Category Archives: COVID-19

Lawyer Ethics in the Virtual Courtroom

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The COVID-19 pandemic has radically altered the way we live, work, and play. As will be examined below, it has altered the way lawyers conduct litigation. By mid-March 2020, the justice system in Canada (and in most other jurisdictions around the world) was scrambling to change its default ways of doing business – from the service of court documents to hearing of matters before the courts. Within a very short timeline, the courts and the legal profession quickly became open to doing things in a way they have long resisted.

Practice directions emerged overnight permitting parties to electronically file and serve documents. Virtual hearing became the default mode of court hearings in many jurisdictions during the early stage of the pandemic. On March 19, 2020, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales issued a directive that, “[t]he default position now in all jurisdictions must be that hearings should be conducted with one, more than one or all participants attending remotely.”

Soon, in-person hearings gave way to e-person hearings using innovative videoconferencing technologies like Zoom, WebEx, Teams, Skype, GoToMeeting, BlueJeans, CourtCall, etc. For many in the legal profession who were previously familiar with these technologies, the transition was very smooth. For the Luddites who were forced to embrace the change, the transition turned out to be (to their amazement), not as difficult as they had previously thought. They have discovered that legal technology is no rocket science after all. Continue reading →

Can an Alberta Landlord’s Duty to Make Reasonable Efforts to Negotiate a Meaningful Payment Plan with Residential Tenants before Evicting Tenants be Enforced?

By: Jonnette Watson Hamilton

PDF Version: Can an Alberta Landlord’s Duty to Make Reasonable Efforts to Negotiate a Meaningful Payment Plan with Residential Tenants before Evicting Tenants be Enforced?

Legislation Commented On: Ministerial Order No. SA: 005/2020 [Service Alberta]

Since May 1, 2020, a landlord in Alberta has been able to evict a residential tenant for non-payment of rent and utilities even if the failure to pay is due to circumstances beyond the tenant’s control caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. At least one politically prominent landlord has already starting eviction proceedings (see here and here). In place of the suspension of evictions that expired April 30, the government introduced a duty on landlords to make reasonable efforts to enter into meaningful payment plans with their tenants. According to the government description of this new duty (in Rent Payment Plans COVID-19), landlords will have to prove they made these efforts before landlords can issue a 14-day notice or apply to the courts or Residential Tenancy Dispute Resolution Service (RTDRS) to terminate a tenancy for non-payment of rent. Landlords may eventually have to prove that they made those efforts if tenants sue them or refuse to leave the rental premises, but there is a gap in the new law that makes it unnecessarily difficult for tenants – or anyone else – to enforce a landlord’s new duty. The Minister for Service Alberta needs to amend section 29 of the Residential Tenancies Act, SA 2004, c R-17.1 (RTA) and section 32 of the Mobile Home Sites Tenancies Act, RSA 2000, c M-20 (MHSTA) to allow tenants who have failed to pay rent to object to a 14-day notice terminating a tenancy on the basis that the landlord has not complied with its new duty.

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When Are the COVID-19 Related Changes and Suspensions to Albertan Law Scheduled to End?

By: Drew Yewchuk

PDF Version: When Are the COVID-19 Related Changes and Suspensions to Albertan Law Scheduled to End?

Decision Commented On: COVID-19 orders and legislation

A recurring theme of recent ABlawg posts is the difficulty in determining what legal authority is being used to make emergency-based changes to Alberta law due to COVID-19, and precisely what the changes are. This post is a variation on that theme, setting out the end dates set for a selection of COVID-19 related legal changes, and discussing how the end dates should be re-thought soon. Continue reading →

COVID-19 and the Suspension of Environmental Monitoring in the Oil Sands

By: Shaun Fluker

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Decisions Commented On: Alberta Energy Regulator Decisions 20200505A, 20200501C, 20200501B, and 20200501A

Last week the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) issued decisions 20200429D (subsequently replaced with 20200505A), 20200501C, 20200501B, and 20200501A, which suspend environmental monitoring requirements associated with oil sands mines operated by Canadian Natural Resources Limited, Suncor Energy, Fort Hills Energy Corporation, Syncrude Canada, and Imperial Oil Resources Limited. These decisions relieve the named operators from environmental monitoring on matters such as groundwater, surface water, sulphur emissions, wildlife, and wetlands. The suspension is in place until further notice. Similar to Order 17/2020 issued by the Minister of Environment and Parks under section 52.1 of the Public Health Act, RSA 2000, c P-37, which suspended routine environmental reporting by industry, these AER decisions were made in response to COVID-19 but offer little justification for granting such extraordinary relief from regulatory requirements.

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A Balancing Act: Re-Opening Provincial Economies while Prioritizing Health Risks to Vulnerable Groups

By: Lorian Hardcastle and Naomi Lightman

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Matter commented on: COVID-19 in Alberta and Canada

Despite calls that we are “in it together”, many of Canada’s most vulnerable communities are bearing the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes individuals living and working in long-term care facilities, factory workers, homeless and incarcerated populations, and some on-reserve Indigenous communities. In implementing public health measures, policymakers largely failed to prioritize these groups. Rather, many of the strategies for social distancing presumed individual family homes, nuclear family arrangements, access to private cars, workplaces that could transition to online formats, and living conditions where outdoor space was available. As a result, many groups outside this presumed norm were either left behind or inadequately protected during the spread of the virus. In this post, we argue that as provincial governments begin the process of re-opening their economies, policymakers must balance the interests of the broader public with those who live and work in conditions that put them at risk. Continue reading →