The Federal Court has forcefully struck down the approach used by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) to patent claims in a decision widely expected by the patent bar to have far-reaching implications, particularly for computer-implemented inventions.
Following in the footsteps of British Columbia and Ontario, a Federal Court judge declared retroactive record suspension eligibility requirements to be unconstitutional, opening the door to thousands of offenders across the country to be eligible for a pardon.
A Court of Quebec judge declared the minimum mandatory sentence of four years imprisonment for discharging a firearm while being reckless to the life or safety of another person as unconstitutional for an Aboriginal offender.
A pilot project by the federal courts that will allow for the application of the Quebec Code of Civil Procedure is being lauded by Quebec practitioners.
A former Crown prosecutor who filed a reprisal complaint against the Public Prosecution Service of Canada before the federal Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner partially won his case before the Federal Court of Canada.
Taxpayers are entitled to use the mark-to-market method to compute income for federal tax purposes if it provides a more accurate picture of a taxpayer’s income, ruled the Federal Court of Appeal.
The federal appeal court decision bolsters the possibility for taxpayers to use methods to compute income that are not forbidden by the Income Tax Act (Act), affirms Canada Revenue Agency’s administrative position that allows regulated financial institutions to tax derivatives on a mark-to-market basis, and may open the door to allow financial accounting to become more influential in determining what constitutes an acceptable method of computing income from business, according to tax experts.
Yacine Agnaou is one of a handful of Canadian lawyers who took on Quebec tax authorities and plead a case so successfully that now others are trying to follow suit. Now Agnaou is immersed in another legal battle against another government department. He is trying to force the federal whistleblower watchdog to investigate his allegations of wrongdoing against the Public Prosecution Service of Canada.
The Tax Court of Canada, in yet another legal blow to Quebec’s tax authorities, chastised Revenue Quebec for expecting business to act as a “taxation police” after it withheld input tax credits from a meat processing company because it ostensibly had not been diligent in its dealings with its suppliers.
Edgar Schmidt, a soft-spoken lawyer, joins a growing list of Canadian whistleblowers who quickly discover that disclosing potential wrongdoing in the workplace almost always leaves them vulnerable.
Schmidt’s court case raises thorny issues over the nature of the professional responsibilities and ethical obligations of government lawyers.
But it also underscores the tension that exists between the duty of loyalty an employee owes to his employer, freedom of expression as guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and federal and provincial whistleblowing legislation that aims to protect whistleblowers from retribution by their employers.
The Quebec government has wide discretionary powers to issue selection certificates to foreign nationals seeking to settle permanently in the province.