Norsasklaw
1381A 101st St S9A 0Z9 North Battleford, SK, Canada

Thanks to Ed, Nicole, and NeepSee Herbs, Teas, Traditional Medicines for these tasty Christmas cupcakes from Shannon’s Sugary Sweets Battleford Sk - a local business in NB. We appreciate the kind treat!

All criminal trials and preliminary hearings postponed from Dec. 14 to Jan. 16.

New Queen's Bench appointments.

Joseph Arvay, a lawyer who helped bring about sweeping legal changes to Canada, including same-sex marriage and the right to a medically assisted death, through decades of passionate courtroom advocacy, died on Monday at 71.

This is such a great initiative.

Check out this #CBCFuture40 nominee highlight featuring Lua Gibb. "Lua Gibb is an inspiring, brilliant, and humble person. She is nehiyaw iskwew from Onion Lake... Cree Nation and has grown up in Saskatoon. Lua was appointed as a provincial court judge in January of 2020. She is the youngest judge in the province. She has worked as a provincial and federal prosecutor as well as for the Sask. Advocate for Children and Youth since graduating from College of Law at the University of Saskatchewan in 2005. She has spent her career working as an advocate for Indigenous people in the justice system. During her time as a prosecutor she also was a faculty member of the National School for Prosecutors in order to deepen the understanding of how Indigenous experiences impact the justice system. Here she provided professional development in the area of residential schools, reconciliation, cultural competency, and trauma informed decision making. As a judge she is able to expand her realm of influence in the justice system, and she is a role model and mentor for the people who come into her court. She uses her voice to remind Indigenous and non-Indigenous people that we are more than the mistakes that we have made, and that every generation we become stronger. Lua was raised by a 4th generation residential school survivor and walks this world with that strength and resilience. She is a mother of two children who she devotes her life and work to in restoring the dignity and beauty of Indigenous people in Saskatchewan." Check out all the 2020 nominations here: https://www.cbc.ca//nominate-yourself-or-someone-you-know- Winners will be announced Dec. 2-6, 2020.

Elder abuse and fraud can often sadly go hand-in-hand. It is important to know where to go for help if you suspect someone advantage is being taken of someone financially. Police, the Public Guardian & Trustee, and other entities in Saskatchewan can often provide help if you are being victimized or know someone who is.

We like to see the Law Society of Saskatchewan getting in the Halloween spirit!

This is a good thing. As Saskatchewan lawyers, we should recognize we live and work on Treaty and Métis territory. Striving to learn about Indigenous culture, history, and law is part of being good lawyers, citizens, and neighbours. The Law Society of Saskatchewan has created a Truth and Reconciliation Advisory Group in 2018, and there have already been some new CPD and other initiatives in the province to begin moving in the right direction on Call to Action #27. ... Call to Action #27 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada specifically addresses the legal profession and states: We call upon the Federation of Law Societies of Canada to ensure that lawyers receive appropriate cultural competency training, which includes the history and legacy of residential schools, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Treaties and Aboriginal rights, Indigenous law, and Aboriginal Crown relations. This will require skills-based training in intercultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights, and anti-racism.

We're searching for a Legal Bookkeeper and Legal Real Estate Assistant in North Battleford. For more info: https://www.saskjobs.ca/jsp/joborder/detail.jsp

Happy 40th birthday to our legal assistant Stacey today! This is how Stacey was looking at her sister Kathy throughout the day. We hope she had a great 40th birthday and will enjoy some time celebrating with her family and friends this weekend!

This August, we are searching for a bookkeeper in our North Battleford office. Real estate experience is also an asset. Please view below for information about the position and details about applying.

A project from Ontario, the National Canadian Lawyers' Initiative aims to connect people with quick access to pro bono legal advice during the COVID-19 pandemic.

An interesting decision and story out of SCOTUS:

A case from Ontario - Ribeiro v Wright, 2020 ONSC 1829 provides a general framework for family law applications in the period of COVID-19. The guidance contained in the case is being applied in family courts across Canada. An excerpt follows below along with a link to the full decision from CanLII by Justice A. Pazaratz: 9 Parents are understandably confused and worried about what to do. Similarly, this is uncharted territory for our court system. We all have to work...Continue reading

Though it has reduced its operations due to the public health emergency, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice recently issued a handful of rulings setting out guidelines for parents confused about how restrictions related to the novel coronavirus affect custody arrangements. While government and health officials stress the need to stay home, keeping children in their primary residence and thus away from the other parent that is generally not in their best interest, the court said.

