Podcast appearances and mentions of alberta court

This week on Driving Law, Kyla and Paul tackle a dynamic mix of personal experience, legal news, and constitutional issues making waves across Canada. Kyla opens the episode with a near-death experience on the Alex Fraser Bridge after unsecured plywood flew off a truck—an incident that underscores the real dangers of unsafe loads and distracted transport. The story sets the tone for a discussion on enforcement methods and public safety. They then analyze Ontario's controversial speed camera program in Vaughan, where 32,000 tickets were issued in just three weeks. Despite the staggering volume, the city has temporarily paused fines, replacing them with warnings while reevaluating the system's effectiveness. Kyla and Paul debate the merits and pitfalls of automated enforcement and the due process challenges it presents for drivers. Next, they cover Surrey's new “Project Rogue Racers”—a year-long crackdown on illegal street racing events. With dozens of tickets, vehicle impounds, and bylaw infractions already issued, the project marks a new level of targeted enforcement against stunt driving and high-risk gatherings. Finally, Kyla and Paul dive deep into the Supreme Court of Canada's decision to grant leave in R. v. Cordner, which revives the long-standing Whyte and Powers constitutional issue. The case will test whether compelled statements at accident scenes—required under traffic legislation—can be used to justify criminal investigative demands, or whether such use violates Charter rights. They explore the nuanced conflict between majority and dissenting opinions at the Alberta Court of Appeal, and why the outcome could reshape the way police interact with drivers post-accident. Check out the 'Lawyer Told Me Not To Talk To You' T-shirts and hoodies at Lawyertoldme.com and 'Sit Still Jackson' at sitstilljackson.com.

The complainant was at that time, a grade 7 student at an all-male boarding school in Alberta. The respondent was a teacher at the school. After a trial by judge and jury, the respondent was found guilty of sexual interference (count 1), invitation to sexual touching (count 2), and sexual assault (count 3) of a person under the age of 14 years. The offences occurred in 1993 and 1994. In view of the multiple incidents in this case, the sentencing judge was satisfied that it was appropriate to sentence the respondent on counts 1 and 2. Convictions were entered on counts 1 and 2. The charge of sexual assault was stayed in accordance with Kienapple. The respondent was sentenced to a six year prison term with the counts to be served concurrently. A majority of the Alberta Court of Appeal (Wakeling and Feehan JJ.A.) allowed the respondent's sentence appeal reducing the sentence to 47 months. Crighton J.A., dissented and would have upheld the six year sentence imposed by the sentencing judge. Argued Date 2025-04-23 Keywords Criminal law – Sentencing – Did the Alberta Court of Appeal err in law in finding the sentencing judge's reasons for sentence to be insufficient? Do the principles articulated in R. v. Friesen apply to historic offences? Did the Alberta Court of Appeal err in interfering with the sentence imposed at trial? Notes (Alberta) (Criminal) (By Leave) Language English Audio Disclaimers This podcast is created as a public service to promote public access and awareness of the workings of Canada's highest court. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Court. The original version of this hearing may be found on the Supreme Court of Canada's website. The above case summary was prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch).

Provide your feedback here. Anonymously send me a text message. In this episode, Mike discusses the Alberta Court of King's Bench decision R. v. Tierney, 2025 ABKB 223 where police delayed providing a man access to counsel for more than 16 hours after his arrest, claiming it was justified while seeking a search warrant for fear evidence might be destroyed. The police also failed to bring the man before a justice, waiting about 33 hours to do so. How did the judge feel about these delays after Crown conceded Charter breaches. Was evidence supporting serious charges excluded? This case provides a good summary of the case law and things a police officer needs to think about if delaying access to counsel.  The 2025 International Use of Force Expert Conference April 29-May 1, 2025This conference is designed for professionals who have an interest in developing a deeper understanding of this subject matter area, or in building the foundational skills towards becoming a court-qualified use of force expert.Thanks for listening! Feedback welcome at legalissuesinpolicing@gmail.com

The appellant, Roger Patrick Bilodeau, was found guilty by a jury of two counts of manslaughter for the shooting deaths of two men. He was found liable as a party under s. 21(2) of the Criminal Code, for having formed an intention to carry out an unlawful purpose common with his son, who shot the deceased. He appealed his convictions, arguing that the jury was improperly instructed, including regarding the common unlawful purpose. The majority of the Alberta Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal. It concluded that many errors identified benefited the appellant, often by imposing on the Crown an unduly onerous burden. No substantial wrong or miscarriage of justice occurred: s. 686(1)(b)(iii) should be applied. Pentelechuck J.A., dissenting, would have allowed the appeal and ordered a new trial. In her view, there were additional legal errors in the charge not identified by the majority, one or more of which were not harmless, precluding a route under s. 686(1)(b)(iii). There was a real risk that the common unlawful purpose alleged by the Crown merged into the secondary offence of murder. The dissenting judge was not convinced that the evidence was so overwhelming that, notwithstanding the serious nature of the error, a reasonable and properly instructed jury would inevitably have convicted. Argued Date 2025-02-19 Keywords Criminal law — Charge to jury — Party liability — Common unlawful purpose — Whether the Court of Appeal erred in determining that the instruction to the jury with regard to the appellant's alleged liability as a party, pursuant to s. 21(2) of the Criminal Code, contained no prejudicial error — Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46, s. 21(2). Notes (Alberta) (Criminal) (As of Right) Language English Audio Disclaimers This podcast is created as a public service to promote public access and awareness of the workings of Canada's highest court. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Court. The original version of this hearing may be found on the Supreme Court of Canada's website. The above case summary was prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch).

Provide your feedback here. Anonymously send me a text message. In this episode, Mike discusses the Alberta Court of King's Bench decision R. v. Desylva, 2025 ABKB 36 where a police officer was shot at by a man being pursued. When the man's car got stuck in the snow, the officer unloaded 25 rounds at the man as his car spun out. The man fled on foot, only to be located laying in the snow suffering from serious gun shot wounds to his head and neck area. The man was transported to hospital and his clothing, which had been removed and bagged by hospital staff, was seized and searched some 11 hours after arrest. Items police found in the man's clothing included a large sum of cash and 40 grams of cocaine. This evidence was crucial to drug charges and could explain the reasons or motive for the man's evasion and flight from police. Did the time span of 11 hours between arrest and search render it outside the scope of the search incident to arrest doctrine? Or could the police offer a reasonable explanation for the delay? ASIRT Investigative ReportVideo of shootingThanks for listening! Feedback welcome at legalissuesinpolicing@gmail.com

(PUBLICATION BAN IN CASE) Following their trial, the appellants, Mikhail Kloubakov and Hicham Moustaine, were convicted of obtaining a material benefit from sexual services (s. 286.2(1) of the Criminal Code) and of procuring, as parties (s. 286.3(1) of the Criminal Code). However, after entering the convictions, the trial judge determined that the provisions in question were overbroad and that they deprived certain sex workers of the right to security without being in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice, thereby infringing s. 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. She held that the infringements were not justified under s. 1 of the Charter, and she accordingly declared ss. 286.2(1), (4) and (5) and 286.3(1) unconstitutional and suspended the declaration of invalidity for 30 days. She entered a stay of proceedings as a remedy. The Alberta Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, set aside the declarations of invalidity concerning ss. 286.2 and 286.3 and the stay of proceedings, and entered convictions against Mr. Kloubakov and Mr. Moustaine. It referred the matter back to the Court of King's Bench for sentencing. In its view, the impugned provisions did not infringe s. 7, and a s. 1 analysis was therefore unnecessary. Argued Date 2024-11-12 Keywords Constitutional law — Charter of Rights — Right to security of person — Criminal law — Commodification of sexual activities — Accused challenging constitutionality of Criminal Code provisions concerning offence of obtaining material benefit from sexual services and offence of procuring — Whether Court of Appeal erred in determining purpose of legislation and of relevant provisions — Whether Court of Appeal erred in finding that provisions were not overbroad in relation to their purpose, contrary to s. 7 of Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms — Whether it is possible to displace presumption that purposes articulated by Parliament are valid — If it is possible, whether presumption is displaced in this case — Whether ss. 286.2(1), (4) and (5) and 286.3(1) of Criminal Code infringe rights guaranteed in s. 7 of Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms — If so, whether these infringements can be justified under s. 1 of Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms — If infringements are not justified under s. 1, what remedies are most appropriate in this case — Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, ss. 1, 7 — Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46, ss. 286.2, 286.3. Notes (Alberta) (Criminal) (As of Right) (Publication ban in case) (Sealing order) (Certain information not available to the public) Language English Audio Disclaimers This podcast is created as a public service to promote public access and awareness of the workings of Canada's highest court. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Court. The original version of this hearing may be found on the Supreme Court of Canada's website. The above case summary was prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch).

