Syrian opposition declares city of Homs disaster area, 1-day death toll rises to 23 nationwide

Syria is Iran's best friend. Israel and Iran are in a war of nerves. Syria is close to civil war (maybe there already). Interesting times ahead:

http://wapo.st/u43muD

BEIRUT — A key Syrian opposition group appealed Monday for international intervention to protect civilians in a besieged central city as security forces shot dead one person, raising the death toll from the latest government offensive in Homs to 17, activists said.

Activists said Monday that 23 people were killed across Syria a day earlier, including at least 16 people in and around Homs, which has experienced a fierce assault by government troops over the past five days.

Liberal Town Hall: we are over the time of a small group from the Centre running everything

Bob Rae is holding a remarkable town hall tonight. The callers are clearly not prescreened and the poll questions were real. Difficult and harsh questions were put to the town hall; Bob did a yeomanlike job but there was no holding back on the calls. Such a town hall says we are over the time of a small group from the Centre running everything; the members are not going to accept the old ways. Good for Bob!!! Wow!!!

Eid Mubarak!

On this religious holiday, Muslims around will commemorate Abraham's trials and tribulations with their own sacrifices and acts of charity.

Sleepy Sunday

Our own mind being narrow and contracted, we cannot extend our conception to the variety and extent of nature, but imagine that she is as much bounded in her operations as we are in our speculation.

David Hume

A frightening insight. All we see is all we can comprehend but ... reality may well be far greater than that.

Elizabeth May blocked from speaking on Remembrance Day

I'm sure there is a 'reason' but... . Even if she is technically an independent she does head a Party and she should have been allowed to speak:

Elizabeth May (From her FB page)

"I had planned to make a statement marking Remembrance Day this week, but was shocked when Conservative members blocked my chance to speak. Both the Liberals and the NDP agreed that the Bloc and I should be allowed to make statements. All parties should have the chance to pay homage to our veterans."

Happy Saturday!

67 killed in Nigerian fighting

News from Africa is often overlooked in North America. There is an ongoing religious conflict in Nigeria which affects the world beyond Nigeria. The battle is a proxy fight for others. Unfortunately Canadian policy (and this is not limited to the current government) ignores and has ignored the problem:

http://fxn.ws/sqbENG

LAGOS, Nigeria -- A newspaper says a radical Muslim sect known locally as Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks in northeast Nigeria and has promised to launch new assaults.

The Daily Trust, the newspaper of record in Nigeria's Muslim north, says Boko Haram spokesman Abul-Qaqa spoke to them Saturday and claimed the attacks that have killed at least 67 people in and around Damaturu and Maiduguri.

Gridlock hurts

It is possible that this doomsday scenario will happen -- traffic just stops. But more likely things will just get worse with money wasted and businesses start to move out of Toronto -- perhaps to Buffalo or other large but inexpensive locales. We need proper public transit asap.

http://bit.ly/rDQm4l

"Twenty years ago the province knew Toronto was heading to a crisis, but it failed to invest in transit. Now its Metrolinx agency has until 2013 to come up with a transit investment strategy — one that inevitably has to consider unpopular moneymakers such as retail and gas taxes or tolls."

The murdered women of Vancouver deserve dignity

Matthew 21:31

"Which of the two did what his father wanted?" "The first," they answered. Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you."

http://bit.ly/rFG6Ya

The question before the Missing Women Inquiry in Vancouver is whether police and prosecutors in effect allowed the killing of women to go on and on because they held dismissive or discriminatory attitudes toward prostitutes and drug addicts.

Hajj being live-streamed on YouTube

YouTube is providing a live-stream of the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. That's pretty cool. Regardless of your faith (or lack thereof) it is awe inspiring to watch the ocean of humanity.

"Millions of people from around the world will be able to experience and comment on the event by tuning in via video," the Google-owned video-sharing site said in a blog post.

