Access to Justice
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July 17, 2025
Court revives Clearview AI class action, finds query-based class identification not ‘opt-in scheme’
The Federal Court of Appeal has revived a proposed class action against facial recognition firm Clearview AI, ruling that a process requiring potential class members to query the company to confirm their inclusion does not undermine the “opt-out” nature of Canadian class actions.
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July 17, 2025
Teen language, a.k.a. sociolect, plays key role in Alberta Court of Appeal decision
A sociolect is a form of language used by a specific social group, such as teenagers. Teenagers often create and adopt slang or code words to establish their identity and distinguish themselves from adults or authority figures. The Alberta Court of Appeal was asked to interpret a sociolect used in a courtroom before a jury in its recent decision in R. v. Cervantes, [2025] A.J. No. 522, when Enrike Jose Cervantes and Chngkouth John Makuag challenged their sexual assault convictions.
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July 17, 2025
Ecofeminism and Canadian law: An emerging alliance
Imagine a world where caring for the land means caring for people, where the health of farms and natural resources is inseparable from the well-being of citizens in our legal system. This vision lies at the heart of ecofeminism, which advances a critical legal perspective that foregrounds the interdependence of ecological health and social equity.
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July 16, 2025
N.S. renews funding deal with feds to help families of missing, murdered Indigenous people
Nova Scotia has renewed a partnership with the federal government ensuring “more families of missing and murdered Indigenous people” receive support.
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July 16, 2025
Was Correctional Service’s internal investigation into Robert Pickton’s death a ‘whitewash’?
Rather than quelling concerns about how Robert Pickton died at Port-Cartier Institution in Quebec, Correctional Service Canada’s recently released internal Board of Investigation (BOI) report summary should raise red flags. The narrow focus of the investigation and the recommendations that fail to address core issues associated with the death make the report inadequate.
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July 16, 2025
View from inside prison: Opening the box
I’m not a person who is hugely attached to things. I have no trouble throwing out or giving away old clothes or furniture or even books. But I do tend to hang on to reminders of my past life, such as letters and pictures.
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July 16, 2025
Prepare for change: The plain language legal writing standard is coming
What lawyer has not heard that legal writing should be clear and concise? Everyone wants legal documents to be straightforward, client-oriented and “crisp.” Yet, cryptic memoranda, wordy submissions, legalese-filled judgments and insurmountable walls of text in contracts and policies remain common. Even with clarity in mind, writing clearly is hard without knowing the rules to guide the process.
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July 15, 2025
N.S. requires hurt workers, employers to ‘work together’ in return to job
Nova Scotia now requires that injured workers and their employers cooperate in planning a return to work. According to a July 15 news release, new “return-to-work” legislation is now in effect, requiring “workers injured on the job and their employers to work together for a timely and safe return to work.”
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July 15, 2025
To marry or not?
Because family law in Canada is regulated at both the federal and provincial/territorial levels, some inconsistencies exist from one part of the country to another. For example, not all provinces and territories have made changes to their statutes to align them with the 2021 changes made to the federal Divorce Act provisions dealing with child-related issues, meaning families have access to different legal regimes depending on where they live.
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July 14, 2025
Federal Court judge strikes SRL’s submission in employment dispute over AI hallucination citation
In another sign of AI’s growing impact on the law, the Federal Court has ordered that a self-represented respondent’s motion record be removed from a court file because it relied in part on a non-existent court decision hallucinated by an artificial intelligence (AI) research tool.