Bulletins Archives - Blakes Business Class

Lobbying and Election Finance Reform: Roundup of Recent Developments

December 11, 2018

British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and Ontario have recently introduced significant changes to their respective lobbying and election finance regimes; the Yukon has introduced a new lobbying regime, and Prince Edward Island’s lobbying regime takes effect in 2019. LOBBYING LEGISLATION British Columbia: Proposed Amendments to the Lobbying Regime Bill 54, Lobbyists Registration Amendment Act, 2018 (B.C. Bill) received royal assent…

Posted by:

Alexis Levine, Nicole McDonald and Charlotte Knutson (Student-at-Law)

Posted in: Government & Public Sector

Quebec’s Act respecting labour standards: Winds of Change as the New Year Approaches

December 10, 2018

January 1, 2019 marks the coming into force of new amendments to Quebec’s Act respecting labour standards (Act). The Quebec National Assembly adopted Bill 176, An Act to amend the Act respecting labour standards and other legislative provisions mainly to facilitate family-work balance (Bill 176) in June 2018. Bill 176 was assented to the same day, and several changes came into effect…

Posted by:

Natalie Bussière and Sarah Chahine

Posted in: Employment & Labour

Demystified: USMCA’s Intellectual Property Provisions on Damages for Trademark Counterfeiting

December 10, 2018

The provisions of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) – known as the Canada-United-States-Mexico Agreement or CUSMA in Canada – have attracted considerable attention due to their perceived impact on the Canadian legal and business landscape. One noteworthy aspect of the USMCA is the digital trade provisions’ implication that Canadian web platforms may not be liable for the content posted by third…

Posted by:

Amir Eftekharpour

Posted in: Intellectual Property, International Trade

Ontario, B.C. Release New Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plans

December 10, 2018

The governments of Ontario and British Columbia recently released new environmental plans that will guide the development of environmental legislation and policies in each province for the foreseeable future. Ontario released the Preserving and Protecting our Environment for Future Generations: A Made-in-Ontario Environment Plan (Proposal) and B.C. released its CleanBC plan. These plans will lead to economic opportunities for certain…

Posted by:

Sharon Wong and Nardia Chernawsky

Posted in: Energy - Regulatory, Environmental, Power

AMF Provides Summary of Oversight and Regulatory Activities

December 6, 2018

The Corporate Finance Division of Quebec’s Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) recently released its annual Summary of Oversight and Regulatory Activities (Report). In addition to providing a snapshot of the Quebec capital markets, the Report identifies a range of deficiencies encountered by the AMF in its ongoing review of various continuous disclosure and financing documents of Quebec issuers and highlights…

Posted by:

Michael Bantey and Howard Levine

Posted in: Capital Markets, Mining

Quebec Court of Appeal’s Analysis on Untimely Resignations and the Duty of Loyalty of Employees

December 5, 2018

The Quebec Court of Appeal (Court) has established that employees who terminate their employment relationship without notice may work for a competitor without necessarily violating their duty of loyalty. However, resigning employees still have the obligation to make reparation for harm caused by their failure to provide notice, the Court ruled. The Civil Code of Quebec stipulates that, pursuant to…

Posted by:

Natalie Bussière and Mike Siméon (Student-at-Law)

Posted in: Employment & Labour

Canada Imposes Sanctions Against Saudi Arabian Nationals

December 4, 2018

On November 29, 2018, Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs announced sanctions against 17 Saudi Arabian nationals. The individuals have been designated in the regulations made under the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (Sergei Magnitsky Law) (SML). SML authorizes the government to designate foreign nationals or foreign public officials (or their associates) who, in the government’s view, are…

Posted by:

Dawn Jetten, Greg Kanargelidis, Roy Millen, Ora Morison and Vladimir Shatiryan

Posted in: Business Crimes Investigations & Compliance, Corporate & Commercial, Financial Services, Financial Services Regulatory, International Trade

A Primer on Canadian Sanctions Legislation

December 4, 2018

Canada, like other major jurisdictions, has a broad range of economic and financial sanctions targeting foreign states and their nationals, as well as various terrorist organizations. Given that Canada is in many ways a trading nation, and many Canadian businesses have ties elsewhere, sanctions laws have a significant impact not only on the target countries but also on Canadian businesses….

Posted by:

Dawn Jetten, Greg Kanargelidis, Roy Millen, Ora Morison and Vladimir Shatiryan

Posted in: Financial Services Regulatory, International Trade

Ontario’s Bill 57: Proposed Changes to the Ontario Pension Benefits Act

November 28, 2018

The Ontario government recently tabled its Economic Outlook and Fiscal Review (Review), which included a number of registered pension plan related provisions, and introduced Bill 57, Restoring Trust, Transparency and Accountability Act, 2018 (Bill 57) in the Ontario legislature. If passed, Bill 57 will implement certain provisions of the Review, including amendments to the Pension Benefits Act (PBA), as summarized…

Posted in: Pensions, Benefits & Executive Compensation

New Year, New Environmental Rules: Alberta’s Revised Remediation Rules Take Effect in 2019

November 27, 2018

On January 1, 2019, significant amendments to Alberta’s Remediation Certificate Regulation will come into force. These include: Renaming the regulation the Remediation Regulation Creating a site-based remediation certificate Creating a new reporting requirement for impacts Defaulting to the application of Tier 1 rather than Tier 2 Guidelines Issuing a Tier 2 compliance letter Establishing a new mandatory remedial measures timeline…

Posted by:

Dufferin Harper and Lindsey Mosher

Posted in: Environmental

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