News

November’s usually the month for settling in and beginning to hibernate, but this month the CBA is shaking things up, with the departure of one CEO and the arrival of another, and members and staff working away like proverbial national symbols on Re-think-related projects.

Following a resolution passed in August 2016, the CBA is seeking the Government of Canada’s support for an application for clemency for Leonard Peltier. In a letter dated October 28, the CBA has asked Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to contact her counterpart, US Attorney General Loretta Lynch, to support Mr. Peltier’s request for clemency so he can live out his days in Canada.

In an appearance before the Commons Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 27, the CBA’s Immigration Law Section expressed its support for the principle of family reunification as an objective of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

The Canadian Bar Association is pleased that the government has improved the judicial appointment process and has filled some vacancies on the courts. The Canadian Bar Association agrees with the reinstatement of the “highly recommended” category for judicial candidates as a way of denoting truly exceptional candidates. We are also happy that voting on Judicial Advisory Committees has been rebalanced so that the majority of members will be independent of the government.

Following an appearance before the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee last February, and the subsequent release of the Senate Committee’s report on delays in the criminal justice system in August, the CBA is now offering additional input.

Check out our fall lineup designed for in-house counsel!

CBA’s legal health checks are a way of alerting people to legal issues they may not be aware of. They can impart basic information on a particular theme and give lay people an idea of the next steps they’ll need to take to prevent a legal problem, or at least stop it from escalating.

Is your Section having a conference this fall? Read on to see our list of upcoming conferences.

The CBA National office has one bricks-and-mortar address, but there are also a host of other places to find us online. Let us draw you a map of the high points.

The CBA, in cooperation with the Association of Legal Aid Plans of Canada, has developed six aspirational legal aid benchmarks aimed at providing guiding principles to achieve the goal of a national system of public legal assistance. So what comes next?