Databases on Quebec National Assembly Website Now Go Way Back

The website of the Québec National Assembly has expanded the historical range of many of its databases:

• it is now possible to search in parliamentary debates all the way back to 1867
• annual statutes can now also be searched going back to 1867
• debates of parliamentary commissions now go back to 1963

Library and IM-Related Highlights from the 2017-18 Departmental Results Reports

The website Librarianship.ca has published Highlights from the 2017-18 Departmental Results Reports.

Every year, the Treasury Board tables performance reports in the House of Commons on behalf of dozens of federal government agencies and departments.

"Departmental Results Reports replaced the former Departmental Performance Reports, which are part of the Estimates and Supply process. They provide details on an organization’s mandate, commitments and results achieved."

"Below are some highlights of interest to the Canadian library and information management community as identified by individual departments and agencies."

Five Questions with Kirsten Clement - Library of Parliament

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) has been running a series of member profiles called Five Questions With...

The most recent interview is with Kirsten Clement, Research Librarian at the Library of Parliament in Ottawa:

"How has being involved in CALL helped you professionally (e.g. scholarships & grants, continuing education, networking)?
In 2016, I had the opportunity to attend the New Law Librarians Institute at the University of Ottawa. It was a phenomenal experience for me both in terms of professional development and networking and it really opened my eyes to the many types of environments where law librarians work. I found it provided an excellent grounding both in many substantive aspects of the law and in terms of legal librarianship skills development, and it really made me feel more confident in the way I approached my job. I have stayed connected with a number of people I met through NLLI and am even co-chairing the National Capital Association of Law Librarians (NCALL) with one of them, a law librarian at the Supreme Court, this year! I also had the chance to attend my first CALL conference in Halifax this past May, which was also an inspiring and engaging learning opportunity and a real chance to almost get an even broader aerial view of trends and issues in the legal information profession."

Supreme Court of Canada Calendar of December 2018 Hearings

The Supreme Court of Canada has published its calendar of appeals that will be heard from December 3 to 14, 2018.

To find out more about any particular case, click on the docket number in parentheses next to each case name to find docket information, case summaries as well as facta from the parties.

Most Recent Issue of Canadian Law Library Review Available

The most recent issue of the Canadian Law Library Review is now available online on the ISSUU platform. It is also available in PDF format.

It is the quarterly journal of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries.

Copyright Series by University of Ottawa Prof Michael Geist "Misleading on Fair Dealing"

On his blog, University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist has started a series dealing with misconceptions that he states publishers and rights-holding organizations have been disseminating about fair dealing.

Fair dealing is an exception allowed under the Copyright Act. It allows use of limited portions of a copyright protected work without permission or payment of copyright royalties for purposes such as  research, private study, education, satire, parody, criticism, review or news reporting.

In the first part of the series, Prof. Geist explains:

"Fair dealing has unsurprisingly emerged as one of the dominant topics of the ongoing Canadian copyright review. While educational institutions maintain that spending on content has increased since the 2012 reforms that added education to the list of fair dealing purposes, Access Copyright and the publishing community argue that licensing revenues have declined. Starting today, I’ll be posting a series on fair dealing that unpack many of the issues and demonstrate why House of Commons committees studying the issue may have been misled by exaggerated and inaccurate claims."

"The series starts with the foundational argument from Access Copyright and its supporters, namely that current educational practices are the result of the 2012 copyright reforms that led to a significant expansion of fair dealing. The implication is that the government broke their compensation system in 2012 and should “fix it” by curtailing educational use of fair dealing. Future posts will explain why licensing has actually increased since 2012, but this post is limited to the oft-heard claim that the 2012 reforms are to “blame” for current educational practices."

Part 2 of the series published yesterday is entitled Why Access Copyright’s Claim of 600 Million Uncompensated Copies Doesn’t Add Up.

Part 3 published today is entitled Data Shows Books Are Rapidly Declining as Part of Coursepack Materials.

Law Library of Congress Report on Child Asylum Seekers

The Law Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. has released a report on Provisions on Child Asylum Seekers:

"This report surveys the laws of eight democratic foreign jurisdictions with respect to whether there are special laws concerning children asylum-seekers, particularly unaccompanied children.  Covered jurisdictions include the countries of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, as well as the European Union (EU)."

