Articles & Publications

Article, Staff | April 5, 2023 | Michael Moll

Liability Claims for Ineffective Enforcement – What’s Scary and What’s a Scare Tactic

It can be difficult to distinguish the situations in which liability is a real legal concern from those in which claims of potential liability are overblown and used to scare local governments into prioritizing a particular enforcement action. This paper discusses the legal principles that relate to the duties and discretions of a local government in conducting bylaw enforcement and how the risk of a successful claim being proven in court in relation to ineffective enforcement can depend significantly on where the contravention occurs.

Presented at MIABC Risk Management Conference, April 6, 2023.

 

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Article, Staff | January 25, 2023 | Michael Moll

Tax Sales for Municipal Finance Officers

This paper will discuss current legal trends regarding notices, upset prices and post-redemption period court challenges to tax sales as each of these can have a significant impact on municipal liability. This paper assumes the reader has a general understanding of the mechanics of the tax sale process and is not intended to be a step-by-step guide.

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Article, Publication, Staff | January 12, 2023 |

New Energy Efficiency Requirements under the BC Building Code

The BC Energy Step Code is a provincial building standard incorporated within the BC Building Code (BCBC) that provides an incremental approach to achieving more energy efficient buildings that go above the base requirements of the BCBC. The Energy Step Code is designed to slowly introduce and increase mandated efficiency requirements so that local authorities and the construction industry can adapt to the process in a management way.

The standard was first introduced in 2017 as a voluntary, compliance-based roadmap that both local government and industry could choose to use to incentivize or require builders to meet a level of energy efficiency in new building construction. Managing Partner, Sonia Sahota, wrote an article about these standards when they were first introduced. That article can be found here.

However, beginning in early 2023, all new buildings constructed in BC will be required to be 20 percent more energy efficient than those built to the requirements of the 2018 BCBC. This article looks at the updates and changes being made under the BCBC. 

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Article, Staff | January 11, 2023 |

Modernizing BC’s Privacy Laws: Mandatory Breach Notification Requirements and Privacy Management Programs for Public Bodies

On February 1, 2023 two significant amendments to British Columbia’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (“FOIPPA”) will come into force and which will have major impacts on public bodies handling and management of personal information:

  • The implementation of mandatory privacy breach notification requirements; and
  • The requirement for public bodies to implement a privacy management program.

To familiarize public bodies with these looming changes and to authorize their adoption into FOIPPA, the Government of British Columbia recently issued an order of the lieutenant governor in council and a ministerial direction from the Minister of Citizens’ Services, which outline the breach notification requirements and set out the necessary building blocks for the design of a privacy management program. These statutory changes are briefly summarized in this article.

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Article, Staff | November 24, 2022 | Kai Hsieh

A Tale of Two Housing Crises: How British Columbia and Ontario are Increasing Housing Supply through new Legislation

Housing affordability has been top of mind for many Canadians, and on November 21, 2022, BC’s Attorney General and Minister Responsible for Housing, the Honourable Murray Rankin, introduced Bill 43 to enact the Housing Supply Act, meant as “an important tool in reversing the housing crisis….” and Bill 44 to enact the Building and Strata Statutes Amendment Act, 2022, to “Expand housing options… in this tight housing market” (together, the “Housing Bills“). The Housing Bills come several months after then-incoming Premier David Eby laid out his plan for affordable housing (the “Housing Plan“), and almost one month after Ontario’s Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing introduced Bill 23, enacting the More Homes Built Faster Act, 2022 (the “MHBF Act”) to increase housing supply in its Province.

This article provides an overview of the Housing Bills and compares them against the Housing Plan and Ontario’s MHBF Act.

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Article, Staff | August 3, 2022 |

Special Committee to Review the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act: Transparency, Modernization and Risk Management

The British Columbia provincial government tabled a series of significant amendments to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the “Act”) that received royal assent on November 25, 2021 and which were intended to update this legislation to keep pace with technological and structural changes in the ways that public bodies in the province interact with and handle information.

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Article, Staff | March 3, 2022 |

Bill 26: Significant Implications for Local Governments

On November 3, 2021, Bill 26 received third reading by B.C.’s legislature and portions of Bill 26 relating to public hearings and delegating to staff the authority to issue development variance permits came into force on November 25, 2021. By an Order of the Lieutenant Governor in Council dated January 31, 2022, most of the remaining amendments in Bill 26 became law on February 28, 2022.

 

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Article, Staff | February 15, 2022 |

Be Sure To “Notice” The Notice Provisions In Your Construction Contracts

Typical construction contracts contain various provisions with respect to the contractor providing notice relating to time and/or price, for example, events or circumstances surrounding potential losses or claims for realized losses. The purposes of the provisions are to minimize such losses as much as practicably possible. Notice provisions are applicable to sub-contractors as well, depending on the language included in their respective contracts. Such provisions usually require that the provision of notice is the first necessary step in order to make a claim.

As published in the NRCA’s Northern Construction Connection February 2022 Newsletter, and VICA’s e-New.

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Article, Staff | November 19, 2021 |

An Update to British Columbia’s Commitment to UNDRIP

As of Wednesday, November 17, the Province of British Columbia has moved forward in introducing further legislation regarding Indigenous rights. In an effort to uphold its commitment to reconciliation and its implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (‘UNDRIP’), the Province introduced two bills concerning Indigenous peoples.

 

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