June 2016) was that the law and policy shaping AI’s development were too important to be left to engineers and entrepreneurs alone. I raised one of the obvious gaps, looking at UPL legislation’s focus on UPL with respect to “persons”.

BC’s Legal Profession Act still states that “No person, other than a practising lawyer, is permitted to engage in the practice of law.” Carve-outs exist for self-represented, articling students, out-of-province lawyers, etc., and “practice of law” is defined to include expected activities (if offered or sold for a fee):

• Appearing as counsel
• Drafting legal documents
• Negotiating and settling claims
• Brokering another lawyer’s services
• Giving legal advice
• Representing yourself as qualified to do these things

In 2017 I asked how could an enforcement mechanism that requires “persons” to be engaged in the unauthorized practice of law snap into action when a “robot lawyer” finally did start calling the shots.

I proposed we would have a real “who dunnit” mystery when “cybernetic shysters” (non-persons, i.e. AI) began calling more shots than a mere tool does. To keep a “person” accountable for what machines end up doing, regulation should be tweaked to cover the deeds that this person actually is doing. Include persons who own/deploy/configure the code, since the doer will at some point be the code itself exercising its own algorithmic form of legal judgment. Fail to do this, and you will eventually have a remoteness problem.

Agentic AI models were not yet running amok in 2017, but the Browder story teased this possibility.

I proposed—somewhat off the cuff—an additional line could be added in the statutory definition of practice of law, after (a)-(g) in the BC legislation. Something like: “h) installing or causing to be installed a computer program that is capable of doing anything referred to in paragraphs (a) to (g), unless [carefully worded exceptions]”?

A small debate ensued in the comments. Someone pointed out my argument was flawed. People build tools, and people apply tools in work. A regulator would have little reluctance in assigning the owner accountability for an AI tool that started spewing legal advice.

I replied, “How remote are we prepared to get?”. I asked, “And in AI, who is driving the intelligence? […] at some point the concept of a ‘person’ being ‘engaged’ just like any tool-user simply won’t apply to the applications of AI.”

Wouldn’t the wording of UPL laws need some retooling to bridge this remoteness problem?

The company behind the robot lawyer

The other commenter had a fair point, at least for DoNotPay. The company was making bold representations and developing something that almost begged for the regulator’s attention. The chatbot was billed as a “lawyer”, and the company was certainly charging a fee.

Ultimately, the State Bar of California did investigate DoNotPay in November 2021, and by June 2023 it issued a cease-and-desist notice alleging UPL. The regulator demanded the company stop selling itself as the “World’s First Robot Lawyer.”

DoNotPay faced other lawsuits, plus an action from the US Federal Trade Commission which resulted in DoNotPay paying $193,000 and agreeing to stop making deceptive claims. That was consumer protection enforcement, not a UPL ruling, but if you look at the filed FTC complaint it’s pretty clear from the allegations how far DoNotPay pushed its luck.

DoNotPay was allegedly promoting concrete legal uses and benefits, and the directness was difficult to argue.

The “persons” problem returns in Nippon v. OpenAI

In 2026, we see a different challenge for UPL legislation, and a set of facts that feature the more advanced GenAI capabilities we’re now familiar with.

The Nippon Life Insurance Company of America v. OpenAI case—which Prof Salyzyn mentioned—is fascinating, and if you are not familiar with it, you can see for yourself.

The Illinois lawsuit alleges, among other torts, that ChatGPT engaged in the practice of law when it coached a woman into a questionable litigation strategy to overturn her with-settlement agreement over disability benefits.

It is a grimly enthralling case. At least two real lawyers’ lives and reputations were allegedly affected by the AI model’s ambitious (and unhinged) litigation strategy. The case is rife with alleged facts about what ChatGPT did, and if you look at the claim’s language, the pleadings strive to attribute the AI model’s actions and outputs as the “collective conduct” or “wrongful conduct” of OpenAI (the company itself).

Illinois’ UPL legislation (705 ILCS 205/1), like most, looks for the person who is “practicing, charging or receiving fees for legal services.” The plaintiff’s attorneys pleaded ChatGPT itself engaged in UPL, but as a product of OpenAI, claiming:

“As a product of OPENAI, ChatGPT engages in the practice of law by providing users with legal analysis, legal advice, legal research, and produces drafted legal documents.”

OpenAI’s lawyers fired back with a motion to dismiss, plainly pointing out that ChatGPT is not a person. Their motion’s filing says:

“B. Nippon fails to plausibly allege that ChatGPT practices law.

The Illinois Attorney Act prohibits an unlicensed “person” from “practicing, charging or receiving fees for legal services.” 705 ILCS 205/1. Again, ChatGPT and its underlying LLMs are tools, not persons.

[…]

[ChatGPT] is incapable of practicing law within the meaning of the statute.”

Displeased with that, the plaintiff reframed their position in a filed response:

“ChatGPT’s activity unquestionably constitutes the practice of law as defined by Illinois’ Attorney Act. And, as the creator, owner, administrator, and operator of ChatGPT, OPENAI is responsible and directly liable for ChatGPT’s illegal activity.”

OpenAI’s reply to that:

“Nippon argues that even though ChatGPT is not a person, OpenAI is, and it can be held liable for ChatGPT’s alleged unauthorized practice of law. But that is nothing more than circular hand-waving. Because ChatGPT is incapable of practicing law, OpenAI cannot be responsible for its alleged unauthorized practice of law.”

We shall see what happens, I guess, but my original suggestion from 2017 stands out to me. Regulators need to retool the language in UPL legislation if indeed the “creator, owner, administrator, and operator” is to be more plainly captured. If the lawsuit had been based in Colorado, I’m not sure the motion to dismiss would have been considered.

Colorado names the owner and controller

Colorado changed its UPL rules in December 2022 when it adjusted the scope of prohibited activities to include “owning or controlling a website, application, software, bot, or other technology that interactively offers or provides services involving the exercise of legal judgment.”

I won’t claim to have inspired anyone in Denver, but it appears to address the same problem I was musing over, and with largely the same solution. Their wording is reasonably close to my own suggestion for what a possible paragraph “(h)” might contain in BC’s legislation.

Colorado’s rules sanction “nonlawyers”, which are defined as persons including individuals and legal entities unlicensed to offer legal services. By expanding prohibited activities to include ownership/control of AI tools that exercise legal judgment, the new rules recognize a new reality where “persons” are not just assigning discrete tasks to an AI, but offloading the cognitive decision-making work and legal judgment to the tool.

In a time when AI models can give advice, solve problems and (if agentic) carry out multistep tasks autonomously, UPL legislation can still sanction real humans or companies who are selling unauthorized legal services, while also acknowledging that autonomous AI may be the thing performing these services, such that liability must move upstream to those who own or control the technology.

It’s worth noting that Colorado’s Access to Justice Commission expressed concern that expanding the UPL rules to cover owners and controllers could have a chilling effect on innovative legal technology development.

A couple of Colorado judges also wrote a joint article reporting concerns that the new rules could block or impede new technologies that could benefit access to justice.

The Colorado Supreme Court established an AI subcommittee to consider how UPL rules might be adjusted, or how AI-related advances might be fostered responsibly rather than impeded due to developers fears that a technological tool will cross the line into the unauthorized practice of law.

Sticks and carrots

In September 2025, Colorado balanced the risks and benefits of regulating AI in public-facing legal services. It didn’t amend the rules again, but the Colorado’s Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel adopted a novel, lightweight strategy—a three year pilot non-prosecution policy.

The history and context of this work-around by Colorado—where the regulator enters the field by asserting authority to prosecute AI tool owners and controllers (the “stick”), but adopts an official non-prosecution policy for developers who observe clear boundaries (the “carrot”)—is well explained in the IAALS and Duke report on “Prosecutorial Guidance and Non-Prosecution Policies: A Pragmatic Path Forward for AI in Legal Service.”

The policy is that the regulator will not prosecute nonlawyers for technology-enabled legal services so long as specified consumer safeguards are built in. The nonlawyer must:

• avoid specified high-risk matters,
• work under lawyer supervision or a lawyer compliance officer with quality controls,
• clearly discloses its nonlawyer status and privacy practices,
• obtain the user’s acknowledgment, and
• have none of the policy’s listed misconduct or consumer-harm red flags.

The question for British Columbia

The Colorado solution is quite different from the LSBC’s innovation sandbox initiative. BC offers a conditional, proposal-specific arrangement for innovators who apply and are approved, Colorado’s non-prosecution policy is available to anyone who meets its criteria. It needs no pre-approval.

The Law Society of BC has approved some well-vetted legal service concepts to enter the sandbox. But will BC revise its UPL legislation language to acknowledge it’s not always a “person” doing the “practice of law”?

Colorado offers a partial answer to my old “who dunnit?” question: make ownership or control of interactive legal technology explicit, but limit when the regulator will prosecute via easy to change policy. I think the harder question for BC and similar jurisdictions is: when does a tool help someone understand and exercise their own rights, and when is its provider supplying a legal service?

UPL can retain its integrity function without insulating the profession or intimidating innovators. The challenge (that I’m hardly the first to point out) is drawing that line clearly.

What do you think? Should we expand the scope of Canadian UPL to cover the tech owners and controllers?

The post “Who Dunnit?” Part 2: Persons & Machines Under UPL Laws appeared first on Slaw.

I recently read about an interesting concept about reframing one’s point of view.

It stated that if you wake up with the sun, you are still asleep. However if you awaken the sun, then you are truly awake.

I had to read it a few times to actually understand its meaning. Finally, I realized that what this means, is that the way our day develops is completely up to us.

For example, if we set an intention for the day to unfold in a calm and peaceful manner, knowing that we are fully capable of dealing with whatever challenges may arise, then we are setting ourselves up for success no matter what the day brings our way. Thus we awaken the sun and the positivity of the day. We are no longer dependant on whether the sun is actually shining or whether the day is unfolding in our favor. We are the masters of our day and we are the ones awakening the sun to shine in every aspect of our daily lives.

Experts call this cognitive reframing.

Cognitive Reframing

It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss in detail how cognitive reframing works. However I want to provide some insight into this technique as well as some resources for you to read if the idea resonates with you.

According to experts, cognitive reframing involves:

a) learning to recognize the thoughts that are causing a negative outlook
b) finding evidence to discredit the thought
c) and then replacing the negative thought with a more realistic one

For example, if a person is asked to see their boss, the person may think: “Oh I am getting fired.” As soon as the negative thought enters the person’s mind, they may feel the physical sensations of fear, dread, sadness and the rest of the day becomes a downward spiral into the depths of despair.

The negative thought usually comes so quickly that it’s impossible to detect when it actually arrives. By the time we recognize that the negative thought is here, the body is already reacting with physical sensation.

In reality, a meeting with the boss may end up being a simple discussion about a file or a client, but the uninvited negative thought, results in catastrophic scenarios where the person imagines ending up homeless on the street.

We are innately wired to remember negative things and to think negative thoughts as a protective mechanism. If you touch a hot stovetop you will remember the feeling and will unlikely do this again.

So we need to retrain our brains to stop the negative thoughts from spiraling into fearful scenarios. That is why cognitive reframing may be very helpful in these situations.

More information about cognitive reframing may be found here.

Starting Your Day With Positive Intentions

In addition to cognitive reframing, here are a few simple techniques you can use to start your day in a more positive way.

1. As soon as you open your eyes, say a few words of gratitude for a warm bed that allowed you to sleep in comfort all night.
2. Before getting out of bed, set an intention that everything you do will work out in ease.
3. When you get out of bed, put on music that you love that will put you into a positive mood as you prepare to take on your day.
4. If any negative thoughts start creeping into your mind, creating doubt with “what if” scenarios, just reframe and say to yourself, “so what, I know that I can handle anything that comes my way.” (cognitive reframing in its simplest form).
5. As you pass by a mirror, look at your reflection and say: “ I love and accept myself exactly as I am. I am going to have a wonderful day.

You may find it hard to do the above at the beginning. There is a reason why this is called a practice.

Research shows that it takes 21 days to create a habit. So I invite you to set a goal for the next 21 days to do the above steps on a daily basis and see if it resonates with you.

You may also find it harder to do number 5 as most people do not feel comfortable saying nice things to themselves. However, self acceptance is the first step in loving ourselves and working on stopping the negative critic in our minds.

When we accept ourselves unconditionally, we stop judging everything we do negatively. We learn to be kind and compassionate towards ourselves, which leads to being compassionate and kind to others.

I am always happy to help create individualized plans for wellness and stress management.

Wishing you peace and calm in all your endeavors.

____________________

DISCLAIMER

The information in this article is not therapy, counseling, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, mental health care/treatment, substance abuse care/ treatment, nor is it medical, psychological, mental health advice or treatment, or any other professional advice.

The information in this article is for information purposes only, and is not to be used as a substitute for therapy, counseling, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, mental health care, medical care, or any other professional advice by legal, medical or other qualified professionals.

The information in this article shall not be recorded, copied or distributed.

If you feel that you may need medical or other professional help, please contact your doctor or call 911 if it is an emergency.

The post The Wellness Lawyer: “Awakening the Sun” appeared first on Slaw.

My own style has been to keep expectations low…. very low. I conduct on average 40 to 60 consultations per month. I presented at the CBA National Immigration Conference on doing consultations. I love meeting new people and listening to their stories. These connections are often the highlight of my day. I am acutely aware, however, that these consultations set the tone of the solicitor-client relationship. If a prospective client even hints that we can achieve a particular goal, I interrupt them. I don’t let that slide. Setting the right tone helps ensure future interactions go well.

Keeping expectations low has saved me on so many occasions. Keeping copious detailed notes as reference has also saved me. I encourage prospective clients to record our consultations to make sure they have an accurate record of my guidance. That has also come in handy. I have not (yet) moved to using an AI notetaker although I am aware of various services on that front. Question for you: do you use an AI notetaker? If so, which one and would you recommend it?

I am also aware that my style does not jive with every potential client. I met with a woman yesterday who came back for a 2nd consultation. During her 1st consultation back in 2025, she wanted guarantees. She wanted me to tell her that we could fix her problems and everything would be okay. Not my style. Yesterday, she let me know she opted for another lawyer in 2025 who gave her those guarantees. And he failed. Of course. She is now very upset. His guarantees turned out to be empty promises. She wants to file a complaint to the law society. She wants to sue.

The chances that her complaint to the law society has merit is fairly low. I have no experience with civil litigation (which is why we make referrals to lawyers who have expertise) so I cannot comment on whether she would have any merit to a civil action. Either way, I can say she will be telling all her contacts to avoid that lawyer. We gain many of our clients through word of mouth so, for me, that type of interaction is extremely important. Even if a prospective client decides not to retain our firm, it is crucial for me that they come away from our consultation with a positive experience.

In immigration, this topic is timely. Lawyers across Canada are trying to help the many Ukrainians who came on CUAET Work Permits. For anyone who is not aware of the background, the procedures to issue the CUAET work permit are quite different from most applications. Super fast processing times. Super easy. Basically no background check. Almost no one was refused. Many applicants misrepresented on their applications, got the work permit, and now find themselves in hot water. The reason I bring it up is that managing expectations is on both sides. IRCC & the Government of Canada created a situation where many Ukrainians have expectations that are completely divorced from the current system. Many of these clients expect other immigration applications to be easy & fast. This is a good example of how creating unrealistic expectations can lead to disappointment and frustration.

Many international students are caught in a similar situation where their expectations do not meet reality. Agents abroad made grand promises. “Go to Canada to study and you will get PR.” That was the guarantee. Did that promise come from a government representative? No. Should international students have known better to accept a guarantee from an unscrupulous agent? Absolutely. That perspective, however, does not address the problem.

There are days when I wonder if managing expectations may be the task at the top of my list. If I’m thinking about the common tasks I’m doing on a daily basis, doing the law has become one of the easier tasks on my plate. Meeting prospective clients and explaining their options, while managing their expectations, is more of an art than a science. When I meet clients who are not interested in understanding the issues, we don’t accept that work. For clients who just want to pay for the result and they are not interested in learning the procedures or working with us, they can find other counsel. We also need to manage expectations on our side.

The post Managing Client Expectations appeared first on Slaw.

This submission is part of a column swap with the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) bimonthly member magazine, AALL Spectrum. Published six times a year, AALL Spectrum is designed to further professional development and education within the legal information industry. Slaw and the AALL Spectrum board have agreed to hand-select several columns each year as part of this exchange. 

Maria spent three weeks searching Google for divorce forms. She reworked an old petition a relative had filed 15 years ago and later paid for updated forms online that were actually available for free elsewhere. By the time she walked into our law library—after learning from the judge that her forms would not work—she had already spent money, lost valuable time, and felt overwhelmed by the process. She had

never heard of the law library until the bailiff referred her to us. This isn’t unusual, but why does it keep happening?