With public health officials urging people to quarantine in their homes, divorced or separated parents who share custody of their children are faced with the unprecedented challenge of settling on a new arrangement in the midst of a pandemic.

Based on the pandemic that is happening right now, the kids will be staying home until further notice, it read. Under the terms of their divorce agreement, he is supposed to have the kids every other weekend and on Wednesday evenings. He hasn’t seen his children, an 11-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter, since receiving that text more than three weeks ago.

For any non-profits that are wondering how to conduct AGMs while maintaining physical distancing, the Saskatchewan government has passed amendments allowing for non-profit AGMs to occur by telephone or videoconferencing. More details will likely be shared with the public in the week ahead.

The US Supreme Court is conducting hearings by telephone during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A message from Chief Justice Popescul from the Court of Queen's Bench of Saskatchewan.

A bit of lighter news from Florida. Thankfully courts in Saskatchewan are using the telephone!

The increase in calls alone is a troubling sign of the pandemic. But there’s other trouble: the law requires that the client and two witnesses to sign the will in front of each other at the same time. Often, that takes place in a lawyer’s office for convenience sake, where the lawyer and an assistant witness the will after the client signs.

Due to COVID-19 our office door is locked to the public, but we still have someone inside to answer the phone and respond to your communication. We are accepting communication by phone and email. We are taking appointments by telephone and online. If you have something to drop off or need to speak with a lawyer, please contact our office at: 306-445-7772 or [email protected] ... We will unlock the door to allow you to make drop-offs in the entryway. Thank you for your understanding. We want to protect you, our community, and our firm as we work through this difficult time and help to reduce the rate of infection.

You can make an e-transfer today or ask the fund to direct the donation to where the need is greatest. Please give generously if you are able.

Due to the current public health situation, our office will be reducing hours to 9 AM - Noon and 1 PM - 4 PM Monday to Friday. We will be avoiding any non-critical in-person appointments. Appointments by telephone remain available. We prefer that any documents be scanned, mailed, or faxed to us, as opposed to dropped off.... Our staff will be on a two-and-two daily rotation, to permit internal distancing protocols and avoid having more than three people in the office. Lawyers will be attending the office on an as-needed basis and working from home wherever possible. These measures will be in place until at least the 3rd of April 2020. We will reassess on that date and as any new public health guidance is issued. We thank our clients for their understanding and cooperation. The health of our clients, staff, their families, and the general public is our first concern. Any questions are welcomed at 306-445-7772 or [email protected] ----------------- Please keep taking care of each other at this difficult time. For those in the Battlefords looking for updates or to help out, please check out this group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1057223917986913/

Doctors are calling on businesses to modify work, work from home, or shut down if possible to socially distance people and stop the spread of COVID-19 over the next critical weeks here in Canada. Minimize staffing if you provide an essential service and stay home if you are feeling sick or have recently travelled abroad.

Our staff asked Benedict Feist what type of birthday cake he wanted. Ben told them that because of the pandemic, it was not safe to eat cake, and he wanted "individually wrapped dried fruit bars". Less than 24 hours later...

The truth comes out.

We are working to adjourn matters in court this week to keep contact between people to a minimum. Please listen to official advice, share reliable information, and work to lower the spread of this illness to elderly and chronically ill people.

Some non-essential court matters in Saskatchewan have been postponed. Please click below for details. "Parties with scheduled matters including trials, pre-trial conferences and hearings are encouraged, where appropriate, to adjourn those matters to a future date."

Take care out there.

Need a will? We recommend you make an appointment with our office.

Congratulations to Cowessess First Nation on this milestone becoming the first Indigenous Nation in Canada to pass its own child and family services legislation with the Miyo Pimatisowan Act.

The government says it will spend $20 million over the next four years to establish a court in Lethbridge to add to the ones in Edmonton and Calgary. The government intends to open other facilities in yet-to-be announced locations.

A sitting Alberta provincial court judge is rejecting allegations that the province's Justice Ministry buried key evidence in criminal cases that involved possible wrongful convictions. In an unusual step for an active judge, Gregory Lepp is weighing in on a growing public controversy over disputed autopsies in Alberta, stating that a lawyer was well aware that a medical examiner's opinions had been rendered "useless" in a past review of criminal cases.

