British Columbia’s Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, looking at suspected multiple murders, has four new lawyers on board to help special interest groups, after First Nations and women’s groups threatened to drop out of participating when government refused to fund legal assistance.

Jason Gratl

B.C. lawyers Jason Gratl, a past president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, and Robyn Gervais, who previously represented the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council at the B.C. inquiry into missing women have been appointed to represent specific interest groups such as First Nations and those on Vancouver’s downtown eastside.

In addition, two other lawyers will work pro bono. They are Bryan Baynham and Darrell Roberts. The four lawyers will work independently of the commission and attempt to present the interests of specific groups, without serving any individual client.

Commission spokesperson, Chris Freimond, said commissioner Wally Oppal and his staff are confident the participation of the four additional lawyers will contribute significantly to the Commission’s ability to conduct a relevant inquiry leading to findings and recommendations that will make a real difference to the people of British Columbia and Canada. “The commission has worked hard to prepare for the hearings and believes that when they begin on October 11, it will become clear that the resources and structure are in place to deal thoroughly with the important issues in a way that satisfies British Columbians,” said Freimond.

Starting Sept. 12, the inquiry will hold forums in nine communities between Prince George and Prince Rupert along the northern highway now known as The Highway of Tears where many women have disappeared or been found murdered.

The commission will also be looking into the decision by the B.C. Criminal Justice Branch on Jan. 27, 1998 to stop legal proceedings against Robert William Pickton on charges of attempted murder, assault with a weapon, forcible confinement, and aggravated assault.

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United States

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International

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Outsourcing information technology functions has become common for large companies over the last decade, but when you have 40 partners to negotiate with the contractual discussions can become complex, to say the least.

Outsourcing IT services at Pearson airport has led to ‘significant savings.’ Photo: AcidBomber

Gerald Carpenter, legal counsel at Toronto Pearson International Airport, discovered this when he led the team tasked with navigating the legalities of outsourcing the IT system that serves the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, which operates Pearson, and the 40 air carriers that use the airport.

Previously, the internal IT department at the airport provided all technology services. In 2009, it was decided the airport would de-bundle its IT services and have an outsourced partner — IBM — take over provision of services. The idea to outsource came from a desire to have greater control and visibility of costs.

“We wanted to de-bundle for a number of reasons including transparency. The recipients of the services in this kind of situation often start to not understand how much it costs and you wind up with a service that might not be provided as efficiently as it could be,” says Carpenter.

A new IT deal would change the airport’s contract with its airline community and open up the process to many governance issues. An added complication was that IT usage varies widely by airline and the new IT contract would have to be customizable.

“IT is a pretty significant component of an airport. Different carriers also have different IT needs,” says Carpenter. “If, for example, a carrier uses kiosks to check people in then the needs are more so than one that might not have that service. If you have remote check in that changes things as well.”

Carpenter had support on the project from Richard Coleman, a partner with Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP but was the main point person on the deal. They worked alongside IBM’s senior counsel Matt Snell in developing the terms of the agreement. “For anything outsourced I like to maintain a pretty tight degree of control over things,” says Carpenter.

In July 2010, IBM began offering de-bundled IT services at Toronto Pearson. The contract was negotiated over hundreds of hours sitting with Coleman and Snell, says Carpenter. “We had the contract on the screen going through it clause by clause, having to deal with all the complications of dealing with a contract that applied to all parties.”

The airport’s lawyer says the deal really became a concession agreement. “We developed a standard form of contract IBM would enter into with each individual carrier under which they would provide services and have the fees allocated within a fee allocation model,” he explains. “Each contract was extremely detailed.”

The airport authority also developed its own contract and risk allocation model. Fees were based on a collective distribution. “We had done this before in a less formal way with our de-icing facility,” says Carpenter. “But we didn’t have all the individual agreements.”

Snell says one of the unique aspects of the deal was the governance model that was created, which included the airlines, the GTAA, and IBM. “The fact there is this expansive governance committee with oversight over the entire operation in terms of what is covered in the agreement also gave the airlines comfort that they had a say leading into the deal and going onward. They can see more of the details than they used to when their IT was bundled. Now the costs are more visible.”

Carpenter held twice-weekly meetings with the air carriers to keep them informed. Those meetings involved both legal members of the air carrier community and the business unit staff.

“It’s challenging to reconcile all of the respective needs. If you have a little air carrier that brings in passengers in the tens of thousands their interest and needs are different from Air Canada’s, which brings in half of our 32 million people a year. The scale of operations is vastly different but when we’re doing these things we have to do it in a way that meets all of our carriers needs and not just those of our significant customers.”

Carpenter would not disclose how much the GTAA is saving with the new outsourced model, but indicated it amounts to “significant savings.”

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International

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The Law Society of Upper Canada is warning its members about a lawyer referral service that has prompted several complaints from the profession and the public.

The LSUC is warning its members about this website canlaw.com.

