New Books – Winter 2024/2025

Here’s a selection of new and noteworthy additions to our print collection acquired over the last few months:

Heenan Blaikie : the making and unmaking of a great Canadian law firm / Adam Dodek.
2nd Floor, Circulating Collection; KF 345 .Z9 .A1 D63 2024

In 1973, three young lawyers established Heenan Blaikie. It would become one of Canada’s highest-profile law firms, counting former prime ministers, premiers, and Supreme Court justices in its ranks. It was like a family, according to many who worked there. But it was a dysfunctional family. In 2014, the firm’s dramatic collapse became front-page news.

Based on extensive interviews with firm lawyers and legal industry insiders, Heenan Blaikie is the story of a respected law firm that ultimately buckled under weak governance and management. Heenan Blaikie seemed to punch above its weight: bilingual, humane, national with international aspirations. But beneath its unique culture as a kinder, gentler law firm lay workplace bullying, challenges for women and visible minority lawyers, and sexual harassment.

Adam Dodek, an unbiased outsider, situates the firm’s evolution within the context of a changing legal profession and society, producing an account that is gripping from beginning to end.

Community Safety and Policing Act and Special Investigations Unit Act : an annotated guide, 2024 / Ian D. Scott.
2nd Floor, Practice Collection; KF 5399 O588 2024

On April 1, 2024, the Ontario Government replaced the Police Services Act with the Community Safety and Policing Act, the first major change to police governance in over thirty years.

Major changes include:

• A new emphasis on the need to be responsive to the unique histories and cultures of First Nation, Inuit, and Metis communities, including the ability of a band council to establish its own police services board;
• The repeal of the role of police chiefs in appointing hearing officers for the adjudication of disciplinary complaints and the transfer of that function to adjudicators appointed by the Ontario Police Arbitration and Adjudication Commission;
• The ability of police chiefs to suspend officers without pay in limited circumstances; and
• The abolition of the Ontario Civilian Police Commission and the transfer of its responsibilities to the newly established Inspector General of Policing.
  
  As well, the Special Investigations Unit which conducts investigations into criminal allegations of serious police wrongdoing is now governed by its own legislation entitled the Special Investigations Unit Act, included in this Guide. The Guide contains all the regulations for both Acts. Each statutory section of both Acts is described and fully annotated with relevant jurisprudence.
  
  (The Table of Contents and Index can be accessed through the publisher’s website, available at this link.)

International Taxation in Canada / Jinyan Li, Paul Lamarre.
2nd Floor, Practice Collection; KF 6334 .ZA2 L5 2024

International Taxation in Canada was originally published in 2006. Now in its fifth edition, it has become the leading book on this topic. It offers an insightful overview of Canadian international taxation, with an eye to its organizing paradigms, underlying logic, technical design and practical implications.

What’s New in This Edition:

• Two brand-new chapters covering: taxation of foreign-controlled Canadian corporations (chapter 11) and International tax reforms, including BEPS 1.0 and BEPS 2.0 (e.g., Pillar 1 and Pillar 2) and the future of Canadian income tax law (chapter 17)
• A new chapter on tax treaties was created by updating materials in former chapter 2
• The taxation of foreign affiliates is separated into two chapters, featuring FAPI in chapter 15 and dividends in chapter 16
• Many existing chapters have been significantly rewritten
• More context and explanation of historical evolution of key international tax rules and principles, as well as the major influences and constraints on Canadian International law.

Precedence, titles and forms of address in Canada / Peter W. Noonan.
2nd Floor, Reference Office; JZ 1436 N65 2024

In Precedence, Titles, and Forms of Address in Canada the author explores the legal history of the concept of precedence that underlies state protocol. Tracing the beginnings of the legal concept of precedence from medieval English law the book follows the application of English legal concepts of precedence to the British Colonies in North America prior to the American Revolution. From there precedence is traced into both post-confederation and present-day Canada.

Both the Canadian Government’s Table of Precedence for officials and dignitaries and its provincial and territorial counterparts are listed and explained. Precedence among judges and the legal profession in the courts of law are also highlighted as is, briefly, the application of precedence to military formations in the Canadian armed forces. The book acknowledges the early association of precedence with titles of nobility and gentry and explains how British titles of nobility were eliminated in Canada as the country strove to develop a more egalitarian culture. In the final section of the book the forms of address appropriate in the modern context to government officials in Canada are set out, and the book explains how officials are to be addressed in person, and in correspondence, with their appropriate honorific titles.

Good faith in Canadian contract law / Brandon Kain.
2nd Floor, Practice Collection; KF 801 K35 2024

Good faith is a critical feature of contracts and commercial disputes, where its influence upon the parties’ rights and obligations can be profound, and often outcome-determinative. However, despite its centrality to legal systems around the world, good faith is still at an early stage of development in Canada’s common law jurisdictions, and many difficult questions about it remain. Decisions regarding contractual good faith are released on a daily basis by the courts, and it is difficult to keep track of the growing body of case law.

Good Faith in Canadian Contract Law is the first and only text in Canada to undertake a systematic review of the organizing principle of good faith and its associated doctrines. It analyzes jurisprudence, commentary and legislation from a number of jurisdictions, and provides readers with a full picture of how good faith operates throughout the life of a contract.

Topics Covered:

• The essential features of the organizing principle of good faith.
• Good faith performance doctrines such as the duty of honest performance and the duty to exercise contractual discretion reasonably.
• The potential significance of good faith to contractual negotiations.
• The relationship between good faith and contractual formation doctrines, such as unconscionability, unilateral mistake and duress.
• The implications of good faith in specific contracts, such as employment, insurance and tendering agreements.
• How good faith affects the interpretation of contracts, and the enforceability of contractual provisions that purport to exclude or require good faith behaviour
• Remedies for conduct contrary to good faith.
• Comparative analysis of good faith outside common law Canada, including in Quebec, the United States, England, Australia and Europe.
  

*Descriptions taken or summarized from: publisher websites, table of contents and book prefaces.