The Ministry of Attorney General for BC has just announced a public-engagement program for phase two of its project to modernize the Family Law Act. This program gives the public an opportunity to share its thoughts on ministry proposals for reform concerning the following topics:

• guardianship of children, parenting arrangements, and contact
• relocation of a child
• child-centred decision making
• children’s views and parenting assessments and reports
• family violence and protection orders

To support the public-engagement program, the ministry has published a discussion paper (PDF), an executive summary (PDF), and four online surveys:

• family violence and protection orders
• parenting assessment and views of the child reports
• time with and care of children
• Indigenous perspectives on family law

This public engagement is part of an ongoing ministry project “to update parts of the Family Law Act and make it work better for families.” The ministry’s goal is “[t]o make the Family Law Act clearer and more responsive to families’ needs.” Public engagement is open until 31 March 2024.

Update on BCLI parentage project: Consultation paper coming soon

BCLI is carrying out its own project in conjunction with the ministry’s phase-two project. This project is reviewing the law of parentage, as set out in part 3 of the Family Law Act. BCLI is currently preparing its own consultation paper, which will be the centrepiece of its planned public consultation on parentage. Watch the BCLI website or sign up for our newsletter to receive notice when the consultation paper is published.

The post Public engagement on phase two of Family Law Act modernization now open first appeared on British Columbia Law Institute.

On 29 March 2023 an open letter signed by leading tech experts calling for a pause on Giant AI Experiments was released.[1]  It asks governments and the global research community for a minimum 6-month pause in training artificial intelligence systems larger than GPT-4, the next iteration of the system that powers ChatGPT.[2] Signatories include  Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and prominent AI experts and researchers in major AI labs around the world. An author of a leading textbook on AI has signed on. The open letter raises serious concerns about the uncontrolled development and expansion of AI systems that even the creators of the systems cannot “understand, predict, or reliably control.” It emphasizes a need for agreement on safety protocols for the design and development of advanced AI systems to curb what it sees as “the dangerous race to ever-larger unpredictable black-box models with emergent capabilities.”[3] The open letter includes liability for AI-caused harm in a list of several essential policy elements for the governance of AI. 

Through practical, just, and balanced reform, the BCLI Artificial Intelligence and Civil Liability Project is aimed at ensuring that tort remedies will provide effective redress for AI-related harm at a time in wherein AI is increasingly pervasive.  We will issue a consultation paper in the spring of 2023 setting out tentative recommendations for public comment.  Look for the consultation paper later this spring on the project webpage.

[1] See Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter – Future of Life Institute.

[2] ChatGPT is currently powered by GPT-3.5.  GPT stands for “Generative Pre-trained Transformer.”  While ChatGPT was designed to produce text resembling the writing of humans in response to inputs by humans, GPT-4 is a large general-purpose language model that is able to perform many other functions.

[3] “Emergent capabilities” refers to the phenomenon of “emergence.”  Emergence is unpredictable, original, and unprogrammed behaviour of an AI system or AI-controlled device as it seeks ways of achieving programmed objectives.

The post International Call for Six-Month Pause in Giant AI Experiments Shows Importance and Timeliness of BCLI’s AI and Civil Liability Project first appeared on British Columbia Law Institute.

When it is enacted, the bill’s amendments will provide a host of improvements to BC’s comprehensive legislation on pension division. These improvements include clarifying and modernizing the law on locked-in retirement accounts and life income funds; private annuities; waiving survivor benefits after pension commencement; the powers of a personal representative after the death of a spouse; commuted value: transfer and calculation; disability benefits; and transitions.

BCLI’s Report on Pension Division: A Review of Part 6 of the Family Law Act was published in March 2021 as the culmination of its project on pension division. The project featured over two years’ work by an expert project committee and a broad-based public consultation.

Quotes

“I’m happy to see the introduction of amendments to part 6 of the Family Law Act. BCLI’s Pension Division Review Committee examined part 6 for over two years and recommended changes that would improve how pension division works for separating spouses. The BCLI committee’s recommended changes will enhance BC’s pension-division system for all stakeholders, including boards of trustees of registered pension plans, administrators, pension and family-law lawyers, and individual plan members and spouses.”—Colin Galinski, Chair, BCLI Pension Division Review Project Committee

“BCLI is grateful to see our recommendations become implemented in a bill that will improve the law on pension division. On behalf of BCLI, I would like to thank the Pension Division Project Committee and all who participated in the project’s public consultation for their assistance in developing these reforms to an important area of the law.”—Tejas B. V. Madhur, Chair, British Columbia Law Institute

Quick links

• Bill 17, Family Law Amendment Act, 2023 (first reading)
• Report on Pension Division: A Review of Part 6 of the Family Law Act
• Backgrounder—Summary of the Report on Pension Division: A Review of Part 6 of the Family Law Act (PDF)
• Backgrounder—Pension Division Review: Legislative Fact Sheet (PDF)
• Backgrounder—Quick Facts about the Pension Division Review Project (PDF)
• Backgrounder—Members of the Pension Division Review Project Committee (PDF)
• Pension Division Review Project Webpage
• BC government announcement “Changes to Family Law Act will make it easier for separating couples”

The post BCLI welcomes pension division reforms first appeared on British Columbia Law Institute.

