A ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada that dismissed a proposed securities class action against a Montreal pharmaceutical company will likely make it more difficult for investors to launch these kinds of lawsuits in the future, say class action and securities lawyers.
After more than two years of negotiations, Canada and the United Kingdom signed a protocol to amend a tax treaty between the two countries that adds a new “exchange of information” provision and a new clause that would allow a tax authority from one country to “enter the other” to conduct tax audits.
Federal government unveils new corporate social responsibility policy for extractive sector.
A call by Canada’s privacy watchdog to the life and health insurance industry to voluntarily refrain from requesting clients for access to existing genetic test results is going to be ignored, setting the stage for a divisive debate over access and the use of such personal information.
The common law rule against spousal compellability must be extended to common-law spouses because otherwise it would result in “blatant discrimination” that cannot be countenanced in the age of the Charter, held the Alberta Court of Appeal in a ruling that will most likely have persuasive authority in spite of a bill introduced in Parliament that will abolish spousal immunity, according to legal 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.
A landmark bill has thrust debate around end-of-life care into the national political arena by legalizing medically assisted death in Quebec.
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.
An international agreement signed by Canada and 16 other countries is widely expected to simplify and speed up the patent prosecution process while yielding significant cost savings to patent applicants.
Organized labour could be forgiven for feeling that its capacity to flex its muscle is being thwarted as it helplessly watches the federal government trying to systematically strip elements that once made it a force.