The live-stream from Mecca is located at:

www.youtube.com/hajjlive

Endorsement of Hon. Judy A. Sgro. MP

As a Member of Parliament for over 10 years I know just how critical it is for the Liberal Party to have a strong and competent executive board. This is especially so in this time of rebuilding. I have known James for many years and have seen him as Party Member, Riding President, Candidate and Activist. He is dedicated and committed. He is a true Liberal and he has my full support for VP English

Hon. Judy A. Sgro, MP

York West

Apples are yummy

Purpose of the curative proviso is to avoid a retrial that would be superfluous and unnecessary but sets high the Crown’s burden

R. v. Sarrazin, 2011 SCC 54 was released about 15 minutes ago. It is a strong decision supporting a limited reading of the curative provision for harmless errors in criminal matters. A summary follows:

N was shot in the forearm and the abdomen and suffered life-threatening injuries, particularly to his liver.  N was released from the hospital and was expected to make a full recovery.  Five days later, he died as a result of a blood clot.  In the autopsy, trace amounts of cocaine were detected in his blood, indicating cocaine consumption within 30 to 45 minutes of death. Expert testimony indicated that N might have died from complications arising from the ingested cocaine.  At trial, the defence argued that a reasonable doubt had been raised as to whether the victim's death was or was not related to the shooting — even if the evidence showed the accused intended to kill the victim, there was a reasonable doubt on the medical evidence that they in fact caused the victim's death.  The accused argued that the correct verdict in law to give such a finding (if it were made by the jury) would be to acquit the accused of murder, but convict them of attempted murder.  The trial judge declined to put the option of attempted murder to the jury, and the accused were convicted of second degree murder.  The majority of the Court of Appeal ordered a new trial by concluding that the trial judge's failure to afford the jury an opportunity to consider returning a verdict on an included offence, where that verdict was reasonably available, constituted a reversible error.  The minority found that the trial judge's error was harmless in the circumstances of this case and would have applied the curative proviso on the basis that the jury was equipped with all the tools it needed to give the matter of causation careful consideration.

The Supreme Court held the need to prove causation is common to both murder and manslaughter.  The Crown must establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the shooting significantly contributed to the victim's death.  If the evidence of the Crown pathologist left the members of the jury with a doubt on that account, then at most the accused could be convicted of an attempt to murder.  If that view were taken by the jury (and of course we do not know what its members thought), the appropriate verdict (attempted murder) was not one of the options left open to them to consider.  The accused had a right to the verdict of a properly instructed jury, and appellate courts must exercise prudence so as not to trespass on that fundamental right. 

The dissenting judge in the Court of Appeal urged adoption of a more "holistic" approach to s. 686(1)(b)(iii) by lightening of the Crown's burden from a requirement to demonstrate an "overwhelming" case against the accused to the lesser standard of a "very strong" case, and to allow appellate courts to tolerate errors of law that while not "insignificant" are nevertheless "highly unlikely to have affected the result". 

However, there is a significant difference between a legal error that can be confidently dismissed as "harmless", and an assessment that while the error is prejudicial, it is not (in the after-the-fact view of the appellate court), so prejudicial as to have affected the outcome.  Such delicate assessments are foreign to the purpose of the curative proviso which is to avoid a retrial that would be superfluous and unnecessary but to set high the Crown's burden of establishing those prerequisites.  The same can be said for the other branch of the curative proviso. As a result, the burden of the Crown to demonstrate an "overwhelming" case or a "harmless" error of law should not be relaxed.

The trial judge's error in failing to put to the jury the option of a lawful verdict that matched the theory of the defence and that was open to the jury on the evidence cannot be dismissed as "harmless" because it is impossible to be certain that if this had been done, and notwithstanding the correct instruction on murder, the verdict might not have been different.  This is not a case where the triviality of the error itself or the lack of prejudice by a more serious error can justify the application of the curative proviso.  A failure to instruct on a viable alternative verdict falls into neither category.  Accordingly, in the circumstances of the present case, it is not open to the appellate court to apply the curative proviso to remedy the trial judge's error in his instruction to the jury.

             

Big job losses boost unemployment to 7.3%

Canada's economy is profoundly impacted by what happens in other countries. Even if we keep our economic house totally in order we will face major disruptions especially from the chaos in Europe. That means now is not the time for government cuts -- we have to keep government finances under control (otherwise we will become Greece) -- but continued spending on capital infrastructure makes sense (roads, schools, new public transit links).

http://bit.ly/v0NwA5

The economy shed 71,700 full-time jobs, while part-time employment grew by 17,700.

The October job losses were a surprise, as the consensus forecast of economists had been for employment to rise by 15,000.

Last month's decline in employment also wiped out the bulk of the gain of 61,000 jobs in September.

Most of the decline last month occurred in manufacturing — which lost 48,000 jobs in the month, while the construction sector shed 20,000 jobs.

