The Friday Brief: Managing Editor’s must-read items from this week

Matthew Grace

Here are my picks for the top stories we published this week.

Pay Equity Act ‘groundbreaking’ legislation, feds say
In a Facebook Live event held on July 7, Minister of Labour, Filomena Tassi, and Karen Jensen, Canada’s pay equity commissioner, discussed the importance and potential impacts of the Pay Equity Act after announcing it will come into force on Aug. 31, 2021.

B.C. foreign buyer’s tax constitutional, Appeal Court rules
The B.C. Court of Appeal has ruled the province’s tax on foreign buyers of real estate to be constitutional, rejecting arguments that it both intruded on federal powers and discriminated against people of Chinese origin.

Securities regulators enforcement report highlights COVID-19 response
The umbrella group for Canada’s provincial and territorial securities regulators is saying the COVID-19 pandemic led to an “unfortunate rise in wrongdoers” who tried to capitalize on economic uncertainty and prompted new ways of conducting enforcement.

Canada pledges support for revitalization of Indigenous laws in Saskatoon
On July 8, Canada announced its support for the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) with its project “to revitalize Indigenous laws across First Nation communities.”

Ford’s use of notwithstanding clause innappropriate abuse of extraordinary remedy
In her column, Cara Zwibel writes: “For the first time ever, Ontario has passed legislation invoking the Charter’s notwithstanding clause, trying to hit the stop (or at least pause) button on freedom of expression. This is, to put it mildly, a big deal. Ontario has never made use of the clause and its use outside of Quebec is rare and almost always controversial. The government’s decision in this case is a self-interested attempt to insulate itself from criticism — a completely inappropriate abuse of an extraordinary remedy.”

Matthew Grace is the Managing Editor of The Lawyer’s Daily.