The Invisible Law Library

When people hear “library outreach,” they may think of pop-up storytimes and bookmobiles operated by public libraries. Because outreach has long been considered a cornerstone of public librarianship, it can sometimes feel as though it

is reserved for traditional public libraries. Public law libraries, in turn, may seem left out of that conversation entirely. Given their specialized nature, many public law libraries may not consider outreach to be part of their mission at all. Yet, thinking about patrons like Maria, I would argue that outreach should not be viewed as an initiative reserved for public libraries. In fact, public law libraries may need these efforts even more. In my experience as a county law librarian, one of the most pressing issues facing public law libraries is a lack of public awareness. There is a general understanding that most communities have public libraries and that most universities have their own libraries, so patrons and students alike naturally know they can turn to them for support. Public law libraries, however, are often viewed as specialized institutions that serve only attorneys, judges, and court personnel. As a result, they are assumed not to be open to the general public—or, more commonly, people simply don’t know they exist at all. I have found that one of the greatest barriers to legal information is not the intimidation and uncertainty surrounding legal processes and the law itself, but rather a lack of awareness that we exist and are open to the public we strive to serve.

A Resource Hidden in Plain Sight At our county law library, we are open to the public

and primarily serve pro se litigants. Here, we are less likely to see judges, paralegals, attorneys, or other legal professionals. Every day, people face divorce, eviction, probate, debt collection, child custody disputes, protective order needs, and much more. Many turn to the internet or generative AI and rely on untrustworthy information that is incorrect, outdated, or irrelevant to their geographic location. If only it were common knowledge that law libraries exist specifically to connect

self-represented litigants with trustworthy legal information, forms, and resources! The problem isn’t a lack of need—it’s a lack of awareness. This disconnect creates what I describe as the Invisible Law Library: an institution whose resources, expertise, and public mission remain largely unknown to the very communities it is designed to serve.

The Barriers to Being Seen

While public awareness is a central challenge, I do want to acknowledge that a law library’s decision to participate in outreach initiatives may be significantly constrained by practical and structural limitations. Staffing shortages often mean that a library must prioritize core services over expansive community programming, while limited funding can restrict everything from marketing efforts to technology and transportation for off-site events. Local politics and county policies may shape what types of outreach initiatives are permitted or supported, and legal boundaries, such as confidentiality rules, can further narrow what librarians are able to offer. Because every law library operates within its own unique mix of administrative structures, budgets, community expectations, and legal requirements, the scope and style of outreach can vary widely from one library to another—or may not exist at all. However, if a library has the means, declining to engage in outreach simply because it is perceived to be outside its scope is a mindset that should be challenged.

Outreach as Access to Justice

Public law libraries should reframe outreach as an essential component of their mission and, therefore, well within their scope. Our mission is to facilitate access to justice. Howard University School of Law defines access to justice as “the human right to understand and utilize the legal system to advocate for oneself and one’s interests,” and I agree wholeheartedly with this definition. The law should not be accessible only to those already equipped to understand it. As citizens operating under the same laws, it’s not only our right but also our responsibility to understand, participate in, and see ourselves reflected in the systems designed to support order and safety. Discussions on access to justice often focus on legal representation, court procedures, financial barriers, and language barriers. While these issues are undeniably important, there is another barrier that perhaps receives less attention: people cannot use services they don’t know exist. Texas already struggles to provide equitable access to its justice system. According to Hankinson and Reasoner, the state ranks “44th in the nation in access to legal aid lawyers, with only 0.6 legal aid lawyers for every 10,000 Texans who qualify.” For law libraries, outreach isn’t about increasing attendance or promoting the institution in a way traditional marketing does. It’s about making legal information visible before a legal crisis arises.

In an ideal scenario, the public would already know the law library is a place to turn for help before they find themselves standing in a courthouse, overwhelmed and unsure where to find reliable legal information. Law libraries should embrace a preventative librarianship service model, one that is only possible through effective outreach efforts that make awareness of public law libraries commonplace. Preventive librarianship can be understood as the practice of equipping communities with trustworthy information before crises, misinformation, or other barriers prevent informed decision-making. Outreach, then, is not simply a marketing strategy but a critical mechanism for expanding access to justice—and for doing so proactively.

This is not to say that our library has tumbleweeds rolling across the carpet. On the contrary, our county law library serves an average of 150 patrons each day, and those numbers continue to grow. In 2022, we served approximately 20,000 patrons. The following year, that number increased to about 26,000 and rose again to approximately 29,000 in 2024. Police departments, county courts, and other government agencies regularly refer individuals to us when they are unable to answer legal questions. Even so, it would be ideal if awareness that legal information is available at the public law library were as automatic as knowing the latest bestselling novel can be found at the local public library.

Meeting Communities Where They Are

Rather than waiting for referrals—which can create unnecessary barriers to information and, by extension, access to justice—public law libraries should strive to become part of the public consciousness. Law library outreach does not need to resemble the events and programming offered by public libraries. Instead, it can focus on legal literacy: workshops held at public libraries explaining the difference between protective orders and restraining orders; presentations at senior centers covering wills, trusts, and the probate process; or community center programs introducing attendees to legal research and reliable legal resources. These programs would not provide legal advice, but they would empower community members to better understand and confidently navigate legal processes. Outreach isn’t about telling people what they should do in a given situation. Rather, it’s about teaching them how to find trustworthy legal information, forms, and resources while remaining within our professional role as librarians—not attorneys. By meeting people where they already are—public libraries, community centers, senior centers, and other familiar spaces—law libraries can introduce not only resources that may later become invaluable, but also themselves as trusted centers of legal information, positioning the library as a natural first stop when people need reliable legal information.

Redefining the Role of the Law Library

At our county law library, we have welcomed collaborations that have allowed us to present “proactive retirement planning” workshops to senior citizens. Aside from being incredibly attentive and engaged, our audience was also surprisingly grateful that we came to teach them about wills, trusts, powers of attorney, how to avoid probate, and more. None of our attendees knew we existed prior to the presentation, but all were eager to obtain our information and resources afterward.

In addition, we are working to establish a partnership with our local city public libraries. People with questions about legal processes often know that libraries are an option for finding information and will typically turn to their city public library first. Public librarians may be able to direct patrons to select databases and free online resources, but they will likely not have the specialized legal collections, expensive legal databases, or familiarity with legal research and forms that law librarians do. We can complement their services by providing workshops and referrals that benefit both institutions: public libraries gain specialized expertise, and law libraries become more visible in their communities. Most importantly, patrons gain confidence in navigating legal situations that might otherwise leave them overwhelmed, frustrated, and stressed.

Law libraries interested in following suit should reach out to community hubs in their area. This can include public libraries, community colleges, community centers, senior centers, civic groups, nonprofit organizations, and pro bono or low-cost legal assistance organizations.

As libraries continue to redefine their place within their communities, law libraries have an opportunity to move beyond the walls of the courthouse and into the broader community, including places where legal questions often first arise. When patrons like Maria walk into our libraries, they shouldn’t be arriving as a last resort, but as a familiar resource they have known all along. By stepping into our communities with purpose and clarity, law libraries can ensure that legal information is not just available but also visible, trusted, and genuinely accessible.

Outreach isn’t just marketing; it is education, collaboration, and another pathway toward access to justice. It represents a proactive service model that reduces informational barriers and increases access to justice long before patrons reach the courthouse. For law libraries, that may make outreach one of the most important services we provide.

__

Amarainie Marquez, Law Librarian
Dell DeHay Law Library, Tarrant County
Fort Worth, Texas

The post The Invisible Law Library: Making Legal Information Visible Through Outreach appeared first on Slaw.

Last week, the Canadian Judicial Council (CJC) released its updated Guidelines for the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Canadian Courts. Credit is due to the CJC for its ongoing thoughtful engagement on this important topic. Similarly, several Quebec courts released their own guidelines on judicial AI use last month. This column looks at one feature that both sets of guidelines have in common: guidance for judges on using AI tools to summarize material filed with the court, including evidence and submissions. This is far from the only aspect of the CJC and Quebec guidelines worthy of discussion, but it is an aspect that risks being overlooked and requires, in my view, careful consideration.

The Quebec guidelines state that judges might reasonably contemplate using generative AI for:

the production of a strictly descriptive summary of a witness statement, a document or a factual sequence, without any assessment, interpretation, normative selection or conclusion.

Similarly, the CJC guidelines describe as an “appropriate” use of AI for judges:

summarizing lengthy affidavits, expert reports, transcripts or written submissions for later verification against the originals.

It is easy to understand why judges may be interested in using generative AI tools to summarize material. Legal proceedings often involve voluminous documents and courts are under tremendous pressure to work faster. A closer look, however, reveals that AI summarization is not the risk-free (or even always low risk) efficiency boon that it is often presented to be.

First, generative AI summaries are not always accurate. This is a basic point but one that is not always fully appreciated. An American lawyer recently discovered the frailties of AI summaries the hard way when “he thought that ChatGPT would provide a ‘bulletproof’ summary when he provided his client’s trial transcripts [to the tool]” and then, relying on ChatGPT’s output, filed an appeal brief with the court that “included references to nonexistent witnesses and fictional testimony from at least one real witness.” While this is an extreme example that could have been avoided with some basic verification (something that the CJC and Quebec guidance expressly advise), accuracy issues in AI-generated summaries are not always straightforward or easy to catch.

AI tools, for example, can generate summaries that include wrong or misleading inferences. A stark example is the following finding from a recent study on AI scribes that are used by doctors to draft clinical notes: when summarizing a telephone consultation, two of the three AI scribes wrongly inferred that a physical examination had taken place and wrote up the history as if it followed that non-existent physical examination. This type of erroneous inference should be easy to catch on a subsequent human review, but more subtle incorrect inferences may be harder to spot. Similar concerns relate to errors of omission. Jennifer Ellis, in her excellent column about the risks lawyers face when using AI to summarize documents and materials, observes:

Summaries, by their nature, leave things out. The things AI leaves out might be important. You cannot assume that AI will understand what it should keep in and what it should leave out. AI is not a lawyer, it does not have the knowledge of a lawyer when it comes to deciding what matters.

Knowing whether a generative AI tool has omitted an important or even critical piece of information in an expert report that is hundreds of pages long can be very difficult unless one carefully reads the whole document (arguably defeating the purpose of using an AI tool in the first place).

Second, AI summaries are not value neutral. Yet, this seems to be the assumption underpinning the Quebec court guidance when it references “strictly descriptive” summaries that do not involve “any assessment, interpretation, normative selection or conclusion.” But again, generative AI summaries, by their very nature involve decisions—assessments made by the AI tool—about what should be included and what can be left out. AI summaries also involve decisions about how the included content should be organized and described. The language used to summarize the material (which can incorporate both subtle or not subtle biases) and the framing of the summary can unconsciously impact how a judge sees a matter, even if the judge themselves subsequently reads the original documentation after reviewing an AI-generated summary.

The CJC Guidelines quite rightly observe that “[o]ne of the less visible challenges posed by generative AI is that each tool embodies an implicit ‘world model’: a set of assumptions, values, priorities, and statistical patterns learned from its training data and reinforced through its design and post-training alignment” and that “[t]hese embedded perspectives may influence how information is framed, summarized, or prioritized, even when responses appear neutral and authoritative.” While a judge using AI-generated summaries of court material to assist them in making a decision is not the same as relying on AI to make the decision entirely, it does risk inserting a worrying machine-driven influence into their decision-making process which the judge may not even be aware of.

Third, it is worth considering what is lost when we “see the forest but not the trees”, to reverse a well-known idiom. In cases where a judge is reading AI summaries, they surely risk losing some of the context that might otherwise inform their decisions. Studies have demonstrated that when individuals learn about something from an AI synthesis rather than parsing the raw material themselves, they develop shallower knowledge. Additionally, judges relying on AI-generated summaries risk creating distance between themselves and the humans impacted by, or otherwise implicated in, their decision-making. This would seem to be a particular risk in cases where AI is used to summarize the testimony of a witness, exchanges between people recorded in transcripts, affidavits or witness statements. Undoubtedly, some remove is necessary for judicial work. But what do we lose when we swap out the actual words of humans for machine compressions? The importance of “being heard” is a long-standing principle of administrative justice. Beyond the technical legal application of this principle, we should ask what acts of respect and humanity are involved in judicial listening. What is lost when the words of the people involved in court proceedings are taken as prompts for AI summaries instead of expressions that deserve, or perhaps even demand, direct engagement?[1]

Of course, these risks and concerns will materialize differently depending on what generative AI tool is being used, how it is being used, and in what context. There are ways, for example, to produce relatively more accurate AI summaries and some tools will produce relatively more accurate summaries than other tools. At the same time, many, if not all, of the concerns above persist in some form or another with any use of AI tools to generate summaries of case materials. No tool can accurately replicate a judge’s professional discretion about what is relevant or important to include in a summary. Likewise, reading an AI-generated summary of someone’s words is never going to be an equivalent experience to reading their actual words in full context.

Whenever questions about AI assistance for judges arise, someone inevitably draws a parallel to judges relying on law clerks and other human staff for summaries, arguing that judges regularly rely on summaries and syntheses produced by others. In response, I’d suggest that rather than seeing the fact of human-generated summaries as a reason to uncritically accept AI-generated summaries, we consider what concerns about judicial use of AI-generated summaries might apply in equal measure to their use of human-generated summaries. It’s possible that, on further review, one might conclude that, in some circumstances, judges ought to be less reliant on human-generated summaries of court materials. Additionally, it is important to recognize that generative AI tools do not, as a general matter, approach tasks in the same way as humans (see my earlier Slaw column for a discussion of this in a different context). Human summarizing a qualitatively different process than AI summarizing. Lastly, those participating in justice processes may have very different responses to learning that a machine-judge team has undertaken key tasks in the decision-making process as opposed to a judge who is supported by other humans. That judging is a human endeavour can be seen as not only a lodestar for those who work in the justice system but also as an expectation for those who use it and as importantly connected to perceptions of fairness and justice.

There is no doubt that our justice system is under enormous strain and risks further erosion of public confidence as it struggles with fewer resources and greater caseloads. We need to explore and embrace innovative solutions; but in doing so we must also be clear-eyed about the risks and the trade-offs of inviting AI tools into the judicial process. While official guidance contemplating judicial use of AI tools to generate summaries may feel quotidian, in my view this use may require more caution than is currently being suggested.

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[1] On this point I am indebted to a Professor Jennifer Raso and her thoughtful work on the concepts of hearing and listening in technology-mediated contexts.

The post Summarize This? appeared first on Slaw.

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from more than 80 recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. The Court 2. Canadian Securities Law 3. Precedent: The New Rules of Law and Style  4. Robeside Assistance 5. Michael Geist

The Court
Delete at Your Own Risk: Spoliation in SS&C Technologies v BNY Mellon

Destroying evidence should never leave a party better off. In SS&C Technologies Canada Corp v Bank of New York Mellon Corp, 2026 SCC 29 [SS&C Technologies], the Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) considered how courts should address situations when a party intentionally deletes evidence relevant to the calculation of damages. For the first time in more than a century, the Court clarified the law of “spoliation,” the intentional destruction or concealment of evidence to affect litigation (SS&C Technologies, paras 1-2). It held that once spoliation is proven, courts must presume the destroyed evidence would have been unfavourable to the “spoliator” (SS&C Technologies, paras 4, 79). Unless the presumption is rebutted, courts must draw an adverse inference that fills the evidentiary gap (SS&C Technologies, paras 9, 81). I suggest that while the Court shows how far that inference can go in the most severe cases, it leaves trial judges unsure when to go that far. …

Canadian Securities Law
TSX Proposes Amendments to Continued Listing Requirements

The Toronto Stock Exchange (“TSX”) has published for comment proposed amendments (the “Proposed Amendments”) to its continued listing requirements (“CLRs”), which have not been updated substantively in over two decades. The Proposed Amendments are intended to mode…

Precedent: The New Rules of Law and Style
Thinking of moving in-house? It’s not what you have in mind

My very first “real” law job after getting called to the Ontario bar, back in 2015, was at a small firm. One hallway. Four offices. Small. Because I was new, impressionable and not the least bit jaded yet, I took what everyone told me with no grains of salt. I was salt-less. Shortly after I joined, one of the associates, someone I really liked, left to move in-house. Since I was new to practice, I didn’t have a sense of what that meant. Then someone told me that the associate was far too young to take a “sunset job” and that in-house is where you go when you “can’t cut it in real practice.” Less than a year later, I went in-house myself. Ironically, it was only then that I felt my career had truly started and that I began to develop into the lawyer I am today. …

Robeside Assistance
Recently Published Ottawa Decisions

Abughoush v. Sharif (2026 ONSC 5535) In a family law case conference, the court held it could make a contested temporary parenting order on proper notice in exceptional circumstances. Applying the Divorce Act best-interests factors, it ordered week-about parenting mainly in Ottawa, with a mid-week visit and permitted Ontario travel on notice, pending a relocation motion. Associate Justice I. Kamal …

Michael Geist
The Wrong Ban: The Heritage Committee Backed a Targeted Ad Ban for Kids and Stopped Short of a Social Media Ban, Yet the Government Chose the Reverse

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage conducted an extensive study on the effects of influencers and social media on children and adolescents over the past year and released its report in June. The committee, which will soon lead the review of Bill C-34, produced 13 recommendations including a legally enforceable duty of care, an independent regulator with monetary penalties, safety-by-design requirements, defined categories of harm, and the inclusion of AI chatbots and deepfakes. Given the overlap with the government’s social media bill, it is no surprise that the government endorsed many of the recommendations this week. There is an outlier, however: the committee considered two potential bans, one on targeted ads for kids and the other on underage access to social media. The committee recommended the ad ban and stopped short of the social media one, but the government reversed the approach, declining the ad ban while legislating the social media ban for under-16s. …

_________________________

*Randomness here is created by Random.org and its list randomizing function.