A stake in the heart of democracy

Campaign finance regulation is usually seen as a way of promoting democracy -- but the Conservative proposal to limit candidates to lending $1,100 to their own campaigns will not promote democracy. The proposal will do quite the reverse.

Every campaign I have been involved with (or even heard directly about, and that includes NDP, Conservative and Bloc campaigns) has had the candidate front some money on an interim basis.

Consider this -- $1,500 in signs are produced. Under the new proposals the campaign cannot take them and pay later as that is a loan from a business (the printer) to the campaign. The candidate cannot pay using a credit card as that is a loan from the candidate. In fact, unless the campaign has the money already in the bank and pays directly there is no way to pick up the signs.

Now I am sure somewhere some campaigns are fully funded before the writ drops (let's see, maybe Alberta CPC?) but most campaigns raise their money during the writ period so there needs to be bridging from somewhere (and that's generally the candidate or maybe the Riding President).

The proposal to limit lending will give a huge advantage to incumbents and an advantage to Parties with existing cash cushions (the Conservatives). Far from promoting democracy it will do the reverse.

Types of Statutory Procedural Remedies in Corporate Law

Jeffery v. London Life Insurance Company, 2011 ONCA 683 was released late today. The decision is lengthy and deals with specific issues in insurance law. In so doing, however, the Court makes useful distinction among statutory corporate remedies:

(c) Three Types of Statutory Procedural Remedies

[146]     In the corporate law world, the common law was not kind to minority shareholders and others with legitimate complaints about the majority conduct of corporate affairs.  A long line of jurisprudence anchored the view that only a corporation could sue for a wrong done to it and – save for limited exceptions not relevant here, such as fraud on the minority – the courts would not interfere in the internal affairs of the corporation unless the corporate conduct was not within the corporation's powers.  This was known as the rule in Foss v. Harbottle (1843), 67 E.R. 189 (Eng. V.C.) and was cemented in place by the decision of the Privy Council in Burland v. Earle, [1902] A.C. 83, at p. 93, where Lord Davey stated:

It is an elementary principle of the law relating to joint stock companies that the Court will not interfere with the internal management of companies acting within their powers, and in fact has no jurisdiction to do so.  Again, it is clear law that in order to redress a wrong done to the company or to recover moneys or damages alleged to be due to the company, the action should prima facie be brought by the company itself.

[147]     In the latter part of the twentieth century, however, legislators in Canada (and elsewhere) implemented measures to address this corporate imbalance of power.  They did so by introducing a number of procedural statutory measures providing access to the courts for minority shareholders and other "complainants" previously denied redress in such circumstances.  These measures included three types of procedural remedies:  statutory derivative actions, compliance provisions, and oppression remedies. 

[148]     The statutory derivative action (or, as Professor Welling would have it, the statutory representative action) enables disgruntled "claimants" to bring an action in the corporate name for a wrong done to the corporation that the corporation will not seek to redress (perhaps because the wrongdoers control the corporation):  see Welling,  at pp. 526-528.  That is not this case.  Corporations cannot sue themselves to force themselves to comply with their controlling statutes, regulations, articles of incorporation, or by-laws.  Hence, the creation of a second type of remedy, the "compliance" provisions — enacted to bridge that gap and to enable "claimants" to obtain orders forcing corporations to comply with the statutory framework and constating documents governing them. Although the discretion involved in making a compliance order is broad, the object of this second type of remedy, it seems to us, is to ensure corporate compliance and not to provide an individual fix. 

[149]     The oppression remedy, on the other hand – the third, and by far the most wide-reaching of the statutory remedy trio – was developed to do just that, that is, to provide a broad-ranging authority and discretion in the court to remedy a wrong to individual complainants as a result of conduct by the corporation or its majority that is prejudicial to the individual.

[150]     While there may be some overlap between these statutory remedies, in the sense that the oppression remedy is much broader and may lead to the type of orders made in statutory representative actions or compliance proceedings, the three remedies are different. 

So tired!!!!

Why I am Running for LPC Vice-President (English)

The Liberal Party is not and has never been the "Natural Ruling Party of Canada".

The success of our great party came from listening to the people of Canada, understanding their needs and desires and crafting policies and programs that made Canada an ever more exceptional place to call home. It came from hard work and intelligent strategy. Tens of thousands of Canadians who knocked on doors, hosted coffee parties, participated in conventions, handed out literature and so much more.

