Most Recent Issue of the Canadian Law Library Review

The most recent issue of the Canadian Law Library Review (CLLR) is available online.

The CLLR is the official journal of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL). It is an open access publication.

Check out the feature article:

• The First Law Book for Women: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon and A Brief Summary, In Plain  Language, of the Most Important Laws Concerning Women (starts on p. 9): "There have been many books written about the legal status of women, but in England, they had all been written by men. That changed in 1854. That year, long before women had equal rights or could practice law, Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon wrote A Brief Summary, in Plain Language, of the Most Important Laws Concerning Women. This article traces the book’s creation and considers its impact on law reform"

Newest Episode of Arrêt sur le Droit Podcast about Supreme Court of Canada Decisions

Arrêt sur le droit is a relatively new French-language podcast whose goal is to help people better understand decisions by the Supreme Court of Canada.

It is co-produced by the Bar Association of Montreal and CAIJ (the free legal information portal of the Quebec Bar Association) in collaboration with the Supreme Court of Canada.

The most recent episode analyzes the Ward v. Quebec (Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse) decision (2021 SCC 43). 

That decision dealt with the limits of freedom of expression in a case involving one of Québec's most famous stand-up comics.

Arrêt sur le droit is hosted by Michel Désautels who for years was one of the top current affairs hosts of the public broadcaster Société Radio-Canada.

Law Library of Congress Report on Regulation of Assisted Dying

The Law Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.  has published a report on the Regulation of Assisted Dying.

"This report addresses the regulation of assisted dying in Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland. It sets out the general legal frameworks on assisted dying and examines whether specific diseases, in particular Parkinson’s disease, were discussed during the parliamentary debates or invoked as a reason for passing the respective laws."

"Assisted dying includes euthanasia and assisted suicide. Euthanasia is generally defined as the act of causing death to prevent further suffering. It can take the form of active euthanasia (e.g., administering a lethal dose of a drug) or passive euthanasia (withholding life-sustaining treatment). This report does not address passive euthanasia. Assisted suicide is the act of assisting a person in ending their life to prevent further suffering."

"It appears that while all the surveyed jurisdictions require the patient to have a serious and incurable disease among the eligibility criteria for assisted dying, none of them included specific diseases as part of the rationale for passing their laws. However, the question whether specific diseases qualify a person for assisted suicide was mentioned in Belgium and the Netherlands."

The Law Library of Congress is the world’s largest law library, with a collection of over 2 and a half million volumes from all ages of history and virtually every jurisdiction in the world.

Over the years, it has published dozens of comparative law reports which are a treasure trove for legal research on a huge variety of issues.

Legislative Review of the Cannabis Act: Final Report of the Expert Panel

The Canadian statute that legalized the possession of cannabis in 2018 provided for an official review of its implementation and impact by an independent panel.

That panel has published its final report.

From the executive summary:

"Based on the evidence presented to us, we believe that there has been significant progress made on several of the key objectives of the legislation. Notably, these include:

• the establishment of a licensing framework supporting a legal industry that is providing adult consumers with a quality-controlled supply of a variety of cannabis products
• steady progress in shifting adult consumers to the legal cannabis market
• for the most part, adherence to rules on promotion, packaging and labelling, including prohibitions about making claims about health or lifestyle benefits
• a significant reduction (95% between 2017 and 2022) in the number of charges for the possession of cannabis and minimizing the negative impact on some individuals from interactions with the criminal justice system"

"However, it would be a mistake for governments to adopt an attitude of complacency with the current regime or move away from a public health and public safety approach to cannabis. Continuous assessment of what works and what needs to change is necessary in a framework that is a radical shift from an era of prohibition, which limited research and evidence-based policy. Our consultations have uncovered the following areas of concern..."

Those areas of concerns are related to young people's use of cannabis, high-potency products,  Indigenous communities, various costs to industry, the need for better enforcement of regulations, and access to cannabis for medicinal purposes.

Legislative Assembly of Ontario Website Launches New Hansard Search

The Legislative Assembly of Ontario has updated its search tool for legislative debates ("Hansard").

The new search tool comes with a list of useful search tips.