"As discussed more fully in the jurisdictional surveys, all of the jurisdictions covered in this report have provisions treating asylum-seeking minors differently from asylum-seeking adults.  The EU requires Member States to make protecting the best interests of the child a primary consideration when applying asylum law.  Member States must provide unaccompanied minor asylees with legal guardians or representatives; must make the health, including mental health, a primary concern; and may detain minors only in exceptional circumstances as a last resort in age-appropriate accommodations.  Australian law requires a legal guardian or custodian be appointed for unaccompanied children seeking asylum, and provides that they should be accommodated within the community wherever possible.  Canadian law mandates consideration of a child’s best interests in immigration matters, and minors are to be detained only as a measure of last resort.  In France, unaccompanied alien children may stay in France without a residency permit until they reach eighteen years of age, and France’s general law for child protection services applies to them.  Germany’s asylum law requires protection of the best interests of the child, which entails, among other things, temporary custody and services by the Youth Welfare Services agency of the German state in question.  Italy has a specific law for asylum and humanitarian protection of unaccompanied foreign minors that establishes extensive protective measures.  Under Swedish permanent law, unaccompanied minors, unlike adults, generally qualify as in need of 'other protection' and are eligible for permanent residence permits, as well as significant protections for children; even under a temporary law enacted in response to the 2015 refugee crisis, unaccompanied minors are generally allowed to remain in Sweden until adulthood.  In the UK, a specific provision requires the government to safeguard and promote the welfare of children when discharging all functions associated with immigration and asylum."

The Law Library of Congress is the world’s largest law library, with a collection of close to 2.9 million volumes from all ages of history and virtually every jurisdiction in the world.

Manitoba Law Reform Commission Report on Building Liens Modernization

The Manitoba Law Reform Commission today released its report entitled The Builders’ Liens Act of Manitoba: A Modernized Approach.

The purpose of The Builders’ Liens Act is to ensure that people involved in construction projects are paid for their contributions in accordance with their contractual entitlements. It provides legal remedies for those who provide work, perform services or supply materials upon a construction project.

The Commission's report proposes a series of remedies to the widespread issue of delays in payment.

Among other things, it proposes that Manitoba adopt the approach recently introduced by Ontario to incorporate statutory timelines for payments and prescribed penalties for payment delay (i.e. “prompt payment reforms”) within the Act.

The Commission also recommends the creation of a private adjudication system  that would have tight timelines for determination of payment disputes and minimal disruption while the construction project is ongoing.

The Commission also recommends enhancements to the statutory trust remedy in the Act to better achieve the purpose of keeping project funds within the construction contract pyramid for each specific project, including changing the statutory trust from one whereby owners, contractors, and subcontractors hold all funds received as payments on account of a contract price for listed beneficiaries to a privity model whereby trustees hold project funds in trust for only those it has contracted with directly. This aligns Manitoba’s statutory trust provisions with those of other jurisdictions including Ontario, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia.

60 Million Pages From Canadiana Archival Collections Free After January 2019

This is a follow-up to the Library Boy post of April 10, 2018 entitled Merger of Canadian Research Knowledge Network and Canadiana.org.

The Canadian Research Knowledge Network has announced that some 60 million pages of  digital material in the Canadiana collections will be available for free starting in January 2019:

"The Canadiana collections are the largest online collections of early textual Canadiana in the world. The removal of the subscription paywall will allow unimpeded access to this unique historical content for researchers, students, faculty, and all users in Canada and around the world."

"Making the Canadiana collections available at no cost to users is a result of the recent merger between Canadiana.org, a not-for-profit charity, and the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN), a not-for-profit partnership of 75 Canadian universities, finalized in April 2018 (...)"
"The Canadiana collections include three flagship collections: Early Canadiana Online, Héritage, and Canadiana Online. The Early Canadiana Online and Canadiana Online collections are comprised of Canadian monographs, periodicals, government publications, newspapers and annuals and amount to over 19 million pages. The Héritage collection, developed in partnership with Library and Archives Canada (LAC) and CRKN, includes 900 collections of 41 million pages of archival materials. The Héritage collection includes scans of microfilm taken from some of Library and Archives Canada’s most sought-after archival collections."

Law Library of Congress Report on Online Privacy Laws

The Law Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. has just published a report on Online Privacy Law (written in December 2017). It is an updated version of an older report originally published in 2012.

The document looks at the data protection laws of the European Union and of, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. 

