The buried children have been haunting me. It’s difficult to celebrate the turning of the year while thousands of children remain lost in the rubble of humanitarian catastrophes caused by disasters, political turmoil, and armed conflicts around the world. In 2023, apocalyptic stories of children and families lost through earthquakes, landslides, wildfires, atrocities, and war...Read More

The end of a calendar year invites reflection on the months just passed. Inspired by Alice Woolley (now Justice Alice Woolley) who compiled several year-in-review lists when she was a professor (see, for example, here, here, here and here), in this column I look back on five areas of key developments in lawyers’ ethics and...Read More

I was intrigued by the Ontario Court of Appeal’s “Supplementary Reasons” in Working Families Coalition (Canada) Inc.v. Ontario (Attorney General) (“Supplementary Reasons”), recently reported in the December 15, 2023 Ontario Reports. On March 6, 2023, the Court of Appeal released its decision in the Working Families Coalition’s (“The Coalition”) challenge to the third party spending...Read More

Systemic racism is a reality in Canada. At many junctures in life, a person’s access to opportunities and fair treatment will be affected by their race, skin colour, or indigineity. The legal profession, in order to do its essential work in our society, must recognize and confront systemic racism. So far, most formal efforts to...Read More

Ever have those days where you need a smile? Allow me to introduce you to the Smile File. Throughout our careers we may receive letters of encouragement from peers or mentors; well wishes from clients or appreciation about a job well done; experience career milestones; or receive other electronic or written communications that make us...Read More

“You’re a lawyer — you must like arguing!” While this may be true for some lawyers, when it comes to conflict with their closest colleagues, many would rather avoid the pain and discomfort. Although interpersonal conflict is often thought of as a battle between two people, I have learned that conflict is about tension between...Read More

In our July 2022 update on the Canada- U.S. Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) dispute over Canada’s supply management system for dairy products,[1] we referred to “new front” in the “dairy wars.“ New Zealand launched a complaint against Canada pursuant to the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP),[i] taking issue with its lack of “promised access” to...Read More

The BC Family Justice Innovation Lab and its Youth Voices Initiative [Note 1] continue to support the ground-breaking work of the Transform the Family Justice System Collaborative. Last month, I attended the Youth Family Justice Conference, co-hosted by A2JBC, the Representative for Children and Youth, the Youth Voices Initiative, and the Society for Children and...Read More

Lawyers read more than ordinary people, and writing is the inverse of reading, so all of that reading ought to make great writers of us. Nevertheless, for many lawyers of my acquaintance, any sort of writing outside of the ordinary business of law can be a source of misery and self-torture. I have a suggestion...Read More

Contracts are integral to how institutions operate – from government, to banks, to non-profits, to commercial markets, and beyond. However, the past few years have rocked our understanding of how we work with contracts. The effects of pandemic disruptions, rising prices, and the proliferation of artificial intelligence are just some of the system-wide changes that...Read More