Commissioners of Oaths in Alberta Have New Rules

~ a slightly modified Slaw.ca post~

Waaaay back in 2013 there was an Alberta Bill passed that consolidated the Notaries Public Act and the Commissioners for Oaths Act. These two pieces of legislation are in place to make the rules for notarizing and commissioning documents clear and to provide a way to deal with any problems that crop up, among other things. The Notaries and Commissioners Act SA 2013, N-5.5 will come into force on April 30, 2015.

 

Some of the changes for Commissioners:

Old legislation: commissioners appointments (if appointed after June 1991) expired on the third birthday after appointment unless cancelled by the Minister in writing.
New legislation: commissioners terms of office are (the same) defined in a regulation [this means that they are much easier to change].

Old legislation: commissioners by virtue of their office who could administer oaths and take and receive affidavits made outside Alberta for use in Alberta, declarations and affirmations included members of a Metis settlement council, a school trustee.
New legislation: For documents and oaths made outside Alberta for use in Alberta, only Saskatchewan side commissioners who live or provide services in Lloydminster, political representatives and active full time officers in the Canadian Forces are listed in the legislation (section 16(3)).

Old legislation: commissioners legibly inserted their name, and if they were appointed by the Minister (rather than by virtue of office) their commission termination date; liable for a fine of $100 if non-compliant.
New legislation: commissioners legibly insert their name, “A Commissioner for Oaths in and for Alberta”, appointment expiry or if by virtue of office, their office status (i,.e Student-at-Law); liable for a fine of $1000 if non-compliant.

Old legislation: penalty for not following the rules or representing yourself as a commissioner when you are not one – $500
New legislation: penalty for not following the rules or representing yourself as a commissioner when you are not one – $5000

New legislation: you can only apply to be a commissioner if you are a Canadian citizen or permanent resident.
New legislation: the Minister may establish directives governing the duties of commissioners as well as a code of conduct
New legislation: the Minister may issue written directions to the Judicial Council, Law Society, employers of commissioners and anyone else the Minister considers it to be necessary to administer the act
New legislation: contains consequential amendments to the Alberta Evidence Act regarding oaths made outside Alberta, changing the definition of lawyer and restricting effective guarantees to lawyers (as opposed to Notaries) in the Guarantees Acknowledgment Act. There are also clean up references in other acts.

New "small" for small claims

The Alberta Provincial Court Civil Division monetary limit has been raised to $50,000 with this regulation amendment. Effective August 1, 2014 a small claim is not so small.

Alberta Queen's Printer Stakeholder Survey

Josette McEachern and I were among a group who participated in a stakeholder session this week about the Alberta Queen's Printer products and services.  To assist with results based budgeting, the QP is looking for feedback about how they deliver services, official products and legislative material.

I was given leave to share an online survey to further assist them in their important work.

In addition to the questions that we asked in the session, we also encourage you participate in our online questionnaire ─ a set of mostly different questions other than what we already asked you ─ so that we may be further informed about your experience with and expectations of Alberta Queen’s Printer.  The survey will take 5 – 15 minutes in length (depends on the length of your answers).  The survey will be open until Friday June 27^th at 4:30 pm.

 

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/AQP-Customer-Survey

 

Of course, you are always welcome to contact us by email qp@gov.ab.ca or phone 780-427-4952 (AB Toll Free 310-0000) with your questions, suggestions or comments.

I encourage all Albertans and anyone who uses Alberta Legislation to participate.

Omnibus legislation

I think that omnibus legislation is the key to law librarian job security.  Don't believe me? Have a look at the incredibly complex nature of the amendments and in force dates embedded throughout Bill 12, the Statutes Amendment Act, 2014 which was assented to on May 14, 2014.

This Bill makes changes to 32 Alberta acts, and 8 of the changes are in force on proclamation - those proclamations do not have to be at the same time.

The end of Canada Gazette in print

Well, that is it. Statutory Instrument 2014-19 registered March 12, 2014 titled Canada Gazette Publication Order, 2014 has been published. Three short lines that spell the end of a very long era.

1. The Canada Gazette is to continue to be published electronically in Portable Document Format (PDF).

The Order comes into force on April 1, 2014.

