By: Jennifer Koshan and Jonnette Watson Hamilton

PDF Version: The Right to Support for Adult Children with Disabilities

Case and Bill Commented On: Ryan v Pitchers, 2019 ABQB 19 (CanLII); Bill 28, the Family Statutes Amendment Act 2018

 As Laura Buckingham noted in an ABlawg post in December 2018, Alberta’s Bill 28, the Family Statutes Amendment Act 2018, made three key amendments:

• creating legislated rules for property division for separating common-law couples;
• closing a gap in child support legislation for adult children with disabilities; and
• repealing the Married Women’s Act, RSA 2000, c M-6.

The second of these amendments was recently considered in Ryan v Pitchers, 2019 ABQB 19 (CanLII). In this case, a mother brought a constitutional challenge to the pre-amendment version of the Family Law Act, SA 2003, c F-4.5 (FLA), which did not allow disabled children of unmarried parents to obtain child support once they turned 18 and were not attending school full-time. The mother’s argument was that the definition of child in the FLA violated the equality guarantee in section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The government did not defend the case given the pending legislative amendment in Bill 28, and although the father raised constitutional counter-arguments, the mother’s claim was successful.

Although the decision may seem like a foregone conclusion, the section 15 analysis of Madam Justice Carolyn Phillips has some interesting features that we will comment on in this post.

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By: Nigel Bankes

PDF Version: Justice Romaine Weighs in on ‘lifting the stay’ in the Context of Replacement of Operator Provisions in Oil and Gas Joint Venture Agreements

Case Commented On: Alberta Energy Regulator v Lexin Resources Ltd, 2019 ABQB 23 (CanLII)

In a crisp and well-reasoned judgment, Justice Barbara Romaine, one of the acknowledged bankruptcy experts on the Court of Queen’s Bench, has weighed in on the question of ‘lifting the stay’ in the context of replacement of operator provisions in joint venture agreements. While she does not rule out lifting the stay in appropriate cases, Justice Romaine emphasizes that this is an exceptional remedy. As such the decision may serve to curb what might have been a growing enthusiasm on the part of non-operators to think that it was easy to lift a stay.

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Website of the Alberta Law Reform Institute

PDF Version: The Alberta Law Reform Institute Begins Project Selection

By: Barry Chung

Since 2016, the Institute has received over 50 law reform suggestions from the public, legal community and various service organizations. There was a wide variety of topics that ranged from the appointment of Provincial Court Judges, Indigenous Peoples and reconciliation, autonomous vehicle legislation, and Business Corporations Act compliance to name just a few.

While the majority of these topics are important and worthy of consideration, only a few will make it through ALRI’s rigorous selection process.

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By: Martin Olszynski

PDF Version: Bill C-69’s Detractors Can Blame Harper’s 2012 Omnibus Overreach (Blog Edition)

Legislation Commented On: An Act to enact the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, to amend the Navigation Protection Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts (Bill C-69)

Last week, Postmedia columnists Licia Corbella and Don Braid both set their sights on Bill C-69, the federal Liberal’s environmental law reform bill that proposes new impact assessment legislation and the replacement of the current National Energy Board with a new Canadian Energy Regulator. Ms. Corbella claimed that Bill C-69 is “so destructive it just might be the bookend to [the] disastrous and infamous National Energy Program.” Mr. Braid suggested that it poses a “grave danger” to the already beleaguered Trans Mountain pipeline and implored for the Bill to be “ritually slaughtered” by the Senate when it comes before it later this fall.

The problem is that Bill C-69 poses no such danger. In fact, the relevant transitional provision (s 182) makes clear that a project like Trans Mountain, whose assessment began under the current Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012, SC 2012 c 19 s 52 (CEAA, 2012), would remain under that regime even if that assessment is not completed when the law comes into force. Unfortunately, almost all of Ms. Corbella and Mr. Braid’s assertions about Bill C-69, as well as those of the Canada West Foundation’s Martha Hall Findlay and former Conservative Party leadership candidate Rick Peterson, on which both columnists rely, do not withstand scrutiny.

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By: Drew Yewchuk

PDF Version: Bribery by Dry Meat and the Legal Status of Jokes

Case Commented On: Gullion v Gottfried, 2018 ABQB 531 (CanLII)

Gullion v Gottfried is the second reported decision addressing an application for judicial review alleging bribery under the Local Authorities Election Act, RSA 2000 c. L-21, and is also the second decision in which the allegations are unsuccessful (at para 24). The applicant, John Garry Gullion, alleged that the respondent, Everett Gottfried bribed voters in a local election contrary to section 116 of the Local Authorities Election Act. Gullion and Gottfried are second cousins (at para 11).

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