The CBA’s French Speaking Members Section says any modernization of the Official Languages Act should include a requirement for the federal Justice Minister to ensure that the Constitution of Canada is enacted and enforceable in both official languages – and that she show her work.

Stable, adequate funding is a clear concern for the CBA’s Aboriginal Law Section when it comes to appearances before the Specific Claims Tribunal.

The Immigration and Refugee Board has a number of resource and efficiency issues, and adding another layer of bureaucracy is unlikely to improve the situation, the CBA’s Immigration Law Section says in a recent submission responding to an independent review of refugee determination procedures.

The harsh measures in 2013’s Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act will be exacerbated when the recently adopted Bill C-46 comes into effect, says the CBA’s Immigration Law Section. And the government should act now to prevent the disparate impact on immigrants.

The CBA’s Competition Law Section is very pleased that many of the recommendations it made in its January submission on proposed changes to the Competition Bureau’s Immunity and Leniency Programs have been heeded. But many of the remaining proposals introduce the kind of uncertainty into the process that could keep would-be self-reporters away.

Taxpayers with foreign affiliates currently have 15 months after the end of their taxation year to file information returns to show their compliance with Canadian taxation of foreign-based income. In the 2018 budget, the federal government announced its intention to shorten that filing deadline to six months beginning in 2019, to bring it in line with the corporate income tax return deadline.

In the seven months since the CBA last commented on Bill C-58, a number of changes have been made to the proposed legislation.

When the Senate passed its Bill S-224, Canada Prompt Payments Act, last fall, the CBA’s Construction and Infrastructure Law Section expressed its concern with many aspects of the bill and suggested that the government not move forward with it before doing extensive consultations with the construction industry.

The recent scandal surrounding information-gathering by Cambridge Analytics and Facebook opened a lot of eyes to the amount of data that is out there to be collected, and the uses to which it can be put.

The federal government set out a host of worthy goals in the preamble for Bill C-69, An Act to enact the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, to amend the Navigation Protection Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, which had its first reading in the House in February.