The post Monday’s Mix appeared first on Slaw.

Every week we present the summary of a decision handed down by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and considered to be of interest to our readers throughout Canada. SOQUIJ is attached to the Québec Department of Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : Une peine totale de 8 ans d’emprisonnement, de laquelle est soustraite la détention provisoire, est imposée à l’auteur de fraudes amoureuses ayant causé des pertes de centaines de milliers de dollars ainsi que des risques de pertes et ayant entraîné des conséquences majeures pour les 4 femmes victimes.

Intitulé : R. c. Rivard, 2026 QCCQ 4597
Juridiction : Cour du Québec, Chambre criminelle et pénale (C.Q.), Iberville (Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu)
Décision de : Juge Stéphane Godri
Date : 2 septembre 2026

Résumé

PÉNAL (DROIT) — détermination de la peine — opérations frauduleuses — fraude — 6 victimes femmes — fraude amoureuse — accusé âgé de 62 ans — gravité de l’infraction — facteurs aggravants — fraude envers une partenaire intime — abus de confiance — nombre de victimes — durée de la fraude — antécédents judiciaires — accusé ayant récidivé alors qu’il était en libération conditionnelle et dans les semaines ayant suivi la fin de la peine d’emprisonnement — planification — préméditation — conséquences importantes pour les victimes étant donné la situation personnelle de celles-ci, notamment leur âge, leur état de santé et leur situation financière (art. 380.1 (1) c.1) C.Cr.) — facteur atténuant — plaidoyer de culpabilité — détention — peine consécutive — principe de la totalité des peines — détention provisoire — crédit à accorder — mauvaise conduite — intention d’entraver le bon fonctionnement du système de justice.

PÉNAL (DROIT) — détermination de la peine — principes généraux — facteurs à prendre en considération — détention provisoire — crédit à accorder — application partielle du ratio de 1,5 jour crédité par jour de détention — mauvaise conduite — intention d’entraver le bon fonctionnement du système de justice — intention de retarder l’imposition de sa peine — plaidoyer de culpabilité — retrait — rejet.

Prononcé de la peine.

L’accusé a reconnu sa culpabilité sous 4 chefs d’accusation de fraude commis entre août 2021 et décembre 2022 envers 6 victimes différentes. Quatre d’entre elles entretenaient une relation amoureuse avec lui au moment des fraudes. La plupart du temps, l’accusé rencontrait les victimes au moyen d’une application de rencontres. Il leur faisait croire qu’il disposait d’une immense fortune, mais que les sommes étaient bloquées, bien que des démarches soient en cours pour rectifier la situation. L’accusé vivait ainsi aux dépens des victimes, les incitant à dépenser et à emprunter de l’argent à leurs proches en leur disant qu’il les rembourserait ou en leur faisant miroiter une future vie d’opulence. Parfois, il utilisait les cartes bancaires des victimes ou de membres de leur famille. Il leur disait également souffrir d’un cancer du cerveau.

La poursuite suggère une peine d’emprisonnement globale de 8 ans. Elle ajoute que le crédit pour le temps purgé par l’accusé avant l’imposition de sa peine devrait être limité à 1 jour par jour purgé à partir de la date du retrait de son premier avocat. La défense suggère, pour sa part, l’imposition d’une peine équivalant à la détention présentencielle de l’accusé, soit 1 351 jours en temps réel ou 2 027 jours avec le crédit majoré, ce qui représente un peu plus de 5 ans 1/2 de détention.

Décision

Il est difficile de chiffrer avec précision la somme totale effectivement spoliée par l’accusé à chacune des victimes en raison des dépenses engagées à sa demande au quotidien, mais les pertes réelles comptabilisées ainsi que le risque de perte, dans certains cas, se chiffrent au total à plusieurs centaines de milliers de dollars. Cela place la présente affaire à un niveau de gravité moyen selon la jurisprudence. Le tribunal retient les facteurs aggravants suivants: les fraudes ont été commises envers un partenaire intime, alors que l’accusé était dans une situation de confiance à l’égard des victimes; le montant total de la fraude, qui est relativement important; le nombre de victimes; la durée de la fraude, qui s’est étalée sur plusieurs mois dans chacun des cas; les antécédents judiciaires de l’accusé en semblables matières, qui sont nombreux et pour lesquels il s’est vu imposer des peines de prison importantes; le fait qu’il ait récidivé alors qu’il était en libération conditionnelle et dans les semaines ayant suivi sa sortie de prison à la fin de sa peine; la planification et la préméditation de ses gestes, que l’on peut assimiler à un mode de vie; et, finalement, les conséquences importantes pour les victimes, étant donné la situation personnelle de celles-ci, notamment leur âge, leur état de santé et leur situation financière. Le seul facteur atténuant est le plaidoyer de culpabilité, mais son poids doit être relativisé en raison des agissements de l’accusé pour retarder l’imposition de sa peine.

Le tribunal estime qu’une peine se situant dans une fourchette de 18 à 30 mois pour chacune des infractions est justifiée dans les circonstances. Il conclut qu’une peine de détention de 2 ans sous chacun des chefs à purger de façon consécutive, donc de 8 ans au total, constitue la peine juste et appropriée. Celle-ci tient compte du degré de responsabilité de l’accusé, de l’ensemble des facteurs aggravants et atténuants ainsi que des principes de la totalité et de la proportionnalité. Le tribunal aurait été enclin à imposer 30 mois consécutifs par chef d’accusation, pour une peine globale de 10 ans, mais, en appliquant les principes établis dans R. c. Guerrero Silva (C.A., 2015-08-12), 2015 QCCA 1334, SOQUIJ AZ-51206317, 2015EXP-2499, J.E. 2015-1387, il y a lieu de réduire la totalité de la peine à 8 ans.

Le tribunal a conclu, dans sa décision sur la requête en retrait du plaidoyer de l’accusé, que l’intention de ce dernier tout au long du processus avait été de retarder l’imposition de sa peine dans l’espoir que, en raison du crédit majoré, la peine imposée en définitive soit de moins de 2 ans (lui permettant ainsi de demeurer dans un lieu de détention provincial). Un tel comportement ne saurait être cautionné et constitue une «mauvaise conduite» au sens de la jurisprudence. Le crédit majoré sera donc limité à la période du 22 décembre 2022 au 28 février 2025, soit l’équivalent de 1 200 jours suivant un ratio de 1,5 jour crédité par jour de détention. La période restante, soit du 1^er mars 2025 au 2 septembre 2026, sera calculée en «temps simple», pour un total de 550 jours. C’est donc 1 750 jours qui seront déduits de la peine de 8 ans, pour un reliquat de 1 170 jours.

Le texte intégral de la décision est disponible ici

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As a supplement to our Sunday Summary each month, Supreme Advocacy LLP in Ottawa presents Supreme One-Liners, a super-short descriptive guide to the most recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers its more comprehensive weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, summarizing all Appeals, Oral Judgments and Leaves to Appeal granted.

Appeals

Torts: Causation; Medmal
Hemmings v. Padmore, 2026 SCC 34 (41350)

Factual causation analysis & remoteness analysis.

Leaves to Appeal Granted

Aboriginal Law: Status
Bocchini Estate v. Canada (Attorney General), 2026 ONCA 55 (42278)

Indian status issues.

Civil Litigation: Covid Litigation; Emergencies Act
Canada (Attorney General), et al. v. Canadian Civil Liberties Association, et al., 2026 FCA 6 (42261)

Covid Emergencies Act.

Criminal Law: Sexual Assault
R. v. O., 2025 ONCA 894 (42230)

Sexual assault.

Patents: Infringement
Proslide Technology Inc. v. Whitewater West Industries, Ltd., 2026 FCA 59 (42358)

Alleged patent infringement.

The post Summaries Sunday: Supreme One-Liners appeared first on Slaw.

Several times each month, we are pleased to republish a recent book review from the Canadian Law Library Review (CLLR). CLLR is the official journal of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL/ACBD), and its reviews cover both practice-oriented and academic publications related to the law.

Legal Ethics and the Attorney General: A Canadian Analysis. By Andrew Flavelle Martin. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2025. xxi, 288 p. Includes bibliographic references and index. ISBN 9781487554736 (hardcover) $55.00; ISBN 9781487554774 (ePUB) $55.00; ISBN 9781487554767 (PDF) $55.00.

Reviewed by Emma Scott
Librarian
Legislative Library of British Columbia

Law societies across Canada have a statutory mandate to protect the public interest by regulating the professional and ethical conduct of lawyers. Discipline is rare, however, when it comes to the attorney general. In Legal Ethics and the Attorney General, author Andrew Flavelle Martin demonstrates that “the Attorney General is—and should be—accountable for their conduct under the same law of lawyering that is applicable to all lawyers” (p. 4).

In the first half of the book, Martin introduces and grapples with the complexities of the role of the attorney general regarding legal ethics. Through case studies and case law, Martin emphasizes that these difficulties tend to stem from the duality of the roles and responsibilities of attorneys general. Not only are they politicians with personal and political interests, but attorneys general are also Cabinet ministers ostensibly bound by Cabinet solidarity. Sometimes, they may serve as ministers of justice or ex-officio benchers of law societies, and they may be practicing lawyers themselves. At the same time, they are also chief law officers who provide legal advice to the Crown and ministries, oversee the law and judiciary, and conduct litigation for the Crown.

One of Martin’s strongest points is that being bound to the law of lawyering can sometimes be politically inconvenient for attorneys general. Lawyers and attorneys general have a duty to encourage respect for the administration of justice; however, as politicians, they may also be incentivized to criticize the judiciary. This is a timely discussion, as the rule of law has been recently questioned by politicians in several Canadian provinces, as well as internationally.

Martin’s text stands alone in its field. There is little academic legal literature on the application of legal ethics to the attorney general in the Canadian context, and book-length works on this topic tend to be biographical. As a result, Martin relies heavily on more general works, such as Adam Dodek’s articles on legal ethics.[1] In their respective forewords, former attorneys general Michael Bryant and Allan Rock emphasize this gap in the literature and the importance of Martin’s text.

The last three chapters consider methods for accountability. Martin emphasizes that law societies have disciplinary jurisdiction over attorneys general, with some exceptions like prosecutorial discretion, core policy advice, and parliamentary privilege. He warns against total immunity from law society discipline, as legislated in subsection 13(3) of Ontario’s Law Society Act (RSO 1990, c L.8). In response to the question of how to hold a non-lawyer attorney general accountable when they are not a member of a law society, Martin suggests that provincial legislation be amended to deem that an attorney general is a member of the law society while serving in the position.

Interestingly, Martin suggests parliamentary accountability as an additional method for holding attorneys general accountable. Law societies cannot discipline attorneys general for things said in the legislative chamber because members are protected by parliamentary privilege, but speakers have disciplinary powers they can use to ensure the debate remains focused. Martin suggests that speakers can use their jurisdiction’s standing orders to intervene and hold attorneys general accountable while in the Chamber. Whether this has already happened in any Canadian legislature is left unexplored, leaving room for further analysis. In addition to the standing orders, each jurisdiction’s codes of conduct and conflict of interest can be used to enforce legal ethics outside the Chamber. This was applied to Ontario MPP Robert Runciman while he served as Opposition Critic for the Attorney General, thus lending plausibility to employing this method to hold attorneys general accountable.

The book closes on a pessimistic but realistic note, with Martin raising doubts that attorneys general will be held accountable by law societies or notions of parliamentary accountability. Law societies have attempted to pursue discipline against attorneys general only three times in Canada, most recently in Law Society of Alberta v Madu, 2025 ABLS 11. No instances of parliamentary accountability involving an attorney general are mentioned, and its likelihood remains slim. Instead, Martin places the onus on attorneys general to hold themselves accountable out of sheer respect for the position of the chief law officer, the rule of law, and the possibility that they could be disciplined.

Overall, Legal Ethics and the Attorney General fills an essential gap in academic legal literature on the role of the attorney general and legal ethics in the Canadian context. A valuable addition to law school, legislative, and government libraries, this book is essential reading for regulators, Crown counsel, and politicians, as well as attorneys general themselves.

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[1] See e.g. “Canadian Legal Ethics: A Subject in Search of Scholarship” (2000) 50 UTLJ 115; “Canadian Legal Ethics: Ready for the Twenty-First Century at Last” (2008) 46:1 Osgoode Hall LJ 1; “The Impossible Position: Canada’s Attorney-General Cannot Be Our Justice Minister”, The Globe and Mail (22 February 2019) O1, online: <theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-impossible-position-canadas-attorney-general-cannot-be-our> [perma.cc/U3TK-263K].

The post Book Review: Legal Ethics and the Attorney General: A Canadian Analysis appeared first on Slaw.

Over the past few years, I’ve delivered presentations to legal groups and member organizations focussed on “Journey Mapping”.[1] Journey Mapping is the visual representation of an individual’s journey through a process that happens over time. It is a collection of touchpoints from the beginning to the end looking at the individual’s experience, the stages in a process, the actors and emotions. It sounds like a simple concept, right? But, what is most complex is trying to explain the value of Journey Mapping in the law, because there is exceptional value, and you only have to see it to see the value.

With her co-authors, Sofie-Amalie Torp Dideriksen,[2] a PhD candidate at the AI Futures lab at the Industrial Design Faculty, Human-Centred Design Department with TU Delft University, mapped out a victim’s journey, power and experience in the Dutch Criminal Justice System (“CJS”) in her article, “En route without a steering wheel – a victim-centred mapping of power in the criminal justice system” (“En route article”).[3] The En route article is an exploratory study that took place over an 8-month period of which nearly 2-months of analysis was needed to form the conclusions in the article and produce the victim’s Journey Map. This piece was first published in the Legal Design Journal, an academic journal that connects academics and practitioners of legal design.[4]

Dideriksen and her co-authors, Dave Murray-Rust, Froukje Sleeswijk Visser and Pieter Jan Stappers pondered whether technology could assist victims of sexual violence. By combining design research theory and feminist literature, they looked at how power was organized in the Dutch CJS. The authors sought to tackle:

• a victim’s journey in the CJS
• the victim’s power in the CJS
• the victim’s experience power in the CJS

As many of us know, the CJS is complex and intricate involving many actors and stakeholders like police, prosecutors, the court (and judge), and the institutions for sentencing (prisons), each with a different responsibilities to report, investigate, prosecute and sentence a criminal matter.[5] Once, the objectives had been defined, the authors had to figure out how to tackle the complexities of the CJS. The use of Journey Mapping helped the authors to identify a larger pattern of power and control.

The Benefits of Journey Mapping

Journey Mapping is part of the design thinking methodology and yes, we can (and should) use it in legal processes. Mapping out an individual’s experience helps us reflect on how that process can be improved. We can see:

• where the process is flawed and does not always help the ‘user’
• how the design of the system supports the system, business, Court, etc. before the person (or persons) who will use that thing
• how to simplify and create efficiencies

Mapping out legal processes using the design thinking methodology (aka legal design) is a logical way to first approach any flaws that might exist. There are many ways to start mapping out these processes. One way to do so is through industry expert-interviews.

In the En Route article, most of the data collected for the Journey Map came from user-interviews with the police and prosecutors. These interviews helped the authors to identify how processes in practice differed from official descriptions. The victim’s experience was then divided into three chapters: The police (blue), prosecutor (purple), and the court (orange). Each of the chapters have “moments” that include all interactions with the victim. Here’s the Journey Map. First, familiarize yourself with the ‘Actors and Stakeholders’ and ‘Journey Icons’, then take a closer look:[6]

Full Journey Map

[Click on the image above to view the Full Journey Map in your browser.]