I am running for Vice President (English) because we have lost ground to our competitors in fighting for Canada. We have wasted too much time hoping that the next leader will be the charismatic figure who will magically bring us back to power. We are now scrambling to erase organizational and technological deficits. Our competitors have understood better than us how to add new processes and technologies, such as voter relationship management, enhanced reporting and targeted messaging to their larger set of political tools. In short, our competitors have exceeded us in our core skills – communicating with Canadians, building membership and raising funds.

I have traveled Canada, from Atlantic Canada to British Columbia and Ontario to Nunavut, meeting Canadians and Liberals, discussing our Party's future. People are excited about being Liberals and determined to make a difference. We have experienced the allure of the quick fix and seen how it always fails. People are working hard locally for their EDA and they are communicating their needs, desires and visions of how to rebuild at the national level.

I want to hear from you. Email me or call me – it is the job of every member of the executive to actively listen to your thoughts and ideas and to share their own. If there are any gatherings of Liberals in your area, please let me know. I will make every effort to attend! I hope that you are remaining active, will be attending your Riding's DSM and will come to the convention in January. Some of the great ideas I endorse include:

 Build stronger local Riding Associations. The EDA should be at the core of their community, participating at local events and contributing to local newspapers. New members and experienced organizers must work together to expand membership and revenue, using tools such as the Victory fund.

 Focus on fund-raising! We need three times as many donors as we now have to just catch up to our competitors. It is time for an elected National Fund-raising Chair, with a seat at the executive table. Teams of dedicated volunteer and professional staff must change the way we do fund-raising, maximizing local, provincial and national efforts. We must always be more than ready for the next election.

 Update not just our technology but our business processes to make better use of limited resources. We have to make better use of great tools like Liberalist.

 Utilize our resources more effectively, improving support and training to EDA's. The newly reinstated Liberal University website is a good start but more is needed.

 Run competitive races to choose candidates. Candidates should be elected by their local EDA membership, not appointed (even if they seem to be stars).

 Make the Council of Presidents an integral part of the policy and strategy review process, providing inputs to the National Board of Directors. It must be more than a place for the Party President to give direction.

 Move forward proudly as Liberals. Our return will not be based on a haphazard alliance with some other party or on a Leader who can magically summons voters.

My Liberal roots run deep. I have vivid memories of campaigning with Pierre Trudeau in 1980. Trust me; there was no magic. There were just big efforts from thousands of dedicated Liberals. It was never a surprise to see the highest ranking of our party in a riding campaign office at midnight, putting signs on posts or stuffing envelopes. Since then I have served as Riding President, Deputy Chair of the Council of Presidents and Candidate. My commitment to the Party is long standing and I will be here through the good and the difficult.

How to stand as a Delegate

http://convention.liberal.ca/delegates/

The Liberal Party's biennial convention is happening this January at Ottawa's new convention centre! Learn how to become a delegate here

How to stand as a Delegate convention.liberal.ca January 13th – 15th, Ottawa, ON

A litigant is not entitled to continuous postponements to allow for the substitution of counsel

Re Jennifer Hart, 2011 NLCA 64 has some useful language about adjournments to obtain new counsel:

 

[60]      A litigant is not entitled to continuous postponements to allow for the substitution of counsel simply on the ground that if he engages someone else that person may think of some additional argument that the original counsel did not think of. In this case, there is nothing to suggest that counsel for Mr. Hart did not act fully professionally in researching the case and preparing the factum that has been filed. It has to be presumed in the absence of any indication to the contrary that all proper steps, including review of trial counsel’s file, were taken by the counsel in performing her duties.

 

Social media and the Liberal Party

One of the many advantages of modern technology is the ability for ordinary people to be heard.

Each one of us, as Liberals, has the opportunity to be heard not only by our friends and family but across the country.

There are several ways you can participate and make your political opinions known.

Perhaps the easiest way to speak your mind is on twitter. This is a place for short messages, and you can send them from your cellphone. You can set up a twitter account very easily and it is free; just go to www.twitter.com . Twitter also allows you to link to stories in newspapers and you can make brief comments on the stories. So, for example, yesterday there was a story in the Star about Conservatives suggesting Justin Trudeau was not a good Catholic – I posted the story to twitter and commented that it was not the Prime Minister’s place to enforce orthodoxy.

A slightly more work intensive way to let the world know your thoughts is to set up a blog. There is no limit to how much you can write on your blog and many programs (www.blogspot.com is a good example) let you set up a blog for free. My own blog www.jmortonmusings.blogspot.com has been running for several years and gets thousands of hits daily.