It describes the legal framework for the collection, use, and transfer of data, and examine whether existing laws are adequate to deal with online privacy in an era of rapid technological development and globalization.

The Law Library of Congress is the world's largest law library.

 

Supreme Court of Canada: New Library Titles

The list of new library titles added to the Supreme Court of Canada collection from November 1 to 15, 2018 is now available on the Court website.

It is possible to subscribe via e-mail to receive the list.

Sixth Annual Government Information Day Conference in Toronto

The Ontario Government Libraries Council is organizing the sixth annual Government Information Day on November 30, 2018. The event will take place at the OISE  Library of the University of Toronto,

The program includes sessions on:

• Investigating the Persistence of Federal Government Publications in Former Depository Libraries
• Web Archiving
• An Update on GALLOP Portal (Association of Parliamentary Libraries in Canada)
• Librarianship in the Digital Age: Challenges, Threats and Opportunities
• FOI Inside Out: Librarians working in FOI
• Scholars Portal Grey Literature Project
• Linked Parliamentary Data Project
• Digitization of At-Risk Government Publications
• Is a 50% Reduction of Government Doc's Space Possible? - The Curation Weeding Dance
• Government Information in Canada (the book)

13 Questions With Robyn Biggar - Records and Freedom of Information Administrator

The librarianship.ca website has been running a series of librarian profiles called 13 Questions With ...

Here is the most recent one with Robyn Biggar, Records and FOIPPA Administrator, City of Port Coquitlam:

"Why a career in librarianship?
I love learning and reading, I wanted to know everything; however, I was also aware that time was limited in life to learn everything. I realized one day that the next best thing was to be the person who organized the information that experts referred to – this way I get exposure to the ideas and information and not be tied down to any one subject. This desire to learn and know more is also tied to how information is accessible and truthful, so working in information governance allows me to work with policies and procedures to ensure information integrity and accessibility (while balancing privacy requirements) ..."

"Career advice – what’s your top tip?
Do and learn as much as you can when you are able. This is such a broad field, but you are expected to be the expert: get a variety of experience, work with different people, become self-aware, etc."

Chief Justice of Canada Richard Wagner Article in Canadian Lawyer

Canadian Lawyer magazine has published a lengthy profile of Richard Wagner, Chief justice of Canada.

It looks at Wagner's career, his interest in access to justice and modernizing legal information, as well as his efforts to make Canada's top court more accessible.

English and Scottish Law Commissions Launch Consultation on Self-Driving Cars

The Law Commission of England and Wales and the Scottish Law Commission have launched a joint consultation into future rules for automated vehicles.

It is part of a three-year review to examine any legal obstacles to the widespread introduction of self-driving vehicles and highlight the need for regulatory reforms.

The questions that are dealt with in the consultation include:

• How should we provide safety assurance for self-driving systems?
• Road rules have been developed for human drivers. How should they be adapted for automated vehicles so that they drive safely? For example, should an automated vehicle mount the pavement or cross a white line to let an emergency vehicle through, just like a human driver would in an emergency situation?
• Should we introduce a new Government agency to monitor and investigate accidents involving automated vehicles?
• Do we need to modify criminal and civil liability laws to ensure clarity and certainty in the law about who is accountable if things go wrong? This work builds on the government’s recent insurance reforms for automated vehicles.

Most Recent Issue of LawNow: Legal Weed

The most recent issue of LawNow is available online.

The magazine is published by the Centre for Public Legal Education Alberta.

The issue features a series of articles on the recent legalization of recreational cannabis in Canada.

Canadian Association of Law Libraries Webinar on SWOTing Business Development Opportunities

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) is hosting a webinar on November 22, 2018 on SWOTing Business Development Opportunities:

"This webinar will cover how to use publicly available sources to add value to client background reports. Numerous sources provide generic pre-packaged background reports on companies. In addition to these, many publicly available sources - annual reports, media, governmental public disclosure, etc. - can punch up the value of these reports. This session will demonstrate how to use these sources to assess the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) of a target company, and how to use this information to SWOT out potential business development opportunities."

The speaker will be Katie Cuyler, Public Services Librarian at the University of Alberta.

The webinar takes place from 1 to 2:30PM Eastern.

Cost is $45.20 for CALL members ($28.25 for CALL student members), $67.80 for non-members.