Journey Map Slides

Reporting Incident, Police

Bringing Charges, Police and Prosecutors

The Prosecutor

The Courtroom

En route article Conclusions

Once the victim’s journey was mapped out in the CJS, Dideriksen analyzed the journey using feminist theory, exploring specifically what power the victim had. That was when she had an “ah-ha” moment and discovered a few things: that the victim has very little agency in the CJS; there are strong power dynamics at play in the CJS; that ‘choice’ only existed at the very start of a victim’s journey in a justice system (i.e. when deciding to proceed with the case); once victims make the decision to report a sexual assault, control is lost quickly and immediately in the CJS; at some moments, the victim has little say in the CJS; however, there were moments that the victim has agency in the CJS (i.e. the ‘victim impact statement’).

After all of their research and analysis, Dideriksen and her co-authors felt confident in their choice of method to help show the lack of power for victims – visually. Journey Mapping became a tool to not just visualize a journey, but to highlight its systemic issues as well as possibility. What they saw was that even small moments have the potential for big impact. At the end of it all, their ultimate conclusion still stands: agency does matter.

Conclusion

Not every Journey Map needs 8-months and academic research, but this is a perfect example of how Journey Mapping in the law can help us visually see the gaps in a legal process. By following the victim’s journey from reporting, police investigation, prosecution and trial, we can also quickly identify a victim’s journey in the Dutch CJS and the similarities with the Canadian CJS.

What did you notice when you looked at Dideriksen’s Journey Map? Let us know by leaving your comments.

_________________________

[1] See: Salata, K., “Designing for Resolution: The Role of UX in Mediation” (Presentation to ADR Institute of Ontario, 25 October 2025), online: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kerrisalata_designingthelaw-mediationanddesign-adranddesign-ugcPost-7387503376223358978-ybiG/ ); Salata, K. and Carbonelli, L., “Transforming Compliance: From Barrier to Bridge” (Lecture delivered to the Society of Corporate Compliance Experts, 20 September 2025), blog online: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kerrisalata_scce-scce-sccecei-activity-7241830389655244803-RGhw; Salata, K., “Using Design Thinking to Solve Real-World Problems: My Experience Teaching Design Thinking to the OLG’s Governance, Legal & Compliance Group” (Presentation Series delivered to Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG), Fall 2025), blog online: https://kerriasalata.com/using-design-thinking-to-solve-real-world-problems-my-experience-teaching-design-thinking-to-the-olgs-governance-legal-compliance-group/ .

[2] Dideriksen is a PhD candidate at the AI Futures lab at the Industrial Design Faculty, Human-Centred Design Department with TU Delft University, whose academic focus is on using technology, like Artificial Intelligence, to support victims in the criminal justice system.

[3] Dideriksen, S. et al., “En route without a steering wheel – a victim-centred mapping of power in the criminal justice system,” 2: 1 Legal Design Journal 2025, online: https://ojs.library.lancs.ac.uk/ldj/article/view/165 (“En route article”).

[4] For more information about the Legal Design Journal, refer to: Salata, K., “The Second Voyage: Explore the World’s First Legal Design Journal” (SLAW, 12 December 2025), online: https://www.slaw.ca/2025/12/12/the-second-voyage-explore-the-worlds-first-legal-design-journal/.

[5] Ibid En route Article, p. 4.

[6] Ibid: Image reproduced with permission from the Authors. This Journey Map is read from left to right, following the victim and their interactions with other actors. Actors are colour-coded. The police (blue), prosecutor (purple), and the court (orange). Purple is the victim’s journey. Black is the journey of the case.

The post A Victim’s Criminal Justice Journey: The Value of Visual Mapping appeared first on Slaw.

A longstanding sore spot in the world of dispute resolution is the gap between education and experience. For decades now, I have encountered mediation students eager to put their learning to work only to struggle to find the opportunity to do so. For those pursuing the ADR Institute of Canada’s Qualified Mediator (Q.Med) designation in Ontario, this real-life experience criterion is often the most elusive.

After all, who would select a mediator with no experience? I touched upon this question slightly in this column years ago when I questioned the value of mediators promoting their mediation counts. For aspiring mediators, the struggle is real.

A common way of addressing this conundrum has been to offer mediation services for free. The thinking being that potential mediation clients may not mind going with a mediator with appropriate training but little experience if the benefit of doing so offers relief to their wallet. But what about that old adage about getting what you pay for?

As a mediation instructor, I flag for my students the risk that free mediations can result in fewer settlements than paid mediations. This is a concern for students embracing the opportunity to get mediation experience by providing their services for free. Simply, the concern is that mediation participants may devalue mediation offered at no cost and be less invested in it.

The extent to which mediation participants invest in preparing for mediation impacts the quality of the process. Informed parties have considered in advance what they would like to achieve through mediation and how they can present themselves during mediation to create the best chance of reaching their desired outcome. They also fully explore the reality of the outcome and path forward in the event mediation does not reach settlement. These parties get more out of the mediation process than those who do not do their homework and go into the process with a fairy-tale understanding of what court or arbitration is actually like.

Still Don’t Nothing Move but the Money

While I offer my students the warning about settlement rates, there are two key additional components to this consideration:

1. Not all mediations should settle. It can be a mistake to overly fixate on settlement as a measure of success in mediation because not all matters should settle at mediation. The very concept of mediation is intended to be a process of self-determination. If a good settlement offer emerges, by all means it should be taken. There are some situations, however, where even the best settlement offer on the table is not worthwhile. In such situations, mediation can offer the benefits of narrowing issues, cooperating on the path forward and developing an interaction plan through the resolution of the matter, even if the path forward is adversarial.
2. Money is not the sole motivator to ensure mediation participants are invested in the process and prepared. Many mediators offer intake or preparatory meetings with parties, including resources to help them get ready for their mediation opportunity. It can be important to ensure parties engaging in mediation see the value in proper preparation.

Putting time in to properly prepare for mediation can be more of an investment into the process than paying for mediation.

In this spirit, Colm Brannigan has observed an increase in mediated settlements when mediation is part of a combined med-arb process as compared to when mediation takes place as a standalone process. Unpacking this with him, our feeling is that participants take preparation more seriously when the risk of having an outcome imposed feels more real. This is one of many ways parties can become motivated to make the most out of the mediation process by preparing for it.

__

Note: Marc Bhalla is an instructor at Osgoode Hall Law School’s Master of Laws in Dispute Resolution Program and the York University School of Continuing Studies’ Certificate in Dispute Resolution. The views expressed in this column are from Marc’s capacity as a teacher and supporter of aspiring and new dispute resolution practitioners.

The post You Get Out What You Put In: All Is Fair in Love and Mediation appeared first on Slaw.

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from more than 80 recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. Legal Feeds 2. Lash Condo Law 3. Great LEXpectations 4. Family Health Law Blog 5. ABlawg.ca

Legal Feeds
Canadian Legal Summit: Big ideas in the profession for 2026

Lash Condo Law
Owner Requisitions Are Changing: What Condo Managers Need to Know

If you are a condominium manager, an owner requisitioning a meeting is probably not the email you are hoping to find in your inbox. And starting December 31, 2026, the requirements for owner-requisitioned meetings under the Condominium Act, 1998 (the Act) and its regulations are changing. There is another important date to put in your calendar: July 1, 2027, when the Condominium Authority Tribunal (CAT) will gain jurisdiction over many disputes involving the requisition process So, what do managers actually need to know? …

Great LEXpectations
Manitoba Government Introduces Legislation to Strengthen Manitoba Hydro and Improve Financial Accountability

The Manitoba government introduced the Budget Implementation and Tax Statutes Amendment Act (BITSA 2) today, with measures that would help keep Manitoba Hydro rates affordable and improve transparency and accountability in the province’s financial reporting, Finance Minister Adrien Sala announced today. “Our government is focused on making life more affordable for Manitobans, and that includes keeping hydro rates as low as possible for families,” said Sala. “Large cryptocurrency operations and AI data centres use significant amounts of electricity, and they should contribute fairly to the system we all rely on.” The legislation would ensure revenue from a new levy on cryptocurrency operations and large AI data centres is returned to Manitoba Hydro residential customers. The new measure would be expected to save all residential ratepayers roughly $50 per year, and bills will be lowered monthly beginning early in the new year. …

Family Health Law Blog
Surrogate Refuses Abortion: What Canadian Surrogacy Law Says

A recent surrogacy case in the United States is tragic on just about every level. It is also a case that intended parents, surrogates and the professionals who work with them can learn from.According to reporting on the case, a surrogate was carrying a child for intended parents when, at around 20 weeks, the baby was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a serious congenital heart defect. The intended parents wanted the pregnancy terminated. The surrogate did not. …

ABlawg.ca
2026 Referendum: UCP Grievance Politics and A Binding Vote Against Separation

Elections Alberta sets out the ten questions on the 2026 referendum here. The UCP government’s description of the referendum questions is here, and this description labels the questions into three groups: (1) four ‘constitutional questions’; (2) five ‘immigration questions’; and (3) one ‘separation question’. These questions have been the subject of an immense amount of media commentary. CBC News provides a brief overview of each question here and has a dedicated webpage for all its referendum coverage here. Much of the commentary seeks to understand the policy implications of the referendum vote (see e.g., Explaining about all 10 questions on the referendum). One implication is certain: a majority of votes for Option 1 (Alberta should remain a province of Canada) on the ‘separation question’ is binding on this UCP government (and not just while Danielle Smith remains premier, as she suggested in an interview with CBC News here), and should legally preclude any further scratching of the separation itch within the UCP party and the government caucus until after the next general election. …

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*Randomness here is created by Random.org and its list randomizing function.

The post Monday’s Mix appeared first on Slaw.

Every week we present the summary of a decision handed down by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and considered to be of interest to our readers throughout Canada. SOQUIJ is attached to the Québec Department of Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : La Cour accueille en partie une requête de la poursuite en rejet d’appel, l’accusé ayant, après le dépôt de son appel, mais avant l’imposition de la peine, quitté le Canada pour se soustraire à la justice.

Intitulé : Malo c. R., 2026 QCCA 1266
Juridiction : Cour d’appel (C.A.), Montréal
Décision de : Juges Julie Dutil, Geneviève Marcotte et Benoît Moore
Date : 23 septembre 2026

Résumé

PÉNAL (DROIT) — procédure pénale — procédure fédérale — rejet d’appel — voies de fait graves — déclaration de culpabilité — appel de peine — rétention de biens saisis — pouvoir discrétionnaire — accusé ayant fui le Canada dans le but de se soustraire à l’autorité des tribunaux — répudiation de la compétence de la Cour — omission de produire le mémoire d’appel.

Requête en rejet d’appel dans les dossiers n^os 500-10-008076-232 et 500-10-700233-255 (n^os 232 et 255) et demande pour faire déclarer l’accusé forclos de plaider dans le dossier n^o 500-10 008456-251, portant sur la peine. Accueillies en partie. Appel de l’ordonnance en rétention de biens saisis (dossier n^o 232) et appel de la déclaration de culpabilité (dossier n^o 255). Rejetés.

Dans les dossiers n^os 255 et 251, l’accusé interjette appel de sa déclaration de culpabilité pour voies de fait graves; pour sa part, la poursuite interjette appel de la peine de 57 mois d’emprisonnement prononcée à l’endroit de l’accusé. Quant au dossier n^o 232, il s’agit de l’appel d’un jugement de la Cour supérieure ayant rejeté la demande de l’accusé d’ordonner la restitution des documents électroniques saisis dans le cadre d’une enquête pour fraude qui le concerne et la destruction de tous les exemplaires en la possession de l’État.

Décision

La Cour possède le pouvoir discrétionnaire de rejeter un appel ou de le déclarer abandonné lorsque l’appelant se soustrait à la justice canadienne. Ce pouvoir peut être exercé à toute étape de l’appel et non seulement lors de l’audience au fond.

En l’espèce, après le dépôt de son appel, mais avant l’imposition de la peine, l’accusé a quitté le pays pour se soustraire à la justice. Il a fui le Québec en utilisant un jet privé à la veille de l’imposition de sa peine et a tenté de se rendre ensuite au Venezuela. Il était en possession de documents falsifiés, ce qui indique qu’il avait planifié sa fuite. Il appert par ailleurs de la transcription des conversations avec l’huissier que l’accusé ne souhaite pas revenir au Canada. Il a d’ailleurs acheté une propriété en Martinique, où il se trouve actuellement, et soutient que sa famille viendra s’y installer avec lui. Il s’oppose en outre à son extradition. Par ailleurs, dans les dossiers n^os 232 et 255, l’accusé est en défaut de produire ses mémoires. Il soulève de nombreux moyens d’appel et ses dossiers pourraient s’avérer complexes. Les ressources judiciaires étant limitées, elles ne peuvent être utilisées par une personne qui répudie l’autorité des tribunaux. Dans le présent cas, aucune circonstance exceptionnelle ne justifie la tenue d’une audience au fond.

La Cour est d’avis qu’il y a lieu de rejeter les 2 appels de l’accusé. Toutefois, puisque la poursuite n’a que très récemment déposé son exposé dans le dossier sur l’appel sur la peine, il s’avère prématuré de déclarer l’accusé forclos de plaider dans ce dossier.

Le texte intégral de la décision est disponible ici

The post Summaries Sunday: SOQUIJ appeared first on Slaw.

As a supplement to our Sunday Summary each month, Supreme Advocacy LLP in Ottawa presents Supreme One-Liners, a super-short descriptive guide to the most recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers its more comprehensive weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, summarizing all Appeals, Oral Judgments and Leaves to Appeal granted.

Appeals

Criminal Law: Admissibility/Use Re Complainant Sexual Activity
R. v. A.M, 2026 SCC 33 (41528)

s. 276 screening regime not automatically apply re sexual services/trafficking.

Leaves to Appeal Granted

Aboriginal Law: Title
British Columbia v. Nuchatlaht, 2026 BCCA 137 (42379)

Aboriginal title to island.

Class Actions: Airlines
Davies v. Air Canada, 2025 QCCA 1344 (42161)

Arbitrator jurisdiction in labour law context.

Environmental Law: Plastic
Responsible Plastic Use Coalition, et al. v. Canada (Attorney General), et al., 2026 FCA 17 (42277)

Toxic plastics ban.

Labour Law: Arbitrator Jurisdiction
R.W. Tomlinson Limited, et al. v. Labourers’ International Union of North America, et al., 2025 ONCA 861 (42209)

Arbitrator jurisdiction in labour law context.

Tax: Assessment Appeals
Estate of the late Borys Srebrnik, Kristina Rezner Srebrnik, et al. v. Agence du revenu du Québec, 2025 QCCA 1492 (42186)

Assessing renovation deductions and corporate payments to family members.

The post Summaries Sunday: Supreme One-Liners appeared first on Slaw.

This column presents excerpts from a student paper, completed under the University of Toronto’s Community Research Partnership in Ethics program; the full paper will be published by the National Self-Represented Litigants Project later this year.

Over the past 20 years, Alberta’s family justice system has distinguished itself from other jurisdictions by implementing mandatory forms of assistance. In 2005, the Alberta government launched mandatory meetings for SRLs in provincial court, pursuant to the Intake and Caseflow Management Regulation.[1] Building on this, and recognizing the inherent difficulties associated with an SRL’s journey through the family law system, the new Family Justice Strategy (FJS) has since implemented a mandatory assistance program for self-represented litigants in family law in certain cities.[2] The program was rolled out in Edmonton and Calgary in December 2023, and expanded into Red Deer in March 2025.[3] Since its inception, the strategy has reportedly assisted over 69,000 Albertans in accessing pre-court services.[4] The FJS focuses on four main goals:

1) Resolving legal matters earlier and outside of court;
2) Focusing on the well-being of children and families;
3) Providing Albertans with necessary tools and services before court proceedings begin;
4) Reducing the emotional and financial costs to families by assisting them in navigating the family justice system.[5]

In addition to the above objectives, the FJS has sought to streamline the court system, assuage parents’ worries, and make the family law process easier for children.[6]

Under this initiative, each SRL is required to keep in close contact with a Family Court Counsellor (FCC) throughout the duration of their case. FCCs typically have a background in social work, domestic violence, mediation, or another related field, and they provide guidance to SRLs on court matters, including (among other services):

• Resolution options;
• Court processes information;
• Assistance with arranging court dates;
• Referrals to resources;
• Support in presenting their case to the Provincial Court;
• Guidance in document completion, including stamping official documents for submission to courts;
• Help with negotiating agreements.[7]

Litigants without counsel are required to work with an FCC. Exceptions to this requirement include litigants who do not have dependent children impacted by the family law proceeding, or those who are responding to an action without filing a cross-application.[8] The program also allows for the deferral or waiving of requirements for SRLs where there is significant violence or non-compliance on the part of the other party. These exceptions must be approved by a judge.[9]

An SRL’s work with an FCC is required from the outset of their case. The FCC will book an intake appointment with the SRL as a form of triage, and assess what the litigant is seeking to achieve.[10] The FCC will then undertake a safety screening process, identify the issues involved within the case, and discuss possible dispute resolution options;[11] their role is to explain the entire mediation or judicial process to the SRL, enabling them to make an educated and informed decision on how to proceed.[12] Notwithstanding this, FCCs are generally not lawyers and cannot give legal advice.