If establishing your own blog or twitter account seems too much effort you are also free to comment on various other internet sites. As a Liberal you are allowed to join and participate in http://enfamille.liberal.ca which is a good source for expressing yourself among other Liberals. Also on Facebook there are a number of groups you can join to discuss political issues – one very active group is “Liberals Rebuilding the Liberal Party // Libéraux rebâtissant le PLC”.

Virtual town halls, using telephones as a way to connect with others in the Party have become very popular – you likely got an invite to join Bob Rae in a town hall this weekend. The only difficulty with town halls is they are costly and so, in general, you will participate rather than set up a town hall.

All this said, the really important thing is not the technology but the message. There are some people who post mindless chatter online and they rapidly get ignored. If you say even a very few things, but those things are thoughtful, your views will be heard and repeated across the country.

Prime minister’s parliamentary secretary questions Trudeau's religious commitment

Some American bishops have barred Catholic politicians who openly reject Church teaching from receiving Eucharist.

That makes sense as a bishop is supposed to monitor the behavior of parishioners.

But since when has the PMO been empowered to judge orthodoxy? And does this apply only to the Roman Catholic Church? Perhaps a question might be raised about Reform Judaism? Is it really Jewish? What about Ahmadis - are they really Muslim? I guess we will just have to ask the Prime Minister to find out:


http://bit.ly/tz810k

The Canadian Press

OTTAWA—Liberal MP Justin Trudeau says he is upset and offended by a Tory MP who publicly questioned his adherence to the Catholic faith.

Dean Del Mastro, the prime minister's parliamentary secretary, said on Facebook last month that it was outrageous the Catholic school board in his riding had invited Trudeau to speak for a second time.

Del Mastro asked in the post whether there were any tenets of the Catholic faith that Trudeau supports.

Anton

John Diefenbaker: Soft on crime

In Question Period today, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews criticized NDP MP Joe Comartin for his "long career defending criminals". Just like John Diefenbaker:

http://bit.ly/uIPPJP

Playtime

A polar bear plays with a tyre in the St-Felicien Wildlife Zoo in St-Felicien, Quebec October 31, 2011

Passages of a jury address

R. v. Sahota, 2011 ONCA 679 is a good source for the principle that a jury is entitled to listen to a passages of a jury address if they so wish:

 

 

[6]              The trial judge decided, based on the case law brought to his attention, that he should bring the jury back and instruct them that they could listen to counsel’s closing addresses if they wished to do so.  By the time the trial judge could carry out this decision, he was advised that the jury had arrived at a verdict.  The trial judge recalled the jury and before taking the verdict, told them that while transcripts of counsel’s arguments were not available, the reporter could read those arguments to the jury if they wished to hear them.  The trial judge asked the jury to retire and consider whether they wanted to listen to closing arguments before returning their verdict.  After briefly considering the matter, the jury returned to the courtroom, advised the trial judge that they no longer wished to hear the closing addresses and were prepared to return their verdict.  It returned a guilty verdict.

 

[7]              The trial judge should have told the jury in his initial response to their question that they could hear the closing addresses if they wished to do so.  The question on appeal is whether his correct response came too late in light of the jury’s indication that it had reached a verdict.

 

Toothy Grin

Constitutional crisis - over the Crime Bills?

http://natpo.st/udwUoP

"The federal Tories have said the legislation will cost the treasury $2-billion over five years, while the Parliamentary Budget Office estimates it will cost Ottawa $5-billion over five years and the provinces somewhere between $6-billion and $10-billion. Meanwhile, the Correctional Service of Canada said this fall it would spend $450-million this year on one element of the Tory anti-crime agenda — 2010 Truth in Sentencing Act that put an end to the routine granting of 2-for-1 sentencing credit for time spent in custody awaiting trial.

All of which is to say, any "additional costs" will be felt all over the justice system. They will be borne by prisons that receive more prisoners and for longer periods of time, and by the front-end of the justice ministry, which is bound to see caseloads increase. The Canadian Bar Association, not normally one to eschew more business for its members, has warned the government that the new legislation will clog the courts as more and more accused criminals work the system rather than accept stiff, mandatory penalties.