Enhancements to the interface include:       

• a modern, accessible design that is user- and mobile-friendly;
• results appear on the same page as the tool (you no longer need to navigate back to edit search fields);
• a bilingual interface and search tips 

When viewing search results, you can now:

• choose how many results display on the page (20, 50, or 100);
• order search results by date, speaker, or topic;
• filter results by speaker, topic, type of business, and session;
• see an excerpt from Hansard where the search terms appear 

Recent Library of Parliament Legislative Summaries

The Library of Parliament in Ottawa has recently published a number of legislative summaries of important federal bills.

Among them are:

• Legislative Summary of Bill C-56: An Act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Competition Act: "Bill C-56, An Act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Competition Act (short title: Affordable Housing and Groceries Act), was introduced in the House of Commons on 21 September 2023 by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and received first reading that same day. The bill was passed by both chambers of Parliament after being amended in the House of Commons, and it received Royal Assent on 15 December 2023. Bill C-56 has two parts: Part 1 amends the Excise Tax Act (ETA) to temporarily enhance the Goods and Services Tax (GST) new residential rental property rebate in respect of new purpose-built rental housing. Part 2 amends the Competition Act to promote competition, particularly in the grocery sector. This legislative summary provides a brief description of the key amendments contained in Bill C-56."
• Legislative Summary of Bill C-48: An Act to amend the Criminal Code (bail reform): "Bill C-48 makes changes to Canada’s Criminal Code ... provisions concerning judicial interim release, also known as bail. It adds to existing “reverse onus” provisions that shift the prosecutor’s burden of demonstrating why an accused person should be held in detention pending trial onto the accused, who instead must demonstrate to the judge or justice of the peace that there is no reason warranting their detention. These amendments are in response to concerns raised by various stakeholders about crimes being committed by repeat violent offenders, in particular those who use firearms. These reverse onus amendments apply to accused persons who were previously convicted of a violent offence and are subsequently charged with violent offences or offences involving firearms, knives, bear spray or other weapons. The bill also proposes changes to address the risks posed by intimate partner violence, particularly when committed by repeat offenders. It adds considerations a justice must take into account during bail decisions regarding community safety and security concerns."
• Legislative Summary of Bill S-15: An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act: "The bill creates various Criminal Code offences in relation to elephants and great apes, including: possessing, breeding or impregnating elephants or great apes in captivity; possessing an elephant or great ape that is kept in captivity and failing to take reasonable measures to prevent natural breeding; and participating in any activities that involve elephants or great apes kept in captivity being used for entertainment purposes."

Canadian Federation of Library Associations Position on Copyright in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence

The Canadian Federation of Library Associations (CFLA) recently published a position paper on the Canadian government's consultation on Copyright in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence.

The CFLA document looks at technical issues, text and data mining, authorship and ownership of works generated via artificial intelligence, and liability for copyright violations regarding AI.

In its summary, the CFLA concludes:

"Copyright law should not be utilized as a tool to tackle the broader societal challenges that may result from the effects of generative AI on society. Nor should AI innovation be constrained in Canada by laws that are inflexible and have fewer exceptions than other competing jurisdictions, such as the US, which has an expansive fair use doctrine for AI developers and researchers to rely on."

"AI possesses the capacity to revolutionize numerous occupations beyond individual creators, and such disruptive innovations have been seen throughout human history such as the printing press, automation in industry, and the digital disruption of the internet, to name a few examples. Addressing the resultant innovative disruption by supporting training for new opportunities in jobs related to AI development or by supporting worker retraining through organizations like community colleges, universities and public libraries, should be approached at an economic and society wide level ... As well, the Canadian government should invest in more grants and support for Canadian creative industries and for creators in the long term."

"As it currently stands there is a huge swath of information that is unavailable to Canadian higher education researchers and smaller independent AI researchers because of technological protection measures and prohibitive licensing fees to access some data sets. This includes licensed library resources that in many cases require additional text and data mining agreements to be able to be used by institutional researchers for TDM [text and data mining] purposes. Researchers may need access to many sets of data in order to complete a project, and there is a real risk that these research projects might not be realized. There is a societal risk of a regime of monopolistic access to data, where large AI or data companies are the only ones that can afford to gather, purchase or assume the risk of accessing data sets ... Democratic access is reduced under licensing regimes. It is in the public interest for Canadian AI researchers to have robust exceptions when it comes to TDM."