This research project included a literature review and several one-on-one interviews with participants in the Alberta program. The scope of the qualitative portion of the work was modest, and the project is therefore modest in its ability to generalize, but the experiences participants described are nonetheless worthy of analysis, and hopefully, further study.

Although the program aims to provide a better and more efficient experience for SRLs in family law, significant questions do arise. Concerns about autonomy versus paternalism are at the forefront, along with questions regarding whether mandatory assistance creates barriers for particular groups. Further, in attempting to divert family law cases from the courts, there is a question of whether the judicial process is being usurped by administrative policies and direction.

While there is not necessarily an inherent problem with implementing mandatory initiatives, challenges may and do arise when the requirements disproportionately affect one group of litigants and do not allow for flexibility in accommodating different contexts. The issues lie in the practical implementation, where delays, limited capacity, increased burdens, and inconsistent application undermine any prospective effectiveness.

In Alberta’s mandatory assistance program there appears to be some discrepancy between its intention and its application. For example, the time commitments associated with communicating with FCCs raise issues about delay, as well as perceptions that SRLs are discouraged from proceeding to court.[13] SRLs could also feel targeted and singled out in the implementation of a mandatory program that does not apply to represented litigants.[14] Additionally, the inability of FCCs to provide legal advice leaves SRLs without meaningful direction in navigating court processes, something they are often seeking.[15] Lastly, the prioritization of disseminating general information and the corresponding inability of a mandatory program to provide individualized assistance means there is a risk that the program becomes more of a “cookie cutter” system.[16]

Ultimately, these challenges raise concerns about procedural fairness and the equity of programs meant to support vulnerable populations. Unlike the mandatory parenting education programs or mediation processes that exist in other jurisdictions, Alberta’s system imposes ongoing and individualized responsibilities specifically on SRLs, without imposing equivalent requirements upon parties who are represented. Because of this distinction, SRLs may actually face an increased workload, while lacking the practical resources needed to meet these expectations. This ultimately risks reinforcing existing inequalities, especially for individuals who experience financial hardship, disability, or family violence.

In the context of family law, there is a reasonable argument for moving family law cases away from the courts and out of the hands of lawyers by involving more skilled social workers who have an understanding of the situation and can help parties reach a resolution.[17] A commonly held perspective notes that the adversarial court process is not necessarily best suited to the resolution of family disputes, as many SRLs may find more value in discussion and agreement, when it is conducted safely and appropriately. Thus, a mandatory system should incorporate augmented out-of-court resolution options that allow parties to reach agreements more effectively and securely. Alberta has directed people away from the courts with its mandatory assistance program, but would benefit from continuing to expand the supports meant to replace judicial resolutions.

More fundamentally, supportive systems should be ones that seek to empower SRLs, not control them. This would include guidance as well as meaningful direction, should court be necessary. Though mandatory assistance is aimed at guaranteeing a valuable source of knowledge for those in need of support, its compulsory nature may undermine certain intended purposes by restricting autonomy and enforcing increased procedural barriers. Ultimately, according to the SRLs interviewed, a more effective approach might reframe services as accessible, supportive, individualized, and voluntary, allowing litigants to seek supports they need without qualifying their admission to the judicial system upon participation in mandatory programs.

Finally, a robust user-feedback process is highly recommended, especially in a mandatory assistance program, so that the honest experiences of individuals engaged with the system can be collected, analyzed, and used to inform ongoing improvements. By gathering this representative data, policymakers can properly identify and address the specific needs and concerns that participants in the program have, thereby ensuring meaningful access to justice.

_____________

[1] “Alberta Family Court Counsellors,” Canadian Forum on Civil Justice, 9 August 2012, https://cfcj-fcjc.org/inventory-of-reforms/alberta-family-court-counsellors/.

[2] J.A. Hunter, “Edmonton and Calgary Practice Directive: Family Pre-Court Practice and Procedure Changes,” Practice Directive, Alberta, 2025, https://albertacourts.ca/docs/default-source/pc/Family_Pre_Court_Practice_and_Procedure_Changes.pdf?utm_source=PC+Announcements&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=Practice+Directive%2c+Family+Pre-Court+Practice+and+Procedure+Changes.

[3] Jacqueline So, “Alberta government inject $3.2 million more into Family Justice Strategy,” Canadian Lawyer, 24 July 2025, https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/news/general/to-come/392806.

[4] Jacqueline So, “Alberta government inject $3.2 million more into Family Justice Strategy”.

[5] An interview was conducted with Family Justice Services Staff on December 3, 2025, through Zoom (FJS 1).

[6] Jacqueline So, “Alberta government inject $3.2 million more into Family Justice Strategy”.

[7] J.A. Hunter, “Edmonton and Calgary Practice Directive”.

[8] J.A. Hunter, “Edmonton and Calgary Practice Directive.”

[9] FJS 1.

[10] An interview was conducted with a Family Court Counsellor on December 3, 2025, through Zoom (FCC 1).

[11] FCC 1.

[12] FCC 1.

[13] SRL 1. SRL 3. SRL 5.

[14] SRL 2.

[15] SRL 2.

[16] Ian Burns, “‘Cookie cutter’ solutions almost never work, a lawyer says in response to Alberta family law changes,” Law360, 18 January 2024, https://www.law360.ca/ca/articles/1787415.

[17] SRL 1. SRL 2. SRL 4.

The post The Utility of Mandatory Assistance for Self-Represented Litigants in Alberta appeared first on Slaw.

Your mid-sized firm invested $500,000 recruiting four to five new students last year. By year five, 91 percent are gone. Your per-person investment was roughly $100,000 to $125,000. Add salary, training, and mentorship. Then they leave.

The question worth asking is whether you hired the wrong people, or whether you didn’t integrate them.

The data suggests the latter. When the National Association for Law Placement Foundation surveyed departing Canadian associates, 29 percent cited work quality concerns. Sixteen percent pointed to productivity standards they felt they weren’t meeting. Thirteen percent said the advancement path was unclear. Thirteen percent mentioned fit. Another 13 percent were hired away by clients. These reflect integration challenges, not recruitment failures. Something breaks between arrival and departure, and it’s fixable.

What Happens the First Week

A new student or associate arrives on a Monday. There’s an IT orientation, a tour, introductions. By Wednesday, they have their first assignment. A research memo for a transaction closing in three weeks. The partner provided minimal context.

By Friday, they’ve produced an oversized memo. The partner reads it in twenty minutes. “Good start. Let’s talk Monday.” On Monday, it’s clear the partner wanted a three-page executive summary, not exhaustive analysis. The work gets written off. The recruit makes a mental note. Don’t overdeliver. But another thought settles in too. Maybe they’re not good at this. By month three, no one has checked in. By month six, they’re looking elsewhere.

Firms can design this differently. Deliberately. With support.

The Three Problems

Over the last three columns, I’ve traced three connected problems in how firms develop juniors.

Recruitment investment. Your firm spends half a million dollars getting people in the door, yet many don’t find a pathway to build careers. Hiring well matters. What happens next matters equally.

Delegation. When work instructions are rushed or vague, juniors overwork assignments and get discouraged. Most firms apply delegation frameworks inconsistently. Some partners frame assignments carefully. Others expect juniors to reverse-engineer what they need.

Judgment-building. AI eliminated much of the unglamorous work that taught lawyers to think critically. Firms haven’t deliberately replaced it, leaving a gap. Most firms haven’t made this a priority.

When a new recruit arrives, they step into a loose delegation process and vanishing judgment-building work. Without something intentional to guide them, they leave despite your investment.

One Missing System

Most firms try to fix one problem in isolation. They invest more in recruitment. They create a delegation framework. They launch a mentorship program. Each solution addresses one symptom, but the root is different.

These three challenges are expressions of one missing thing. A planned, intentional onboarding system.

Create that system and something changes. Retention improves. Delegation write-downs decrease. Judgment-building happens. You retain more talent, improve ROI on recruiting dollars, develop mid-level lawyers faster, and narrow an equity gap. Associates of colour experienced a 24 percent attrition rate in 2024, compared to 19 percent for white associates. That gap doesn’t close on its own.

Three Essential Ingredients

Competence Definition – Most firms never articulate what success looks like. A competence profile gives a clear picture of what a successful associate should do at specific intervals.

Legal skills matter. Reasoning, research, writing, judgment. Professional skills matter. Understanding workflow, requesting assignments, building relationships. Firm-specific skills matter. How your organization operates, what your practice areas require.

A competence profile says, “By month three, you’ll do these things. By six months, this. By twelve, this.” It converts vague feelings into measurable expectations.

Intentional Integration – Structure the first year around meaningful work and escalating responsibility.

Week one covers operational basics. By Friday, your new hire understands the workflow, has technology configured, knows their mentor, and has their first assignment queued.

Weeks two through four bring substantive work paired with observation. They draft memos, organize discovery, or prepare summaries. They shadow their supervising lawyer on client calls and depositions. By week three, reverse shadowing begins. By week four, they’ve completed a solo draft, revised it, and understand what quality looks like.

Month two shifts to co-ownership. They have a lead assignment with defined deliverables. They attend their first client call as an active participant. “This is Alex, managing the timeline on this for us.” They’re building client relationships.

Month three and beyond, they have standing client responsibilities. They manage document review, prepare status memos, field routine questions. They have direct client correspondence. By months four through six, clarify what comes next. What work should they lead? Which relationships develop? What area should they deepen? Some first-generation and internationally trained lawyers need this spelled out explicitly. Without this roadmap, people drift.

Structured Mentorship – Assigning a principal isn’t mentorship. Pair associates with different lawyers at different career points. One per year for three years. Regular meetings. Active feedback. Clear assessment of readiness.

Most firms hesitate at one juncture. Mentors need compensation and recognition. Mentorship has been invisible labour for decades. If it’s now doing much of what AI eliminated, it warrants investment.

What Gets in the Way

Culture is first. If partners claim credit for associate work or normalize harsh feedback, onboarding won’t overcome it. Culture must be willing to evolve.

Billable hours are second. You can’t ask a junior to learn and hit 1,600 billable hours in year one. If you want genuine development, your ceiling is lower. You choose one. And law students shouldn’t have serious billing targets, but they should record their time.

First-generation lawyers are third. They navigate a system where unwritten rules govern advancement. They need someone to say directly. “Here’s how you ask for work. Here’s how you build client relationships. Here’s what success looks like.”

AI creates a fourth barrier. Juniors need to interrogate AI output, not just prompt for it. They need practice reviewing answers against source documents.

The fix

Start by observing what really happens when a junior arrives. Track retention by cohort. Below 70 percent at three years signals an onboarding problem, not a recruitment one.

Define competence at your firm. Put it in writing and share it. Create a week-by-week and monthly plan for year one.

Train your mentors. Clarify their role. Measure results.

Move client-facing work earlier. By month two, they’re in client calls. By month three, they have standing responsibilities.

Address culture directly. If certain partners undermine the effort, fix it or accept the cost.

Make onboarding deliberate. Treat it like recruitment or billing. Invest in a plan, design the workflow, apply discipline, measure the outcome and recalibrate as needed.

You’ve already invested $100,000 to $125,000 per person. The 91 percent departure rate isn’t inevitable. It reflects choices.

The real question is whether you’ll choose differently.

The post Beyond Day One: The Onboarding System Firms Still Haven’t Built appeared first on Slaw.

Last November, I found a job posting for a part-time law librarian position. My hopes were low; I was still a Master of Information (MI) student, and I had no law library experience. Regardless, I applied. I could not believe my luck when I secured the position. To say I was elated would be an understatement. That feeling lasted about a day, then panic set in… What did I know about the law and law librarianship?

Desperate to weave an informatic safety blanket, I scoured the internet and library catalogues for information on early career law librarianship. I was desperate to find a neatly packaged resource on the very basics, such as what a legal information professional does on a day-to-day basis and how to perform legal research. I was unsure about the expectations surrounding my role considering the dynamic legal information industry.

In this piece, I will offer my perspective on some of these basics. I would like to note that my trajectory and position are unique. I have the title of law librarian, but titles range from legal information professional, knowledge manager, and so on. I would not yet consider myself an authoritative voice on law librarianship. I still have much to learn as I am at the advent of my career. My aim is to add to the collection of knowledge that attempts to bridge the gap between legal information education and legal information practice within a law firm.

What I Do as a Law Librarian at a Law Firm

In my frenzied search for information on law librarianship, I found myself confused about law librarians’ day-to-day responsibilities. Roles and responsibilities will look different for every position. Below are some of my core responsibilities:

• Managing online library resources: I manage our Thomson Reuters (Westlaw + Practical Law) and LexisNexis (Lexis+ AI) legal research platform subscriptions. I oversee renewing the contracts at year-end, which requires a deep understanding of the platforms. I spend time understanding what resources we currently have and identifying what we need. I organize training for staff, which is especially relevant with the advent of AI on these platforms. I liaise with vendors about new offerings and changes to the platforms.
• Managing the print collection: I order and catalogue our print collection based on lawyer needs. I manage our internal cataloguing system.
• Answering research queries: I answer lawyers’ research queries. I locate print and/or electronic resources. I often locate material on Thomson Reuters or Lexis platforms, but my search sometimes leads me to CanLII, JusticeLaws, or the Nova Scotia Legislature website.
• Creating and delivering internal training: I organize training for staff. This year, I coordinated and provided library training for articled clerks. The training I created focused on legal research using our vendor platforms, as well as a session on critically using AI.
• Loose-leafing: I update loose-leaf books.

Additional Responsibilities I Have Taken On/Explored:

• AI vendor evaluation: I try to keep up with AI developments in the legal space. I assist management with exploring different AI vendors.
• Policy writing: I wrote the AI policy.
• Legal assistant/paralegal work: I assisted the Personal Injury team this summer with various duties when I was working full-time.

Professional Associations and Legal Literature

Joining professional associations provided me with a wealth of knowledge at the very start of my journey. If I could go back in time, I would have started my quest for information by joining the Canadian Association of Law Librarians (CALL), as well as reviewing previous editions of the Canadian Law Library Review (CLLR) on CanLII. The articles and tools published in the CLLR are highly practical.

Beyond CALL, I subscribe to updates from legal literature sites. I receive SLAW publication notifications to my email. I gain a ton from reading these articles, though I mostly focus on the ones related to law librarianship and artificial intelligence (AI).

Some of the most formative experiences have been attending conferences. I learned so much from last year’s CALL conference in Moncton. I felt far more confident in what I should be doing in my role, as well as how my role could evolve after attending this conference. Additionally, the conference allowed me to make connections with other law librarians. I was blown away by the librarians’ willingness to impart their knowledge. I also attended Nova Scotia Libraries Association (NSLA) Conference last year before I joined the firm. Attending that conference felt like a low-stakes way to practice for the real thing.

A tip on conferences: Do not be afraid to ask if the firm will pay for your conference attendance. Prepare a short pitch in advance to explain how your attendance will bring value to the firm. The worst thing they can do is say no.

Education and Legal Research

I was completely new to legal research when I started, and I still have lots to learn in this area. For this reason, I will not share a “how-to” strategy for performing legal research. Instead, I will recommend the Law Librarians Institute course offered by CALL. The course aims to help librarians and other legal professionals develop the Competencies of a Legal Researcher in Canada. It is a flexible and affordable way to develop knowledge of Canadian legal information environment. In the course, I learned how to perform legal research by finding and using primary (legislation and cases) and secondary sources (writing about the law).

The only “how-to” strategy I will share is a key takeaway from the Law Librarian’s Institute. When performing legal research, always start with a secondary source rather than attempting to locate a primary source such as a case or a piece of legislation. The secondary source will point you to the relevant primary source.

Taking any sort of legal or government information course in school will be an asset. There was no such course in my program, so I connected with a law librarian and conducted a supervised reading course. I was already in the position by this point, but the readings and discussions were useful for reinforcing the skills I had learned on the job and through CALL’s Law Librarian Institute.

One course I found particularly useful in the MI program is called Managing Information Literacy Instruction. I learned many practical tips I incorporate into my training sessions at work. Additionally, this course helped me confront my fear of public speaking. Exposure to uncomfortable situations can lead to massive growth, and challenging myself to take this course was a perfect example of this.

Networking

It is essential for any new professional to connect with experienced practitioners. During my first few months, I connected with some law librarians in my area. I prepared a list of questions in advance of our meetings, and I still refer to my notes months later. If I could go back in time, I would have tried to connect with more law librarians. It is still something I need to make more of an effort to do now. From negotiating with legal technology giants to the advent of AI, human connection is essential to navigating the complex legal environment.

The value of internal networking cannot be overstated. Although it was daunting, I am glad that I introduced myself to members of the firm when I first started. I asked lawyers and articled clerks to send me some of their research assignments so that I could improve my legal research skills using the firm’s platforms. I believe that building connections within the firm will help me continue to market the library internally.