Lawyer Glenn Blackett talks about cases he's working on that involve free speech on campuses across Canada. This is part of the Justice Centre's Spotlight Campaign this month. He describes the case of the University of British Columbia's Free Speech Club where the administration shut down an event in which journalist Andy Ngo was to talk about Antifa. The other big case involves Professor Frances Widdowson. She was denied the opportunity to give a speech at the University of Lethbridge about the damage that woke culture does to academic freedom. Also, Glenn describes recent changes to health and safety laws used as cudgels to beat down free expression in post-secondary education and elsewhere.Justice Centre Spotlight Campaign: Help us stop censorship on Canadian campusesJustice Centre, Jun 4, 2024: University of British Columbia censors Free Speech ClubJustice Centre, Aug 1, 2023: University of Lethbridge cancels event, undermining academic freedomFrances Widdowson on Amazon.ca: Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry: The Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural PreservationBBC, Feb 23, 2021: Canada's parliament declares China's treatment of Uighurs 'genocide'Frances Widdowson in C2C Journal, Feb 23, 2023: Into Wokism's Raging Maw: Frances Widdowson at the University of LethbridgeSociety for Academic Freedom and ScholarshipChristopher Rufo Podcast via the Manhattan Institute, Aug 5, 2022: The Long March Through the InstitutionsSupreme Court of Canada, Dec 6, 1990: Mckinney v. University of GuelphSupreme Court of Canada, Oct 9, 1997: Eldridge v. British Columbia (Attorney General)The Canadian Bar Association, Jun 11, 2020: Alberta Court of Appeal finds that Charter applies to students' exercise of freedom of expression on university campusMcMillan LLP, Jan 2018: Alberta Bill 30: Changes to the Occupational Health and Safety Act on the HorizonOpen Alberta Bulletin BP024 (PDF): Assessment and Control of Psychological Hazards in the Workplace--OHS information for employers and workersJonathan Kay in Quillette, Jun 4, 2022: The Case Against Hate-Speech Laws: a Canadian PerspectiveTheme Music “Carpay Diem” by Dave StevensSupport the show

The Supreme Court has been missing a judge ever since Russell Brown resigned in June over allegations of improper conduct. On Oct. 26, Trudeau announced his nomination to replace Justice Brown – Mary Moreau, the Chief Justice of the Alberta Court of King's Bench.With this pick – Trudeau's sixth – the Supreme Court of Canada becomes majority women, for the first time. The Globe's justice reporter Sean Fine joins us to talk about what Moreau will bring to the court, and why it might have taken so long to fill the seat.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@globeandmail.com

The Line's Matt Gurney and Jen Gerson discuss the atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel; Israel's response in the Gaza Strip — and North America's progressives, who have left their asses hanging in the wind by applauding and condoning acts of violence that include the murder of children and sexual assault of Israeli women. Progressives are doing incredible damage to their own causes by justifying the violence of Hamas — a genocidal and theocratic terrorist organization — under leftist jargon like "decolonization." In other news, Canada's Supreme Court has ruled the federal government's environmental impact legislation — also known as C-69, or the "no more pipelines" bill — as unconstitutional. To the shock and surprise of everyone who expected this court to rule in Justin Trudeau's favour, the SCC agreed with the Alberta Court of Appeal: that C-69 oversteps provincial jurisdiction, and undermines the constitutional right of provinces to develop and manage their own natural resources. 

Dr. Kevin Mailo hosts Dr. Wing Lim interviewing KPMG tax lawyer Jason Pisesky, a Masterclass faculty member, about corporate structuring strategies and corporate tax planning. Jason pulls from a wealth of practical knowledge and experience to shed light on what to do and what to avoid with a PC.  Dr. Wing Lim asks Jason to first explain the SBD, small business deduction, of $500,000 and strategies Jason advises around that amount. There are things to consider in how you structure your PC that will affect the SBD in the future, and Jason explains what those considerations are. Wing and Jason break down their discussion in ways that offer insight to physicians regardless of which career stage you're currently in.In this episode, you'll learn from KPMG tax lawyer Jason Pisesky how to set up PCs between spouses in similar career fields, or with partners, that offer the structure for corporate taxes. He breaks down why it may not be the best advice to invest everything into your PC, things to consider for future sale options, and when to start a trust if you want one. Above all, Jason shares that investing and structuring with intention is the best way to plan ahead and advises talking to a professional if you haven't started tax planning yet. About Jason Pisesky (masterclass faculty):Jason's practice covers a broad spectrum of taxation law matters including corporate, personal, farm and estate tax planning as well as representation in dispute resolution and litigation mattersJason joined KPMG in January 2021. Prior to starting at KPMG, he spent over six years working at a leading western Canadian boutique tax law firm. Jason has experience in both the tax dispute and tax planning for both personal and corporate taxpayers.Jason has worked with small and medium-sized owner-managed operations to reorganize structures in a tax-efficient manner, acting as counsel for vendors and purchasers in arm's length deals as well as families in the midst of related party estate and succession planning. He has argued on behalf of taxpayers in many contexts and obtained favourable results for taxpayers from auditors, appeals officers and lawyers at the Department of Justice. Jason has appeared before the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench.Resources Discussed in this Episode:Physician Empowerment Masterclass—Contact Information:Physician Empowerment: website | facebook | linkedinJason Pisesky: website | linkedin __TranscriptDr. Kevin Mailo: [00:00:01] Hi, I'm Dr. Kevin Mailo, one of the co-hosts of the Physician Empowerment podcast. At Physician Empowerment, we're dedicated to improving the lives of Canadian physicians personally, professionally, and financially. If you're loving what you're listening to, let us know. We always want to hear your feedback. Connect with us. If you want to go further, we've got outstanding programming both in-person and online. So look us up. But regardless, we hope you really enjoy this episode. Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:00:34] All right. It looks like we've got everyone here. I am so sorry. Three years into everybody using Zoom, I still struggle with it, but we are slowly, slowly getting there. So at any rate, I want to thank everybody for joining us for the webinar tonight. I'm Kevin Mailo, one of the co-founders of the Physician Empowerment podcast. And our programming, as you know, we cover a wide spectrum of topics and today we are very, very glad to have Jason Pisesky returning back on the webinar, back on the show, to talk about tax hacks for busy physicians, busy medical professionals. And what we're going to be covering today is corporate structuring, one of the most powerful wealth creation vehicles that physicians enjoy in this country is the ability to be incorporated, to set up holding corporations. But it has to be done properly. And that's why we're bringing in an expert. So Jason is a tax attorney who works with KPMG. He is a KPMG tax attorney. And so he has an incredible, not only knowledge base, but a whole well of experience to draw on. So I'm going to be stepping back and Wing's going to be interviewing Jason. And if you like what you're hearing, you want to know more, come and join us for the Masterclass because this is what we teach. And Jason, of course, is one of our faculty members. So again, thank you, everyone, for being here tonight. And why don't I let you take it away, Wing? Dr. Wing Lim: [00:02:02] Okay. Thank you, Kevin. Yeah. So welcome, everyone, to tonight's exciting episode. I'm Dr. Wing Lim. As most of you know me, some of you don't. I'm one of the co-hosts and co-founders of Physician Empowerment. So Jason and I went back quite a while. For those of us that haven't met Jason yet or haven't listened to a previous podcast, Jason and I went back, we were classmates on the dance floor and he was a really nice dude. He was openly admitted to be the teacher's pet. The teacher, the dance teacher, said that. He's a super nice guy with he doesn't have an ego problem. And a number of years later I went into some corporate tax planning pickle and then I dialed up his phone number and said, Hey, Jason, I think you're a lawyer, right? I think you can help me. So that's how we started to talk about a lot of these fancy corporate structuring that that he's doing on a daily basis. So welcome to the show, everyone, and welcome to the show, Jason. So Jason, so you and I were talking the other day about some good and bad stories in corporate tax planning. So you have two different cases you have in your file, in your portfolio of clients. Can you tell us the difference? And we can go from there. Jason Pisesky: [00:03:15] Absolutely. Happy to be here. Thank you very much. And Kevin as well for the very nice intro. Thank you. So, yeah, we were chatting yesterday and just about all the different aspects, facets there are to corporate tax planning and wealth building, just some of the things I've seen. And we got talking about the issue of corporate association. So there's many different types of relationships in the Income Tax Act. There's related association, there's affiliation, there's connected, foreign affiliates, all these different terms for how different taxpayers can be linked to one another and what that means. For your small business corporation, one of the big ones is association. If you're associated, that means you have to share certain benefits. But there can be certain benefits on top of that too, to actually being. So it's not all consequences. What we were talking about was the approach to corporate investing. If you are associated corporations, you have to share the small business deduction. We talked about that a little bit in our last show. Small business deduction gets you the low rate of tax on generally the first $500,000 of income earned corporately on active business income. Jason Pisesky: [00:04:20] So if you're associated, you have to share that amount, that 500,000. By the same token, if you're associated, I'm sorry to back up, when you earn investment income, that might start to reduce your small business deduction. Even if you're just one company and you're not sharing with anyone. And so we got talking about kind of some ways to structure around those two problems, not wanting to share, not wanting to reduce the small business deduction either. So we're talking about a client I've worked with in the past. It was two medical professionals. I've seen many ways done, many times done this way. The idea is you just have two different doctors, doctor/dentist, doctor/lawyer, and they each just have their own PC and they don't have any cross-shareholdings in each other's PC. So they just wholly owned their own. And that's the way to avoid association. Association arises once you start to own some shares of the other one, it can start to cause a problem. Not automatically, but once you cross certain percentage thresholds. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:05:20] So can we just stop there? Because I think we need to clarify this thing because not everybody may be on the same page. Right? So this is, you're talking about husband and wife. They're both professionals, let's say, pick this first case that they have both medical professionals. They both own a PC, and there are certain tax advisors, accountants would advise them, hey, you know, you can share a PC together. Right? And then so you're talking about the nuances about is this a good or a bad thing to do? Is that what we're diving into? Right. Jason Pisesky: [00:05:49] Yeah. Or even, hey, just, you know, both of you be 50/50 shareholders in each other's PC. Just, you know, if one doctor has an up year, one has a down year, then you can maybe pay some dividends or shift or share in the growth across both of them. Yeah. So kind of a couple of different avenues to why you may get there, but the likely ideal structure is to have both of them having one PC, both of them doing their own thing, and both of them getting that full 500,000 shelter on the income until the investment base grows big enough. And then you have different problems. And what I've seen in other files is, for example, I had one where, again, it was it was two professionals. One of them had ceased kind of working and was just going to be the stay-at-home spouse. But they had kind of some cross-shareholdings. The one who had stopped working had been very successful and had built up a multi-million dollar portfolio in the PC. And then they were finding, though, that the investment income in that, call it the inactive PC, was starting to reduce the small business deduction in the active PC and starting to reduce the ability to kind of grow this tax-deferred base. Yet there's some easy steps you can go through to sever that association, to get rid of those shareholdings, change them into different shareholdings, transfer them over, repurchase them, lots of different avenues to kind of fix the problem as to for when they came to us. But yeah, and it's one of those things that happens organically, happens over time. And if you don't have that good advice at the outset, then, again, it wasn't a problem for the first, you know, three, four, five years. But after many, many years of working and building up this wealth, you start to have these relationships that maybe you didn't expect or you definitely probably don't want. So. