On July 1, 2014, most of the provisions of the Voluntary Retirement Savings Plans Act1 (the “VRSP Act”) came into effect. At the time, this raised questions in the minds of numerous employers about their obligations under this new law. Since a first group of employers had until December 31, 2016 to (…)
Autonomous cars have really taken off in the last few years, particularly due to the interest of both consumers and the businesses who develop and improve them. In this context, on April 5 and 10, 2017, the City of Montréal and the Government of Québec respectively announced significant investments (…)
On April 18, 2017, the ministère des Finances of Québec announced a public consultation on the rules enacted in An Act respecting the distribution of financial products and services to limit the ownership of damage insurance firms by financial institutions. This consultation’s objective is to (…)
CRS entry into force: July 1st, 2017 The Common Reporting Standard (“CRS”) will impose new obligations on financial institutions, including investment funds, as of July 1st, 2017. These rules are an addition to the existing Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (“FATCA”), which applies to Canadian (…)
On March 24, the Supreme Court of Canada handed down an eagerly awaited decision, namely in Godbout v. Pagé.1 In this case, the victims of two different automobile accidents were suing third parties for events that occurred following their respective accidents. For the first victim, it was the (…)
Can computers learn and reason? If so, what are the limitations of the tasks that they can be given? These questions have been the subject of countless debate as far back as 1937, when Alan Turing published his work on computable numbers1. Many researchers have devoted themselves to developing (…)
Provisional entry into force 90% of the Agreement will be in force The date is still uncertain, possibly as soon as June 2017 The Agreement in 6 key points Access to the European Union market, which includes 28 States and 500 million consumers; Elimination of custom duties on 98% (…)
The March 22, 2017 Budget of the Government of Canada, through its “Innovation and Skills Plan” (http://www.budget.gc.ca/2017/docs/plan/budget-2017-en.pdf) mentions that Canadian academic and research leadership in artificial intelligence will be translated into a more innovative economy and (…)
On February 17, 2017, the Québec Court of Appeal1 upheld a decision of the Superior Court of Québec granting an application for authorization of care presented by the Centre intégré de santé et de services sociaux du Bas-Saint-Laurent. In this case, the patient attempted to assert the following (…)
There is currently speculation in the media that Liberal Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s next federal budget will increase the capital gain inclusion rate from 50% to 75%.The combined marginal tax rate on capital gains is currently 26.7% for a resident of Québec. This rate would reach nearly 40% if (…)
Last December 9, the Lieutenant Governor assented to Bill 87 entitled An Act to facilitate the disclosure of wrongdoings relating to public bodies (the “Act”), whose purpose, as the name indicates, is to facilitate the disclosure of wrongdoing within public bodies, but also to establish a protection (…)
On December 19, 2016, the Alberta Court of Appeal allowed the appeal1 of the insurer which had excluded from its policy coverage the rebuilding costs associated with bringing the insured building up to by-law standards. The Court of Appeal unanimously maintained the exclusion for damages resulting (…)
Social media sites, like Facebook, are inexhaustible sources of personal information which can constitute evidence in the context of employer-employee disputes. In matters related to evidence, the general rule is that any relevant evidence is admissible.1 Moreover, the courts have ruled that an (…)