BC doesn’t have provisions on information about donors in its parentage legislation under part 3 of the Family Law Act. But access to information about donors is an issue that has risen in prominence as more and more children are born from assisted reproduction. The committee decided that donor anonymity was sufficiently connected to parentage as to merit high-level consideration in this project.

The federal Assisted Human Reproduction Act was originally enacted with provisions to manage the collection of information about sperm, egg, and embryo donors. It also managed disclosure to donor-conceived people, which was only allowed with the donor’s consent. But the Supreme Court of Canada held that this legislation had impermissibly strayed into areas that Canada’s constitution assigns to the provinces to regulate, so it struck these provisions of Assisted Human Reproduction Act down. As a result, it became clear that any legislation on donor information in Canada would have to be enacted at the provincial level.

Most of Canada’s provinces and territories (including BC) have declined to exercise their authority to legislate on this topic. As a result, there’s something of a vacuum on donor information. This vacuum has mainly been filled by general legislation on personal information (such as BC’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and Personal Information Protection Act). These acts place an emphasis on personal privacy and generally require consent to the disclosure of personal information. So, in effect, by choosing not to legislate on information about donors, BC has passively adopted donor anonymity as its guiding principle in this area.

This approach is increasingly seen to be out of step with trends in legislation and social trends. According to a survey done in 2016 (PDF), 18 jurisdictions worldwide (including the state of Washington) have created legal frameworks that allow donor-conceived people to have access to identifying information about their donors. Social attitudes have also developed, dissipating much of the shame that surrounded infertility and assisted human reproduction and emphasizing the benefits that accrue to donor-conceived people from knowledge about their genetic origins. A similar change in social attitudes a generation ago led to a change in BC’s Adoption Act, enshrining openness in adoptions as the standard. Finally, technological advances—such as the widespread availability of affordable, direct-to-consumer DNA testing—has started to erode donor anonymity in practice.

The committee also considered reasons supporting donor anonymity in principle. It is a system that fully respects donors’ privacy interests. It may also respect the choices of intended parents in creating their families and avoid the perils of genetic essentialism. Finally, there were practical considerations, such as the costs of collecting and storing donor information and the risk that ending or limiting donor anonymity might reduce the number of people willing to be donors.

The goal of these discussions is to develop tentative recommendations to reform part 3 for a public consultation to be held later in the life of the project.

The post Donor anonymity on the agenda for the January 2023 parentage committee meeting first appeared on British Columbia Law Institute.

First, the committee examined whether section 28 of the Family Law Act should continue to limit the maximum number of parents for a posthumously conceived child to two. Currently, section 28 states that the child’s parents are the deceased person and their spouse. Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Prince Edward Island also limit the number of parents to two. See section 12 of Ontario’s Children’s Law Reform Act, section 63 of Saskatchewan’s Children’s Law Act, 2022, and section 22 of PEI’s Children’s Law Act. The committee’s discussion focused on intentions versus biological models of parentage, what procedural requirements may be needed, and crossover with the federal Assisted Human Reproduction Act.

Second, the committee examined whether section 8.1 of the Wills, Estates and Succession Act should continue to require a genetic connection between the deceased person and the posthumously conceived child as a basis for inheritance. Currently, section 8.1 requires that the deceased person’s reproductive material be used to conceive a child through assisted reproduction after their death. Ontario’s Succession Law Reform Act does not require a genetic connection between the deceased person and the posthumously conceived child – there is no requirement that the reproductive material come from the deceased person (see sections 47(10) and 1.1). While Saskatchewan has family law legislation addressing parentage for posthumously conceived children, Saskatchewan’s Intestate Succession Act, 2019 does not address inheritance for posthumously conceived children. The committee’s discussion focused on the implications of removing the genetic connection requirement for inheritance.

Third, the committee examined whether section 8.1 of the Wills, Estates and Succession Act should continue to require a spousal relationship between the parents as a basis for inheritance. Currently, section 8.1 requires that the spouse give notice that they may use the deceased person’s reproductive material to conceive a child through assisted reproduction. The deceased and their spouse must be married or in a marriage-like relationship at the time of death. Ontario’s Succession Law Reform Act also requires a spousal relationship between the posthumously conceived child’s parents as a basis for inheritance (see sections 47(10) and 1.1). California’s Probate Code is an example of a jurisdiction where there is no spousal relationship requirement – the deceased chooses a designated person to control their reproductive material (see §249.5). The committee’s discussion focused on the implications of removing the spousal relationship requirement for inheritance and the uncertainty this could potentially cause.

At the next committee meeting in January, the committee will be discussing donor-conceived children’s right to information about their biological origins.

The goal of these discussions is to develop tentative recommendations to reform part 3 for a public consultation to be held later in the life of the project.

The post Parentage committee discusses inheritance and parentage for posthumously conceived children first appeared on British Columbia Law Institute.