Articles 2024

This article comments on the recent decision of the discipline committee of the College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO) in College of Nurses of Ontario v Ramos, 2020 CanLII 82614 (ON CNO), denying a deferral of a virtual hearing until a time where in-person hearings are resumed.

Health-care workers in long-term care (LTC) and retirement homes may be required by their employers to undergo COVID-19 testing. This was the decision of arbitrator Dana Randall in Christian Labour Association of Canada v Caressant Care Nursing & Retirement Homes, 2020 CanLII 100531 (ON LA). This article summarizes key points of the arbitral decision.

This article is a recap of the November 17 PD event of the OBA Health Law Section: Health Law & Privacy of Patients – What you Need to know in these Unprecedented Times. The program addressed how the arrival of COVID-19 in Ontario has affected access to health information, patient privacy in the new virtual age, and the application of PHIPA to consumer electronic service providers.

Following are our summaries of the past week’s civil decisions of the Court of Appeal for Ontario. The Court delivered a flurry of year-end decisions ahead of the holidays.

The final BBL meeting of the year focussed on things to come, including O. Reg. 690/20, which will change the process of applying for a Certificate of Appointment of Estate Trustee, and electronic filing of those applications.

Like almost everything this year, the OBA’s Make a Will Month looked a little different in 2020. The annual November event pivoted to an online platform for its presentations. Events were well attended, with participants attending from across and even outside the country, thanks to the flexibility offered by online programming.

A reminder to estate planners: upcoming changes to trust reporting rules will affect most Canadian-resident express trusts, and all non-resident trusts that file a T3 return, for taxation years ending on or after December 31, 2021.

This article explores the recent advances in AI-generated art, including images and voices of dead celebrities that are digitally resurrected to create new artistic works. Such works, the author argues, are unlike anything that came before, and a new legislative framework, including in estates law, is required to address complicated issues surrounding the creation, ownership, and profit from such works.

In the wake of COVID-19, which has strained already limited judicial resources, the Alberta Court of Appeal has issued a decision addressing the need for judicial economy and the avoidance of duplicative and overlapping proceedings in multijurisdictional class actions.

On November 27, our Section Chair, Molly Reynolds, sat down by the virtual fireside with Ontario’s new Information and Privacy Commissioner, Patricia Kosseim, for an insightful discussion on the future of privacy and access laws in Ontario.