It has been widely acknowledged that climate change is impacting local governments and their infrastructure due to increased extreme weather events and rise in sea levels. The legal liability risks of climate change impacts include potential negligence claims, nuisance claims and regulatory liability…
Articles & Publications
Publication, Staff | June 26, 2019 |
Innovative Transportation Solutions: CleanBC and Charging Stations
As published in CBA Municipal Law Section
With great fanfare, the Province of British Columbia in December 2018 released a new climate action strategy known as the CleanBC plan. A primary objective of the CleanBC strategy is for every new car sold in B.C. to be a zero emission vehicle by 2040. A zero emission vehicle is one that has no tailpipe emissions and runs on a fuel cell or battery…
Article, Staff | June 19, 2019 |
A Challenge to a Local Government’s Requirements for Property Rentals
In this May 14, 2019 decision, the owners of strata units in a hotel in Whistler and their real estate management companies commenced a judicial review challenging the Resort Municipality of Whistler’s (the “RMOW”) amendments to its Zoning and Business Licensing Bylaws as well as a s. 219 covenant registered on title to the strata lands in favour of the RMOW (the “Rental Pool Covenant”)…
Publication, Staff | June 6, 2019 |
Are Local Governments Required to Hold Oral Hearings?
As published in CBA Municipal Law Section
Elected officials of local governments are required to exercise the duties and powers of the local government in different manners, depending on the nature of the matter at hand. When council or board members are exercising the local government’s business powers…
Article, Staff | May 17, 2019 |
Social Procurement: From Origin to Implementation
For anyone involved with purchasing within a local government organization, talk of social procurement has unlikely gone unheard. It is a growing topic of discussion and interest, and we are seeing more and more communities embracing it and organizations taking steps to implement it into their purchasing policies. This article touches on the evolution of procurement that has led to the introduction of social impact purchasing, and discusses the approach that local governments may take to establish the practice within their own organization…
Publication, Staff | May 2, 2019 |
Workplace safety is no game – Roll the dice and you may go straight to jail
As published in BUILD Magazine 2019/2020
Imagine yourself facing criminal charges and the stigma of a criminal conviction, or serving jail time and paying a hefty fine. Could you have done something differently to avoid such consequences?
This article chronicles five decisions where criminal convictions were handed down for workplace accidents since a broader regime of criminal liability under the Criminal Code was brought into force in 2004…
Article, Staff | April 15, 2019 |
Contract Negotiation and Performance – The Operating Principle of “Good Faith”
The obligation to either negotiate or perform in “good faith” is found in many commercial agreements. While these are “big picture” concepts, they can have very real implications when a dispute arises. In recent years, the Supreme Court of Canada and the Ontario Superior Court of Justice have issued judgments that provide guidance on what commercial behavior Canada’s common law courts may, or may not, find acceptable…
Article, Staff | April 14, 2019 |
Emergency Preparedness: Plan, Prepare & Practice
Like other jurisdictions across the country, British Columbia is at risk for numerous emergencies and disasters, including flooding, forest fires, severe water shortages, tsunamis, storm surges, landslides, avalanches, power outages, hazardous material spills and disease outbreaks. While emergency planning and response is a shared responsibility across all levels of government, citizens largely depend on and expect local governments to provide effective, coordinated response in local emergency situations…
Publication, Staff | April 14, 2019 |
Social Media: Have Local Governments Been Blessed or Cursed? Practical Strategies for Risk Management
As published in CBA Municipal Law Section
Social media is a source of both opportunities and liabilities for local governments as service providers and employers. Social media differs from traditional media in that, instead of a oneway broadcast by trained professionals who abide by journalistic codes or ethics and have editors to provide objective review of content for accuracy and compliance with journalistic codes and ethics, social media involves a two-way platform that is available and accessible by anyone with a computer, with no editorial overview. Social media is much further reaching than traditional media used to be, as the content can be disseminated globally in an instant…
Article, Staff | March 15, 2019 |
Can the SNC Lavalin Controversy Inform Local Governments?
If you are like me, you may have been following with interest the SNC Lavalin story. At the centre of the controversy is a legal issue that is often difficult to discern amongst the partisan rhetoric that usually accompanies political discourse…