BCLI Congratulates Charles Gordon and Mary Hamilton on Queen’s Counsel Appointment

British Columbia Law Institute congratulates two former project committee volunteers on  being appointed Queen’s counsel on December 10, 2018 – Russell Charles Gordon and Mary Bridget Hamilton.  Charles Gordon is a senior partner at Koskie Glavin Gordon, practising in the areas of labour, human rights and administrative law. Previously, he was an in-house labour counsel and was senior counsel to the British Columbia Labour Relations Board. He is the former president of the CBABC labour Read more…

BCLI releases Report on the Employment Standards Act

BCLI has released its Report on the Employment Standards Act.  The 300-page report contains 71 recommendations for changes to the Act to address contemporary and evolving circumstances in the 21st-century workplace.  The Employment Standards Act applies to the majority of employees in BC.  It sets minimum standards for most aspects of employment relationships except occupational health and safety and collective bargaining.  The report was preceded by a consultation paper that BCLI issued in mid-2018 to Read more…

2018 American Bar Association National Aging and Law Conference: A word from CCEL Staff Lawyer

On October 24–26, 2018, CCEL staff lawyer, Valerie Le Blanc, attended the American Bar Association’s annual National Aging and Law Conference in Alexandria, Virginia. The theme of this year’s conference was Advocating for Aging with Dignity, with 30 workshops on a range of topics, and four plenary sessions “focused on how to put theories into practice.” Workshop themes and topics included: Guardianship, Solos and Independence: examining Minnesota’s approach to collaborative efforts in supported decision making, Read more…

Increased fines for short-term accommodation strata bylaws in force today

Back in July the ministry of municipal affairs and housing announced that it was amending the Strata Property Regulation to address concerns about short-term accommodation. These amendments have come into force today. They replace the existing section 7.1 of the regulation with a new provision that includes a special category of maximum fines for “a bylaw that prohibits or limits use of all or part of a residential strata lot for remuneration as vacation, travel or Read more…

Using strata lot for short-term accommodation wasn’t a breach of strata’s residential-use, rental bylaws: BC Supreme Court

In Semmler v The Owners, Strata Plan NES3039, 2018 BCSC 2064, the Supreme Court of British Columbia found that a strata-lot owner’s use of her strata lot for short-term accommodation didn’t violate two strata-corporation bylaws, one of which forbade the use of a strata lot for “any business purpose” and the other of which stated “No strata lot may be rented for term of less than thirty (30) consecutive days.” The case turned largely on Read more…