A couple of points from the Explanatory Note attached to the order:

Proposal

The Canada Gazette Publication Order, 2014 provides for the continuation of the publication in electronic Portable Document Format (PDF) of Part I, Part II and Part III of the Canada Gazette, pursuant to subsection 10(2) of the Statutory Instruments Act. It also clarifies that the Canada Gazette will continue to be published electronically in PDF.

Objective

The objective of this Order is to eliminate the requirement for a printed version of the Canada Gazette. This initiative was included in the Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, chapter 19 of the Statutes of Canada, 2012, to support the Government’s greening initiatives as part of its Sustainable Development Strategy.

Visit the Canada Gazette on its permanent home at http://www.gazette.gc.ca/gazette/home-accueil-eng.php

The whole of the Gazette is online at a variety of places.

The Field Library has a near complete print collection for reference in the Edmonton office from 1978 to 2010. We print the indexes for quick reference.

Statutes Amendment Act, 2013 (No. 2) Alberta

Bill 38: Statutes Amendment Act, 2013 (No.2) has passed 3rd reading in the Alberta Legislature. Statutes Amendment Acts, which used to be called Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Acts, modify a number of Acts and are usually created to take care of housekeeping details.  Often overlooked, these Acts - like every piece of legislation - change or clarify the law. Read the "pay attention" message that would be my tone if we were talking face to face.

Which Acts are amended by Bill 38?

• Alberta Personal Property Bill of Rights
• Civil Enforcement Act
• Court of Appeal Act
• Court of Queen's Bench Act
• Dower Act
• Family Law Act
• Fatal Accidents Act
• Judicature Act
• Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Act
• Police Act
• Provincial Court Act
• Recording of Evidence Act
• Special Areas Act

The Field Library team monitors the status of legislation from any jurisdiction as requested.

Legislation in force

There were three proclamation orders in today's Canada Gazette Part II. These are also three examples of short names of acts that you may need to follow up on to ensure that legislation you are interested in is either ameded or not.

Order Fixing November 1, 2013 as the Day on which the Act Comes into Force
Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act SI/2013-111
23/10/13    
This is chapter 21 of the Statutes of Canada, 2013 originally Bill S-8.
     
Order Fixing October 18, 2013 as the Day on which Certain Sections of the Act Come into Force
Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act
SI/2013-113
23/10/13
This is chapter 24 of the Statutes of Canada, 2013 originally Bill C-15
Order Fixing October 24, 2013 as the Day on which the Act Comes into Force
Increasing Offenders’ Accountability for Victims Act
SI/2013-112
23/10/13    
This is chapter 11 of the Statutes of Canada, 2013 originally Bill C-37
Wouldn't it be nice if all these connections were hyperlinked in the proclamation? Check out my Slaw post on Hyperlinks and Sercher Expectations or today's Slaw Tip on noting up legislation without handy tools.

New look for Justice Canada Laws site

News that you may have missed with the holiday rush: The Justice Canada Laws site got a new look on December 20th.

The website has been upgraded to conform with the new Standard on Web Usability. This standard mandates a basic structure for Government of Canada Web page layout and design, which makes it easier to find and utilize information and services on Government of Canada Web sites and results in an appropriate degree of consistency across Web sites.

This site remains my go to source for retrieving federal legislation. Why Justice Canada rather than going to CanLII, which I am also a huge fan of? I have a few reasons:

1. For legislation, I prefer to use the source of the information that CanLII retrieves UNLESS I am comparing legislation to a previous version - CanLII wins every time for that task
2. I like seeing the shading for not yet in force provisions and the list of amendments not in force
3. I like seeing the related provisions
4. I need access to the annual statutes
5. I need access to the Table of Public Statues

I am truly grateful to have both CanLII and the Justice Canada Laws sites available for researching federal legislation.

Update - Conduct Money

I heard from the Financial Accounting and Standards unit of Alberta Treasury Board & Finance about the Travel, Meal and Hospitality Expense Directive that I blogged about earlier this week. They are working on a common/public disclosure point for the directive and should have the directive available to the public by mid-December.

Thank you to the library and legal colleagues who echoed my request to make this important document publicly available. Thanks to the public servants who acted on our request!

Conduct Money

For years, as long as I can remember actually, the Alberta Rules of Court have referred to the
Public Service Subsistence, Travel and Moving Expenses Regulation for calculating the appropriate mileage reimbursement and costs for meals that are paid to witnesses as conduct money.