Learning to Navigate Legal Research Platforms and Vendor Management

When I first arrived, I reviewed my predecessor’s notes and connected with my manager. I identified all the vendors I was responsible for, then reached out to my sales representative as soon as possible to introduce myself. I setup calls with them and asked for details about our subscription, when each product renews, and for training on each platform. It was crucial to understand which invoices I was responsible for and how they were paid each month. With the notes from my vendor meetings, I created a calendar with contract renewal dates and a listing of all our subscriptions to avoid any surprise renewals.

A few lawyers came to me right away expecting me to find resources, so I spent lots of time learning to navigate legal research products at the start. I arranged for training with my sales representatives, but I also looked for it on my own. The vendor training geared towards law students was useful in helping me learn to navigate the platforms. Once I did the training, I spent time reinforcing my skills by playing around on the platforms.

If I could go back in time, I would spend more time learning to navigate CanLII, a public access legal information platform, rather than focusing solely on LexisNexis and Westlaw products. I plan to prioritize learning CanLII inside and out in the next few months, and I am confident that I will become a better researcher as a result. However, I acknowledge that the field is always evolving and plan to maintain an openness to learning throughout my career.

Beginner legal research platform tips: Westlaw and Lexis have different content, including different cases. To perform comprehensive research, start on one platform, then perform your queries on the other. You can also double check using CanLII.

Consider All Legal Information

I look beyond the library and try to think of legal information holistically. I am always eager for opportunities to learn beyond the library, such as how the firm operates and what lawyers do. This summer, I worked with the firm’s personal injury team. Learning how files progress from start to finish helped me develop a greater understanding of my role in supporting the delivery of legal services.

Expressing interest and being proactive has benefitted my career thus far. During my interview, I expressed a critical interest in AI. Once I started, I wrote an AI policy even though it was not a part of my job description. After that, I was invited to meetings. Since I am the most junior person, I take and format notes to send to the team afterwards. This practice has led to interesting opportunities I may not have been considered for initially.

Conclusion

I hope that this piece can help clarify some expectations for any potential legal information professionals. The most valuable actions I have taken so far have been to do hard things, seek community, and actively pursue learning opportunities. Starting a professional career is terrifying and imposter syndrome is real. I still have lots to learn about the legal information profession; knowledge and confidence will come with time, and I will continue to lead with curiosity.

The post Law Librarianship for Beginners: Reflections on My First 6-Months as a Legal Information Professional appeared first on Slaw.

Every week we present the summary of a decision handed down by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and considered to be of interest to our readers throughout Canada. SOQUIJ is attached to the Québec Department of Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : Dans une affaire de voies de fait commises par un père à l’endroit de ses enfants, le juge de première instance, qui a imposé à l’accusé une peine de 90 jours d’emprisonnement à purger de manière discontinue, a commis 3 erreurs de principe; la Cour supérieure, accueillant l’appel, sursoit au prononcé de la peine.

Intitulé : S.N. c. R., 2026 QCCS 3130
Juridiction : Cour supérieure (C.S.), Richelieu (Sorel)
Décision de : Juge Annie Émond
Date : 25 août 2026

Résumé

PÉNAL (DROIT) — détermination de la peine — infractions contre la personne — voies de fait — 2 enfants de l’accusé — victimes âgées de 12 et 13 ans — accusé âgé de 45 ans — détention — peine discontinue — appel — erreur de principe — omission de considérer des éléments de preuve pertinents et favorables à l’accusé — réhabilitation — gravité objective de l’infraction — procédure sommaire — principe de la modération — omission d’examiner la possibilité d’un sursis de peine ou d’un emprisonnement avec sursis — respect des conditions — facteurs aggravants — mauvais traitement à l’égard d’une personne âgée de moins de 18 ans — répétition — coups à la tête — position vulnérable — poursuite des infractions après l’intervention de la Direction de la protection de la jeunesse — facteurs atténuants — plaidoyer de culpabilité — absence d’antécédents judiciaires — remords — thérapie — actif pour la société — dénonciation — dissuasion — sursis de peine — probation — travaux communautaires.

Appel de la peine. Accueilli.

L’appelant a plaidé coupable sous 3 chefs d’accusation de voies de fait commises à l’égard de ses 2 enfants. Le juge de première instance lui a imposé une peine de 90 jours d’emprisonnement à purger de manière discontinue, avec un suivi probatoire. L’appelant soutient essentiellement que le juge a erré dans l’application des principes et des objectifs de détermination de la peine et qu’il aurait prononcé une peine manifestement non indiquée.

Décision

Le juge a commis 3 erreurs de principe ayant influé sur la peine imposée, lesquelles amènent le tribunal à réviser celle-ci. Premièrement, il a accordé peu de valeur aux raisons avancées pour expliquer le passage à l’acte, dont la discipline reçue par l’appelant dans son enfance et les tensions familiales. Il a aussi omis de considérer le fait que les accusations avaient été portées par voie sommaire de culpabilité, les remords et les regrets de l’appelant de même que les efforts de celui-ci pour comprendre la différence entre les normes canadiennes et camerounaises en lien avec l’éducation des enfants après la commission des infractions, en plus d’avoir minimisé à un tel point la réhabilitation que celle-ci n’avait plus de poids dans l’analyse finale. Sur ce dernier point, le juge a notamment estimé que les efforts de l’appelant étaient lacunaires, alors que ses démarches auprès d’un psychologue et d’un organisme avaient été entreprises de manière volontaire et que leur utilité avait été expliquée par l’appelant. En outre, le juge a considéré comme aggravant le fait d’avoir commis les actes après l’intervention de la Direction de la protection de la jeunesse (DPJ) et en l’absence de démarches entreprises par l’appelant pour l’éviter. Toutefois, il a tiré cette conclusion sans faire référence au témoignage de l’appelant ni à l’explication que celui-ci avait donnée sur le sujet. Il n’a pas non plus expliqué en quoi le souci de projeter une image positive, noté par l’agente de probation, pourrait être lié aux démarches effectuées par l’appelant avec l’organisme et, par conséquent, constituer un facteur positif, certes, mais avec un poids moindre. Le juge a donc omis de tenir compte d’éléments de preuve pertinents et favorables à l’appelant de même que de la gravité objective moindre des infractions. Il a, de ce fait, accordé erronément une valeur plus grande à la dissuasion spécifique.

Deuxièmement, le juge a omis d’appliquer le principe de la modération en négligeant d’examiner la possibilité de sanctions moins contraignantes avant d’envisager la privation de liberté. Il ressort clairement du jugement que, dès le rejet de l’absolution, le juge a considéré que l’emprisonnement s’imposait. De plus, même si la Cour suprême du Canada n’a pas encore expressément examiné le rôle du contexte social dans la détermination de la peine des délinquants non autochtones en lien avec le principe de la modération mentionné à l’article 718.2 e) du Code criminel, celui-ci peut fournir des indications utiles pour comprendre le vécu particulier de l’accusé et sa culpabilité morale, notamment dans le cas des accusés appartenant à des groupes racialisés.

Troisièmement, le juge n’a pas sérieusement envisagé l’emprisonnement avec sursis. Or, en lisant le jugement dans sa globalité, il n’est pas possible de savoir pour quelles raisons une peine d’emprisonnement avec sursis ne respecterait pas les objectifs et les principes de détermination de la peine. En effet, hormis la dénonciation et la dissuasion, le juge n’a pas fait référence à ces principes ni à ces objectifs, pas plus qu’il n’a énuméré les facteurs aggravants et atténuants.

Quant à la peine appropriée, il va sans dire que rien ne peut justifier l’utilisation de la violence dans l’éducation des enfants et que de tels gestes doivent être condamnés. Les victimes, en plus du décès de leur mère, ont subi de mauvais traitements de la part de leur père, une personne de confiance, et ont ensuite été l’objet d’un placement en famille d’accueil. Les conséquences des infractions sont considérables et un retour en arrière n’est pas possible. La gravité subjective des crimes est élevée, mais elle ne se situe pas à l’extrémité la plus haute de l’échelle. On retient, à titre de facteurs aggravants, les éléments suivants: que les coups ont été portés envers des enfants; que les mauvais traitements ont été infligés de façon récurrente, répétée et réfléchie dans un cadre de discipline, et ce, alors que les enfants étaient dans une position vulnérable; que des coups ont été portés à la tête; et que le contexte éducationnel en cause a continué après l’intervention de la DPJ. Quant aux facteurs atténuants, on retient: le plaidoyer de culpabilité; l’absence d’antécédents judiciaires; les remords et les regrets formulés, de même que les excuses présentées; le processus thérapeutique et la reprise en main; et le fait que l’appelant est un actif pour la société. De plus, ses gestes relèvent plutôt de l’insouciance que d’une réelle volonté de causer du tort à ses enfants. Son vécu au Cameroun et la discipline utilisée par ses parents font partie de l’explication du passage à l’acte. Les infractions ont été commises alors que l’épouse de l’appelant, également la mère des enfants, souffrait d’une maladie grave, dont elle est décédée peu de temps après l’arrestation de l’appelant, et que cela créait des tensions familiales. Malgré la collaboration mitigée de l’appelant avec la DPJ, le risque de récidive est peu élevé étant donné que les enfants ne demeurent pas avec lui — il n’a plus leur garde légale —, qu’il a des contacts supervisés par la DPJ et qu’il s’est engagé dans un processus thérapeutique. Le tribunal considère qu’il est possible d’atteindre les objectifs de dissuasion spécifique, de dénonciation et de dissuasion générale, auxquels doit être accordée une attention particulière, en sursoyant à l’imposition de la peine et en ordonnant une période de probation, durant laquelle l’appelant devra accomplir 200 heures de travaux communautaires.

Le texte intégral de la décision est disponible ici

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As a supplement to our Sunday Summary each month, Supreme Advocacy LLP in Ottawa presents Supreme One-Liners, a super-short descriptive guide to the most recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers its more comprehensive weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, summarizing all Appeals, Oral Judgments and Leaves to Appeal granted.

Appeals

Bankruptcy & Insolvency: Preferential Payments
R. v. Cope, 2026 SCC 32 (41431)

Protecting Indigenous women victims doesn’t displace Gladue.

The post Summaries Sunday: Supreme One-Liners appeared first on Slaw.

Is this a rabbit, or is it a duck? It’s both. (You’ll see the two animals after a few seconds if you haven’t already). Known as Jastrow’s rabbit/duck, this image has been amusing people ever since it first appeared in a German newspaper in 1892).

How much time and money should be spent trying to prove that Jastrow’s drawing is really a duck, or really a rabbit, or more one than the other? No time and no money at all.

Our civil justice system tries to search for truth, in order to bring each lawsuit to a just resolution on the merits. But how much time and money are spent searching for “truth” about questions which, like the rabbit/duck picture, have no truth that can be found?

The system should try to prevent public and private money being spent on evidence or advocacy that is predictably epistemically unproductive – unable to advance true knowledge.

The “Truth” about the Plaintiff’s Health

In many civil lawsuits, the primary dispute is about how injured or incapacitated the plaintiff really is. What amount of money would put them in the position they would have been in, had their injury or condition never arisen? Some numbers are certainly wrong because they are too low, others because they are too high. However, plaintiff and defendant often agree quickly that something will be paid by the defendant, and that the amount will be within a certain range.

After this point, they may spend tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees and expert evidence trying to persuade each other, and if necessary a judge and/or jury, that the correct number within the range is higher or lower.

The range in a garden variety case might run from a low number (if, as the defendant says, the plaintiff can soon get back to work) up to a much higher number (if, as the plaintiff says, they are experiencing debilitating pain that prevents ever returning to their old job).

Within this range, no number might be more correct than any other. The first problem is that pain is a subjective experience; no one else can know how the plaintiff “really feels,” and the plaintiff has an incentive to misrepresent it. The second problem is that, even if truth exists about whether the plaintiff will suffer debilitating pain 10 years from now, that truth may be inherently unknowable today.

It would follow that, even with godlike perceptiveness and unlimited evidence, a factfinder might have no hope of finding the true number, within the range. That fact should cap the time and money spent trying to better inform the factfinder.

The “Truth” about Negligence?

In other cases, experts are retained to opine about whether imperfect work fell below the standard of care. For example, in Vermilion v Binder, problems emerged with the flooring in a building that the defendants had constructed for the plaintiff. Water was getting in, and clearly the design and construction could have been better, but various other things went wrong that were not the defendants’ fault. Did their work fall below the standard of “reasonable care and skill?” The parties found and paid at least nine experts to testify “yes” and “no” in this case.

When vague legal standards such as “reasonableness” are applied to complex and idiosyncratic fact patterns, causing well-qualified and honest experts to disagree, it is possible that neither outcome on liability (negligent or not) is more “true” than the other.

Legal Ethics vs the Search for Truth

Do large sums of your client’s money hinge on questions such as personal injury damages or professional negligence? If so, your duty of commitment to the client’s cause might call you to recommend continuing investments of time and money into the case, so long as the expected payoff of the investments (for your client) exceeds their expected cost.

But just because paying a crackerjack expert to testify is likely to sway a jury doesn’t mean that the money will really advance the search for truth to which the civil litigation system is, in principle, dedicated. If large sums depended on convincing impartial observers that Jastrow’s drawing is really a rabbit or really a duck, then large sums of money would be invested to do so. And yet the expenditures would still be wasted.

Facts: Knowable and Unknowable

Radical scepticism holds that objective truth either doesn’t exist at all, or can’t be perceived by humans. That seems a step too far. Some facts investigated by the justice system – e.g. the defendant’s rate of speed just before the collision, or how much alcohol they consumed – do have precise right answers. On such questions, spending time and money searching for truth– with expert evidence or legal advocacy – can pay off with more substantively just outcomes.

However, some other questions, which add a lot of time and money to an already expensive and lengthy process, seem to basically be Jastrow rabbit/ducks.

The civil justice system probably can’t avoid having to label “ducks” and “rabbits.” It has to fix damages in personal injury cases and decide who was and wasn’t negligent. But it can limit the time and money spent by parties and the Court on epistemically unproductive evidence and advocacy.

Compensating for personal injuries, and pondering the reasonableness of professional judgment calls, seem a lot more important than trying to identify Jastrow’s animal. But the sensible course may be the same: move on to more productive inquiries, before much time or treasure is spent.

The post A Futile Search for “Truth”? Epistemically Unproductive Expenditures in Civil Lawsuits appeared first on Slaw.

Several times each month, we are pleased to republish a recent book review from the Canadian Law Library Review (CLLR). CLLR is the official journal of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL/ACBD), and its reviews cover both practice-oriented and academic publications related to the law.

Leading in the Law with Emotional Intelligence: The Path to Becoming a Twenty-First-Century Leader. By Rob Durr & Cliff Zimmerman. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2025. 342 p. Includes index. ISBN 9781531029654 (softcover) US$49.50; ISBN 9781531029661 (eBook) US$39.60.

Reviewed by Marnie Bailey
Manager, Knowledge Services
Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP

Emotional intelligence, or EQ, is the “capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and our relationships.”[1] As I read this book, I considered questions like: how might having emotional intelligence improve one’s lawyering and leadership abilities? Are we born with emotional intelligence, or can we learn it?

Leading in the Law with Emotional Intelligence: The Path to Becoming a Twenty-First-Century Leader is a workbook-style text that blends reflective writing exercises, self-discovery activities, and practice questions with scholarly discussion. Authors Rob Durr and Cliff Zimmerman both teach at an American law school. Zimmerman is a full-time law professor, and Durr, a licensed psychologist, serves as an adjunct professor. The back-and-forth between discussions of academic research into emotional intelligence and real-life examples takes a bit of getting used to, but overall, the book flows well. The writing has a conversational tone, and I could tell that the authors truly care about improving the emotional intelligence of their readers.

The first two chapters are an introduction to EQ and why it matters for lawyers, and the third discusses self-awareness and how it can improve your EQ. These three chapters and their corresponding self-discovery exercises set the stage for the remainder of the book, which discusses a four-domain model of emotional and social intelligence: self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, and relationship management. The last four chapters review these domains in detail.

While the book is geared toward lawyers, and all the situations and examples are specific to law firms, the research discussion can apply to any profession. Self-discovery breaks, images, and graphs forced me to slow down and think about what was written in the prior sections and actually use the tips provided.

The eBook comes with practice questions that pop up on the side of the screen. These are very literal; for example, the proper answer to one question was “authentic self” and my response of “true self” was marked as incorrect. These pop-up questions do not always make sense for the topic and can distract from the reading. They are created by the eBook’s AI technology and are not originally part of the book, so this would not be a problem if I were reading the print version.

I felt interspersing the workbook/self-discovery sections with the research and discussion on emotional intelligence was a good choice for this type of book. If the reader is truly following the suggestions and using the self-discovery opportunities to reflect (on things like the attributes of a good leader, their own personal triggers, and relationship management), they will come away with an overall improved understanding of their emotional intelligence. I think all relationships could benefit from this, whether they are workplace or personal ones.