Law Commission of Ontario Report on A New Environmental Bill of Rights for Ontario

The Law Commission of Ontario (LCO) has published A New Environmental Bill of Rights for Ontario: Final Report.

The report examines Ontario's existing Environmental Bill of Rights (EBR) and makes a series of major recommendations to enhance environmental accountability in the province.

The EBR was proclaimed in February 1994 and it introduced a number of mechanisms to improve public participation, transparency, and government accountability for environmental decision-making. 

The LCO concludes that the EBR has not always been meeting its stated objectives and needs updating.

The report's 58 recommendations for change are listed in Appendix A of the report.

March 2024 Issue of In Session E-Bulletin of Canadian Association of Law Libraries

The March 2024 issue of In Session has been published. 

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. 

The current issue has news about the upcoming annual conference of the association in Montreal in June, deadlines for awards and scholarships, and an April 16 webinar on legal data analytics.

Legal Research Video Tutorials from York University

Osgoode Hall Law School at York University in Toronto has produced a series of video tutorials on how to perform various legal research tasks.

It is always fun to see what tools and methods other law libraries have developed for their library instruction activities.

There are video about finding secondary sources, legislation and case law research, and legal citation.

Statistics Canada Article on Police-Reported Online Child Sexual Exploitation

The Statistics Canada publication Juristat today published an article on Online child sexual exploitation: A statistical profile of police-reported incidents in Canada, 2014 to 2022:

"The Internet has become an integral part of life for most Canadians, with an estimated 99% of households having access ...While increased accessibility to the Internet has provided society with limitless opportunities for enhancing daily life, concerns related to online safety—particularly for children and youth—have emerged."

"Advancements in technology have changed the ways that perpetrators lure and groom their victims. For example, increased accessibility to—and use of—smartphones among children and youth has made it easier for offenders to communicate with potential victims through online chatrooms and social media platforms. As digital technologies continue to evolve, there are increased opportunities for committing Internet-related crimes, including online child sexual exploitation ..."

Among the highlights of the article:

• Between 2014 and 2022, there were 15,630 incidents of police-reported online sexual offences against children and 45,816 incidents of online child pornography.
• Making or distributing child pornography accounted for almost three-quarters (72%) of all incidents of child pornography between 2014 and 2022, with possessing or accessing child pornography accounting for the remaining 28% of incidents. The rate of online child pornography increased 290% between 2014 and 2022.
• Girls were overrepresented as victims for all offence types over the nine-year period. The majority of victims of police-reported online sexual offences against children were girls, particularly girls between the ages of 12 and 17 (71% of all victims).
• Incidents of non-consensual distribution of intimate images most often involved a youth victim and a youth accused. Nearly all (97%) child and youth victims between 2015 to 2022 were aged 12 to 17 years. Nine in ten (90%) accused persons were youth aged 12 to 17. For one-third (33%) of youth victims, a casual acquaintance shared the victim’s intimate images with others.

Canadian Government Publishes 2024-2025 Departmental Plans

The federal government recently published the departmental plans for 2024-2025.

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

They set out departmental/agency priorities, provide performance measurement indicators, and explain expected results.

The plans are part of the federal government's budget estimates process. 

There are many justice-related agencies and departments in the list, including the Supreme Court of Canada. 

Alberta Law Reform Institute Report on Alteration and Revocation of Electronic Wills

The Alberta Law Reform Institute (ALRI) has published its final report on the Alteration and Revocation of Electronic Wills.

This comes as a companion to the ALRI's 2023 report on the Creation of Electronic Wills.

"ALRI recommends that the alteration and revocation of electronic wills should be governed largely by the same rules currently found in Alberta’s Wills and Succession Act (“WSA”), with additional witness requirements for certain acts of revocation (...)"

