Sharing land

Just in: a new way to tick off judges with ChatGPT. A New York law firm asked a court to award more than $100,000 in costs after winning a legal battle with the government. One of the arguments the firm used to support its fees was ChatGPT’s opinion that the fees were reasonable.

To be fair, the firm wasn’t blindly relying on ChatGPT. The firm said it served to “cross-check” other resources and highlight what the average consumer would learn about legal fees if they used ChatGPT for research. But the judge still wasn’t happy about it.

Have a great weekend everyone.

— Dylan Gibbs

• BC halts Land Act amendments

• The SCC’s latest leave to appeal decisions

• Doug Ford’s support for patronage appointments

• Quebec’s pro-landlord housing amendments

• A former law dean’s disbarment

INDIGENOUS LAW

BC is back to square one on Land Act amendments

It’s been a rollercoaster of a month for those watching the proposed changes to BC’s Land Act. In late January, the government pitched amendments that would let Indigenous groups share joint authority over public land in the province. The announcement met significant backlash, partly because of the government’s rushed approach to consultation.

• Business groups and BC United (the official opposition party) said the proposed changes would create an Indigenous veto over project approvals in the province.

• Others view the changes as a natural consequence of legislation the province already adopted — the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act contemplates the province sharing statutory decision-making powers with Indigenous governing bodies.

Yesterday, the critical voices won out — at least for now. The province said it’s temporarily halting the amendments to take more time for stakeholder engagement.

HEARSAY ROUNDUP

Canadiana

🤝 Doug Ford was accused of “blatant patronage” for stacking Ontario’s Judicial Appointments Advisory Committee with his ex-staffers. Ford said he agrees with that characterization:

🏠 Quebec officially adopted legislation that prevents tenants from freely transferring leases. Landlords now have the power to terminate a lease whenever a tenant asks for a transfer. And that gives landlords greater power to raise rent between tenancies — tenants can no longer extend rent controls indefinitely by passing their lease on to someone else.

🧑‍⚖️ Justice Pomerance of Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice sentenced Nathaniel Veltman as a terrorist. It’s the first Canadian case to link a white nationalist ideology to terrorism. Veltman drove his truck into a Muslim family in London, Ontario in 2021 — a jury found him guilty of four counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder in November.

👨‍💻 Former Justice Minister David Lametti agreed to archive his X account in response to a lawsuit by Rebel News. Rebel News took Lametti to court after he deactivated his X account last month. Lametti has since reinstated the account and agreed to turn all of its data over to Library and Archives Canada.

🏳️‍🌈 By a referendum vote of 663–639, the town of Westlock, Alberta voted to ban non-government flags (like pride flags) and rainbow crosswalks on public property.

🥾 Manitoba’s Law Society disbarred the University of Manitoba’s former Dean of Law, Jonathan Black-Branch. In December, a Disciplinary Committee panel found that Black-Branch had misappropriated over $500,000 through fraudulent expense claims.

SCC

Latest leave to appeal decisions

The Supreme Court granted four leave to appeal applications over the past two weeks. You’ll be disappointed if you’re hoping the Court will hear more private law cases — but the appeals do cover an interesting mix of administrative and criminal law. And one raises an interesting question about the Court itself.

Pepa v. Canada

If someone’s visa expires while immigration authorities are thinking about removing them from the country, do they lose their right to appeal the removal decision?

Canada let Dorinela Pepa come to the country on a permanent resident visa. But she got married before she arrived. And she didn’t mention her marriage until she stepped off the plane in Canada. The immigration authorities treated Ms. Pepa’s late disclosure as a misrepresentation, which eventually led to an order removing her from the country. Between her arrival in Canada and the Immigration and Refugee Board’s final decision, Ms. Pepa’s visa expired.

People who “hold a permanent resident visa” can appeal their removal order to the Immigration Appeal Division. But the Appeal Division said Ms. Pepa lost her right to appeal when her visa expired. The Federal Court of Appeal said that was a reasonable conclusion.

R. v. Kinamore

Dustin Kinamore was charged with sexual assault. Before the alleged assault, the complainant texted Kinamore saying she didn’t want to have sex with him. Are her text messages evidence of her past sexual history?

The Court of Appeal said no:

Oddly, the Supreme Court already seems to have decided this issue in 2020 (albeit from the bench). The Court has already faced criticism for deciding too many cases from the bench — it probably won’t help if the Court signals those decisions are up for reconsideration.

R. v. J.W.

An offender with cognitive disabilities needs longer to complete their rehabilitative programming. Can the court increase the length of their sentence to make sure they finish the programming? The Court of Appeal said there’s nothing wrong with that:

R. v. Wilson

The Controlled Drug and Substances Act protects anyone who sticks around at the scene of a drug overdose. If police show up and find drugs, they can’t charge good samaritans at the scene with drug possession. But it’s not clear whether police can still place those good samaritans under arrest.

Here’s the relevant legislative provision:

The distinction between charging someone and arresting them makes a big difference for Mr. Wilson. He had drugs with him at the scene of an overdose. And even though police couldn’t charge Mr. Wilson for possession, they still arrested him for it. The arrest led to a search. And the search uncovered guns. Police never charged Mr. Wilson for possession, but they sure charged him for the guns.

FROM THE READERS

In response to Wednesday’s story about the UR Pride v. Saskatchewan litigation:

SHARE HEARSAY

Don’t keep us a secret. Get your friends to sign up and you’ll be rewarded. You can find your custom referral link in the email version of Hearsay.