This is a blog post in "Work in Progress: A Labour and Employment Law Blog". To view the full post click here.

This is a blog post in "Work in Progress: A Labour and Employment Law Blog". To view the full post click here.

This is a blog post in "Work in Progress: A Labour and Employment Law Blog". To view the full post click here.

This is a blog post in "Work in Progress: A Labour and Employment Law Blog". To view the full post click here.

This is a blog post in "Work in Progress: A Labour and Employment Law Blog". To view the full post click here.

This is a blog post in "Work in Progress: A Labour and Employment Law Blog". To view the full post click here.

This is a blog post in "Work in Progress: A Labour and Employment Law Blog". To view the full post click here.

This is a blog post in "Work in Progress: A Labour and Employment Law Blog". To view the full post click here.

This is a blog post in "Work in Progress: A Labour and Employment Law Blog". To view the full post click here.

This is a blog post in "Work in Progress: A Labour and Employment Law Blog". To view the full post click here.

This is a blog post in "Work in Progress: A Labour and Employment Law Blog". To view the full post click here.

This is a blog post in "Work in Progress: A Labour and Employment Law Blog". To view the full post click here.

This is a blog post in "Work in Progress: A Labour and Employment Law Blog". To view the full post click here.

This is a blog post in "Work in Progress: A Labour and Employment Law Blog". To view the full post click here.

This is a blog post in "Work in Progress: A Labour and Employment Law Blog". To view the full post click here.

Partner Charles Wright with the Class Actions Department authors a chapter in the newly released American Antitrust Institute’s The International Handbook On Private Enforcement of Competition Law published by Edward Elgar Publishing.   Click the following link to visit the publisher’s website to order at http://www.e-elgar.com/Bookentry_Main.lasso?id=13782.  

The Court of Appeal's decision in R. v. Abbey is noteworthy for its detailed analysis of the test for admissibility of expert evidence.

A snapshot of what we suggest counsel to franchisors should be doing to verify your client’s ongoing compliance with its franchise disclosure obligations.

After the enactment in Ontario of a statutory cause of action for misrepresentations in the secondary market, plaintiffs continue to advance common law misrepresentation claims in securities class actions.

The new provincial ban on the use of hand-held wireless communication devices while driving, which comes into effect on October 26, 2009, has been widely publicized. 

The Ontario Court of Appeal recently released a decision in 6792341 Canada Inc. v. Dollar ("Dollar It"). Some aspects of the decision appear to be fundamentally flawed. Nevertheless, to the extent that this decision represents the current state of the law in Ontario, it may necessitate a substantial overhaul of your disclosure document, and your approach toward disclosure.

Ontario employers should be aware that the province has enacted a new Child Pornography Reporting Act which will make it an offence not to report child pornography.

 For a while there, it looked like franchise legislation was going to sweep across Canada like a bad cold.

Do you have non-competition or non-solicitation agreements with your employees? Should you have them?

A version of this paper was also presented to the County of Carleton Law Association, 27th Civil Litigation Conference, November 2007, in Montebello, Quebec.

Do you have a business that you currently operate and wonder if it would make a good franchise?

With the first signs of spring and melting of snow comes relief as we no longer have to worry about the potential liability that can follow if a visitor slips and falls on our icy driveway.

The decision to erect a fence on your property is usually made for any number of reasons: to provide a safe space for children and pets to play, to increase privacy on your property, or to protect your possessions.

Families are very familiar with positive planning processes that are focused on helping their child with disabilities to have a good life.

Parties are often confused about what they should do upon separation.

Consumers appreciate that the company holding very sensitive personal information, takes steps to ensure that the person they are talking to over the phone or on-line is the account holder, no someone fishing or worse, phishing, for personal information that they are not entitled to have.

Last week, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner ("OPC") released its decision regarding two separate complaints against two different law firms that conducting credit checks on individuals without their knowledge and consent.

The Federal Privacy Commissioner who overseas the federal privacy legislation, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) is seeking public input into Parliament's review of the legislation this Fall.

Since September 11th, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (the "OPC") reports the significant increase in the deployment of video-surveillance in public places – and not just airports, border crossings and high-security areas such as Parliament Hill.

Recently I came home to a voice mail message from my bank, "please contact us Ms Allinson."

I called the number provided and, to start, I was a little disturbed that I wasn’t being asked to provide my account number and answer the usual long list of questions such as my mother’s maiden name, my pet’s name, my date of birth and so on, to ensure that I am who I claimed to be. Clearly, the bank had been anticipating my call.

The City of London fence by-law tells us that if you want your neighbour to pay half, the fence must be put up on the boundary line between your two properties.

There are several City of London by-laws which apply to dogs and their owners, the most important one for owners is the Dog Licensing & Control By-law.

 Commissioner Calls for Reform to the Privacy Act - Part 1.

Commissioner Calls for Reform to the Privacy Act - Part 1.

Outsourcing credit card operations to the U.S. may create risks to Canadians under the U.S. Patriot Act

Religious organizations and charitable organizations may be going overboard in their efforts to comply with the federal privacy legislation at the expense of their spiritual or philanthropic work.