Liberal MPs, ministerial staff members and even party volunteers have been involved in candidate vetting since the federal government revamped the process in 2016, after having accused the previous Conservative government of politicizing appointments. The dozens of e-mails between ministerial staffers from 2017 and 2018 detail widespread partisan involvement in the selection of new judges, offering unprecedented insight into the inner workings of the current judicial appointm...ent process. The e-mails also show clear tensions during that time frame between the minister of justice’s office, which handles the appointment process, and the Prime Minister’s Office, which collaborates on those decisions. The PMO ensures Liberal MPs are consulted on all nominations in their ridings, the e-mails show, using the judicial candidates’ postal codes to determine where they live. In 2018, a member of the PMO’s appointment branch asked then-justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould’s office for the results of MP consultations for more than a dozen candidates, despite the concerns of her judicial affairs adviser, François Giroux. The e-mails do not offer evidence the government is breaking any rules, but show steps in the appointment process that are not laid out publicly on any government website. In a statement, PMO spokeswoman Chantal Gagnon said the Liberal government reformed the process after years of patronage by the Conservative government. It would be irresponsible not to consult a wide range of people including elected members of Parliament, when considering such an important life-long appointment. The government consults with Chief Justices, Regional Justices, senior members of the bench, bar associations, the law society and our elected officials on the recommendations made by the judicial advisory committee, she said.

Manitoba has become the second province in Canada to end the practice of "birth alerts."

Manitoba's families minister has told a Winnipeg-based news network a controversial practice that can lead to newborns being taken away from their mothers doesn't appear to be working to actually protect the children. "We conducted a review of the birth alert process, and what we found is that there's no evidence to prove that this ... increases the safety of children in any way," Families Minister Heather Stefanson said in an interview with APTN News, which aired Thursday on the network.

Cowesses First Nation is moving quickly to pass its law pursuant to the new federal child welfare legislation which came into force on January 1st, 2020.

Congratulations Judge Gibb!

An amazing milestone for Constance Isherwood, BC's oldest practicing lawyer at 100 years of age from CBC As It Happens. Just to put her career into perspective, Constance was was born in 1920 and finished law school at the University of British Columbia in 1951. After law school she returned to the same law office as a lawyer where she had been a legal secretary. "The practice of law is very intriguing, of course and the clients that you meet are people that you want to help. So that keeps you interested. And of course, going to work keeps your body active and mind active, which is a good thing at any age."

Claim forms are available on this website.

Leaders of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations - FSIN are asking the federal government for $1.8 billion to support First Nations as they take over jurisdiction of child welfare. Bill C-92, An Act Respecting First Nations, Métis and Inuit Youth and Families, was implemented Jan. 1. It allows Indigenous governing entities like First Nations to develop their own child welfare laws or enter tripartite agreements with the federal and provincial governments.

An Alberta Court of Appeal decision that has implications across Canada including for the University of Saskatchewan and University of Regina in the heated "free speech" debates regarding speakers like Faith Goldy and Jordan Peterson on post-secondary campuses. The facts of the case centre around a University of Alberta decision to grant a license to set up a protest space to display enlarged graphic pictures of abortions only if the anti-abortion student group paid $17,500 for added security, citing counter-demonstrations held at the student group's previous rallies. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association also intervened in the case in favour of free speech on campus. You can read the full Alberta Court of Appeal decision here: https://www.canlii.org///doc/2020/2020abca1/2020abca1.html

Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller says a major overhaul of the Indigenous child welfare system that began on Jan. 1 won't unfold without stumbles, but the stakes are too high not to continue pushing forward. "Mistakes will be made," Miller said. "We need to be ready for that, but that is a recognition that the status quo is unacceptable and that the work needs to be done." Indigenous children make up seven per cent of Canada's population, but they represent about 50 pe...r cent of youth in care, according to Miller. There are more Indigenous children in care now than at the height of the residential school era (which took place between the 1830s and the closure of the last institution in 1996). The federal government passed Bill C-92 officially known as An Act Respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis Children, Youth and Families last June, with the aim of tackling what has been termed a "humanitarian crisis."

Not only do we have to break the habit of writing 2019, when we really mean 2020, but the dawn of a new decade also creates a unique opportunity for scammers. How exactly, you ask?

Do you want to make a will? We can help.

The legal system destroyed Deskovic's life. At 17, he was found guilty of the rape and murder of a classmate, crimes he didn't commit. Then lawyers saved him. After years of rejections, the Innocence Project won a recheck of DNA evidence that was matched to the real killer. On Monday, May 13, Deskovic is expected to receive his juris doctor at age 45. He acknowledges that he still has to pass the bar, but Deskovic is ready for his new chapter.

From the Washington Post:

Check out the link below for details.

