Law and legal issues
(Vancouver) It’s time for a complete overhaul of BC’s legal aid system, according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and West Coast LEAF (Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund).
“Our system is in crisis,” says Alison Brewin, Executive Director of West Coast LEAF and co-author of the study. “Slashing legal aid services only saves money in the very short term. When people lack legal representation, cases are less likely to be resolved outside of court, and can lead to lengthy trials that are extremely costly to the public.”
OTTAWA—All levels of government in Canada are increasingly being targeted by investors for alleged breaches of Chapter 11, NAFTA’s investment chapter, says an analysis released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
According to the analysis, by CCPA Senior Trade Researcher Scott Sinclair, as of October 2010, 43% of the known 66 claims under Chapter 11 were made by foreign investors against Canada.
Over the last 10 years, the barriers that immigrants to Canada face in integrating economically, socially, and politically have become relatively common knowledge. The taxi driver with a Ph.D. degree is the proverbial example. In reaction to growing labour market shortages and the continuing decline in immigrant labour market outcomes, the federal government has been shifting the structure of the immigration system from a “one-step” process that is largely based on permanent residency and views immigrants as citizens to a “two-step” process.
Critics on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border are slamming a plan by Bruce Power, Canada’s private nuclear generating company, to ship 3,500 tonnes of nuclear waste through Lake Huron, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence River, and the Atlantic Ocean to Sweden for metals recycling, beginning this fall.
Prior to the 2006 federal election campaign, where the Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats touted their “tough on crime” credentials in the shadow of the “summer of the gun,” prison systems across Canada were already facing significant challenges.
TORONTO – Prominent Canadian women have a message to Prime Minister Stephen Harper: they refuse to be silenced. The women – feminists, activists, academics, economists, and former politicians – contributed to a new anthology by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
(Vancouver) A new study finds that BC’s third party advertising rules caused extensive problems for “small spenders” such as non-profits and charities during the 2009 provincial election. The rules – brought in through the controversial Bill 42 in 2008 – led to widespread confusion, wasted resources, anxiety and self-censorship among organizations that spent little or nothing at all on election advertising.
For the past ten years Manitoba has been mapping unchartered territory in an effort to transform a child welfare system that will better serve the needs of children and families. In particular, through the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry – Child Welfare Initiative a new governance structure was developed to address Manitoba’s very poor track record of serving the Aboriginal children and families who are vastly overrepresented in the child welfare system.