The Alberta Privacy Commissioner, Frank Work, recently found a regional library had violated an employee’s privacy rights by installing keystroke logging software on his computer. Dan Armeneau brought his complaint after his employment was terminated as a computer technician.

Currently, in Canada, it is a violation of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, (PIPEDA) for a business to disclose personal information about a consumer for purposes other than that to which they consented when the information was collected.

You'll be scraching your head a little over this recent decision of the Federal Assistant Privacy Commissioner

Chaired by Industry Canada, a Task Force on Spam was established bringing together experts and key stakeholders representing ISPs, Canadian businesses that use email to conduct legitimate commercial activities and consumers.

Relying on a business email address obtained from a publicly-available directory to solicit business on-line is a breach of Federal privacy legislation according to the Assistant Privacy Commissioner to a number of recent decisions.

At the Treasury Board's Sixth Annual Access to Information and Privacy Conference, held last week in Ottawa, Federal Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart warned that privacy legislation and policy responses are not keeping pace with other government initiatives to increase its powers of surveillance through legislation and technology.

A 2002 Ernst & Young survey reveals that, although over 90% of Canada's leading entrepreneurs say that protecting their company's reputation is of paramount concern, only 42% have identified poor corporate governance as part of that risk.

A long and well-kept commercial "secret", of sorts, was recently brought into the public domain by Liberal back bencher Lorenzo Berardinetti. Until recently married, and shopping for clothes with his wife, Berardinetti did not notice that a men's suit cost 30 per cent less than a similar women's outfit by the same designer.

Telemarketing, the marketing medium that employs over 270,000 Canadians and generates more than $16 billion in sales last year is about to be hit by legislation that will create a national "Do Not Call" list in Canada.

After my column on February 17th, Privacy starts with credit card, I received a number of phone calls from readers who found that the majority of their credit card receipts showed all 16-digits of their credit card.

In just over two weeks, new laws will govern whether employees can work excess daily and weekly hours and whether employers can average hours of work for overtime purposes.

PIPEDA has been in force for almost 14 months and, yet, most retailers' business practices have not changed how their customers' personal information is handled....

Since starting this column, I have received several inquiries from union representatives asking what is permissible collection and use of employee information by the employer under the Federal privacy legislation....

Technology originally devised to protect the copyright of on-line music and other creative works from unauthorized use now has the capability of tracking downloads and monitoring use, even when this use has been authorized...

With the resounding win of George W. Bush to a second term as U.S. President, privacy advocates in the U.S. and Canada may be fighting a losing battle in advocating civil liberties and individual rights over personal information in the face of long-arm statutes such as the USA Patriot Act..

Last Thursday, attendees at the 2004 HIPA Symposium, held at the London Convention Centre had a rare opportunity for some quality time with Ontario's Assistant Privacy Commissioner ("IPC")...

Based on the articles and literature written about the Federal privacy legislation, PIPEDA, most would not know that the Act also applies to personal health information

Last week, I introduced the Personal Information Protection Act and Quality of Care Information Protection Act, collectively referred to as the Health Information Protection Act or "HIPA"...

Most people are aware of Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act ("PIPEDA"), that was enacted in 2001, but came into force in a series of stages, the last of which was for the private sector in January 2004.

Recent developments in the capital markets have caused an erosion of investor confidence. The ability of securities regulators to restore investor confidence is limited by regulatory resources.

A March 2004 article in “InformationWeek”, told of 200,000 GMAC Insurance customers who were notified that they could become victims of identify theft because of the theft of two laptop computers from an employee’s car in the U.S...

The impact of Wal-Mart's announcement to the consumer goods industry last year that its top 100 suppliers employ RFID technology in its products by 2005 sent a shudder through manufacturers and privacy advocates alike.

In June 2003, Wal-Mart announced that its 100 largest suppliers must be able to implement Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) at the pallet and case level by 2005.

When the Health Information Protect Act (HIPA) comes into force in November, it will govern Ontarian’s personal health information that were not covered by PIPEDA.

The Ontario Minister of Health and Long-Term Care has invited the public to comment on proposed regulations for the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) and Quality of Care Information Protection Act (QCIPA).

As organizations involved in commercial activities, franchises that obtain personal information in the course of transactions with consumers are now accountable for the handling of that personal information.

Although PIPEDA may still seem burdensome to the retailer or small business, it is important to think of the flip side. In this age where protection of personal information is so important to consumers, whom do you think your customer wants to take his or her business?

This 25 page article provides detailed information on; Issuing the Statement of Claim, Conducting Searches, Taking Self Help Remedies, Choosing the Right Court, Taking Pre-judgement Remedies, Statement of Claim, Using the Simplified Procedures, and Preparing Default Papers.

This 20 page article offers guidance regarding the "Fiduciary Duty" branch of the law from a review of the various legal authorities.

Peter Dillon presented a session at the Ontario Bar Association 2004 Institute in Toronto on Thursday January 29, 2004. Peter's paper dealt with the status of franchise legislation from a global and historical perspective, including upcoming legislation anticipated in Canada. A copy of the paper that accompanied Peter's presentation is attached.