As I was reading this book and working through the self-discovery exercises, I reflected on the leaders I have worked with throughout my career in special libraries and, previously, in hospitality. I realized that I have learned more from those who were not always empathetic to their employees, as they made me think at the time, “If I am ever a manager, I will make sure not to treat my team like this!” Now I am a manager of a small team in a law firm where I am also responsible for training summer and articling students in research methods. Doing the exercises in this book has shown me how I can grow my own emotional intelligence to ensure I am a positive force for all those who come to the library for assistance.

Leading in the Law with Emotional Intelligence is an interesting and insightful read for anyone in any occupation. It is written in an approachable manner and invites the reader to expand and grow their leadership and relationship skills. I highly recommend this book to everyone, not just those in a leadership position, as the practical steps explored for expanding empathy and self-awareness are something that can be used to help build relationships in all aspects of life.

________

[1] This is the definition given by Daniel Goleman, who coined the term “Emotional Quotient” in his 1995 book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (Bantam Books).

The post Book Review: Leading in the Law With Emotional Intelligence: The Path to Becoming a Twenty-First-Century Leader appeared first on Slaw.

Each month, we tell you which five English-language cases and French-language cases have been the most viewed* on CanLII in the previous month and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about using CanLII-published AI-generated summaries of the case or case excerpts.

For this past month, the five most-consulted English-language decisions were:

1. Kerr v. Baranow, 2011 SCC 10

AI-generated summary:

Facts: Two unmarried partners cohabit for about 12 years and have two children together. The female partner leaves employment to relocate and assumes most childcare and domestic labour while the male partner builds a business. The business is sold for approximately $11 million, and the parties separate with starkly contrasting net worths. The female partner sues for spousal support, child custody, and unjust enrichment, seeking constructive trust interests in a home and investment assets. The male partner concedes enrichment during the period of childcare and domestic responsibility, but disputes deprivation and proprietary relief.

Procedural History: 2008 CanLII 35922 (Ontario Superior Court of Justice): Unjust enrichment found during a defined period; near-$1 million monetary award ordered. 2009 ONCA 595 (Ontario Court of Appeal): Trial judgment set aside; new trial ordered; quantum meruit valuation directed.

Parties’ Submissions: Appellant: A monetary award for unjust enrichment may be quantified by reference to accumulated wealth, not only quantum meruit. Respondent: Compensation must be quantified by quantum meruit, including set-off for the respondent’s non-financial contributions.

Legal Issues: Must a monetary award for unjust enrichment always be calculated on a quantum meruit basis? Did the trial judge fail to consider relevant evidence of the respondent’s contributions when quantifying the award? Should the trial judge’s monetary award be restored?

Disposition: Appeal allowed; Ontario Court of Appeal order set aside. Trial judge’s order restored. Costs throughout awarded to the appellant.

Reasons: By Cromwell J. (McLachlin C.J. and Binnie, LeBel, Abella, Charron and Rothstein JJ. concurring): A monetary award for unjust enrichment is not invariably confined to a fee-for-services quantum meruit approach. A proportionate share of accumulated wealth may be appropriate where a joint family venture exists with a linked contribution. The trial findings support treating the relationship as a joint family venture rather than an employment-like arrangement. The evidentiary findings support collaborative pursuit of family goals and a domestic division of labour enabling business efforts. The findings support a link between the appellant’s domestic contributions and the accumulation of wealth. A monetary award is appropriate because a sufficiently direct and substantial link to specific property for constructive trust is absent. The quantified award is a reasonable assessment on this record, and damages assessments attract deference absent determinative error. The reasons reflect sufficient consideration of the respondent’s contributions, including by limiting unjust enrichment to the defined period.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. R. v. R.B.-C., 2026 SCC 30

AI-generated summary:

Facts: An offender is convicted of sexual assault, and the trial judge immediately begins sentencing steps, including a pre-sentence report. The defence requests an adjournment to obtain the trial-decision transcript, and sentencing is scheduled over multiple attendances. Sentencing submissions proceed in stages, including arguments about collateral immigration consequences and difficulties completing submissions within allotted time. The offender applies for a stay, alleging that post-verdict sentencing delay violates s. 11(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The trial judge dismisses the application and imposes a conditional sentence of two years less a day, followed by probation.

Procedural History: Ontario Court of Justice (Redgate J.): s. 11(b) application dismissed and a conditional sentence of two years less a day imposed, followed by one year’s probation. 2024 ONCA 930 (Court of Appeal for Ontario): Conviction appeal dismissed; sentence appeal allowed; s. 11(b) breach found and conditional sentence reduced to 20 months.

Parties’ Submissions: Appellant (Offender): A five-month presumptive ceiling for post-verdict sentencing delay should apply, and a s. 11(b) breach should yield a stay (or absolute discharge).
Respondent (Crown): The correct standard is whether sentencing time is markedly longer than reasonably necessary, and remedies under s. 24(1) should be contextual rather than an automatic stay.

Legal Issues: Does post-verdict sentencing delay infringe s. 11(b) of the Charter in this case? If s. 11(b) is breached, is sentence reduction the appropriate remedy under s. 24(1) of the Charter?

Disposition: Appeal dismissed. Court of Appeal remedy maintained, reducing the conditional sentence to 20 months.

Reasons: By Martin J. (Wagner C.J. and Karakatsanis, Côté, Rowe, Kasirer, Jamal, O’Bonsawin and Moreau JJ. concurring): Section 11(b) of the Charter applies through the imposition of sentence, but Jordan’s presumptive ceilings do not govern sentencing delay. A separate presumptive ceiling for post-verdict sentencing delay is not warranted because sentencing is variable and no comparable evidentiary basis exists. The governing test is whether sentencing takes markedly longer than it reasonably should have in all the circumstances. This inquiry is contextual, objective, and normative, and it considers overall duration, complexity, reasons for delay, party conduct, and comparable-case timelines. A new automatic stay remedy does not apply after conviction because the balance of interests differs, and remedies under s. 24(1) of the Charter are discretionary. A sentence reduction ordinarily provides an appropriate and just remedy, and a stay is reserved for rare clear cases. Charley’s five-month presumptive ceiling is an error of law, but the delay is nonetheless markedly longer than reasonably necessary on this record. (para 81). Incremental handling of collateral immigration consequences and cumulative adjournments do not adequately explain the elapsed time. Reduction of the conditional sentence to 20 months is a proper and proportionate remedy in the circumstances.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

3. Sattva Capital Corp. v. Creston Moly Corp., 2014 SCC 53

AI-generated summary:

Facts: A mining company must pay a finder’s fee to a corporate finder after acquiring a molybdenum mining property. The parties agree the fee is US$1.5 million and payable in shares, cash, or both. They dispute which date sets the share price and therefore the number of shares owed. The finder relies on the agreement’s “Market Price” definition tied to the press release date. The mining company relies on a “maximum amount” proviso tied to the fee’s payable date. The dispute proceeds to arbitration under s. 31 of the Arbitration Act, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 55.

Procedural History: 2009 BCSC 1079 (British Columbia Supreme Court), 2009: Leave to appeal the arbitral award denied. 2010 BCCA 239 (British Columbia Court of Appeal), 2010: Prior leave decision reversed and leave to appeal granted. 2011 BCSC 597 (British Columbia Supreme Court), 2011: Appeal on the merits dismissed and arbitral award upheld. 2012 BCCA 329 (British Columbia Court of Appeal), 2012: Appeal allowed and the result changed in favour of the mining company.

Parties’ Submissions: Appellant (Finder): The Court of Appeal wrongly granted leave because contractual interpretation raises mixed fact and law, not a question of law under s. 31(2) Arbitration Act. Respondent (Mining company): The leave issue is not properly before the Supreme Court, and the contract’s “maximum amount” proviso limits shares to US$1.5 million valued when payable.

Legal Issues: Is the propriety of the Court of Appeal’s leave decision reviewable in this appeal? Did the Court of Appeal err in granting leave under s. 31(2) Arbitration Act? What standard of review applies on appeal of commercial arbitration awards under the Arbitration Act? Did the arbitrator reasonably construe the agreement as a whole? Are appeal courts bound by leave courts’ comments on the merits?

Disposition: Appeal allowed, with costs throughout. Judgments of the British Columbia Court of Appeal dated May 14, 2010 and August 7, 2012 set aside. Arbitrator’s award reinstated.

Reasons: By Rothstein J. (McLachlin C.J. and LeBel, Abella, Moldaver, Karakatsanis and Wagner JJ. concurring): Leave decisions under s. 31(2) Arbitration Act remain before the Supreme Court where leave to appeal is unrestricted and the issue was argued below. Appeals from commercial arbitration are narrowly circumscribed, and leave requires a genuine question of law. Contractual interpretation generally raises mixed fact and law because it applies interpretive principles to text in light of the factual matrix. An extricable question of law is rare and requires a legal error such as applying a wrong principle or ignoring a required element. The Court of Appeal’s leave decision rests on treating construction of the “maximum amount” proviso as a pure question of law, but surrounding circumstances necessarily inform that construction. No extricable question of law arises on this record, so leave should not have been granted. Even assuming a question of law exists, “may prevent a miscarriage of justice” requires materiality and arguable merit, which fail given the arbitrator’s treatment of the proviso. On the merits addressed in any event, the framework in Dunsmuir v. New Brunswick is only partly helpful, and the Administrative Tribunals Act, S.B.C. 2004, c. 45 does not apply to arbitrations under the Arbitration Act. Reasonableness presumptively governs legal questions in this commercial arbitration appeal. The agreement supports pricing shares by the Market Price definition while limiting the fee amount to US$1.5 million, and that reconciliation is reasonable. Comments on the merits made at the leave stage cannot bind the court deciding the appeal.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

4. Cycle Toronto v. Ontario (Attorney General), 2026 ONCA 582

AI-generated summary:

Facts: The Ontario legislature enacts legislation requiring bicycle lanes removed from three Toronto streets. Cycle-lane users and an advocacy organization apply to declare the provision unconstitutional under s. 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. After the application is filed, the legislature repeals and replaces the provision, directing the Minister to “reconfigure” target bicycle lanes. The application continues on the basis that the controversy remains live despite the amendment.

Procedural History: 2025 ONSC 4397 (Ontario Superior Court of Justice), July 30, 2025: Application allowed; original s. 195.6 declared unconstitutional, and certain reconfiguration steps declared Charter-infringing.

Parties’ Submissions: Appellants (Respondents): s. 7 only addresses deprivations caused by state coercion, does not create a positive right to harm-reduction measures, and does not render s. 195.6 arbitrary or grossly disproportionate. Respondents (Applicants): They seek to strike down legislation removing a road safety feature rather than assert a positive right to bicycle lanes.

Legal Issues: Does s. 195.6 deprive individuals of life or security of the person under s. 7? Does the Charter preclude legislative repeal or amendment of previously enacted measures where no Charter obligation existed to enact them? Is the removal or reconfiguration of bicycle lanes arbitrary or grossly disproportionate under the principles of fundamental justice?

Disposition: Appeal allowed. Costs submissions permitted within 21 days; no costs awarded to or against interveners.

Reasons: By Huscroft J.A. (Fairburn A.C.J.O. and Zarnett J.A. concurring): Section 7 analysis must remain consistent with the separation of powers in a Westminster parliamentary democracy. Policy choices and legislative judgments remain for the political branches, and constitutional review is confined to constitutionality. The Charter does not bind a legislature to maintain prior statutory measures that it was not constitutionally required to enact. Any breach from amendment or repeal must be established independent of the prior state of the law. An order preventing bicycle-lane removal necessarily implies a Charter right to bicycle lanes and improperly constitutionalizes a baseline created only by legislation. No Charter right to bicycle lanes exists, so their removal does not constitute a s. 7 deprivation. In any event, a rational connection exists between reducing congestion and increasing lanes for motor vehicles, and arbitrariness is not established by debate about efficacy. Gross disproportionality requires an extreme, “draconian” mismatch, and traffic regulation does not meet that threshold on this record.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

5. Reference re Secession of Quebec, 1998 CanLII 793

AI-generated summary:

Facts: The Governor in Council refers three questions on Quebec’s unilateral secession to the Supreme Court under s. 53 of the Supreme Court Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. S-26. The questions address unilateral secession under the Constitution, unilateral secession under international law, and precedence in any conflict. The amicus curiae challenges the constitutionality and scope of the reference jurisdiction and argues the questions are not justiciable. The Reference requires consideration of underlying constitutional principles relevant to secession, including federalism, democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law, and minority protection.

Parties’ Submissions: Amicus curiae: Section 101 of the Constitution Act, 1867 does not authorize s. 53, the questions exceed s. 53’s scope, Question 2 is “pure” international law, and the questions are speculative, political, and not ripe. Respondent (Attorney General of Canada): Formal objections are raised to the amicus curiae advancing preliminary objections. Intervener (Attorney General for Saskatchewan): Secession negotiations implicate accumulated national commitments, compromises, guarantees, and solidarity that form a nation’s “fabric”. Interveners (Aboriginal peoples): Submissions raise rights and boundary concerns in the event of unilateral secession.

Legal Issues: Is s. 53 of the Supreme Court Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. S-26 constitutionally valid under s. 101 of the Constitution Act, 1867? Do the three questions fall within s. 53 of the Supreme Court Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. S-26, including Question 2’s international-law component? Are the reference questions justiciable, and should the Court answer them? Can Quebec effect secession from Canada unilaterally under the Constitution of Canada? Does international law confer a unilateral right of secession on Quebec, and is any domestic–international conflict engaged?

Disposition: Section 53 of the Supreme Court Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. S-26 is constitutional. The reference questions fall within s. 53 and are justiciable, and the Court answers them. Quebec cannot effect secession unilaterally under the Constitution of Canada. International law does not confer a unilateral right of secession on Quebec’s institutions. No domestic–international conflict arises on the questions posed.

Reasons: By Lamer C.J. and L’Heureux-Dubé, Gonthier, Cory, McLachlin, Iacobucci, Major, Bastarache and Binnie JJ.: Section 101 of the Constitution Act, 1867 authorizes Parliament to confer reference jurisdiction under s. 53 of the Supreme Court Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. S-26. An appellate court may exercise exceptional original jurisdiction and may render advisory opinions within Canada’s constitutional structure. The questions fit within s. 53(1) and s. 53(2), and addressing international law does not transform the Court into an international tribunal. The questions are justiciable because they concern the legal framework for political decision-making and are neither too imprecise nor unsupported by information. The Constitution includes written and unwritten rules, and four organizing principles—federalism, democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law, and minority protection—govern the secession context. Secession “under the Constitution” requires constitutional amendment and therefore negotiation, not unilateral action. A referendum has no direct legal effect, but a clear majority on a clear question confers legitimacy and triggers a reciprocal constitutional duty to negotiate. No party holds an absolute entitlement either to dictate secession terms or to deny negotiations following a clear democratic expression. Courts have no supervisory role over political aspects of negotiations, and political actors determine what constitutes “a clear majority on a clear question”. International law recognizes self-determination but confines a unilateral secession right to exceptional circumstances, which are inapplicable to Quebec under existing conditions. With no unilateral right under either legal order, no domestic–international precedence conflict arises.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

***

The five most-consulted French-language decisions were:

1. Communauté Droit animalier Québec – DAQ c. Festival Western de St-Tite inc., 2024 QCCA 1069

AI-generated summary:

Faits: La Communauté droit animalier Québec (DAQ), un organisme à but non lucratif, sollicite une injonction et un jugement déclaratoire visant à déclarer illégales et à interdire certaines épreuves de rodéo organisées par le Festival Western de St-Tite en vertu de la Loi sur le bien-être et la sécurité de l’animal (LBESA). Ces activités comprennent la prise de veaux au lasso et le terrassement de bouvillons, perçues comme cruelles. Le Festival Western de St-Tite est un événement annuel important attirant près de 600 000 visiteurs.

Historique procédural: Cour supérieure, 21 avril 2023 : La demande de la DAQ a été rejetée pour défaut de qualité pour agir dans l’intérêt public.

Prétentions des parties: Appelante (DAQ) : Selon elle, la Cour supérieure a appliqué de manière trop restrictive le critère de l’absence d’un autre moyen efficace de soumettre la question aux tribunaux. La DAQ fait valoir que l’action vise à faire respecter la LBESA, une loi d’intérêt public, et que le processus administratif du MAPAQ est inadéquat. Elle estime qu’une action entre parties privées peut être intentée pour faire respecter une loi d’intérêt public. Intimée (Festival Western de St-Tite) : Elle argue que le litige est de nature strictement privée et qu’il existe d’autres recours pour aborder les problèmes soulevés, notamment des recours administratifs ou pénaux selon le cadre prévu par la LBESA. Elle soutient également que la DAQ ne démontre pas d’absence d’un autre moyen efficace de traiter des questions soulevées.

