Author Archives: Jonnette Watson Hamilton

About Jonnette Watson Hamilton

B.A. (Alta.), LL.B. (Dal.), LL.M. (Col.). Professor Emerita. Please click here for more information.

Roundtable on Ontario v Criminal Lawyers’ Association of Ontario

PDF Version: Roundtable on Ontario v Criminal Lawyers’ Association of Ontario

Cases Considered: Ontario v Criminal Lawyers’ Association of Ontario, 2013 SCC 43

On August 13, 2013, Faculty of Law hosted its last Roundtable discussion of the summer. That discussion focused on the Supreme Court of Canada’s August 1st decision in Ontario v Criminal Lawyers’ Association of Ontario, 2013 SCC 43 concerning the compensation to be paid to a lawyer appointed to act as a “friend of the court”, known as an amicus curiae. Participants included faculty members, researchers from the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre, JD and graduate students, and a post-doc fellow. What participants found most controversial about the decision was not the court’s 5:4 split on the compensation issue, but rather the court’s unanimity on the inappropriateness — and henceforth, presumably, inability — of courts to appoint amicus curiae to act as de facto defence counsel.

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Is a Lease with an Option to Renew a Subdivision?

PDF Version: Is a Lease with an Option to Renew a Subdivision?

Case commented on: Strathcona County v. Half Moon Lake Resort Ltd., 2013 ABQB 405

The main question in this case was whether an option to renew a lease that was added by Half Moon Lake Resort to a campsite rental agreement whose form had been consented to by Strathcona County and approved by the court in a consent order was forbidden by that order. This was the issue in three separate applications before Justice Brian R. Burrows. Half Moon Lake Resort applied for a declaration that the renewal option was not prohibited by the consent order, Strathcona County applied for a declaration that campsite leases in a form different than that approved by the consent order were invalid, and the Registrar of Land Titles sought directions about the obligations imposed on that office by the consent order. But the essence of this dispute, which began in 1999, was that Half Moon Lake Resort wanted to “sell” 216 individual campsites on an unsubdivided parcel of land — or come as close as the law allowed to selling each campsite without subdividing the land, thereby maximizing the value of each campsite and the security of tenure for each campsite “owner.”

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Enforcing Alberta’s Restrictions on Consumer Arbitration

PDF version: Enforcing Alberta’s Restrictions on Consumer Arbitration

Case commented on: Young v National Money Mart Company, 2013 ABCA 264 (CanLII).

This decision by the Alberta Court of Appeal is a welcome addition to the body of consumer arbitration case law. It is the first Court of Appeal decision to give effect to section 16 of the Fair Trading Act, RSA 2000, c F-2, and only the second reported decision considering that provision despite the fact it has been around since 1998. The decision also offers a glimpse into the basis on which Service Alberta decides to approve or disapprove of consumer arbitration agreements under section 16.

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Adapting and Using the Law in the Recovery from a Natural Disaster

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Law on the Edge panel discussion commented on: “Law at the Limits: A Canterbury Tale: Adapting and Using the Law in the Recovery from a Natural Disaster”

The Canadian Law & Society Association and the Law & Society Association of Australia & New Zealand held their first joint conference, “Law on the Edge,” from July 1 – 4 in Vancouver in Allard Hall, UBC Law’s spectacular home.  There were over 100 plenary and other panels and roughly 400 participants, mainly from Canada, Australia and New Zealand. One of the most interesting panel discussions that I attended was the “Law at the Limits: A Canterbury Tale: Adapting and Using the Law in the Recovery from a Natural Disaster” panel on July 2, with presentations by five professors from the School of Law at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. Until this panel, I had not released the breadth of legal issues involved in recovering from natural disasters. The type of legal issues dealt with by panel members emphasized the systemic effects of natural disasters and recoveries, rather than the impact on individuals, such as the landlord/tenant, insurance, employment, credit/debt, mortgage, condo, and family issues being fielded by the volunteers with Calgary Legal Guidance, Pro Bono Law Alberta, Legal Aid Alberta, Pro Bono Students Canada and Student Legal Assistance in their Southern Alberta Flood Legal Help information and advice sessions. Nevertheless, the “Canterbury Tales” about price gouging, construction cartels, expropriation of condemned properties, unmediated discretion, volunteers’ liability, and other topics should be of broad interest to southern Albertans.

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Roundtable on Quebec v A: Searching for Clarity on Equality

By: Jennifer Koshan and Jonnette Watson Hamilton

PDF Version: Roundtable on Quebec v A: Searching for Clarity on Equality

Case Commented On: Quebec (Attorney General) v A, 2013 SCC 5 (case summary available here)

On May 13, 2013, we led the Faculty of Law’s first roundtable discussion of the summer on the Supreme Court’s most recent equality rights decision, Quebec (Attorney General) v A. Participants included faculty members, researchers from the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre and Alberta Law Reform Institute, and a number of JD and graduate students. Coincidentally, a virtual roundtable on the case is also ongoing at the moment, moderated by Sonia Lawrence, Director of Osgoode Hall’s Institute for Feminist Legal Studies (IFLS), with participation from law profs Robert Leckey, Hester Lessard, Bruce Ryder, and Margot Young. Many of the issues raised in the IFLS discussion were also debated in our roundtable.

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