The notice relates to a service called CanLaw or the Canadian Lawyer Index, both found online at canlaw.com. An LSUC notice “strongly recommends” against subscribing to the service.

According to the law society, CanLaw is a subsidiary of Kirwood Inc., while the Canadian Lawyer Index is a division of Kirwood Inc. The purported president of the Canadian Lawyer Index is J. Kirby Inwood. None of the three companies is associated with the law society, the notice states.

Since 2000, the law society has been receiving complaints about CanLaw, the Canadian Lawyer Index, and Inwood. They relate to messages the LSUC says are offensive and expose the recipient to hatred and abuse. They include the following comments:
• “Women like you are monsters who take and take and take.”
• “Look you pompous power made two bit flunky, we do not take orders from the likes of you.”
• “You are a sick, hate male sexist bigot who is definitely trying to restrict my freedom to express my opinion.”
• “You are a fool and a bigot.”

The LSUC notes lawyers may have received invitations to subscribe to the referral services. It suggests that in order to avoid receiving messages like those above, lawyers shouldn’t reply to any e-mails or other messages from CanLaw or the Canadian Lawyer Index.

Canada

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United States

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International

Israeli TV judge accused of extortion, Reuters

Namibia arrests 4 accused in radioactive theft, Reuters

A former lobbyist who admitted bribing a public official in the B.C. Rail scandal will be allowed to practise law in Ontario after a Law Society of Upper Canada panel ruled he had the good character necessary.

The Law Society of Upper Canada has decided that Erik Bornmann has turned his life around and will let him practise law. Photo: Gail J. Cohen

During his early 20s, Erik Bornmann, now 35, lobbied on behalf of U.S.-based rail company OmniTRAX Inc., one of the bidders looking to purchase B.C. Rail after the provincial government decided to privatize the company. Between 2001 and 2003, he made regular payments totaling about $28,000 to Dave Basi, a ministerial aide in the Liberal government, many while he was a law student at the University of British Columbia.

After RCMP raided his office in December 2003, Bornmann quickly made a deal with the Crown to fully co-operate in return for immunity from prosecution. Basi and a co-defendant eventually pleaded guilty to two counts each of breach of trust and accepting rewards or benefits.

Bornmann managed to land an articling position at McCarthy Tétrault LLP in Toronto in January 2006, but resigned six months later after the firm discovered the full extent of his role in the scandal. He later completed his articles at a legal clinic in Simcoe County, and told the law society panel he had transformed from the arrogant and immoral person of his past.

“It has been absolutely cathartic. If I had to use a single word for my time at the clinic, I would say it has been saving. I mean there are so many layers of regret and shame to my conduct, conduct that has led me here today. I get sick thinking about it,” Bornmann said during testimony.

By a 2-1 vote, the panel decided Bornmann had turned himself around.

“Bornmann positively addressed issues surrounding his good character by disclosing the additional information that triggered his good character hearing and by taking positive steps in the lengthy period between the date of his application and the ultimate hearing of his good character application to demonstrate that he is presently of good character,” wrote panel chairman Thomas Conway.

More on this story here.

Canada

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International

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Austrian man arrested on suspicion of abusing mentally disabled daughters, The Globe and Mail

With the upcoming vacancies at the Supreme Court of Canada, the Barreau du Québec insists the incoming judges be bilingual.

Bilingualism is ‘an essential requirement’ for Supreme Court judges says Barreau du Québec’s Claude Provencher.

With justices Ian Binnie, 72, and Louise Charron, 60, stepping down from the top court at the end of the month, there is much talk about who the federal government will select to fill their spots.

Whomever is chosen, the Barreau du Québec is pushing for them to be bilingual.

Claude Provencher, executive director of the Barreau, says Canadian citizens have the constitutional right to be heard by a judge in one of Canada’s two official languages.

“[It’s not] an issue of French versus English, [it’s] an issue of the right to be heard in your first language and the official language of your choice when you go to court,” Provencher tells Legal Feeds.

The Barreau du Québec supported NDP MP Yvon Godin’s proposed bill C-232 to require Supreme Court judges to be bilingual, but it died after the election was called.

Provencher says until there is legislation requiring it, it should be common practice to appoint bilingual judges to the SCC. This has often been the case with a recent exception of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s appointment of Justice Marshall Rothstein in 2006, who is unilingual.

“We don’t ask judges to know foreign languages, we ask them to know English and to know French, they are our two official languages. It should not be considered as an asset, it’s an essential requirement,” says Provencher.

He adds that court interpreters are not a sufficient solution. “It has been shown that there is a lot of inaccurate translation.”

Not only is it a legal matter, he says, but it’s also important for judges to be knowledgeable about society.

“How can you really know about the English society or the French society if you have no real access to the media, television, [or] you cannot really have real conversations in the other official language if your knowledge of the French or the Quebec society is through what you read in The Globe and Mail — is it really accurate?”

Canada

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United States

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International

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