Don't bother clicking the link above, because this regulation no longer exists.

The Subsistence, Travel and Moving Expenses regulation was published on the Government of Alberta Corporate Human Resources website. Likely because it is frequently changed and 'only' applies to the Alberta public service, this regulation, like all regulations made under the Public Service Act, are exempt from publication in the Alberta Gazette.

The big 'however' is that the regulation in question is used by reference in the Alberta Rules of Court at Schedule B s.19 to calculate conduct money.

There is a new portion of the site that contains:

Relocation and Employment Expenses

Public Service Relocation and Employment Expenses Regulation For Travel Expenses, please refer to the following:

 

For GoA Employees: Travel, Meal and Hospitality Expense Directive

Public Disclosure of Travel and Expenses Directive

Unfortunately, the mileage and meals allowed expenses amount is now only available to the Government of Alberta Employees visiting this site. Your Field Librarians will work on updating our links and seeking out an alternative source for this necessary information.

UPDATE: Corporate Human Resources will email you a copy of the directive on request to GoAExpensesDirective@gov.ab.ca.  I have written to ask that they make this document accessible to the public.

Alberta legislation status

I  gave the fantastic Field Library Assistants the task of watching Alberta legislation for this fall session.  Our team keeps a spreadsheet of what bills people are interested in for Alberta, Federal and other jurisdictions as well.  In the past, for Alberta, I checked the Daily Bill Activity Report. 

As soon as I assigned this task to others it became more difficult to carry out. The guilt is horrible.

There is still a relatively straight forward method for monitoring the status of an Alberta bill - at a glance.  Visit the Bill Status Report for the current session and perform a 'find on this page' using your web browser tools for the numbered day.  With Internet Explorer 9, the search terms are highlighted so that you can see which bills have been changed.

This is not as convenient as having the bill activity report updated as the session progresses, but for a daily watch, it works OK.

CanLII and Statute Noteups

CanLII has a new feature for searching for judicial consideration of Statutes.  As Simon Fodden wrote at Slaw.ca, this is related to the tables of contents of acts presented on CanLII.

...in the case of legislation for which CanLII provides a table of contents, when you consider a specific section or subsection, you'll see a link to a popup that will offer you a link to cases citing that specific provision.

Luckily, tables of contents are available for all Alberta acts, so when you are reading an act from Alberta, you will now see a the section number has a hyperlink. Clicking those links will give you a popup box with a reference to both the number of decisions citing the section in the CanLII database and how to cite the section.

The popup for the Builder's Lein Act, s.3 shows this:

s 3 Citing cases (1) Citation

Annotated Alberta Rules

Fielders may have heard me complain about my perception that not enough cases on the new Alberta Rules were making it in to the Fradsham's Alberta Rules of Court Annotated text/search template on Westlaw Canada's Litigator service.

Content is extremely important from the perspective of the Field Libraries, and I am very happy to report that 33 sections of the Fradsham's Annotation have citations to cases from 2011. There were also some 2010 cases added bringing that "hit" total to 12. There is still only one 2009 case in the annotations, but given the in-force date of the new Alberta Rules of Court is November 1, 2010, I can let that go.

Researchers should remember that there are other sources of information about cases considering the Alberta Rules of Court, including the excellent material available from Jensen Shawa Solomon Duguid Hawkes LLP in their Rules newsletters. There is also an online version of the Alberta Civil Procedure Handbook which is linked from FieldNet for our internal folk. More information on that Juriliber product is available.

Happy rules consideration searching.

Statutes Repeal Act, 2008

My colleague in law librarianship, Patrick Fawcett, Librarian with Taylor McCaffery LLP in Winnipeg, wrote an excellent article for the Canadian Law Library Review (v.
36, no. 2, p. 71) on the Statutes Repeal Act, 2008.

I also wrote about this act in a 2008 post. This old post links to a list of 57 statutes that should be repealed under this act as of a 2005 CALL/ACBD Conference presentation by Senator Tommy Banks. (One more reason to attend CALL Conferences - great sessions)

The February 18, 2011 Canada Gazette has the first list of repeals under the Statutes Repeal Act - 32 pieces of law that made their way through the House of Commons, the Senate, and were assented to by the Queen's representative for Canada, yet never brought into force, and have now been repealed as of December 31, 2011.