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:07:32] Right. So I can totally relate. That's exactly us, right, some of you know, my wife and Jason definitely knows us both, and that's when I went to Jason because we had, over the years, right, we didn't have these nice seminars and webinars to go to. We didn't have the good mentors and advisors. We just bumble along the way. And before long, so I have a bunch of corporations, she has a bunch of corporations and everything collided, right? We share some of them, not all of them, and become a big spider web. And by the time we want to think about, oh, do we, can we take a SBD, small business deduction, it becomes like separating a Siamese twin, pair of twins. Right? Becomes very difficult. So what are the consequences? You talk about this erosion of the small business deduction. Can you bring everybody up to speed. This 2017, 18 new tax rule that came and stayed? How that would have impacted like this couple, this doctor / dentist couple with this erosion, what would that mean in tax load? Jason Pisesky: [00:08:34] Absolutely. So corporations generally have a favorable tax rate, kind of no matter what your situation is. You know, at the height, again, we have this across cross-Canada audience. So the starting place, once you work through all the math, is, you know, in the low to mid 20s for the corporate tax rate, 23, 24, 25%, on active business income. We're going to talk about active business income right now, which everyone here would be earning from their medical practice. So that's your starting place. However, for small businesses, for small business corporations, there's a benefit, the small business deduction, that gives you a lower rate of tax for the first $500,000 of income. Slight variances across different provinces. Sometimes there's a provincial rate versus the federal, a different 500,000 amount. So it's not always 500,000 depending on the province you're in. But yeah, and that will drop it down to the low teens, low to mid-teens. So again, 11 to 12, 13% depending on the province you're in, and that's where the advantage comes. So you earn $100 of active business income and you don't need to take it out to spend it. Buy bonus or dividend. Then you just keep it in. And so instead of if you had maybe earned that personally, you would have paid up to 50, up to or even above 50% tax, depending on some provinces and tax rates. And then you'd only have, you know, $48 left to invest, leave it in the company and you all of a sudden might have 88, $89 to invest. So that's the advantage of having the small business deduction and why you don't want it reduced. And then but you also have to be mindful of how you are, you know, you have that $88, call it, you invest that and then it's going to start generating investment income or capital gains. Jason Pisesky: [00:10:21] So you have to be mindful of tracking that as well, because once you have too much investment income, that can also start to reduce your small business deduction. And then there's also, the third one is there's also rules around once you reach a certain size, once you have, it's a very large amount, kind of I think it's right now 15 million and then it gets phased out slowly. So that's a far down the road concern for most. But yeah, those are the concerns of why you want it and how you start to lose it. And then planning around it is do we move those, we move those investments out of the PC, and if you're you're married and have a spouse, then you can try to put those into your spouse's hands. And like I was saying with that first example of the couples who have one corporation for one doctor, one corporation for the other, you can do the same thing if you have a spouse who doesn't have the advantage of being able to use a PC, their stay at home spouse, or they are just in a profession or a career where they don't have access to them. Which is most, then yeah, you can maybe make an investment corporation in that person's name and just figure out how to shovel all the assets into that other person's hands to go there. And then the income earned on that won't affect the small business deduction in the prime active business generating PC. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:11:39] Right, now so can I make a couple of points and observation? Number one, this husband and wife, the two spouses having separate corporations, even for yeah, medical versus non-medical corporations, right? Like for me we're not a double medical income, right? I'm a medical income. My wife has a bunch of corporations that are non-medical. But, and so this separation is not just good for tax planning for those of us, and a lot of the listeners are real estate investors, right? And when you want to apply for mortgages, you need your lending power. You know what? Everybody has a ceiling, right? Some banks, three, four, five high is probably 11 doors that they will lend you. Right? And again, we didn't know better, so we cosigned the loan for all of the properties that we had and then found that, oh-oh, when the time comes, we have capital to grow, now they say no, because you already exceeded that, right? So again, it makes sense to have husband and wife separate the corporations, right? Especially if you're going into investments, then you won't, you again have to, like double the amount of small business deduction, now you have double the amount of credit rooms to grow in the real estate empire. So that's one observation. That's not exactly tax planning. Secondly is, yeah, I have colleagues that have such a good year. They're up in the years and the stock portfolio did very well and their, I think their passive income that year I think exceeded - I forgot how much - I think first 50,000 they give you free, right? By the time you're 150,000, the small business deduction has gone. And then so this poor chap ended up losing the whole small business deduction. And so that was a very, very painful year. I would have thrown up if the accountant just said, cut the check. Right? I would have thrown up. Jason Pisesky: [00:13:30] Yeah, you got the numbers right there. Yeah. So the first 50,000 of income, investment income to shelter doesn't affect your small business deduction. And the policy behind that being like, hey, corporations have to keep some money on hand to pay their current expenses, working capital, so and yeah, you shouldn't just have to keep that in burlap bags tucked under the bed. You can put that in a savings account and earn some interest. That's the reasoning behind it. But yeah, once you go above 50,000 of investment income, which includes capital gains, the taxable portion, it starts reducing the small business deduction that 500,000 on a 5 to 1 basis. So every dollar, so $50,001, you lose $5 of your small business deduction. So by, once you have 100,000 above 50,000, i.e. the 150 you talk about, your small business deduction is completely ground away. And you may have, you may find yourself having, you know, an extra 10 to 15% tax on that 500,000, which is, let's see if can do quick math in my head. You know, an extra $75,000 of tax. Now I'm self-conscious and want to double check that, but... Dr. Wing Lim: [00:14:35] Well, it is very painful. How about that? Jason Pisesky: [00:14:39] Yeah. 75. There we go. All right, good. All right. If it's a 15% spread between the two, it's kind of in and around there. It'll be 10 to 15%. So. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:14:48] Right. So suddenly you cough up with that because you had a good year. And when you think about, Wow, this guy is very successful. But when you think about it, by the time we retire, 150k, you hope there's 150k. 150k doesn't go very far by the time we retire, most of us, right? And so that's important. And the problem is this guy was not old enough to retire. They were just winding down. Still have an active PC. Right? And so this is very, very painful. The other observation is a lot of my colleagues, and they talk to their everyday accountant, they're advised to invest everything inside their PC. Right? And so, Jason, would you advise that or would you advise against that? Jason Pisesky: [00:15:29] I would generally not for the one reason we talked about. The three big reasons come to my mind immediately. One, we talked about, hey, you're going to have to start to juggle this small business deduction as the portfolio grows and you'll probably start to get very annoyed at playing that game and having to time everything, to the non-tax reason, creditor protection. You generally want your assets not sitting right next to the business where if the business gets sued they're exposed. And so, yet professionals have a bit of extra layer to deal with there. We talked about this a little bit on the tax ID, we'll talk about it in two weeks time on the Masterclass. But professional corporations, you generally don't have that same type of corporate shield that someone who's just doing real estate or, you know, running a general store or whatever in a corporation would where there's a liability that arises because of the profession, the professional and the PC are usually equally on the hook. And there's insurance and things, of course. But for that reason it's also advantageous to kind of move things out of the PC to the extent you can into, again, ideally a spouse's hands if that's tenable to someone. And then the third reason is if you have a business that may be salable in the future, capital gains deduction, which shelters currently $971,000 of capital gains, it becomes harder to access as you have a big build-up of what we would call inactive passive investment assets in the corporation. So again, not all PCs are salable, but if it is or, you know, if there's a clinic or something else, usually having the investments not with the shares that may be sold is advantageous. So most generally advise to not just keep it all in the PC, even though that's simple and maybe hey, the first couple of years you do that, but long term you want a better, more nimble structure. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:17:23] Right. So while most accountants told us that medical practice were nothing, but practices are sold, right? Not very frequent, but they are. I'll give you an example. 30 years ago I bought a practice, right, that's when nobody wanted to buy a practice, I did. I borrowed money I hadn't got, bought my dream practice at the time. We just talked to friends who sold their practices at our clinic. We are in a joint clinic, new doctors come and buy out the old doctors, right? So these things do happen, right? And so I think that what you talk about is not totally out of date or irrelevant. It is irrelevant for some people who are planning to retire. Right? If they're lucky enough to be bought out, they want to be sure because this purification, that's what you're talking about, with the purification rule. There's the time of the sale and T-24 months. Right? Two years prior, you better plan your purification. Right? Jason Pisesky: [00:18:18] Yeah. And I think even like ten years ago, I would have probably said, like you probably know, like based on your medical field if your PC is salable, but, and I don't know what the kind of what you're hearing from, you know, all the back channels, but what I'm starting to see is much more consolidation and there actually is a push, I know like it's happening with optometry, with dentistry, where they are having big conglomerates come in and try to snap up practices and build a big portfolio. And, you know, I don't know the exact inner workings, but it looks like kind of like, you know, make a public company model where you just, you know, own hundreds of practices across the country. And so I would say if, definitely you're on the younger side, you never know. So I think you kind of proceed on that basis of, Hey, I may be able to sell this. And so if it just, you know, is a little more kind of work expense and complexity, but I kind of set myself up for that potential down the line that would think it's it's worth it just based on how much the field is changing right now for medical professionals and kind of... Dr. Wing Lim: [00:19:20] Yeah, so now in Alberta, we're not, we're still mostly fee-for-service, right? So we did our physician and empowerment talks. We were in Mexico, Kevin and I, teaching in Mexico and there's this very senior guy, he was high up in CMA and all that, and he retired and he sold his practice for a very high price. He had a very nice panel. So in Ontario it's capitation model, right? So you have the whole panel and each panel carry, every patient has a price tag, multiply I think 200 bucks times our number of patients, right? And so basically he sold it, the whole panel. And he was very happy. Right? So these things are actually more relevant than what we like to think, right? So I just want everybody to just maybe tuck it, file it somewhere in your brain and say, don't just dismiss this. Right? It might apply to you. And that's a lot of money. Right? So right now is, what, $915 thousand dollars, almost? Jason Pisesky: [00:20:16] 971. So if it's not, and it's indexed to inflation, so if it's not a million next year, it will be by 2025, especially with inflation the way it's currently going. So even a million bucks of shelter. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:20:30] So yeah, exactly. And if you're not even, so if you're practicing just over a million at least whatever you sold it for, then it's tax-free, right? And then for those that are advantageous to have a spouse in there, whoever else to share the PC, I think each one have that capital exemption, then it could potentially be a big thing. And some people, they have a practice, not just a medical practice, they have a business side, let's say an esthetic practice, right? I know of one of our consultants, Mark Friesen, he's one of our consultants that work with some of our clients, and he worked with a Calgarian physician who had a cosmetic practice. And Mark is an accountant. He's kind of a CFO for hire. And helped to shape the practice in two years time, so they sold it for a very good price to a conglomerate, right? And only because they did all the right accounting, right tax planning, right structural corporate planning. Jason Pisesky: [00:21:26] Mhm. Happens a lot in dentistry. You'll have the dental business and then the hygiene. The hygienist business. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:21:32] Right, Right. Jason Pisesky: [00:21:33] So yeah, absolutely. Again you'll have hey, maybe you start a clinic and you have a building in there too. Or maybe you want to sell the building. There's opportunities there. So. Yeah. Where are you, where are you keeping things. I would say the rule of thumb is not just to keep it all in the PC. I'd say, yeah, you kind of need that advice and that, the long view range of where I may be in 20-30 years, what my exit plan looks like. And sometimes an admission of I have no idea what my exit plan might look like. I just need to, you know, set the chess pieces in the right place. So whatever comes, I'm in a good spot. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:22:04] Right. Now we're on the topic of small business deduction, I want to just dive into other things because a lot of physicians later on, they join venture with other people, other physicians or other businesses they encounter, or investment or real estate, they're going to different joint ventures, partnerships. But I think last time you talked about a lot of the tax ID, and I heard that if you're not careful, you end up everybody and their spouses, everybody shared one small business deduction of 500,000. So can you walk us through some of the bad or good and bad scenarios of how that could happen? Jason Pisesky: [00:22:40] Absolutely. So I mean the most popular model, tax aside, for professionals to work together is a partnership. You know, the LLP, that's what 98% of all legal arrangements are for lawyers, sorry, accountants are just LLPs, partnerships, limited liability partnerships. So the starting rule with nothing else is that you kind of share one small business deduction between all the partners when you have a partnership. There were some old rules where you could kind of have two PCs and you have a PC providing services to the actual partner PC and then everybody got their own small business deduction. That was shut down maybe 2018, 2019, I don't think earlier. Yeah. So. But now, you kind of go back to the default rule, Okay, everybody shares the small business deduction if you're a partner. But there are other, so there are other arrangements out there that may give access to allow people to work in some way together or collaboratively in a way that isn't a partnership and everybody gets their small business deduction still. There are joint ventures, there's cost-sharing arrangements. Those are the big ones. You just have to be very careful with the wording of the arrangements to make sure you're not a partnership at law because a judge will look through it and say, fine, you slap the label on it of this, but when I actually look at it, it is a partnership. So there are ways for professionals to work in tandem, to some extent at least, and be able to still protect their small business deduction and not have to share it with the other professionals. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:24:19] Right. So let's say if some doctors, they got together and say, Hey, we want to buy this piece of land or just buy, start a new corporation, buy a strip mall medical building. So if they structure it incorrectly, then maybe it would collide with everybody's whole codes or PCs? Jason Pisesky: [00:24:38] Yeah. And so that kind of circles us back to the association problem where we said we're like, Oh, you have two spouses, you should both just have your own PC. Because what can happen is, say you have two unrelated professionals who both have a PC, they're the only shareholders of it, and they say, Yeah, let's buy this piece of farmland and they buy it in a corporation that they both own 50/50, then you're probably all going to end up associated and you're going to be sharing the small business deduction with this unrelated doctor who you're not even carrying on a medical practice, he is just a buddy of yours who you're not carrying on medical practice with at all, in partnership or otherwise. And because of an investment you've made, you end up sharing the small business deduction. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:25:19] Right. Yeah. So I seem like I'm belaboring this, but I've seen a ton of this, right? I've been to some real estate clubs for 12 years, investment clubs, and I certainly know people who were avid real estate investors, right? They just keep forming partnerships and JVs and corporations and some, they begin to go into limited partnerships. Right? So but yeah, so basically, I tell my friends, you're just jeopardizing everybody's SBD if you have a good year, if you sold that building, that multifamily or whatever, you're going to have a tax problem. Right? So then for people who already have the spider web, or even with a spouse or non-spouse, other business partners, what would be your advice, Jason, to them? Jason Pisesky: [00:26:04] I think talk to someone. I know, I like the term spider web, I see it all the time of you know oh I'm doing a new thing, pop up a new company, I'm doing a new thing, pop up a company, and it kind of sounds like maybe people could take two minutes like, Oh, Jason is saying, you want lots of companies, you want companies for everything and to protect all your stuff, that may or may not be the case. It's, you know, everyone's situation is completely unique. We have lots of clients who come in and they have the spider web and we end up kind of collapsing in on itself because, hey, you have too many, too many things going on. And your life is just kind of overly complex without giving you the benefits maybe you thought you were getting from it. So again, we have a handful of files right now, I always have a handful of files on the go, where we are, yeah, we have ones where we're adding complexity because they come to us and hey, you could really benefit from having some more entities and moving some things around. And we have some where they come to us and we have, hey, you have too many for what you have going on. Let's amalgamate them. You know, combine some companies together, let's dissolve them, and then simplify a bit and then rethink about what kind of complexity you want and what's going to benefit you. So that's the blessing and the curse of being a small business owner is it's highly customizable. Everybody goes through it entirely different, like what kind of investments you want to make first, if you want to get into real estate, if you want to build an investment portfolio, then jump into real estate down the line, completely changes and shapes how your structure grows out. But just being intentional about it, I think, and speaking to professionals. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:27:34] Intention, yeah. Intentionality I think is a big one. But most of us don't. We just kind of wing it, right, all the way through until we got caught in a spider web. So yeah, there's so much we can cover. Now, just one last question. Right? And then we'll open this file and then we'll be done. So at what point in our career, typical professional career, would you say that it's worthwhile to consider a family trust of sorts? Jason Pisesky: [00:27:59] Um, for a professional, it's probably once you have kids, if kids are in your future, again, no real rule of thumb. I think it makes sense to chat with your accountant and your lawyer about it and find the right time, but I don't think you really need one immediately. So traditionally we would keep trusts around for 21 years. If people have heard the 21 year rule. Like trust can extend for decades and decades and decades. But there's a taxable event at the 21 year rule where, 21 year mark, where the trust is, basically it's deemed to, for tax purposes, to die. It, all of its property is deemed to be disposed of, reacquired, there's a taxable event if there's an accrual of value in there. So again, that sounds scary. There's ways to deal with that. You can transfer property out of the trust, you can roll it out, and then things continue on. The big, one of the big benefits of the trust is around sale planning and structuring. And so, you know, if you put a trust in too early, then you might miss the sale date. So I would say you don't want one fresh out of med school unless you kind of are going to be someone who kind of slowly grows and builds practices and then sells them and builds a practice and then sells it, maybe that makes sense. But I would say, yeah, graduate med school, build your practice, grow a little bit of wealth, start a family. And that's kind of when you want the family in family trust, right? Dr. Wing Lim: [00:29:20] So what you're saying is there's a because there's a 21 year lifespan, you don't want to start too early. But then when you have kids and then you build some wealth, maybe some wealth outside of your PCs, right, and then it gets, when the spider web is starting to emerge, right, maybe it's time to consider a family trust, right? Jason Pisesky: [00:29:39] Yeah. And I would say a good, to send people away, a good indicator of when you may be ready is when you start having another corporation. Hey, I want to start a real estate investment corporation. Because again, there's restrictions in most provinces on who can actually be in a family trust that owns shares of a PC. So in Alberta, for example, it can only be the professional, their spouse, and children under the age of 18. So that's restrictive. Otherwise you could have anyone under the sun in your family trust if you have a real estate company. And so yeah, but then it's great because you can have these things right under the family trust. And so, yeah, having that family trust at that point, that's kind of a good indicator of definitely when hey, I should talk to someone and see if now's a good time because I'm going to start a bunch of real estate things on the side. Should I do it under a family trust? And get that creditor protection, get the benefit to the family. And again, those may be more easily sold entities, too, whether they get the capital gains deduction or not, the ability to share proceeds amongst beneficiaries. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:30:42] Right on. Well, so good. So thank you, Jason, again for a wealth of information. I don't want to make this going on and on, I think there's a lot here to be digested and I want to thank you for bringing your wealth of knowledge and experience every day, a very live example that pertain to us. And of course, the different people here have different backgrounds, different scenarios, and different stages of life. And I think we're going to systematically look into these at future sessions in our masterclass and future podcasts. So thank you again, Jason. And so I guess, is it fair to summarize that this word that you bring up, this intentionality, right? We cannot just go in blindly and just go and wing it, right? I think we start a PC with, okay, what do we need, a PC, that was one step, that one thing we need to cross. Make that decision. Okay, I need a PC and then somebody says you need a whole code. Should I do it? Should I not? The spouse, both of the careers, and then there's a bunch of others. Right? So I guess what you're telling us today, the take-home message, is so that we have this intention to deal with this and when things get a little complicated, don't just be complacent with just what you think you know. It's time to maybe ask some professionals. Jason Pisesky: [00:32:00] Yeah. I think that's well said. Yeah. The intention is important and, again, once you start to have some material accrual of wealth in the PC, that's when it's time to start thinking about do I need to add some complexity? And once you're starting to make different kinds of investments, again, the second opinion, it's talking to other people and just seeing what's going on and what's available. You don't want to go, you know, as with doctors and their patients, you don't kind of want to go 25 years never talking to a doctor and then show up riddled with issues. You know, you don't kind of want to go 25 years without talking to a tax planner or somewhere if you're building some complexity into your life. Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:32:40] That was kind of what I was doing, Jason So you're saying I shouldn't. Jason Pisesky: [00:32:43] Are we talking about the medical part or the plotting part? If you've not seen a doctor in a while... Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:32:49] No, no, no, the doctor thing I'm doing. But yeah, certainly the tax planning, I really got to sit down with you at some point and begin to sort this out, because you're absolutely right, both of you, about being intentional behind this. And also one other point that you made, Jason, is being that everybody's situation is unique and that's why there is no cookie-cutter solution here. You need to sit down in front of a professional, a great accountant, a great tax lawyer like yourself, and really sort through what you need to be doing for you, not what a colleague did or someone else that you share clinic space has done, it's about what you as an individual need to do and it needs to align with your broader life goals in terms of retirement and wealth creation. Jason Pisesky: [00:33:32] Yeah. And I think I may have said the benefit or the curse or the benefit of the cost, like, you know, you're not someone who's just working at a bank. You have a great pension or, with the government, even more. And they have, you know, a great guaranteed pension that's going to look after you. You're most likely out-earning those people. But that does put the onus on everyone on this call, you have to think about it. And if you, and it can be, you know, orders of magnitude between the people who put the thought into it and are intentional and get those extra percentage points every year compounded. There's tons of calculators that say, you know, adding 1% every year to your growth magnifies it. And here we're talking about not 1%, you know, tax savings is often your biggest expense in any business. And so again yeah, just over the life of your career, it's a huge opportunity. Again, everyone will probably be fine if you do no tax planning, but the opportunity is there to just really blow things out of the water. So. Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:34:30] I love that. I love that. All right. I think we should wrap it up. We always say we're going to keep this like, short, like 20 minutes, 30 minutes. But we always go over and I love it because what you have to share is just so outstanding, Jason And it's real value to the physician community where we're all busy, we're all working. So again, thank you so much for joining us today and we look forward to having you back again. Jason Pisesky: [00:34:54] A pleasure, as always. Thanks for having me and thanks for riding shotgun with me, Wing. Pleasure, as always. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:35:00] Well, yeah. Thank you. Thank you again, Jason, for your valuable time. And we look forward to more episodes together. Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:35:08] Thank you so much for listening to the Physician Empowerment podcast. If you're ready to take those next steps in transforming your practice, finances or personal well-being, then come and join us at PhysEmpowerment.ca - P H Y S Empowerment dot ca - to learn more about how we can help. If today's episode resonated with you, I'd really appreciate it if you would share our podcast with a colleague or friend and head over to Apple Podcasts to give us a five-star rating and review. If you've got feedback, questions or suggestions for future episode topics, we'd love to hear from you. If you want to join us and be interviewed and share some of your story, we'd absolutely love that as well. Please send me an email at KMailo@PhysEmpowerment.ca. Thank you again for listening. Bye. 