"What is the problem?
Testators should be able to change or alter their electronic will after it has been created. Similarly, testators should be able to revoke an electronic will. However, electronic wills present a unique challenge. Unlike a pen mark on a paper will, it is harder to identify when an electronic will has been altered or revoked by a key stroke. It is also harder to identify whether or not the person making the changes actually intended them to alter or revoke their electronic will. To ensure the law properly supports people changing or revoking electronic wills, these issues must be adequately addressed. Additionally, the rules surrounding electronic wills should reflect the expectations of testators to ensure that the probate system continues to function justly and efficiently."

"Legal Research
ALRI conducted in-depth legal research for this project. That research included a review of the current wills law in Alberta, and comparative research with other jurisdictions. The review of Alberta law provided ALRI with a background on the formalities required to alter or revoke a paper will under the WSA, and the purposes those formalities serve. ALRI’s comparative research provided insight into how other jurisdictions have adopted formalities for the alteration or revocation of electronic wills that continue to serve these same four purposes. In both circumstances, the formalities for the alteration or revocation of a will are intended to:

• protect testators and their estates,
• provide evidence of testamentary intention,
• channel estates through probate justly and efficiently, and
• provide a sense of ritual to highlight the importance of changing or revoking a will."

Canadian Association of Law Libraries AI Working Group Seeks Feedback

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) set up a working group on artificial intelligence in 2023.

Its raison d'être is to develop guidance on the use of AI in legal databases.

As announced on the website Slaw.ca last week, the working group is seeking input from the legal profession.

People can fill out a simple form listed in the Slaw.ca article to share their opinions.

As the form explains, the purposes of the survey are:

1. To gather information about user needs and preference pertaining to these standards.
2. To raise awareness of this standards initiative.
3. To build consensus about user requirements.

LawBytes Podcast on 20th Anniversary of Landmark CCH Copyright Case

In his most recent LawBytes podcast, University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist talks with Scott Jolliffe, an IP litigator with the law firm Gowlings, about the Supreme Court of Canada decision in CCH Canadian v. Law Society of Upper Canada:

"Twenty years ago today the Supreme Court of Canada released CCH Canadian v. Law Society of Upper Canada, a decision that stands as perhaps the most consequential in Canadian copyright law history as it would firmly establish fair dealing as a users right and serve as the foundation for copyright law in Canada for decades to come. Leading off the hearing several months earlier for the Law Society was Scott Jolliffe, an IP litigator with the law firm Gowlings. Jolliffe was charged with arguing the fair dealing aspects of the case, but it was only at last moment that users right entered the picture. To mark its 20th anniversary, Jolliffe joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the CCH case, his strategy and insights from the hearing, and his thoughts on its impact many years later."

March/April 2024 Issue of AALL Spectrum

The March/April 2024 issue of AALL Spectrum is now available online.

It is a publication of the American Association of Law Libraries. 

Among the feature articles in this issue:

• From 0 to 7 Staff Members: Essential Tips From the Trenches for First-Time Managers
• Who Are You? An Introduction to Professional Identity Formation
• Ask A Director: Balancing Hybrid/Remote Work

Law Library of Congress Report on Selected Issues in Biotechnology Regulation

The Law Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. recently published a comparative report on Selected Issues in Biotechnology Regulation that looks at the main statutes and policies in multiple countries relating to the development of biotechnology products, in particular genetically-modified organisms:

"The jurisdictions reviewed are Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, England, the European Union (EU), Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, and Taiwan, all of which have a variety of official sources (including laws, regulations, and policies) governing biotechnology matters."

"A number of these sources provide definitions of relevant terms in this field, including “genetic engineering” and “genetically modified organisms,” which are included in the study. Due to the technical complexity of these topics, a basic understanding of these definitions is a helpful introduction to each surveyed jurisdiction’s framework on biotechnologies. Multilateral and bilateral agreements addressing international cooperation on the development of these technologies are also covered in this survey."

The Law Library of Congress is the world’s largest law library, with a collection of over 2 and a half million volumes from all ages of history and virtually every jurisdiction in the world.

Over the years, it has published dozens of comparative law reports which are a treasure trove for legal research on a huge variety of issues.