Questions de droit: Une organisation tierce peut-elle se voir reconnaître la qualité pour agir dans l’intérêt public pour contester des activités présumées illégales menées par une partie privée ?
Le critère de l’article 85 du Code de procédure civile, notamment l’absence d’un autre moyen efficace de saisir la Cour, a-t-il été appliqué correctement ?

Dispositif: Rejet de l’appel avec dépens.

Motifs: Par le juge Simon Ruel (les juges François Doyon et Frédéric Bachand y souscrivant) : La Cour rejette l’appel pour trois raisons principales. Absence de qualité pour agir dans l’intérêt public : Le recours de la DAQ est dirigé contre une partie privée, et non contre les actions ou omissions de l’État. La qualité pour agir dans l’intérêt public se limite généralement au contrôle de la légalité des actes étatiques. Existence d’alternatives efficaces : La LBESA établit un cadre réglementaire exhaustif pour protéger les animaux, confié au MAPAQ. Ce dernier est doté des pouvoirs requis pour enquêter et proposer des ordonnances. Le MAPAQ, mieux équipé pour traiter les questions complexes soulevées par la DAQ, constitue une alternative raisonnable et efficace. Dérogation non justifiée aux principes d’accès à la justice et de légalité : Le recours ne visait pas à protéger les droits des catégories vulnérables ou marginalisées, comme le voudrait un recours d’intérêt public typique. En outre, la demande de la DAQ concernant des animaux, considérés comme des biens en droit civil, sort du cadre d’un tel recours. Ces éléments soulignent que le recours envisagé ne constituait ni une manière raisonnable ni efficace de soulever les enjeux en question devant les tribunaux.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. Lacroix c. Agence du revenu du Québec, 2026 QCCA 1149

AI-generated summary:

Faits: Des demandeurs intentent une demande en dommages-intérêts compensatoires et punitifs contre l’Agence du revenu et un de ses employés. Ils allèguent des fautes dans l’analyse et la gestion de dossiers fiscaux, liées à des cotisations et mesures de recouvrement. L’employé présente un moyen préliminaire, soutenant avoir agi dans l’exercice de ses fonctions. Le juge de première instance rejette la demande contre cet employé, la disant irrecevable et abusive.

Historique procédural: 2025 QCCS 5180 (Cour supérieure), 18 décembre 2025 : Moyen préliminaire accueilli et demande rejetée contre l’employé intimé.

Prétentions des parties: Appelants (Demandeurs) : Ils contestent le rejet préliminaire de leur demande en dommages contre l’employé intimé. Intimé (Employé) : Il soutient que le recours est mal fondé puisqu’il agit dans l’exercice de ses fonctions, et invoque l’art. 49 de la Loi sur l’Agence du revenu du Québec, RLRQ, c. A-7.003. ainsi que l’art. 1464 de la Code civil du Québec (C.c.Q.). Intimée (Agence) : Le procureur de l’agence propose au juge de déclarer aussi, d’office, la demande abusive envers l’employé pour les mêmes motifs.

Questions de droit: Le juge a-t-il commis une erreur révisable en rejetant préliminairement la demande contre l’employé intimé?

Dispositif: Appel accueilli, avec les frais de justice. Jugement de première instance infirmé. Requête en irrecevabilité et en rejet pour abus rejetée, avec les frais de justice.

Motifs: Par les juges Marie-France Bich, J.C.A., Michel Beaupré, J.C.A. et Myriam Lachance, J.C.A. : La norme de la décision correcte s’applique à l’examen de l’irrecevabilité fondée sur l’art. 168 al. 2 du Code de procédure civile (C.p.c.). Le rejet préliminaire exige une situation claire et évidente, sur la base des faits tenus pour avérés. Des allégations reprochent à l’employé intimé des agissements pouvant engager sa responsabilité si prouvés au fond (par 20). Le rejet au stade préliminaire escamote le principe de prudence et prive indûment les demandeurs d’un débat au mérite. La proportionnalité ne justifie pas, à elle seule, le rejet d’un recours valablement intenté. Une action visant à la fois le commettant étatique et le préposé, sur la base des art. 1463 et 1464 C.c.Q., n’est pas abusive du seul fait de cette mise en cause. L’interprétation selon laquelle un préposé de l’État ne peut jamais engager sa responsabilité personnelle dans l’exercice de ses fonctions constitue une erreur de droit. L’art. 1464 C.c.Q. sert à préciser le champ de l’« exécution des fonctions » pour l’application de l’art. 1463 C.c.Q., sans créer d’immunité. L’art. 49 de la Loi sur l’Agence du revenu du Québec, RLRQ c. A-7.003 impose à l’agence de prendre fait et cause, sans soustraire l’employé à une poursuite. Le jugement entrepris confère ainsi une immunité non prévue par la loi, ce qui commande l’intervention en appel.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

3. Monfiston c. R., 2026 QCCA 1203

AI-generated summary:

Faits: À la sortie d’un bar, l’accusée agresse violemment une inconnue pendant environ huit minutes. Elle frappe et mord la plaignante, alors qu’elle est fortement intoxiquée. La plaignante conserve des séquelles physiques et psychologiques importantes après l’agression. L’accusée, résidente permanente, est mère de cinq enfants et assume la garde exclusive de quatre d’entre eux.

Historique procédural: Cour du Québec, chambre criminelle et pénale (Laval), 10 avril 2025 : Condamnation et peine de quatre ans d’emprisonnement, notamment pour voies de fait graves.

Prétentions des parties: Appelante (accusée) : Elle soutient que la juge omet de considérer les conséquences collatérales, impose une peine manifestement non indiquée, et contrevient à Browne v. Dunn. Intimé (poursuivant) : Il réclame une peine globale de quatre ans d’emprisonnement lors des observations sur la peine.

Questions de droit: La juge omet-elle de tenir compte des conséquences collatérales dans la détermination de la peine? La peine imposée est-elle manifestement non indiquée, déraisonnable ou grossièrement disproportionnée? Le principe de Browne v. Dunn est-il enfreint, et une autorisation est-elle requise pour l’invoquer?

Dispositif: Appel accueilli. Jugement de première instance infirmé. Requête pour soulever un nouveau moyen d’appel déclarée sans objet. Peines concurrentes substituées de deux ans moins un jour d’emprisonnement avec sursis, avec conditions. Probation de deux ans, sans surveillance, ordonnée à l’expiration de la peine.

Motifs: Par les juges GENEVIÈVE MARCOTTE, J.C.A., SUZANNE GAGNÉ, J.C.A. et CHRISTINE BAUDOUIN, J.C.A. : Le corridor d’intervention en appel sur la peine demeure étroit, sauf peine manifestement non indiquée ou erreur de principe. Une erreur de principe justifie une nouvelle détermination de la peine, sans déférence envers la peine initiale. Le principe fondamental demeure la proportionnalité, conciliant individualisation et parité. Les conséquences indirectes peuvent être considérées pour individualiser la peine, sans en dénaturer la proportionnalité. La qualification des conséquences indirectes comme facteurs « neutres » constitue une erreur de principe. L’analyse doit intégrer véritablement l’incidence du statut migratoire et de la situation familiale sur la peine. Une peine d’emprisonnement s’impose, mais la question porte sur l’incarcération ou l’emprisonnement dans la collectivité. L’emprisonnement avec sursis demeure une peine de prison et peut porter un effet dénonciateur, sous réserve de la sécurité du public. Une peine avec sursis de deux ans moins un jour, avec conditions rigoureuses, demeure juste compte tenu des facteurs aggravants et atténuants. Il devient inutile de trancher le moyen visant la peine manifestement non indiquée et la requête liée à Browne v. Dunn.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

4. Walsh c. Dandurand, 2019 QCCS 1403

AI-generated summary:

Faits: Les demandeurs, un couple et leur société FMW inc., reprochent au défendeur d’avoir abattu leur chien, Maximus, sur un terrain voisin le 15 novembre 2015, pendant une partie de chasse. Maximus, un Berger de Maremme destiné à la reproduction, était libre sur leur propriété non clôturée. Le défendeur a admis avoir tiré sur Maximus, affirmant avoir cru être menacé, mais a dissimulé le corps, qui a été retrouvé plus tard. Les demandeurs réclament des dommages matériels, moraux et exemplaires ainsi que des frais extrajudiciaires.

Prétentions des parties: Demandeurs : Ils soutiennent que l’acte de tirer sur Maximus était négligent, qu’il a causé des pertes importantes pour leur entreprise d’élevage, et que ce préjudice repose sur des années de travail et d’investissements. Ils demandent une compensation pour ces pertes ainsi que des dommages pour la souffrance morale subie. Défendeur : Il plaide que les demandeurs ont contribué à leur préjudice en laissant leur chien errer hors de leur propriété, et réfute les réclamations pour dommages excessifs. Il argue également qu’il n’a pas agi de manière intentionnelle.

Questions de droit: Le défendeur a-t-il commis une faute en tirant sur le chien sans l’avoir correctement identifié ? Le laxisme des demandeurs en surveillant leur chien constitue-t-il une faute causale ? Les demandeurs peuvent-ils réclamer des dommages exemplaires, matériels et moraux dans les circonstances actuelles ? Quelle est la méthode appropriée pour évaluer les pertes économiques liées à l’abattage de l’animal ?

Dispositif: Le défendeur est condamné à verser : 7 250 $ à FMW inc. pour dommage matériel, 5 000 $ à demandeur M.W. pour dommages non pécuniaires, 5 000 $ à demandeur O.G. pour dommages non pécuniaires, avec intérêts et frais de justice exclusifs des frais d’expert.

Motifs: François Tôth, j.c.s. : Le juge conclut que le défendeur a agi de manière négligente en abattant le chien sans s’assurer de son identification, ce qui constitue une faute au sens de l’article 1457 du Code civil. Bien que les demandeurs aient laissé leur chien errer, cette faute a été jugée non causale par rapport au préjudice subi, suivant la théorie de la causalité adéquate. Concernant les dommages matériels, l’évaluation des réclamations des demandeurs est jugée excessive. La cour accepte plutôt le raisonnement défendu par l’expert du défendeur, se fondant sur le coût du remplacement de l’animal plutôt que sur des pertes extrapolées sur plusieurs décennies. Le tribunal a accordé les réclamations non pécuniaires, reconnaissant l’impact émotionnel important des circonstances autour de la perte du chien. Cependant, il rejette les dommages exemplaires, estimant que l’acte n’était pas malveillant ou intentionnel. Enfin, aucuns frais extrajudiciaires ou d’experts ne sont accordés, car aucune preuve suffisante pour justifier ces réclamations n’a été déposée et les réclamations de pertes matérielles étaient déraisonnables, ce qui a compliqué une entente préliminaire.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

5. Lac d’Amiante du Québec Ltée v. 2858-0702 Québec Inc., 2001 SCC 51

AI-generated summary:

Faits: Une société poursuit solidairement deux autres sociétés pour le remboursement de dépenses liées à des réclamations d’amiante. Elle intente aussi une seconde action réclamant un montant additionnel. Lors d’un interrogatoire préalable, les défenderesses exigent la production de nombreux documents, et la Cour supérieure rejette l’objection de pertinence. La demanderesse propose une entente de confidentialité avant la transmission des documents, mais les défenderesses refusent. La demanderesse demande ensuite une ordonnance de confidentialité visant certains documents et renseignements.

Historique procédural: Cour supérieure du Québec, [1997] A.Q. no 3593 (QL) : Requête en confidentialité rejetée. Cour d’appel du Québec, [1999] R.J.Q. 970 : Jugement de première instance infirmé, règle de confidentialité reconnue.

Prétentions des parties: Appelantes : La règle de confidentialité n’a aucun fondement législatif, contredit la publicité des débats et demeure inopportune. Intervenantes (entreprises de presse) : La transparence des débats et dossiers judiciaires, garantie par la Charte québécoise et la Charte canadienne, s’oppose à une règle de confidentialité. Intimée : La confidentialité découle de l’évolution procédurale et de principes substantiels, car l’interrogatoire n’est plus une audience publique.

Questions de droit: Une règle implicite de confidentialité régit-elle le contenu des interrogatoires préalables au Québec? L’interrogatoire préalable constitue-t-il une audience de tribunaux au sens de l’art. 13 Code de procédure civile, L.R.Q., ch. C-25? Les tribunaux québécois peuvent-ils créer une règle positive de procédure civile sans base législative? Quelle est l’étendue de la règle de confidentialité applicable aux informations obtenues à l’interrogatoire préalable?

Dispositif: Pourvoi rejeté. Arrêt de la Cour d’appel confirmé. Dépens adjugés en faveur de l’intimée.

Motifs: Par le juge LeBel : Le C.p.c. demeure un droit codifié soumis à une méthode d’interprétation civiliste. Un tribunal québécois ne peut créer une règle procédurale seulement parce qu’elle paraît opportune. La procédure civile s’articule néanmoins avec le Code civil du Québec, L.Q. 1991, ch. 64 et la Charte des droits et libertés de la personne, L.R.Q., ch. C-12, qui expriment des valeurs pertinentes à la confidentialité. L’évolution de l’interrogatoire préalable le rend essentiellement exploratoire et, en règle générale, privé. En principe, l’interrogatoire ne constitue pas une audience au sens de l’art. 13 Code de procédure civile, L.R.Q., ch. C-25 ni de l’art. 23 Charte des droits et libertés de la personne, L.R.Q., ch. C-12. L’information obtenue ne fait pas partie du dossier tant qu’elle n’est pas produite au procès. La protection de la vie privée, reconnue à l’art. 5 Charte des droits et libertés de la personne, L.R.Q., ch. C-12 et aux art. 35–37 Code civil du Québec, L.Q. 1991, ch. 64, justifie une obligation implicite de confidentialité à l’étape préalable. La règle limite l’usage des informations au litige, sauf autorisation du tribunal. La confidentialité ne vise que l’information obtenue uniquement grâce à l’interrogatoire et autrement non accessible au public.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

* As of February 2025, we measure the number of unique pageviews that a case gets; as well, a case once mentioned won’t appear again for three months.

The post Wednesday: What’s Hot on CanLII? – September 2026 appeared first on Slaw.

There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that outsourcing your cognitive processes to AI — whether by letting it do your writing or thinking or analyzing for you — is a bad idea. Partly, of course, this is because the AI might do a poor job of it, leaving you on the hook for badly reasoned arguments or banally worded text.

In the bigger picture, though, the worry is that by delegating your thought processes to a machine, your own cognitive muscles will atrophy, and you’ll be less able to apply acute reasoning when you don’t have the AI to rely on. This is especially a concern for newer lawyers, who are still developing their legal and analytical reasoning skills and are most at risk of losing their mental acuity before they’ve really begun to hone it.

I share these concerns. But I also accept that more and more people routinely turn to AI at least for assistance with thinking things through, and often for more. I also know that thinking things through is hard work — often frustrating, frequently draining — and that hard-working lawyers often feel they have only so much intellectual bandwidth available.

So I don’t think it’s realistic simply to tell young lawyers, “Never use AI to help you with your thinking.” The goal should be to help them do it carefully and wisely.

Here’s what I’ve been telling law students and young lawyers in my talks with them recently: Think of AI as a tennis partner, maybe even an instructor or coach. When you hit the ball over the net, they’re going to hit it back to you — often, especially when you’re relatively inexperienced, more skilfully than you did. Watching and learning from them, your return should be a little better than your first try.

Similarly, with AI, your initial attempt to explore an idea or generate some text should include a request to analyze and assess your position. The AI should then produce a response that highlights what’s strong, what’s merely okay, and what needs work. Your subsequent reply should reflect that feedback and improve on your thinking and writing, inviting further volleys from the AI as you strive to bring your idea or your phrasing to a point where you’re satisfied with it.

In this way, working with AI is an iterative process. Each back-and-forth should advance your progress, as you evaluate the AI’s feedback and decide which of it is helpful and which is not. It’s like engaging with a more experienced colleague who can help you get better each time you ask.

But here’s the critical point about seeing AI as a tennis partner: You have to serve. You have to be the one who comes up with the original idea or the initial draft for the AI to consider. If you let the AI serve first, then you’re just letting the instructor do all the work, and you’re not learning anything useful or producing anything original.

Worse, your finished “work” will be indistinguishable from that of any other lawyer who used AI for the hard stuff. The only truly distinctive feature of your legal service offerings in a post-AI world is your own originality, insight, and humanity. Surrendering your individual creative agency to a machine removes all those features and leaves you in a seriously uncompetitive position.

No good tennis instructor would do all the serving, and no player who’s serious about developing their game to its highest level would ask them to. As tempting as it might be to just give in and let the AI take the lead, it’s imperative that you hold fast and push yourself to come up with your own original insights and ideas at the start.

Let the AI be a helpful instructor. Make sure you remain the rising star.

The post Holding Serve With AI appeared first on Slaw.