Drs. Kevin Mailo and Wing Lim host a webinar with guest Jason Pisesky, a tax lawyer with KPMG Law. Dr. Lim takes the lead in interviewing Jason on an overview of tax hacks and advice that will form the contents of deeper focus in future Masterclass events. Jason Pisesky starts the conversation by discussing the financial incentive of tax deferral in having a PC. He highlights when a PC is most useful in a professional's career journey along with when it is an advantage and when it may not be. But Jason's biggest piece of advice is to be surrounded by, and work with, trusted professionals who can guide decisions correctly. In this episode, Dr. Wing Lim and Jason Pisesky wade into the shallow end of tax hack topics that will be covered in depth in the upcoming Masterclass. They discuss the benefits of having a PC, what to put in a PC and what to keep out of it, when a hold co or sister corporation is beneficial to form, the change in TOSI rules, how salary can work where split income no longer does, and many other insights and advice from Jason's wealth of knowledge on all things tax-related. This is vital information to digest and will whet appetites for even deeper conversations in the Masterclass.  About Jason Pisesky:Jason's practice covers a broad spectrum of taxation law matters including corporate, personal, farm and estate tax planning as well as representation in dispute resolution and litigation mattersJason joined KPMG in January 2021. Prior to starting at KPMG, he spent over six years working at a leading western Canadian boutique tax law firm. Jason has experience in both the tax dispute and tax planning for both personal and corporate taxpayers.Jason has worked with small and medium-sized owner managed operations to reorganize structures in a tax efficient manner, acting as counsel for vendors and purchasers in arm's length deals as well as families in the midst of related party estate and succession planning. He has argued on behalf of taxpayers in many contexts and obtained favourable results for taxpayers from auditors, appeals officers and lawyers at the Department of Justice. Jason has appeared before the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench.Resources Discussed in this Episode:TOSIPhysician Empowerment Masterclass—Contact Information:Physician Empowerment: website | facebook | linkedinJason Pisesky: website | linkedin __TranscriptDr. Kevin Mailo: [00:00:01] Hi, I'm Dr. Kevin Mailo, one of the co-hosts of the Physician Empowerment podcast. At Physician Empowerment we're dedicated to improving the lives of Canadian physicians personally, professionally, and financially. If you're loving what you're listening to, let us know. We always want to hear your feedback. Connect with us. If you want to go further, we've got outstanding programming both in-person and online so look us up. But regardless, we hope you really enjoy this episode. Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:00:35] Hi, everyone. I'm Kevin Mailo, one of the co-founders of Physician Empowerment, and we're bringing another great webinar podcast episode to you. Today it's going to feature Wing interviewing outstanding tax lawyer Jason Pisesky, and Jason is an associate with KPMG, one of the world's preeminent accounting firms, one of the biggest in the country. And they're going to be talking about tax hacks for busy medical professionals. And this is just the start of how much there is to know. And we are following this up with our master class where we dive into these topics in a lot of depth. And I think it's important for Canadian physicians to be reminded of the fact that it is not just good enough to play offense, right? We're all out there, we're all learning and we're all working hard to, you know, make those returns in our investment portfolios. But a key part that's often neglected is long-term tax planning. And so this is our introduction to that because it can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of your career, if not millions, depending on where you're at and how you invest. So with that being said, Wing, I'm going to hand it over to you and let you go at it. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:01:54] Sure. Thank you, Kevin. So Wing, I'm Wing Lim. I'm a family physician based out of Edmonton and I'm a co-founder of Physician Empowerment. And a lot of you know me. Some of you don't. And yeah, so so we're launching a new tax series at our Masterclass. And then today it's kind of like a content page, we'll run over a lot of concepts and it's meant to be an overview. So if there's something that kind of goes over your head, don't worry about it. It probably goes over other people's heads. But then instead of lecturing, we thought, it's better to do interview, right? And so Jason and I went back quite a bit and of all places, we met on a dance floor. And so my wife Katie and I and Jason and his wife, Amy, we were kind of dance classmates. And so it's been a number of years, right, that we knew each other as friends, I liked him right away. He was one of the dance teacher's pet, teacher's pet. The teacher actually said that. And then we became friends. And then a few years later I got stuck with a tax planning issue. I got like a dozen companies and the whole thing looked like a spider web. And it went to a tax accounting firm that was ready to skin me alive in fees. So I was unhappy. And I said, Jason, you're a tax lawyer, aren't you? And that's how we started, right? And he got me out in a pinch and we dove into a lot of really, really neat tax strategies. And then so we like to have a chit-chat, another fireside chat with Jason. So Jason is not just a nice guy on a dance floor. He is also a prominent tax lawyer. So he, I think he started at a prominent tax firm in Edmonton and he jumped into one of the largest tax firm in Canada and he's heading the tax division. He told me that, but Jason, you said you got 98% colleagues, accountants, and you're the 2% that are lawyers? Jason Pisesky: [00:03:46] Yeah. No, that's that's about right. Yeah. It's technically two firms. There's KPMG LLP, which is the accounting side and then KPMG Law, which is where I am. And we are the little brother. But we are becoming more and more important as we kind of stay in the firm longer. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:04:01] Right, so you deal with accountants all day long, right? They present you cases after cases after cases. And most of them are professionals, business owners and including medical doctors, right? Jason Pisesky: [00:04:13] Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And that's one of the reasons I'm at KPMG is for, as you said, one of the biggest shops in Canada, if not the biggest. And yeah, the variety, the depth, the, you know, working with people across the country is fascinating and gets you out of bed in the morning kind of thing. So. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:04:28] Right. So I may have to put some put the brake on if you go on a little bit fast on the professional track, I may need to slow down and have you hey, dumb it down, dumb it down to the MD level, right? Where I heard one thing that we are idiots outside of our own fields, right? So, you know, we're ignorant outside. So we're here to learn. We're here to learn and have some fun. So. Hey, so we're going to talk about some tax hacks, right? So busy professionals. Meaning that we're busy. We're busy. We're making money, right? We're on a treadmill or trading time for money or trading or trading life energy for money. And at the end of the day, we're in a progressive tax system, unlike where I came from, Hong Kong, which is regressive. And so I think we did the math the whole lifetime after overhead and tax, maybe we only take one-third if we're lucky. Right? So that's substantial, right? So let's have some tax hacks for busy medical professionals. And we're not going to be able to cover everything. But as I said, we had a quick chit-chat before today. So let's talk about some easy ones. I know a lot of people have PCs, a lot of people don't have PCs. Right? And so when does it make sense to have a PC? Jason Pisesky: [00:05:41] So the tipping point for medical professionals in particular, for everyone who's kind of entitled to a PC, that's lawyers, accountants, dentists, doctors, normally when you have a corporation, a lot of people do it for the liability shield, right? Limited liability. I can't be sued if the corporation gets in trouble. You know, generally speaking. Professionals don't get that kind of protection. And so for them, really, it is kind of a purely financial decision of when do I need a PC? And that determinant is when you're no longer spending all of your income. The financial incentive for having a PC is called tax deferral, where you get to keep the money in the company paying corporate tax at a lower rate and you take out less and spend it. But there's some left behind. If you are early in your stage in your career or maybe just in a in a field or a stage of your life where you're not earning excess amounts and you're just spending all your earning, then having a PC won't provide much of an advantage for the professional. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:06:40] Yeah, so I'm surprised to hear that one of my neighbors, who's a specialist, and some colleagues, husband and wife, both medical doctors and I'm ten years later, 40 years later, their accountants still said that you don't need a PC, right? That's shocking the money that you left on the table. Right? So then. Yeah. So then how do we do this? Like, should we, once we earn more than we spend, or we budget as such in such a way? What do you do? What's the advantage? What's the advantage of the tax deferral? Jason Pisesky: [00:07:14] So actually, I'm going to tag on to what you just said there first about talking to their other advisor. And you actually said in your opening comments, too, about, you know, we're all only experts in the things that we, of course, spend years studying. We can't know everything. And actually, one of the first tax acts I'd like to highlight is like, surround yourself with the right people, with people to take these tasks off your hands. I'm sure you can allude to it as well. I know tons of professionals of all those stripes, engineers, dentists, doctors, lawyers who, you know, every year come June, they're struggling through TurboTax, trying to figure out their own taxes, collecting receipts, pulling their hair out, just praying they don't get audited by the CRA. And same thing on the legal side of looking after their own minute books and trying to record things and keep everything up to date. And that's not a good use of your time, I would argue. You work hard. You've reached a high level of competency in a very specific set of skills. And what is money but the stored value of time and labor that you can spend to get yourself more time. Jason Pisesky: [00:08:17] And so, yeah, one of the easiest tax acts is hire people to kind of take some of that off your shoulders to do it correctly. Because as I always tell people, you kind of, you pay for it eventually one way or another, you either pay for it a little bit every year or you wait until you're audited by the CRA, or you start to do a transaction and someone's going to buy your PC and you know, they want to see good minute books and financial records and you have to go pay someone probably a lot more than what that would have been annually to catch you up and kind of do almost a forensic audit to figure out what have you been doing for the last 20 years? I have no idea. But they want to see good journal entries and general ledgers for all the money that's come and gone from the corporation. And so for many reasons, the simplest tax hack is kind of offload a good portion of the tax work onto someone else who does deal with it on a daily basis. