Lawyer Tammy Law
Lawyer Kate Kehoe
Our episode this week deals with the most recent case that NSRLP has acted as intervenor for, at the Ontario Court of Appeal – Kawartha-Haliburton CAS v MW, Curve Lake First Nation and Office of the Children’s Lawyer; it dealt with the use of summary judgements against parents in Children’s Aid Society cases. Julie speaks with Kate Kehoe, the lawyer who graciously acted as NSRLP’s pro bono lawyer in this case. Kate was counsel to the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto from 1999 – 2007. She also acted as a Policy Analyst & Writer for the Motherisk Commission, and is now a consultant in Ottawa. They discuss the impact of this case, and why it may be important in clarifying how summary judgements are used against SRLs in general. Julie then speaks with Tammy Law, a family lawyer in Toronto who specializes in child protection cases; Tammy represented another intervenor in this case, the Ontario Association of Child Protection Lawyers. Tammy describes the importance of the Kawartha decision and what it means – and reflects on the subsequent Legal Aid Ontario cuts that have effectively eliminated the advances made here.
Related:
NSRLP’s Summary Judgment Research Report
In Other News
In other news: the Supreme Court of Canada has announced that they will be hearing two appeals in Winnipeg, as part of their access to justice efforts; SCC Justice Gascon was briefly reported missing, found to be safe, and later released a statement attributing his absence to depression and anxiety disorders – mental health is an important topic, both among the general public and in the legal profession, and we are grateful to Justice Gascon for publicly stating his history with mental health; the University of North Texas Dallas College of Law hosted the 11thannual Open Access Symposium this past weekend, with access to justice being at the forefront of conversations; the Government of Canada hosted a symposium on Indigenous justice systems last week, at a two-day event that brought together Indigenous leaders, Indigenous law students, experts, and government officials from across Canada and around the world; and finally, NSRLP published a new blog post last week, by SRL Aaron Huizinga, examining questions of customer service in the legal system.
SCC to hear appeals in Winnipeg (Twitter)
SCC’s Justice Gascon’s statement on mental health
Open Access Symposium on Access to Justice at the University of North Texas Dallas College of Law
Government of Canada symposium on Indigenous justice systems
NSRLP blog post on customer service in the legal system
Jumping Off the Ivory Tower is produced and hosted by Julie Macfarlane and Dayna Cornwall; production and editing by Brauntë Petric; Other News produced and hosted by Ali Tejani; promotion by Moya McAlister and Ali Tejani.
The idea the SCC is up-rooting its entourage for a visit to Winnipeg for the sake of “access to justice” is incredible. The expense and time consumed is outrageous. It is purely disingenuous spin-doctoring – like a prime minister photo-oping filling sandbags while hindering those who are actually doing so. This just goes to further demonstrate how out of touch are Canada’s elites and how low an opinion they have of our intelligence. Do your flipping jobs and stop pretending to do it for appearance sake, because this only further brings ‘the administration of justice into disrepute’.
I’m pleased to hear that the Court of Appeal decided that only trial-worthy evidence can be used in a summary judgement but I am APPALLED that the question even needed to be argued! My understanding was that hearsay and expert evidence that had not been properly tested were already disallowed. Obviously I was rather naïve, but the fact that a concept this basic was even being debated accentuates the yawning gulf between the public perception of justice and the actual practices of lawyers and the courts.
evidence when used by the self represented, is largely disregarded by the courts, I requested for years, the release of the dna testing files used in my case, for independent review, the labs refused,, and the courts simply ignored my requests for a court order to force the release, I showed dates that had been confused and were in conflict, I showed a real reason for the questions i was asking of the lab work, The courts simply disregarded me, I have found when a self represented person asks for what they are legally entitled to,,you will find you are invisible, i know i was,
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