Category Archives: Blogs and Websites

Alberta Human Rights Act Applies to Condominium Corporations

By: Jennifer Koshan

PDF Version: Alberta Human Rights Act Applies to Condominium Corporations

Case Commented On: Condominium Corporation No 052 0580 v Alberta (Human Rights Commission), 2016 ABQB 183 (CanLII)

A few years ago I wrote a post arguing that the Alberta Human Rights Act, RSA 2000, c A-25.5 (AHRA), applies to the relationship between condominium owners and their condominium corporations. The Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench was recently faced with a case where it had to address that issue directly. In Condominium Corporation No 052 0580 v Alberta (Human Rights Commission), 2016 ABQB 183 (CanLII), Justice Robert A. Graesser held that the AHRA does indeed apply to condominium corporations. This post will explain his reasons for decision, and comment on a remark he made about the lack of authoritativeness of blog posts as secondary sources.

This case arose when Condominium Corporation No 052 0580 (the Corporation) brought an application for judicial review challenging the jurisdiction of the Alberta Human Rights Commission to investigate a human rights complaint by one of its owners. The underlying dispute involved Dennis Goldsack, the owner of a condominium unit in Tradition at Southbrook, Edmonton, who was confined to a wheelchair and had been assigned a parking stall closest to the building’s elevators. The Corporation’s Board decided to repurpose that stall for bicycle parking and storage, and reassigned Goldsack a parking stall that was further from the elevators and narrower. After failed negotiations with the Corporation, Goldsack brought a human rights complaint against it under section 4 of the AHRA. This section prohibits discrimination on the ground of physical disability (as well as other grounds) in the provision of “goods, services, accommodation or facilities that are customarily available to the public”.

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ABlawg Scores in 2015 Clawbies

ABlawg is honoured to announce that we were selected for the Best Canadian Law School/Law Professor Blog Award and as runner up for the Fodden Award for Best Canadian Law Blog for 2015. Here’s what the Clawbie judges had to say:

Yes, the blog of the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Law is also a runner-up for the Fodden Award. But the quality and frequency of ABlawg entries make it impossible for us not to honour it with a Clawbie of its own. Martin Olszynski, Sharon Mascher, and Nigel Bankes lead a stellar cast of faculty who help set the standard for law school blogging.

We would also like to acknowledge ABlawg creator Jonnette Watson Hamilton, 2015 Blogmasters Jennifer Koshan and Shaun Fluker, student assistant Evelyn Tang, and all of the bloggers who contribute to ABlawg.

Our congratulations to Paul Daly at Administrative Law Matters, who won the Fodden Award, and to our colleagues Lisa Silver (Ideablawg), Peter Sankoff and the folks at The Court, who were all runners up for the Best Canadian Law School/Law Professor Blog Award. And thanks as always to our readers for your nominations, comments and ongoing support.

To subscribe to ABlawg by email or RSS feed, please go to https://ablawg.ca

Blogging and Legal Education

By: Jennifer Koshan

PDF Version: Blogging and Legal Education

I was at the Canadian Association of Law Teachers (CALT) conference in Ottawa earlier this week and participated in a roundtable on blogging and legal education. Other participants included University of Ottawa’s Angela Cameron from Blogging for Equality; Paul Daly from Administrative Law Matters; and Moin Yahya from the University of Alberta Faculty of Law Blog. Suzanne Bouclin from the University of Ottawa chaired.

I started off the discussion by describing the ways that ABlawg engages law students. We employ a student coordinator who spends about 10 hours per week summarizing Alberta court decisions, posting, moderating comments, and maintaining the ABlawg website. Student bloggers are recruited through volunteer organizations such as Student Legal Assistance and Pro Bono Students Canada, and some of them continue to blog for ABlawg after graduation. Some professors have also incorporated blogging into our courses; for example my constitutional clinical students were required to synthesize their 50 page briefs on the rights of farmworkers into shorter, more accessible blog posts (see here, here, here and here). Interestingly some of the students questioned the value of this exercise at the time, but the blog posts led to attention from media and Alberta politicians, and an invitation to submit a book chapter consolidating the students’ work. Faculty members also use blog posts in the classroom as the basis for problems, moot/factum exercises, and as supplementary reading. ABlawg includes a category of posts on legal education as well.

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The Website of the Alberta Courts

By: Nigel Bankes, Jennifer Koshan, and Jonnette Watson Hamilton

PDF Version: The Website of the Alberta Courts

Matter Commented On: The Alberta Courts’ website

This post deals with Court websites. We are posting it now because all three Alberta Courts have just made a significant change in their practice. At the beginning of this week (January 5, 2015) they announced that they will no longer post judgments on their own website. Instead, users are referred to CanLII for copies of recent judgments. Here is the notice that you will find on the ABQB and ABPC websites:

A collection of the judgments of the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta is available from CanLII. The official version of the reasons for judgment is the signed original or handwritten endorsement in the court file. If there is a question about the content of a judgment, the original court file takes precedence. Copies of the original judgment may be obtained on payment of the applicable fee, by contacting the relevant court location.

You are about to leave the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta website. The Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta is not responsible for the content of any external website.

Queen’s Bench judgments on CanLII

The Court of Appeal has yet to implement this decision but anticipates doing so in the near future.

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ABlawg a Runner up for 2014 Clawbie

The Canadian Law Blog Awards (Clawbies) for 2014 were announced this morning, and ABlawg is very pleased to have been recognized as a runner up in the category of Best Law School/Law Professor Blog. One of ABlawg’s nominees, Paul Daly’s Administrative Law Matters, took the top spot in the category this year. Our colleague Lisa Silver, who teaches criminal law, was also a runner up in the category for her Ideablawg. And, our colleague John Paul Boyd from the Canadian Research Institute on Law and the Family – also one of our nominees – was recognized in the category of Best New Blogs for his blog Access To Justice in Canada.

We extend our thanks to all of our nominators and the Clawbies selection committee, and our congratulations to all the winners, runners up and nominees.

ABlawg looks forward to continued engagement with our readers in 2015. Happy New Year!

To subscribe to ABlawg by email or RSS feed, please go to https://ablawg.ca