Articles 2020

It's not unusual for an executor to find themselves faced with an insolvent estate. Given insolvent estates are rarely the subject of litigation, however, there is a dearth of case law to help the executor determine whom to pay first. This article provides much needed guidance on that topic, in light of section 50(1) of the Trustee Act, and case law on the priority of debts to the federal and provincial Crowns.

In Kovintharajah v. Paragon Linen and Laundry Services Inc., 2021 HRTO 98, Vice-Chair Bruce Best held that an employer violated the Human Rights Code (the “Code”) by revoking an existing family status accommodation that allowed an employee to leave work before the normal end of the shift in order to meet their child care responsibilities.

Please find below our summaries of the civil decisions of the Court of Appeal for Ontario for the week of February 15, 2021. Also, please mark down April 27, 2021, from 5:30-7:45pm in your calendars for our fifth annual “Top Appeals” CLE, which will take place via Zoom. Justice Benjamin Zarnett will be co-chairing the event with myself and Chloe Snider of Dentons.

On January 6, 2021, WhatsApp announced that it would update its Privacy Policy to help it better integrate with other Facebook products, making sharing information with Facebook mandatory for WhatsApp users. This prompted many responses online calling for users to leave WhatsApp and to use more “privacy friendly” messaging apps, such as Telegram and Signal. This article discusses the impact of WhatsApp's new Privacy Policy on Canadian users.

In November 2020, the federal government introduced Bill C-11 (The Digital Charter Implementation Act). The proposed bill would overhaul Canada’s existing federal private sector privacy law PIPEDA with a modernized replacement known as the Consumer Privacy Protection Act.

Science and innovation can profoundly affect our capacity to prevent, detect, and treat disease.  Now, more than ever, the world has clear insight into the vital role of research and discovery in protecting our collective health and wellbeing.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced Canadians to stay at home and rely on their devices for far more essential services than they did in the past. The increased demand for digital tools has boosted innovation, fast-tracking the creation of new technology to assist Canadians in different aspects of their daily lives. Unfortunately, Canada’s privacy laws have not undergone similar upgrades to be compatible with our current lifestyle.