Jan 8, 2018

Equity Rules the Day: The Supreme Court of Canada Clarifies the Tenets of Proprietary Estoppel

In December 2017, the Supreme Court of Canada released its decision in Cowper-Smith v. Morgan, 2017 SCC 61, a case dealing with the issue of proprietary estoppel.  While the facts of this case are borne out of circumstances relating to an estate, the law as set out by the Supreme Court can be equally applied in the context of commercial litigation in relation to promises made in a commercial context.  

Nov 21, 2017

Make a Will Month provides an annual checkup for lawyers and the public

According to a 2012 survey conducted by lawyers’ insurance company LawPRO, 56 per cent of Canadian adults do not have a signed will and 71 per cent do not have a signed power of attorney. The Ontario Bar Association hopes to tackle this issue during Make a Will Month, a public outreach campaign aimed at educating the public about the importance of executing a will and powers of attorney and informing the public about the ways in which lawyers can assist in estate planning.

21st Century Estate Practice: Shrunken heads and sperm

Hollywood’s vision of an estate solicitor sitting at their desk mulling fine points of tax law while sipping tea and drafting a will is so far from modern practice as to be laughable. One troubling issue for estate practitioners in the 21st century is the plethora of unique assets that have to be planned for, administered, and/or disposed of in a safe and permissible manner. An unscientific survey of our colleagues’ experiences yields some useful tips for dealing with unusual assets.

Dec 5, 2016

Parental Recognition and Proposed Amendments to Ontario Legislation: Part 2

In February 2016, we wrote about the Cy and Ruby’s Act (Parental Recognition), 2015, which proposed a number of amendments to statutes dealing with parental recognition.   We noted that the proposed amendments (the main amendments being to the Children’s Law Reform Act ) dealt with various typical factual scenarios involving assisted reproduction with donated genetic material from a third party, surrogacy arrangements or the possibility that an intended parent’s own genetic materials would be stored and used at a later time.  One of the goals of the proposed amendments was to facilitate the parental recognition of same-sex partners who rely on assisted reproduction for the conception and birth of children they intend to parent.  Indeed, one of the significant proposed amendments was the replacement of all references to “mother” and “father” with references to “parent”.