Real Estate

  • May 16, 2024

    Canada sanctions ‘extremist Israeli settlers’ for violence against Palestinians in the West Bank

    Ottawa has for the first time sanctioned “extremist Israeli settlers” with dealings and entry bans for “the grave breach of international peace and security posed by their violent and destabilizing actions against Palestinian civilians and their property in the West Bank.”

  • May 16, 2024

    Setting aside domestic contracts post-mortem

    Can domestic contracts protect a deceased spouse’s estate from the surviving spouse’s application for support?

  • May 15, 2024

    130-year-old Kingston firm welcomes new associate

    After graduating from Dalhousie’s Schulich School of Law and articling in Nova Scotia, Sean Davidson is returning to his hometown of Kingston, Ont., to join Cunningham Swan Carty Little & Bonham LLP as an associate on the firm’s general litigation team. 

  • May 13, 2024

    Court permits CN Railway to proceed with $250M container terminal project pending appeal

    The Federal Court of Appeal has permitted the Canadian National Railway Company (CN) to continue construction of a $250 million intermodal container transfer facility in Milton, Ont., pending the outcome of an appeal concerning the government decision authorizing the project.

  • May 10, 2024

    Supreme Court of Canada clarifies how to assess compensation for constructive expropriation

    The Supreme Court of Canada has explained how to assess compensation payable for constructive expropriation of private land by public authorities in a unanimous decision that reverses a ruling below that pegged what the City of St. John’s owes to a property owner to the land’s prospective market value if it were permitted to be developed for residential use, rather than to its much lower market value as land which is currently zoned “watershed,” with only limited discretionary agriculture, forestry and public utility uses.

  • May 10, 2024

    POWERS OF MUNICIPALITY — Types of authority — Legislative — Expropriation — Compensation - Market value

    Appeal by City of St. John’s (City) from a judgment of the Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal which found that compensation for the expropriation of a property owned by the Lynch family should be determined without reference to watershed zoning.

  • May 10, 2024

    Court dismisses motion, cites ‘culture of complacency’ and delays in civil justice system

    An Ontario Superior Court judge has dismissed leave to bring a motion in a long-running business dispute, lashing out at constant delays and a culture of complacency in Ontario's civil justice system. 

  • May 08, 2024

    Federal workers’ unions file legal challenges, complaints against three-day on-site work mandate

    Unions representing 270,000 federal public service workers have filed a series of legal challenges in opposition to the government’s new mandate requiring its workers to report to the office three days per week, according to a release by the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC).

  • May 07, 2024

    Sweeping national security bill would boost state investigative powers; expand & create crimes, AMPs

    The federal government has introduced a sweeping national security bill that would create a publicly accessible “foreign influence transparency” registry; expand the warrant, production and disclosure powers of the Canadian Security Intelligence Agency (CSIS); affect criminal accused or judicial review applicants seeking access to relevant “information related to international relations, national defence or national security”; expand the current “sabotage” offence; and create new “foreign interference” offences, along with administrative monetary penalties (AMPs) of up to $5 million and five years in prison, including for knowingly obstructing the operations of the office of a proposed new “Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner.”

  • May 07, 2024

    Ontario’s court rules arbitrator not free to ignore contract law, judge’s instructions

    As a general principle, “domestic” arbitrations in Ontario — being those governed by the province’s Arbitration Act, 1991 — “must be decided in accordance with the law. Arbitrators are accorded broad deference for matters within their jurisdiction and in defining the scope of their jurisdiction. But they are not free to ignore the law or to decide cases in accordance with their whims.”