On October 21, 2023, CALE/ACEJ held its annual meeting of members at the Faculty of Law, University of Victoria. In his report, President Stephen Pitel outlined CALE/ACEJ’s activities over the past year, including: the transition of the Chief Information Officer role from Amy Salyzyn to Basil Alexander; transitioning the listserv from UOttawa to Google Groups; implementing a Travel Grant Program to support graduate students and post-doctoral fellows attending the conference; partnering with the CBA and FLSC for the 2023 Ethics Forum; submissions to the FLSC’s National Requirement Review Committee re: ethics and professionalism and to the FLSC’s Model Code Committee re: former judges returning to practice; and other director submissions and activities that build awareness of CALE/ACEJ.
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Annual Meeting 2021
On October 23, 2021, CALE/ACEJ held its annual meeting of members as an online Zoom meeting. President Amy Salyzyn highlighted CALE/ACEJ’s active role in providing feedback to both the Canadian Judicial Council (for its new version of Ethical Principles for Judges) and the Federation of Law Societies of Canada (for its ongoing revisions to aspects of the Model Code). She provided an update on the status of some of the proposed changes to the Model Code relating to discrimination and harassment, ex parte communications and proceedings, and the return to the practice of law by former judges.
Treasurer Basil Alexander reported that the financial position was not significantly different from the prior year and that CALE/ACEJ is current with its corporate and tax filings.
Elected as directors of CALE/ACEJ for 2021-22 are Basil Alexander, Brent Cotter, Richard Devlin, Jula Hughes, Sonia Lawrence, Gillian MacNeil, Andrew Flavelle Martin, Pooja Parmar, Stephen Pitel, Alain Roussy and Amy Salyzyn. Marie Claude Rigaud, having been appointed to the Superior Court of Quebec in May 2021, did not return as a director. New to the board is Gillian MacNeil, an Assistant Professor at the University of Manitoba.
At a subsequent meeting of the directors, the following officers were appointed: Chair of the Board Richard Devlin, President Amy Salyzyn, Vice-President Stephen Pitel, Corporate Secretary and Treasurer Basil Alexander, Chief Information Officer Amy Salyzyn and Conference Coordinator Jula Hughes.
The directors discussed the Law Society of Ontario’s ongoing consultation about competence issues and agreed that a submission by CALE/ACEJ should be drafted.
Lakehead University agreed to host the 2022 CALE/ACEJ conference, very much hoping that gathering in person in Thunder Bay will be viable. The aim for 2023 is to hold the conference at the University of Victoria.
CALE/ACEJ extended thanks to Amy Salyzyn for her leadership, to Brent Cotter for his significant role in developing the new Ethical Principles for Judges and to Jula Hughes, Wendy Parkes and their team at Lakehead University for their successful organization of this year’s online conference.
Ethical Principles for Judges: Draft Released for Comment
The Canadian Judicial Council (CJC) has posted a draft of the revised Ethical Principles for Judges. Information about the process of revising this important document is available here and the draft itself is available here. The changes are sufficiently substantial that a blackline or mark-up drawing attention to the specific changes is not available.
CALE/ACEJ, through its Board of Directors, will provide feedback on the draft to the CJC by its new deadline (updated December 3, 2019) of February 14, 2020. It will post this feedback on this website.
The revision of Ethical Principles for Judges is a generational event. It is therefore important for the process to be as inclusive and responsive as possible to ensure continued public confidence in the Canadian judiciary. CALE/ACEJ encourages anyone interested in judicial ethics and conduct to review the draft and to provide feedback to the CJC, either at info@cjc-ccm.ca or Canadian Judicial Council, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0W8. If you provide feedback, you are most welcome to also share it with CALE/ACEJ.
CJC Review Panel Report on Justice Patrick Smith
In November 2018 the Canadian Judicial Council released the Report of its Review Panel considering the conduct of Justice Patrick Smith (of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice). The Report addressed issues arising from Justice Smith’s appointment as Interim Dean (Academic) of the Lakehead University Faculty of Law. The report is available here. It concluded that Justice Smith should not have accepted the appointment. However, this was not sufficiently serious to warrant his removal as a judge.
Five Year Report on Regulation of Paralegals in Ontario
Report to the Attorney General of Ontario Report of Appointee’s Five-Year Review of Paralegal Regulation in Ontario
Pursuant to Section 63.1 of the Law Society Act November 2
Prepared and Respectfully Submitted by: David J. Morris, MBA
From the Executive Summary of the report:
In the interest of striking some measure of balance between enhancing public access to justice and ensuring protection for those receiving legal advice from non-lawyers, on May 1, 2007, persons providing paralegal services in Ontario joined the province’s lawyers under regulation of the Law Society of Upper Canada.
Canadian Association for Legal Ethics / Association canadienne pour l’éthique juridique 