Year: 2015 Page 16 of 33

By: Elysa Hogg

PDF Version: First Nations Education Funding: The Case of Sloan & Marvin

Sloan and Marvin Miller are twin children with Down Syndrome and because of where they live, their government refuses to provide them with the special education support that they need to go to school.

This story does not take place in Apartheid South Africa, or the Jim Crow South – Sloan and Marvin live in Ontario.

It was estimated by the Mississaugas of New Credit First Nation, where Sloan and Marvin reside, that $80,000 a year would be needed for the Miller twins to receive the education that they need. Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC) denied a request for funding, and instead recommended that the Nation take the needed amount from their already insufficient $165,000 a year education budget. In June of 2009 the Mississaugas lodged a formal human rights complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission on behalf of Sloan and Marvin. The claim will be heard at the Tribunal sometime this year, but there has already been great speculation about the arguments both sides will raise.

Supreme Court: EPA Should Have Considered Cost When Deciding Whether Mercury Limits for Power Plants Were Appropriate

By James Coleman

On July 7, 2015

In Energy, Environmental

By: James Coleman

PDF Version: Supreme Court: EPA Should Have Considered Cost When Deciding Whether Mercury Limits for Power Plants Were Appropriate

Case Commented On: United States Supreme Court, Michigan v United States Environmental Protection Agency (June 29, 2015)

On Monday the United States Supreme Court held that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) improperly refused to consider costs when determining whether it was “appropriate and necessary” to regulate mercury emissions from power plants under the Clean Air Act. Ultimately, the EPA may be able to keep the same rules after going back and explaining why the cost of the regulations is justified in the circumstances. But the decision is an important victory for advocates of cost-benefit analysis and those who think environmental agencies should pay more attention to the costs of regulation.

Section 112 of the Clean Air Act directs the EPA to regulate hazardous air pollutants from power plants if it finds “regulation is appropriate and necessary” 42 U.S.C. §7412. The EPA said that regulation was “appropriate and necessary” even without considering costs because 1) power plant emissions posed risks to human health and the environment that were not eliminated by other provisions of the Clean Air Act and 2) there were controls available to reduce those dangerous emissions. So there was no need for the EPA to consider costs to make its initial decision to regulate, but it promised to consider costs when adopting the actual final regulations for power plants.

Law Students, Legal Services, and Access to Justice

By Eleanor Carlson

On July 2, 2015

In Access to Justice

By: Eleanor A. Carlson

PDF Version: Law Students, Legal Services, and Access to Justice

Legislation and Rules Commented On: Legal Profession Act, RSA 2000, c L-8; Rules of the Law Society of Alberta; Law Society of Alberta Code of Conduct

In June, an ABlawg post reviewed the decision of R v Hanson, 2015 ABPC 118, written by Judge Gaschler. The judgment included an analysis of Calgary based court agent Emmerson Brando’s personal history, his ability to appear as agent on behalf of his client, and the factors that should be considered in making this decision. Judge Gaschler denied Mr. Brando’s leave to appear, finding that to do so would undermine the integrity of the justice system due in part to Mr. Brando’s criminal past as well as the deceptive information found on Mr. Brando’s website where he advertised his agent services (at paras 21 & 22). In their blog post (read the post here), Heather White and Sarah Burton discuss Judge Gaschler’s decision in relation to the unregulated nature of agents and paralegals in Alberta, access to justice, and the disparity in the quality of justice for the those who can afford lawyers and those with lower incomes who cannot. They conclude with the hope that Judge Gaschler’s decision will facilitate a conversation surrounding the regulation of agents in Alberta. In this post, I highlight an additional important player in the conversation surrounding the provision of legal services by non-lawyers and access to justice, the Alberta law student.

Announcing Oil and Gas Contracts: An ABlawg ebook

By Admin

On June 30, 2015

In Uncategorized

Editor’s Note

ABlawg is pleased to announce the launch of the first in a series of ebooks which we will put together from time to time when we have a critical mass of posts in a particular area. Our first ebook, compiled by Nigel Bankes, concerns oil and gas contracts. Other ebooks that are currently planned will cover oil and gas leases, the Alberta Energy Regulator, Charter equality rights, standing, and carbon law and policy.

Our ebooks will be accessible from a new tab at the top of the ABlawg website, and each ebook will be introduced with a post that will go out by email, RSS feed, and Twitter to our subscribers. Each ebook will have a table of contents with hyperlinks to the collected posts and will be fully searchable.

If readers have ideas for ebooks in particular areas or other feedback on this initiative we would be pleased to hear from you.

The introduction to our first ebook happens to be Nigel Bankes’ 200th post for ABlawg, and we congratulate him for being the first ABlawgger to reach this milestone. We also thank Evelyn Tang (JD 2016) for her hard work in producing the ebook.

Prosecutors as Ministers of Justice?

By Alice Woolley

On June 29, 2015

In Criminal, Ethics and the Legal Profession

By: Alice Woolley

PDF Version: Prosecutors as Ministers of Justice?

Three recent cases have brought to light bad behaviour by criminal prosecutors.

In R v Suarez-Noa, 2015 ONSC 3823 Justice Reid ordered a mistrial after the prosecutor suggested “to the jury that the accused had behaved like an animal rather than a human being,” calling the characterization “highly improper” and incapable of being “erased from the minds of the jurors” (at paras 10-11).

According to the CBC, in the Nuttall/Korody bombing trial British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Catherine Bruce said the prosecutors “took my breath away” with the “impropriety” of their decision to show a video to the jury that contained “footage of an actual pressure-cooker explosion.” She further described the prosecutor’s decision to ignore her express instruction not to refer to defences of duress and entrapment as “unspeakable” and as something she had “never experienced… before. Ever.” The CBC reported that Justice Bruce “said she would have called a mistrial had the proceedings not been so protracted and difficult”.