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:09:04] Yeah, but with that, there's always this XYZ accounting that doesn't change the lesson plan. I liken it to Mrs. Jones, a fictitious Mrs. Jones, that taught Macbeth for 30 years and never changed her lesson plan. Right? You know, like a lot of have one that accountant that I fired because ten years later found that I could have done something ten years for the last past ten years, I could have saved a ton of money. He never mentioned it, right? Jason Pisesky: [00:09:29] Absolutely. And there's no right answer to how do I know if my professional is doing the right thing? And again, hopefully the audience appreciates there's, in medical field, there's differences of opinions of diagnoses and prescriptions and all these things. So I think the answer there is, you know, get someone who you do believe in and kind of comes with perhaps good referrals. But there's nothing wrong with getting second opinions, you know. Maybe every five years or ten years or when you reach a certain milestone, you get married or you have your first kid. I don't think a professional should be offended if you go out and speak to another one just to pick their brain and see what's out there, especially if - and a lot of people don't know or don't like to think about it - but accounting is very much like the medical field in that you have general practitioners, then you have expertise in certain areas. So not every accountant is a tax accountant. And so if you have a more of a general, call it a GP accountant, then there's nothing wrong with going out and speaking to a tax accountant or a tax lawyer to pick their brains. But yes, you had asked me about corporations and the benefits of them. Jason Pisesky: [00:10:33] So say, yeah, you've reached the point where you're earning a certain amount and you're not spending it all. So keeping it in the corporation leads to what I call tax deferral, where you pay a low level of corporate tax, lower than you would pay if you just earned it all personally. So for the first generally call it $500,000, it depends which province you're in, but generally, for the first $500,000, you'll pay a tax rate, again, province dependent, kind of in the range of 12 to 13% or 11, maybe 11 to 15% on that first $500,000 in the company that's left behind after you take salary and dividends. And then after that, it kind of goes up to about, you know, the 23 to 25% range. So, and it doesn't take very much as an individual taxpayer to kind of get up, definitely to get above 13% basically, once you're past your personal credit limit, you're kind of into the 25% range. And then, of course, even comparing to the 23%, it doesn't take much to get above that as an individual for every marginal dollar you earn. So that's the benefit there. You build up that pool of income, lower-taxed income. Of course, if you take it all out, you pay a tax rate that is meant to approximate had all of the money been earned by the individual. Jason Pisesky: [00:11:52] So don't be afraid of, well, what if I am going to yeah, I'm going to be banking an extra 1 or $200,000 in my PC. But what if I need it? Then I'm going to take it out and I'm going to pay personal tax and I'm going to be behind the eight ball? No, generally the system is set up, we call it integration in Canada, where the idea is on the flow through of money, you should end up at the same place as if you'd earned it personally. So all that is to say is when you take the dividends out to recoup the money left behind, you pay a lower rate of tax than you would have if you would just earned a salary on that amount. So the net amount, it's not always perfect, but generally you end up at the same spot if you just kind of flow the money out of the corporation. So you're not, certainly not penalized for having a corporation, but I do hear stories of professionals that have just take all the money out. And so really, you're just paying professional fees and accounting bills and these things to keep the corporation running, but you're not getting the benefit of it. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:12:46] Right. So I guess the conventional wisdom is stuff as much in the PC as possible and then pay you as yourself the least amount. And then just invest, invest, invest, right, within the corp and then you pay the tax when you take it out, when you retire, so to speak. Right? So but is there a reason not to just put all the money, all the investments inside the PC? That it may not be wise? Jason Pisesky: [00:13:13] Definitely. And so PCs are like any corporation. If the PC gets sued, its assets are subject to potential creditors of the PC. So definitely it depends, of course, what field you're in and what you feel your risk of, you know, getting sued, malpractice suit are. Obviously higher in some fields than others. And so in a perfect world, you'd kind of move those investments from the PC earning it into a sister corporation, one that's kind of beside it or a Holdco. It's above it, again, that's province dependent which structure will work best for you. The idea is, is you want to kind of strip those assets out to the side. You can do that in a way generally that you shouldn't be paying income tax on it. Then you set it up in a side corporation and then if the PC gets sued, what does it have? It has its medical license and maybe a couple pieces of equipment and a laptop. That's kind of all you really want exposed in the PC. That said, again, without the shield, the individual, the professional is usually the same thing as the PC. So that's why a lot of professionals, they will like to set up an investment company under their spouse's name, shuffle everything over there to the best you can, and have kind of the growth in the investments grow in the spouse's name who of course should not be sued if you as the professional are. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:14:30] Now so that itself when we cover this thing at the Toronto live conference, a lot of people said, really, I've never heard of it. So lots of people stock everything, real estate, stocks, everything portfolio, everything under the PC. And they never heard of a whole course of how they do that. Can you move money over there tax-free, like you know, it's so confusing for a lot of people. So at what stage should a physician or a professional, right, that say, hey, okay, I'm building up some assets, at what time is it wise to set up a Holdco system under the spouse's name? Jason Pisesky: [00:15:06] Yeah, I'd say once you kind of reach, maybe that - I mean there's no magic number, of course - but once you reach that kind of autopilot moment where, you know, you're married, you've got the house, the kids, are kind of looked after, you've got some college funds set up and you just know like, yeah, every year I've got a certain amount that's going to kind of go there. You know, there's no big renovation bills that we expect to come. We've got new cars. Um, you have to wait till all those things. But it's that point in time where you're just you're starting to every year accumulate a material amount of extra things in the PC, things being investments. Don't collect other things in the PC. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:15:41] For example, don't collect, what, cabins? Jason Pisesky: [00:15:44] Yeah. Cabins in the woods and, you know, a little hobby plane. And generally I would say don't collect those personal use items in the PC. It just kind of leads to a headache. And then if you're using it, you have to charge yourself for its use and without having shareholder benefits and it kind of becomes a mess. So that's definitely a tax hack. Don't have personal items in your corporation's, general advice, even like, Oh, but I'm saving the tax because don't have to take it out personally. But again you have to charge yourself, they're huge audit red flags, CRA loves to go after those things. You know, the company owns a plane and it's not running an airline. And so, you know, have you been charging yourself for the use of that plane every year and all of a sudden you find yourself with penalties and interest. So, generally there are more tax efficient ways to get money out of the corporation, buy the plane, do it outside than to keep it in there and maybe keep it simple. But setting yourself up for a headache down the line. Yeah. The idea is, you know, once you're kind of you're starting to accumulate, you know, into the six figures, maybe approaching seven figures - and again, it depends what field you're in. If you're in a field where maybe you feel, hey, one slip of the scalpel and I'm going to be sued for everything I own, then maybe it's more prudent to be more aggressive on stripping things out of the PC early on. If you feel you're in a relatively peaceful practice where the odds of something going horrifically wrong are lower, then again, maybe you can let it build up a little longer because then you don't have to, you know, incur the professional fees to set up the structure and peel things off to the side. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:17:12] Well, for most practicing professionals in Canada, we have this thing called CMPA, the Canadian Medical Protective Association. So I don't know the ceiling, but most of the malpractice suits are covered by them. But other liabilities, if you have a clinic, somebody slip outside that is not, your CMPA ain't going to cover that. Right? Especially for those who stuff all the real estate condos and all that inside the PC. They definitely can sue your PC, right? And that's when you say that it's better to strip those assets outside of your PC and into a sister court, right? Jason Pisesky: [00:17:48] Yeah. And without the risk of maybe getting into too much detail, it probably never hurts to really early on set up a side sister corporation to do the investment, again under a spouse's name, because you can always move some assets over without doing more complex steps. Because the professional will probably generally always be exposed to the initial earnings. You know, you earn an extra 100 grand. There's kind of a sort of gifting it to your spouse, which can lead to other problems, that hundred grand is always in your head. What you want to move is the growth. Over a 30 year career, that 100 grand is going to turn into, what, a multiple of 16 or 20? I don't know what, you know, your standard investment advisor will tell you that'll turn into over a career, but what you want to move over is that growth over to the spouse. So yeah, you can just have the PC loan it over to that sister corp. Sister corps invests it and the benefit goes to the spouse and then that initial $100,000 is at risk. And then again, there's a way to kind of clean that up down the line with some tax planning. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:18:46] Right now, let me just dovetail on that. So there are people who advise that, oh, for some provinces at least, the spouse can be inside a PC. So should the spouse be, if the spouse has a Holdco on the outside, should the spouse be still part of the PC? Jason Pisesky: [00:19:01] I would say generally, yes. If there's always a personal element to it, you never want the tax to, uh, to put the tax cart before the wagon for the horse. Sorry. But all else being equal, it definitely doesn't hurt to have the spouse in there. Yes, there are income splitting rules, which can mean maybe there's no immediate benefit to it, but if there's ever a sale of the company, then certainly there can be benefits to having that spouse be a shareholder. There may be ways, some tax planning available to, you know, get the spouse some income and some benefits without falling afoul of those income splitting rules. And kind of a third reason is, oh it's jumped out of my head. Sorry. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:19:46] Well while you are thinking... Jason Pisesky: [00:19:49] Future sale annual. Oh, and once - sorry - once you reach the retirement age, 64 or 65, then you can income split with that spouse out of the company. So, playing the long game and they kind of need to have to accrued value. You can't just add them as a shareholder when you're 64 or 65, you know, they have to build up value and you only do that by having them be a shareholder for a long period of time. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:20:11] Right. So while you're on that topic, I think we should spend a couple, maybe a minute on tax on split income, but as of 2017, CRA has a much stricter definition and a lot of people fall in traps to that. So can you highlight a few of those things for us so that we get a good reminder slap on the upside of the head? Jason Pisesky: [00:20:31] Yeah. And it's probably just, I'll give kind of a broad overview of the rules and that's maybe as far as we'll go because they're, yeah, I mean they could... I've given whole day, you know, eight-hour courses on TOSI before. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:20:42] No not that, not that. Jason Pisesky: [00:20:44] Yeah. They are a thing on their own. So the idea of TOSI is, is that again what was happening in the market was people were adding, you know, their spouses, kids, nieces, nephews to corporations and paying them dividends. And then over the age of majority, there used to be rules blocking it for minors, and then basically just expanded those rules. So the idea is, is that they don't want people who are related to the main business person driving the business in the company, to get kind of, to pull out money from the company as dividends if they aren't also involved in the business. That's kind of the most simple explanation of the TOSI rules. We call it tax on split income, with split income being the bad type of income that's being split. So yeah, what will happen is people will, well what was happening is you'd have your spouse and your university-age kids as shareholders of the PC and then, you know, you're paying out dividends to them, you know, to a spouse who was probably a little bit more maybe, you know, 2, 300 grand to use up all of their lower brackets. But, you know, I think that would save you about $40,000 in tax if that all went to the professional spouse earning income at the highest bracket, probably a little lower, maybe just tuition fees plus some living expenses for the university kid. Jason Pisesky: [00:21:56] But that's kind of all been cut off now. So you'd have to either have them be kind of getting capital gains or kind of wait for a sale to get the advantage, although that's kind of a good dovetail into sometimes you actually don't want your spouse to be a shareholder. If your spouse is a professional doing their own thing or they have their own company, you may not want them to be a shareholder because that may, if you both have your own corporation doing your own thing, you'll both get your own small business deduction. That first 500,000 that's taxable at that relatively low rate, low teens. But if you start to have each person being a shareholder in the other one's company, then you can, you'll have to share that 500,000 limit. And so again, very personal decision, not just are you comfortable with your spouse being a shareholder, the non-voting shareholder in your PC? Dr. Wing Lim: [00:22:51] So let me highlight this thing. The tax hacks is not just what to do, but what not to do. Right? So I think the takeaway is don't pay your spouse a dividend that is not commensurate with what they actually working, their actual contribution. Right? And my accountant says he has seen a lot of the clients, like you say, pay the spouse a few hundred thousand dollars without even showing up at the clinic at all. And those would be dinged. Right? It just pays tons of money to the kids under the age 25, and that's why it cuts off at 25, right below 25. You should not do the dividend to your kids, right? Jason Pisesky: [00:23:31] Yeah. And then, but again, hack tax, salary. You should be able to pay a reasonable salary to your spouse as long as there's some justification for it. If they're doing the bookkeeping, if they're helping doing some of the admin side of the practice, usually accountants will feel comfortable kind of 40, 60,000. And honestly, that soaks up most of the benefit for the income splitting. You don't, again going up to the I think it's like 340, 350,000 to get to the top bracket. Yeah, 80% of that benefit comes from paying someone you know under a hundred grand kind of thing is where all that income splitting benefit comes from, getting their personal tax credit and using the 25% tax bracket instead of the up into the high 40s or low 50s. So yeah, salary, it's just subject to a reasonableness test as opposed to the TOSI rules which are much more explicit and bright-line tests that are much easier for them to attack. You also have to, again, you have to kind of have really good records to feel, for your accountant to feel comfortable wading into the TOSI realm of dividends and are they justified, whereas salary, it's a reasonableness test. Your downside is just denial of the deduction in the company, whereas for TOSI your downside is kind of high rate income for the individual and you've already paid the tax in the company because dividends are paid by after-tax money. So you've already given up that. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:24:50] So to recap, so this hack is if you want an income split with your spouse and your kids, then pay them a salary instead of a dividend. But does it, is it...? Jason Pisesky: [00:25:01] Basically find a way to feel like you can fit into the salary rules which are generally more lenient and well-established. The problem is also TOSI is, you said 2017, there's no court cases on it. There's a million conflicting CRA opinions on it. Whereas you know, the reasonability of deductions for salary and things, tons of cases, really well-established rules. They've been around for decades and decades. So yeah, we kind of, we know how to guide you through those rules a lot better, right? You don't want to be the first person in Canada to go to court on the TOSI rules. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:25:33] Don't want to be the famous one. Jason Pisesky: [00:25:34] That's the tax act. Try to not be the first person in court on a specific issue. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:25:38] Right. Have your name on this, the state versus you. Okay. Jason Pisesky: [00:25:42] Yeah, be referenced as that case going forward forever. Yeah. It's great if it works, it's great if it works, then you're known as, you know, that case becomes your calling card. But. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:25:53] Right. Let's pivot a little bit to talk about, since we're on the topic of salary versus dividend, T4 versus T5. Right? So there are a lot of strategies, right? Some are conflicting. Some say, okay, do nothing but T5 to draw dividend. But then there's some strategies like RSP and IPPs, you need a T4 to build a route. So can you highlight T4 versus T5 salary versus dividends? What's the pros and cons? Jason Pisesky: [00:26:19] Yeah. And so this is a great one where, kind of circling back to that hack about, again, having someone to help explain this to you every year, because it will be an annual decision, especially if you're sending some T4 salary income to a spouse. Again, figuring out what the right mix is for your family. So as I said at one point, kind of that concept of integration in Canada where we, you know, the government wants you to be indifferent for earning that dollar through the corporation or personally. So if you earn $100,000 in the PC and you pay $100,000 salary, well, you get a deduction in the company for $100,000, and then the person pays the personal tax. Dividend, if you earn $100,000, the company pays corporate tax on it and then it uses the residual and pays a dividend and you kind of end up at the same spot. So the big one is, is for T4 income, you're going to be subject to CPP. There's a related party exception for EI, there's not for CPP, so you're going to have to pay the employer and personal half of the CPP. So that's just a kind of a little bit of leakage, tax leakage. Jason Pisesky: [00:27:25] At the same time, you do gain access to the RSP, the individual pension plan, IPP. I believe that's going to be talked about in a later webinar, Wing, so I won't dive into that. Plus, it's very, again, you get a whole day course on IPPs if you so wish and all the modelling and that goes into those. So it's a personal decision. It's an annual decision. There's no right answer to, you know, I can't tell you oh, you always take this. I think it depends on what you value. Some people really value RRSPs and IPPs and building up those kind of after-tax pools that they'll take out later in retirement. Some people will say, you know what, I want all my money tax paid. I want to know I can access it at any point in time. And that's what they value. And so, but there are definitely things to consider, and it's not just a well, just I'll just do this one because someone told me to do that one. It's, it warrants consideration every year. Yeah. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:28:21] Right on. Okay. So let's move over to a couple more topics or strategies. So what about this trust, family trust and whatnot? We're thinking of a retirement or upon death or the corporate assets would be deemed disposed. Right? So and it may not be free from liabilities. So what about trust, family trust? Is there still a place in it because the government was trying to castrate it? Up to 2017. Jason Pisesky: [00:28:50] Absolutely. Trusts were definitely one of the things targeted in those 2017 new anti-income splitting rules. That said, I still think there's a strong place for them in kind of a well-rounded, high-net-worth family plan. I am in the process of settling a handful of them and I do tens of them every year, I help people set them up because they absolutely do. As with a lot of things you don't always want, again, tax to drive the conversation. So trusts are great, they do offer again another layer of creditor protection. They allow you to introduce people to the ownership structure without actually giving them direct legal rights over shares, which may lead to oppression remedies in court and, you know, entitlement to financial statements and rights to vote on certain things, even if they're non-voting shares. You kind of cut all that out with the trust. And you also don't have to, they're kind of maybe shareholders when they're through the trust, right? Maybe they'll get a dividend, maybe they won't. Maybe you'll transfer shares out of the trust to them, maybe you won't. So that flexibility is what a lot of people are interested in the trust. The two big ones for tax are again, flowing dividends out, generally not going to lead to much tax advantage in a trust. The big ones are a potential sale. What might we be able to sell in the future? Then the capital gains deduction, that's the tax-sheltered, you know, almost $1 million right now. Jason Pisesky: [00:30:13] You might be able to access the beneficiaries of the trusts' capital gains deductions and shelter several millions of dollars using those. You may also be able to do some planning with the trust to flow out some type of income. Generally involves more steps, a lot of prep work involved, but there can be advantages to that. And then you also have the advantage to, in the future, transfer shares to the individuals. We talk about this a lot in some other industries. Farming is a big one where, okay, you now know who the farming kids are. You can transfer shares to them. Probably not as pertinent that one for medical professionals. But at the same time, a family trust can help you avoid some estate tax, depending on when the family trust is put in your life. Of course, when an individual dies, they're deemed to dispose of all their capital property, which can result in a capital gain. The family trust outlives the creator's death. And so that can be avoided depending on when the family trust is put into place. So there's lots of advantages, many of them non-tax, many of them tax. So, and again, it depends which province you're in too, and who is allowed to be a beneficiary of a trust. So very personalized decision. