Parliament Breaks for Christmas

Family, Wills & Estates News:

New Family Law Act Replaces Family Relations Act
This Bill, which repeals and replaces the Family Relations Act, was introduced November 14th and received Royal Assent on November 24th. Most of the sections of the Bill are expected to come into force by regulation over the course of the next 12-18 months. The new Act will do the following:

• promote family dispute resolution to resolve disputes;
• clarify when and how agreements may be set aside;
• establish a comprehensive scheme to determine a child's legal parents, including in situations where technology has been used to assist reproduction;
• ensure that the best interests of the child are the only consideration when resolving parenting disputes, and add into the consideration of the best interests of the child any history of family violence and, unless inappropriate, the child's views;
• emphasize responsibilities to children and promote cooperation by eliminating divisive terms, replacing "custody" and "access" with "guardianship", "parental responsibilities" and "contact with a child";
• establish a clear framework to determine whether a parent may relocate with a child;
• extend rights and duties respecting property division to unmarried persons who qualify as spouses, and modify the property division framework to meet recommendations from the British Columbia Law Institute respecting pension division;
• align spousal support more closely with the Divorce Act (Canada) and eliminate parental support;
• increase the range of remedies and consequences for non-compliance with agreements and orders;
• replace civil restraining orders with orders to protect safety and orders to manage behaviours that are problematic but do not present a risk of family violence;
• amend the Commercial Arbitration Act to change the title and add provisions unique to arbitrations respecting family law disputes.

Red Tape, Corporate "Stalling" Keeps Wrongly-Labeled Food on Shelves
Even when government inspectors identify what they believe is a misleading or fraudulent claim on a food product, some complain they can't act swiftly to get it off the market because of Ottawa's slow, muddied approach to policing food labels. In other cases, inspectors say they face hurdles from company lawyers while the products with disputed nutrition claims continue to be sold.

Other inspectors complain there just aren’t enough resources to deal with misleading food labels. These sentiments from inspectors about “outdated and inadequate inspection tools” at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency — sprinkled throughout internal records released under access to information law — come just as the agency ponders its future in the policing of food labels. After cutting CFIA’s budget for consumer protection from $89 million in 2008 to $42 million last year, top brass at the agency are now in the early stages of comprehensive study of "the role of CFIA in consumer protection” and how it “deals with food labelling issues.” View the full story as reported on Canada.com

Local Government News:

Auditor General For Local Government Bill Dies
The much anticipated Auditor General For Local Government Act was introduced late into the session and did not proceed past first reading. The new Act was to create an oversight agency for local governments and was considered by many municipal politicians as a waste of money.

B.C. Reaches Agreement-in-Principle with RCMP
Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Shirley Bond has announced that the Province of British Columbia has reached agreement-in-principle with Public Safety Canada regarding a new contract for RCMP services in British Columbia. The proposed agreement reflects a new partnership based on transparency and mutual benefits. It contains greater financial accountability and measures to monitor and contain costs over time. Through a new proposed Contract Management Committee (CMC), the Province and Canada will jointly oversee how the RCMP delivers police services and how costs are managed. Municipalities will be represented on the CMC. The Province will also be establishing a new local government advisory committee so that municipalities have a continued voice as the agreement is implemented. Source: Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General.

Changes Strengthening Agricultural Land Commision Now Law
B.C.’s agricultural land now has even greater protection after legislation strengthening the Agricultural Land Commission became law. “The changes will enhance the operational capacity of the Agricultural Land Commission in order to expand opportunities for farmers and ranchers,” said B.C. Agriculture Minister Don McRae. “British Columbians value local food, local farmers and local farms, and the Province has supported those values with this action.” “The new legislation and related initiatives should rectify some of the concerns of the agriculture community, while securing land for food production,” said B.C. Cattlemen’s Association general manager Kevin Boon. “This will be extremely important to B.C.’s economy as we move towards an era where food will become one of the most sought-after resources any country can provide.”  View the entire news release.

Home Inspection Laws Urged to Protect Consumers
The case of a B.C. consumer who bought a home that required $50,000 in water-leakage repairs after the seller signed a disclosure statement and the home was inspected stresses the need for national inspection standards regulated by the provinces, some industry members and educators say. British Columbia and Alberta are the only provinces that have regulated the home inspection industry, requiring that inspectors be licensed. View full story on CBC News.

Coming to Terms with Councillors Who Violate the Strata Property Act
By Suzanne Morphet, Special to The Sun
Would the threat of a fine for strata councillors who wilfully contravene the Strata Property Act be a good thing or not? That's a question I've been mulling since touching on it in my last column. At first, I thought the idea of fining councillors was a little draconian. After all, even if they know that what they're doing is contrary to the law, they're volunteers. But then I remembered the numerous emails I've received over the last couple of years from strata owners, including this one from Colleen Walker, who served on her council for three terms and grew completely disillusioned: " - There needs to be a list of penalties for being in contravention of the act and a body to which to report such contraventions," she wrote. "We need to establish some 'strata police' -. Can you imagine if there were no penalties for disobeying the Motor Vehicle Act? The streets would be chaos!"  Read more.

Strata Property Act Index
The Vancouver Island Strata Owners Association has published an index to help Strata Owners better navigate through the Strata Property Act. The index was prepared by Harvey Williams (past president of VISOA).