So how, exactly, could Quebec et al avoid paying these costs? A new Criminal Code of Canada is a new Criminal Code of Canada; it's not like they could opt to use the old one. At least one Bloc Québécois MP mused yesterday that Quebec could refuse to enforce the legislation, which would work easily if we were talking about, say, an anti-smoking law. In that case, don't issue tickets for wayward smokers. But the omnibus crime bill includes, for example, mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug crimes and sexual offences. The only way to avoid imposing them would be to not convict anyone of those crimes. Or, taking the fight a step further, the provincial ministry could order its Crowns to not seek those sentences, and have judges refuse to hand them out. We would be in uncharted waters at this point, I think. A federally dictated law that the province, possibly provinces, decline to enforce.

A constitutional crisis? Who said majority governments were boring?"

L'art du politique est de faire en sorte qu'il soit de l'intérêt de chacun d'être vertueux.

Claude Adrien HELVÉTIUS (The art of politics is to make it so that it is in everyone's best interest to be virtuous).

Quebec won't pay for crime bill

What's interesting here is that the Provinces, broadly put, pay for and run prosecutions (drug offiences are a partial exception). So if Quebec, say, simply fails to enforce Federal laws (as they did when Quebec stopped enforcing Canada's then existing abortion laws) there is very little the Federal Government can do. Of course, this may not be a real threat but rather a ploy for more Federal money:



Quebec justice minister says province won't pay costs of federal crime bill

OTTAWA - Quebec's justice minister says his province simply won't pay the costs associated with the federal government's new crime bill.Jean-Marc Fournier told a Commons committee that Quebec's criminal justice system is the envy of the world, and his government simply won't pay for changes that would jeopardize that.The Conservative omnibus bill includes a wide-range of measures, including changes to how young offenders are treated in the courts.

Intervention in Civil Matters

Prince Edward Island uses the same Rules as Ontario.  As a result decisions of PEI Courts have a broader application than they might otherwise have.  Vail & McIver v. WCB(PEI) & AG(PEI), 2011 PECA 17 is a useful decision relating to intervention in civil matters.  The Court holds:

 

 

[10]           The criteria for consideration of leave to intervene as an added party is stated in Rule 13.01 as follows:

 

LEAVE TO INTERVENE AS ADDED PARTY

 

13.01      (1)           Where a person who is not a party to a proceeding claims,

 

(a)           an interest in the subject matter of the proceeding;

 

(b)           that he or she may be adversely affected by a judgment in the proceeding; or

 

(c)           that there exists between him or her and one or more of the parties to the proceeding a question of law or fact in common with one or more of the questions in issue in the proceeding, the person may move for leave to intervene as an added party.

 

(2)          On the motion the court shall consider whether the intervention will unduly delay or prejudice the determination of the rights of the parties to the proceeding and the court may add the person as a party to the proceeding and may make such order for pleadings and discovery as is just.

 

Mr. Richard claims that he satisfies each of the criterion (a), (b) and (c).  The Board responds that he satisfies none of the listed criteria and submits that his motion should be dismissed.

 

[11]           The appellants and the proposed intervenor have in common that they were injured in workplace accidents in the 1970s and 1980s, made claims and had their compensation determined under the provisions and methodology of the old Act, and have claimed, so far unsuccessfully, that the Board is obliged to reconsider their claims, and that their s.7 and s.15 Charter rights are violated.

 

…

[14]           In exercising the discretion whether to grant leave, all the circumstances need to be considered.  The discretion will not ordinarily be exercised in favor of granting leave to an applicant just because the applicant has a similar case: Reference re Workers' Compensation Act 1983 (Nfld.), 1989 CanLII 23 (SCC), [1989] 2 S.C.R. 335, at ¶10.  Our jurisprudence advises a fairly relaxed approach toward granting intervention: Simmonds v. Law Society of Prince Edward Island, 1995 CanLII 3418 (PE SCAD), [1995] 125 Nfld. & P.E.I.R. 220 (PEICA); and liberal construction: Trempe v. Reybroek,2002 CanLII 49410 (ON SC), [2002] 57 O.R. (3d) 786 (Ont.Sup.Ct.); M. v. H. 1994 CanLII 7324 (ON SC), [1994] 20 O.R. (3d) 70 (Ont.Ct.Gen.Div.); especially so in constitutional cases because of the potential great impact on others who are not immediate parties to the proceedings: Peel (Regional Municipality) v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Co. of Canada Ltd., reflex, [1990] 74 O.R. (2^nd) 164.

 

Oopsie -- slipped and fell!