2018 International Library Automation Perceptions Survey

Library Technology Guides is inviting libraries to participate in the 2018 International Library Automation Perceptions Survey:

"Please take this opportunity to register the perceptions of the library automation system used in your library, its vendor, and the quality of support delivered. The survey also probes at considerations for migrating to new systems, involvement in discovery products, and the level of interest in open source ILS. While the numeric rating scales support the statistical results of the study, the comments offered also provide interesting insights into the current state of library automation satisfaction."

"Note: If you have responded to previous editions of the survey, please give your responses again this year. By responding to the survey each year, you help identify long-term trends in the changing perceptions of these companies and products.
As with the previous versions of the survey, only one response per library is allowed and any individual can respond only for one library. These restrictions ensure that no single organization or individual can skew the statistics."

The annual survey has been conducted every year since 2007. The results of all previous surveys are available on the Library Technology Guides website, which is maintained by Marshall Breeding, a well-known library automation expert.

November 2018 Issue of In Session - E-Newsletter of Canadian Association of Law Libraries

The November 2018 issue of In Session is available online.

It is the monthly e-newsletter of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) and contains news from CALL committees and special interest groups, member updates and events.

English Law Commission Scoping Report on Protecting Victims from Online Abuse

The Law Commission of England and Wales has published a scoping report on the protection of victims from online and social media-based abuse:

"We were asked to assess whether the current criminal law achieved parity of treatment between online and offline offending. For the most part, we have concluded that abusive online communications are, at least theoretically, criminalised to the same or even a greater degree than equivalent offline offending. However, we consider there is considerable scope for reform:

• Many of the applicable offences do not adequately reflect the nature of some of the offending behaviour in the online environment, and the degree of harm it can cause.
• Practical and cultural barriers mean that not all harmful online conduct is pursued in terms of criminal law enforcement to the same extent that it might be in an offline context.
• More generally, criminal offences could be improved so they are clearer and more effectively target serious harm and criminality.
• The large number of overlapping offences can cause confusion.
• Ambiguous terms such as 'gross offensiveness' 'obscenity' and 'indecency' don’t provide the required clarity for prosecutors.

Reforms would help to reduce and tackle, not only online abuse and offence generally but also:

• 'Pile on' harassment, where online harassment is coordinated against an individual. The Report notes that “in practice, it appears that the criminal law is having little effect in punishing and deterring certain forms of group abuse”.
• The most serious privacy breaches – for example the Report highlights concerns about the laws around sharing of private sexual images. It also questions whether the law is adequate to deal with victims who find their personal information e.g. about their health or sexual history, widely spread online."

As part of its report, the Commission examined laws governing abusive and offensive communication in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Germany and New Zealand.

Supreme Court of Canada: New Library Titles

The list of new library titles added to the Supreme Court of Canada collection from October 16 to 31, 2018 is now available on the Court website.

It is possible to subscribe via e-mail to receive the list.

US Justice Department Launches Hate Crime Website

Earlier this week, the American Department of Justice launched a new comprehensive hate crimes website.

According to the press release, it is :

"a centralized portal for the Department’s hate crimes resources for law enforcement, media, researchers, victims, advocacy groups, and other related organizations and individuals. The resources include training materials, technical assistance, videos, research reports, statistics, and other helpful information from all of the Department components working on hate crimes. In recent years, the Department has ramped up its hate crimes prosecution program and increased training of federal, state, and local law enforcement officers to ensure that hate crimes are identified and prosecuted to the fullest extent possible."

Other sources for tracking the rise of hate crimes in the United States include:

• Southern Poverty Law Center : "Our lawsuits have toppled institutional racism and stamped out remnants of Jim Crow segregation; destroyed some of the nation’s most violent white supremacist groups; and protected the civil rights of children, women, the disabled, immigrants and migrant workers, the LGBT community, prisoners, and many others who faced discrimination, abuse or exploitation. Our Intelligence Project is internationally known for tracking and exposing the activities of hate groups and other domestic extremists."
• Anti-Defamation League : "Founded in 1913, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is our nation’s premier civil rights/human relations organization. We have a distinguished history of reminding the world just how tenuous civil rights are and we mobilize people to engage in reasonable discourse as together we find solutions to serve our diverse society."
• ProPublica Documenting Hate: this is a partnership of dozens of media organizations to gather reliable, verified data on hate crimes

For the sake of comparison, the most recent Statistics Canada report on hate crimes in this country was published in April 2018.