Solitary confinement was supposed to be reserved for prisoners who had committed serious disciplinary infractions. In forced isolation, inmates often deteriorated rapidly. As Krzykowski put it, So many guys would be mobile and interactive when they first came to the T.C.U., and then a few months later they would be sleeping in their cells in their own waste.

In Alberta, legal aid isn’t available to anyone making over $20,000 a year. In Ontario, the threshold is $17,731. British Columbia’s limit is $19,560, while it’s slightly higher in Quebec at $22,750. Ian Savage, president of the Calgary Criminal Defence Lawyers’ Association, says hiring a lawyer for trial can range from $1,500 to $10,000, depending on the lawyer’s experience. There’s obviously an entire class who don’t qualify for legal aid, he says.... The working poor cannot afford a private lawyer, full stop.

When Cherrington was laid off from Legal Aid in June, the 100 or so daily calls and texts didn't let up from vulnerable Edmontonians in crisis asking for his help. So he kept helping on his own dime as he looked for a way to make it sustainable. For Cherrington, the answer is a new partnership with the Coalition for Justice and Human Rights, a non-profit society and registered charity he helped create. A prominent downtown law firm has provided an office where he can work. In a campaign launched this week, Cherrington is asking for donations to cover expenses and a modest salary.

In Letter VII, Screwtape, the senior demon, reveals hell’s long-term strategy for the modern world: to produce people who do not believe in God but do believe, in some vague way, in magic: If once we can produce our perfect workthe Materialist Magician, the man, not using, but veritably worshipping, what he vaguely calls ‘Forces’ while denying the existence of ‘spirits’then the end of the war [against God] will be in sight. That imageof those who worship force while denying spirithas haunted me ever since; it epitomizes the dilemma of a human society in moral free fall because it has, without knowing it, abandoned belief in its own pretended first principles. In the age of Donald Trump, we are seeing a legal incarnation of Screwtapethe lawless legalist who worships the law as force but denies the existence of its spirit.

The raw facts of the case are still shocking Tracy Desjarlais worked at the provincial courthouse in Regina in 2003 when she was sexually assaulted by a justice of the peace, Laurent (Larry) Toupin. At trial, there was a publication ban on her name, as is normal in such cases, but now at her request it has been lifted and she is telling her story.

29-year-old Trevor Marcel McKay has had his sentence reduced on appeal following his conviction for one of the largest cocaine seizures in Saskatchewan history.

Since Bill 21 was tabled, advocates report spike in public harassment of Muslim women in Quebec.

"Derrick Clay walked into a restaurant in Colorado, one afternoon in January 2017, to get a bite to eat. His card was declined. Clay, who has been diagnosed with psychosis and probable bipolar disorder, grabbed another customer’s ordera hamburger and French fries worth $11. Somebody called the police."

We wish all our colleagues, clients, friends, and families a happy holiday season. As things slow down over the next week or two, we hope you take the time to reflect on the blessings of family, friends, and community. This is also a time to remember those who are less fortunate in our society and reflect on how we can be generous, kind, charitable, and work for justice throughout the entire year.... To all our friends, families, clients, and colleagues - have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

"Fundamentally, what the law does is take a rather crude and odious form of discrimination which is to ban the wearing of religious symbols and wrap up that ban in the language of human rights," said Eric Mendelsohn, one of the lawyers representing the inter-faith group, Coalition Inclusion Québec.

All three justices wrote in the ruling Thursday there is evidence the law is causing harm to Quebecers who wear religious symbols. Justice Dominique Bélanger, who sided with the majority, said it is "apparent that their fundamental rights are being violated." She singled out Muslim women who wear the hijab.

"The lawyer for a young man who shot and killed four people in a school and in a home in northern Saskatchewan is asking the Supreme Court of Canada to reconsider his adult sentence. Aaron Fox said he plans to seek leave to appeal to the country’s highest court after the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal dismissed his client’s sentence appeal in October."

"The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal is set to hear three closely-linked cases, which will determine whether the investors can put as much money as they want into universal life insurance policies with a guaranteed rate of return, beginning Jan. 15. In a decision handed down last March, Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Brian Scherman sided with the companies and ruled that the 20-plus-year-old policies could not be used for unlimited stand-alone investment opportunities. At the ...same time, Scherman found the regulations passed by cabinet in October 2018 to close the loophole used by the investors were not declaratory of the law in other words, they created a new rule and could therefore not be applied retroactively. Cabinet’s decision to pass the regulations using a three-page order that mentioned neither the ongoing trial nor lobbying by Manufacturers Life Insurance Co., one of the companies involved, has been characterized as political interference.