Social Media policies and government

There is an article in the Vancouver Sun about the Government of Canada's Social Media Policy.

The new policy was released Tuesday by @TonyclementPC - better known as the President of the Treasury Board, or perhaps you know him as the former Industry Minister.

The document is titled "Guideline for External Use of Web 2.0".

It is really too bad that any organization's policy has to say anything more than:

• be truthful


• be respectful


• be nice

There is an excellent database of Social Media Policies if you are interested in making comparisons (Hat tip to Library Boy).

Canadian Federal Legislation on LEGISinfo

I have referred to the Parliament of Canada's LEGISinfo site a few times here and it has also been discussed by Library Boy and at Slaw.ca. This valuable site has recently undergone a visual and usability transformation.

You can do some really cool things with the new tool, including checking up on your MP to see if they have sponsored any bills and what they were. Use the Refine menu on the right panel to narrow Check it our before you vote next time :-)

One particular new feature that I want to highlight for any lurking Fielders is the Legislation at a Glance tool. This allows a one page-ish overview of the status of evey bill before the Senate or House and hovering over the bill number gives you the title and a short status visual.

Well done App. Devs. at the Parliament of Canada.

Expired regulations

Jane Symons expressed an interesting event this week as a mystery rolled up in a conundrum.

She provided a regulation to somone and it was later discovered that the regulation expired. Jane's search was appropriate - she had the cite and was looking for a specific document which she found. Regulations in Alberta frequently have expiry clauses in order to fulfill Premier Ralph Kleins promise, I believe in the 90s, that government red tape would be reduced and government policies would be regularly reviewed. At least that is what my memory of the time is telling me.

Regardless, when you are looking at a regulation, check for an expiry date clause. These should be at the end, where you would otherwise find special in force dates (other than the usual "when filed with the registrar of regulations" silent default).

In this case, the regulation was the Surface Rights Act Rules of Procedure and Practice Alta. Reg. 190/2001. after investigating the expiry of this regulation, Jane determined that there is a new procedure on the boards website that takes over after the expiry of the regulation.

There is a legislative trail for this in the act where the board was given the power to make its own rules (section 8, Surfact Rights Act, RSA 2000 - amended by SA 2009, c.31, s.5). Another clue is the list of regulations made under the act in the most recent Index of Regulations - this old regulation is no longer listed there.

These tricky bits of legislative research are always interesting to share

My child is my child forever

I am on a short leave from work at the moment, and since I just can't help myself, I went to have a look at the Alberta Legislature to see what is happening in the current session. I was very pleased to see Bill 3 Fatal Accidents Amendment Act, 2010. This short little amendment to clean up the language of the FAA and make it more consistent with other legislation. The bill removes references to whether a child is 'legitimate' or not.

Hansard, Feb 16, 2010, 1:25:

Distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate children is no longer appropriate in
legislation. It is also out of step with modern-day family structures and dynamics. All children should be considered equal regardless of the marital status of the children’s parents.

As the Mireau Giggles might say: "No duh!"

The bill also removes barriers for parents to receive bereavement damages if their child is married. I am positive that whatever their age or marital status, if the Mireau Giggles expire before me I will be bereaved.

I am pleased that our legislators see the good sense in this.

Good news for legislation researchers

Good news is coming from all over!

Alberta - the folks at the clerks office at the Legislative Assembly responded to a data need (AB bills no longer on LNQL as of April 1, 2009) by adding copies of historical bills. See my ELLA blog post for specifics, but here is a link: http://www.assembly.ab.ca/net/index.aspx?p=bills_home
and follow the Bills from Previous Sessions link.

And From the CanLII blog:

Wednesday, September 2 2009

Additions to point-in-time legislative databases

Today CanLII launches point-in-time legislation databases for three provinces: Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island.

Users of these provinces' consolidated Acts and regulations now have access to versions as they came into force since 2004 or so, as well as to current versions updated weekly from governments' websites.

Only about six months after having launched its new legislation publication system, CanLII now publishes point-in-time legislation for the Federal level as well as for all Canadian provinces. Legislation from the Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut is currently being prepared and will be migrated to the new system by the end of September.

Wow!

Alberta Legislative session adjourned until the fall

The Alberta Legislative session has adjourned until 1:30 p.m. on October 26. A great list is available of the status of the session's legislation at the Legislative Assembly website.