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Author: Brian Seaman

Brian Seaman is a human rights/civil liberties consultant whose 13 years of work history in Calgary includes a one-year term contract with the City of Calgary Law Department and almost nine years with the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre. Originally from Nova Scotia, Brian was a property tax assessment adjudicator and practiced law for several years in Halifax (chief practice areas being administrative law, family law, and legal research) before moving to Calgary in 2000 to pursue opportunities outside of traditional legal practice.

There’s no right to absolute privacy when you want to build something in a city

PDF version: There’s no right to absolute privacy when you want to build something in a city 

Case commented on: Edmonton (City) v. Alberta (Information and Privacy Commissioner), 2011 ABQB 226

There is no absolute right to privacy in the context of planning and development within a municipality. In a contest between the right to privacy and the right to enjoy one’s own property without interference from a neighbour, a balance must be struck. Otherwise, we’d be constantly in each other’s faces over actions such as one neighbour arbitrarily chopping down trees straddling the line between two homes or mowing down a line of bushes running between two houses. One person’s pleasure is another person’s annoyance – the source of such annoyance could be something as seemingly innocuous as an outdoor hot tub on a second floor balcony.

When an Edmonton property owner named Kim Mah read details about her application for a development permit in a community newsletter, she complained to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner that her privacy was breached. Rather oddly, in light of the fact that neighbouring property owners do have the right to know about such matters, a Commission adjudicator agreed. Even stranger, the Commissioner found that an appeal board with the independent power to review development proposals was instead a City of Edmonton department. Rather appropriately, the City’s legal department applied for a judicial review. Quite rightly, a Queen’s Bench judge read the relevant legislation against the facts, found that the Commissioner had erred, and sent Mah’s complaint back to the Privacy Commissioner to reconsider.

French Language Rights in Alberta Get a Boost

PDF version: French Language Rights in Alberta Get a Boost 

Case considered: R v Pooran; R v Vaillant, 2011 ABPC 77

Significant consequences can arise from what might otherwise have appeared to be just another mundane case; in this instance, charges under Alberta’s Traffic Safety Act, R.S.A. 2000, c. T-6. The facts and charges that led to Sonia Pooran and Guy Vaillant standing trial before a provincial court judge on April 14 are not important. What is important is that the entire proceedings will be in French, after a provincial court judge in Calgary decided they have that right.

Is R v Gomboc really only about a homeowner’s expectation of privacy or is there more to it?

PDF version: Is R v Gomboc really only about a homeowner’s expectation of privacy or is there more to it? 

Case commented on: R. v. Gomboc, 2010 SCC 55

The late November 2010 decision of Canada’s Supreme Court in R. v. Gomboc has come to represent one of two things in the divergent views of its critics and supporters. For critics from a civil libertarian perspective, our highest court’s approval of a power company’s act, pursuant to a warrantless police request, of monitoring a homeowner’s electrical usage and then providing that information to police engaged in a criminal investigation represents yet another example of a culture of authoritarianism that seems to be creeping into Canada’s judiciary. On the other hand, for the “law and order” crowd, especially those who see warrants as pesky obstacles to simply letting the police get on with it and just do their jobs, homeowners have no reasonable expectation of privacy over information about their electrical usage, so the Supreme Court’s decision that an authorizing warrant was not required is spot on. Furthermore, even if there was a breach of any privacy interest a person may have here, then it was so trivial that any fuss over it is unwarranted.

Has a recent Queen’s Bench decision put the damper on future complaints of privacy breaches in Alberta, especially in the health care setting?

Case considered: Lycka v. Alberta (Information and Privacy Commissioner) and Jane Doe, 2009 ABQB 245

PDF version: Has a recent Queen’s Bench decision put the damper on future complaints of privacy breaches in Alberta, especially in the health care setting?

A Court of Queen’s Bench decision on April 20th to quash orders of the province’s Information and Privacy Commissioner (the Commissioner) should prove to be of little, if any, persuasive value outside of Alberta. However, in this province, it may be accorded weight – even precedential value since the decision has not been appealed – that it does not deserve. As a result of Lycka v. Alberta (Information and Privacy Commissioner) and Jane Doe, the name of a person who complains to the Commissioner of a breach of privacy must be disclosed to the party alleged to have committed the breach. Consequently, Alberta residents may be reluctant to bring forward complaints about privacy breaches, especially when physicians are on the other side.

Assisted Human Reproduction in Canada: It’s a Gnarly World Out There

Considered: Assisted Human Reproduction Act, S.C. 2004, c.2.

PDF Version: Assisted human reproduction in Canada: it’s a gnarly world out there

When 60-year-old Ranjit Hayer of Calgary gave birth via caesarean section to twin boys at Calgary’s Foothills Hospital in early February of 2009, the news spread quickly around the world. She became one of a small but growing number of women who, subsequent to having undergone assisted human reproductive treatments, successfully give birth at ages late in the menopausal cycle, or in a handful of even more extreme examples, after menopause has ended. Indeed, in what is probably the most extreme example of a successful post-menopausal pregnancy to date, a 70-year-old woman in India is reported to have given birth in July of 2008 to twins (see here).

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