August

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled on April 15 in R. v. Lloyd that a one-year mandatory minimum drug sentence is unconstitutional as it violates section 12 of the Charter (cruel and unusual punishment).

Regulating legal entities as well as the individuals who practise in them reflects the reality of modern practice that many regulatory requirements are fulfilled by the law firm not the individual lawyer. And moving to outcomes‐focused regulation will shift the regulatory focus from reacting to complaints to proactively encouraging ethical best practices.

Christopher Veeman, Executive Member of the Canadian Bar Association’s Immigration Law Section, appeared before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration to discuss the changes to Bill C-6, An Act to Amend the Citizenship Act.

Events are scattered across the country today and for the next month to commemorate the April 17, 1982 signing of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Bill C-4 - an Act to amend the Canada Labour Code, the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act, the Public Service Labour Relations Act and the Income Tax Act.

The Counsel Network and the Canadian Bar Association’s (CBA) Canadian Corporate Counsel Association (CCCA) provided advance viewing of the findings of the 2016 In-House Counsel Compensation & Career Survey on April 5, 2016 at the CCCA National Conference in Calgary. The full results are available today.

Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship John McCallum to speak at CBA Immigration Law Conference Friday, April 8 at 1:00 pm.

The CCCA handed out a number of awards at its conference in Calgary earlier this month. There’s a new award from the Pro Bono Committee; the latest winner of the Legal Aid Leader award has been named; and don’t forget the deadline is coming up for the National Sections Council award.

Somewhere between staying in the dark, doing a lot of leg work yourself or being inundated with notifications from an overactive RSS feed there’s a sweet spot – a place to find all the top legal headlines of the day.

Across the country students are preparing for mock trials and debates, lawyers and judges are prepping for information sessions, and a lot of people are training for fun runs – it’s Law Day again!