 In an age where most business communications occur via computer, what does federal privacy legislation, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), which took effect Jan. 1, have to do with monitoring employee telephone and computer use? Under PIPEDA, personal information is defined as any information identifiable to the individual. This includes audio recordings of the individual's telephone calls, as well as Internet surfing and downloading activity.

Are you concerned about employee theft of company or other employees' property? Have there been a few acts of vandalism to cars in the employee parking lot and you want to install security cameras? What about monitoring employee phone calls or computer use during company time? What has the federal privacy legislation, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) got to do with surveillance?

As businesses and non-profit organizations rush to comply with the new legislation, a number of misconceptions about their obligations under the act are emerging. Here are a few misconceptions and clarifications.

What obligation does a business have to a customer who requests access to their information or complains about the personal information handling practices of the business? What happens if the business cannot deliver the information requested by the customer, or if it refuses to respond to a customer request that leads to a complaint?

The fourth, most important step is implementation of the PIPEDA-compliant privacy policy and procedure. Implementation can be summarized in three words: comm unication, education and follow-through.

The next move is to draft a privacy policy and procedure that reflects the principles of PIPEDA. If your business already has a privacy policy, it should be reviewed and, if necessary, redrafted to respond to PIPEDA's requirements.

Once your business has designated a "go-to" person, the next step to getting your business compliant with PIPEDA is to perform a personal information assessment.

The legislation is mandating every business and organization to examine its current practice of handling personal information about its customers or data subjects (if the business collects and markets lists of personal information to third parties).

Effective January 1, 2004, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) will become law in Ontario. Any organization that collects, uses or discloses personal information in the course of commercial activities will be required to comply with PIPEDA

The construction process is a complex one, involving many different players, including owners, lenders, architects, designers, engineers, surveyors, contractors, subcontractors, suppliers and workers. Unfortunately, the complexity of the process creates a great potential for disputes to arise which inevitably involve lawyers in the process as well.

This article will comment upon the current state of bankruptcy and insolvency law in all Canadian jurisdictions, as well as recent statutory and case law developments in Canada in 2002 which are of general importance to bankruptcy and insolvency law.

The Franchise Disclosure Act (Ontario) has introduced a seemingly absolute right of rescission to a franchisee, for breach on the part of the franchisor of its disclosure obligations under the Act. However, the traditional concept by requiring the party claiming rescission to account for benefits received under the contract, has not been included in the provision.

Agri-business, construction, trucking and courier industries: are you SURE that you are contracting with an independent operator?

Trial preparation is a continuous process in each case, commencing with the opening of the file and continuing through to final submissions. The job of litigation counsel is to achieve a resolution of his or her client’s dispute in a manner that will accomplish, to the fullest extent possible, the client’s objectives.

By their very nature, class actions are usually complex pieces of litigation and can be very expensive to pursue or to defend. Class action firms or teams can use technology to manage this form of litigation in a variety of ways, depending upon the particular challenges that arise.

We recently had cause to act on a very interesting matter. Upon the divorce of a husband and wife, an equalization payment was ordered payable to the wife. It was agreed that the shares in a Corporation of which the husband was a fifty percent owner would be pledged as security for the payments.

The modern franchise industry is relatively new to Canada, having really only become a popular method of doing business in the 1980s. In the short time that franchises have been around in our country, franchise systems have quickly matured and franchisees have become significantly more sophisticated than they once were. As a result, there has been a shift in bargaining power away from the franchisor, toward the franchisee

Two recent cases dealing with the rights of unsecured creditors against a discharged bankrupt should be of interest to practitioners and creditors in that both cases support the rights of the creditor to pursue the bankrupt or his or her assets after discharge from bankruptcy.

The principles and rules of the conflict of laws have generally developed out of the court’s need to fashion an appropriate response in the face of proceedings involving parties resident, wrongs committed, or damages occurring in different jurisdictions.

The basic legal principles, applicable in all cases where there are allegations of negligence in medical treatment and care in Canada, need to be considered. There are three main tenets of a legal action for medical negligence: "liability", "causation" and "damages". Liability will be the focus of this paper.

The Liens created by the Construction Lien Act are subject to three strict limitation periods.

Adopting a Reasonable View of the Scope of the Insurer’s Duty to Defend in Environmental Liability Class Actions

In recent years, businesses have become more reliant on the use of intellectual property and technology assets from a variety of suppliers in all aspects of their operations. Value has moved from bricks and mortar to brains and intangibles. Secured creditors are now more than ever subject to the same risks as those to which the borrower itself is exposed

 As is the case with any negligence action, to be successful the plaintiff must prove three things as follows: i) that the plaintiff was owed a duty of care by the defendant; ii) that the duty of care was breached by the defendant; and iii) that the damages suffered by the plaintiff flowed from that breach. The first requirement would be the major hurdle to cross for any third party wishing to sue a director or officer personally.

Originally presented at Civility in the Legal Profession Conference Advocate Society - October 31, 2000

The focus of this paper is to address the relatively recent developments in the law in relation to priorities available to be claimed by Revenue Canada in circumstances when a taxpayer is insolvent, and to summarize the enhanced priority claims available to Revenue Canada.