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:31:23] Right. So trusts are definitely a very valid tool. It has to be customized to your needs. But then I think most are only what, 21 years, the lifespan of a trust? Jason Pisesky: [00:31:35] So a trust can live, they can they can outlive 21 years. And so like, I think BC has a hard 80-year rule maximum. Many of the other provinces again it's 21 years past everyone who's kind of involved in the trust be them the creator, the trustee or the beneficiary. So that can be your longest-lived person, is one years old and they live to 90. You get another 111 years, kind of, it's how long a trust. For tax purposes, so I said that rule of, hey, when you die, you're deemed to dispose of all your property. Parliament wised up pretty quickly to the fact that trusts they could live for 100 years. We don't like that. And so they decided on 21 years, which is, you know, about the span of a generation, maybe not so much when families are getting created a little bit later in life now, but the idea that trusts live for 21 years and then they also go through a deemed death, dispose of all their property, and then they can continue on for another 21 years, do the same thing. So in tax conversations we generally say trusts, yes, they live for 21 years because at that point you're going to have to decide should we do a tax-deferred rollout of the property to the people? Should we eat the tax bill and keep it in there? Should we do some other planning to manage this event that happens in 21 years? So I'd say rule of thumb, I don't see many trusts outliving 21 years. So yeah, 21 years is kind of your starting point for looking at a trust. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:32:57] Right. And then at what point, like would a practicing professional contemplate, Wow, this is I've got a PC, I've got my sister Holdco, at what point should they contemplate on family trust? Jason Pisesky: [00:33:10] So the benefit of the family trust is accruing value into other people's hands. So I'd say for a medical professional, you don't want to start it too early, I guess is the thing. You don't want to, you know, get out of med school in your late 20s or early 30s and then settle it and then your 21 years happens kind of around 50 when maybe you're still practicing. And so probably maybe five, ten years into your career, maybe even 15. Once you're established, you know what field you're working in. You have your clinic or, you know, your kind of day-to-day routines and where your money's coming from. And that's when you, again, you'll have that growing investment pool and you can do more of the setting up the structure in the right spots. And just because yeah, the succession planning piece isn't as much, generally you're not going to have a kid take over your PC. Maybe it'll happen. Not impossible, but not the same way you have, you know, someone who's running the general store, you know, their kid may take over it, or a farm, where again, it's that succession planning piece and then maybe you where a sale is possible, you kind of want it in as early as possible. Jason Pisesky: [00:34:11] So if we have, you know, professionals here who are in a field where they think, hey, I may be able to sell this within 21 years, that's the other concern. So if you're just looking at building it up and trying to get into retirement with it, yeah, a little later in life. If you're in a field where you think I may be selling this corporation, earlier is better. Dentists in particular sell their practices quite a bit. We're seeing it more and more in other medical professions as they start to consolidate debt. People are buying medical PCs and dental PCs. And so if you feel that is a game plan for you, then earlier is better because you can then grow more value into the family trust. Which is the ultimate goal: to shift as much value out of your hands into the trust hands. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:34:59] Wow. Okay. So there's a lot there. So now I'm aware of the time. So one last thing I want to go back to a few times you mentioned this lifetime capital gains exemption, and I know a lot of my colleagues have never heard of this phrase. So can you expound on that a little bit? And how much, what close to a million, like, and how do we take advantage of it? Jason Pisesky: [00:35:17] Sure. So the lifetime capital gains exemption, the idea being parliament created this thing to incentivize people to start and grow businesses in Canada. If you do that, you can sell the shares and if certain conditions are met, you get shelter on the first portion of the capital gains. Currently, it's $971,000. It's indexed to inflation. So it kind of goes up call it 15, $20,000 a year. So it'll be over a million if not next year, the year after. And so that'll save you in the realm of $240,000 in tax for everybody who can claim it. So again, if you're the only shareholder of your company and you sell and there's a $5 million gain, you're going to have, you know, shelter on the first million, call it, and then 4 million subject to full rate capital gains tax of, you know, in the realm of 25%. Depending on your province. Whereas if you have a family, if you have a spouse who's a shareholder, that's great. You got two cracks at it. If you've got a family trust with some kids in it, maybe you've got 3, 4 or 5 cracks at the capital gains deduction. And so the conditions that need to be met for it, there's three. Again, without diving into too much detail, there's the you have to own the corporation for, no unrelated person can own the shares for a 2 year period 24 months before the sale. For the 24 months before the sale, more than 50% of the assets have to be used actively in the business carried on in Canada. And then at the time of sale, it has to be 90% pure. So 50% for the two years before, 90% at time of sale. Jason Pisesky: [00:36:55] And so that's another benefit of either having a side investment corp or a family trust. They can help you take money out of the PC to keep it pure is generally the word used in tax. Purification, removing these surplus extra assets, cash, investment portfolios. Again, if you don't listen to my advice, your cottage and your - what else did I say - your plane, putting them somewhere else so that when time of sale comes, you don't have to do a bunch of extra steps. You're already pure, you know you're good on that 50% test. I have seen people skating very close to the 50% test, and it kind of comes down to what was that investment worth on that date? Okay, we're good. We're good on the 50% test. You don't want that stress. So moving assets somewhere else helps you meet those tests. And then, yeah, you get that big benefit if you get the sale, which again, I think is becoming more and more common. So. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:37:46] Yeah. I think the take-home message is don't, you got to think of this ahead of time. Because I have friends who got caught or partners got caught, they want to retire this year, they have a sale. Somebody, be lucky enough somebody would buy them out, oh they didn't purify the 90/10 rule. Right? And they didn't do the 50/50 rule, T-24 months. Right? They didn't do it. So they kiss that money away, right? That tax exemption. Right? So yeah. Jason Pisesky: [00:38:12] Yeah. No. And again, circling back to that initial point that I said is one of the most key is, again surrounding yourself with people that you trust. And that's kind of the point of this whole group, right, is having that network of people who have your back so you can go do what you're good at to earn money. Because I've also had clients come to me and say, Hey, I've got a, you know, I've got a pharmacy, I've got someone's coming in and offering me, you know, 8 million bucks for my couple of pharmacies. And that's great. I've heard a lot about these family trusts. I've got young kids. Can I put a family trust in? It's like, well, no, it's too late, you have to put the family trust in earlier so value grows in the family trust. And so, like with many of these plans, the, you know, it's sowing seeds. The benefits come earlier sometimes, like the case with the trust there's quite literally nothing we can do. Passage of time, I can't go back in time and put it in place. Some of these, the purifications, there are steps that can be done. It's just more expensive and time-consuming if we're able to do it to kind of get you back on side to meet that 90% test. If you're floating around like 50%, then it's quite a bit of work to get you to 90. So if you're, if you've done a good job and you're at 85%, then boom, nice and easy to get you to 90, you know, one small dividend and you're on side and off you go and you sell and you get your big benefit. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:39:27] Right on. Okay. I think Kevin is bringing the big stick. We can go on for hours. But this... Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:39:32] So a huge thanks to Jason for being here this evening. You know, every time we have you on, every time we, you know, have you speak to our group, there's just more and more information that shakes out. And we're learning very quickly that pretty much the only thing you cannot do, Jason, is travel back in time. But it seems like you're able to do a whole bunch else. So we're so glad to have you participating with Physician Empowerment because this is what Canadian physicians need. They need long-term tax planning that goes far more than just filling up your RSP. So there is one question, though, that I wanted to bring forward here while we, while we're still recording the episode, and then we'll open it up afterwards to the group because we got a big group tonight. The big one is, the question I've got is, what is the net worth level in which a family trust will make sense? Is there any kind of rule of thumb or general guidance? Jason Pisesky: [00:40:24] No, it is. It is, I think it depends. You've got your two streams of people. You've got your ones who think, hey, I'm going to be able to sell this business, I'm in one of the fields that's getting consolidated or think it's going to be ripe for consolidation or maybe, again, I'm running my own clinic and I've got buildings and these other things that, again, someone's going to want to buy. Then early, early is better as soon as you can kind of viably see like, yeah, I'm on a good trajectory here. Things are established. I've got my necessities looked after. That's when the family trust I think makes sense, when you're, as long as the sale is within 21 years is kind of what you're looking for. Beyond that, if you're looking for more of the kind of family management succession planning tool, again, the goal is to shift as much money into the trust as you can because you can always pull money out of the trust yourself too. Well, it depends which province you're in and yadda yadda. Some of them, the only beneficiary of the trust can be children. Jason Pisesky: [00:41:20] And so again, that needs to be something you're prepared for if you're in a province where the rule is only children, you have to make sure that you've left enough shares in your hand that you'll continue to be able to pull out dividends and accrue value. So unfortunately, no direct rule of thumb, it is how am I going to use this? Who are my beneficiaries? How many kids do I have? Do I have no kids? What are the rules in my province around who's allowed to be in this trust? Can I have companies be our beneficiaries? If you're in a, if you're in a province where corporations are allowed to be shareholders of a PC or of a trust, you're golden. That's awesome. Some of them are extremely restrictive. So I think would just draw a line for you. And if you think you're going to sell within 21 years, you're a great candidate almost no matter what your net worth is. Past that, it's quite a hodgepodge and you kind of have to sit down and really hash out what the next 21 years look like for you. Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:42:13] Okay. So there's a lot there. There's a reason why you're working full time navigating the tax system and we're very grateful. Thank you for your time. For anybody that's struggling with this, because it felt like drinking from the fire hose for me tonight. By all means, reach out to us because this is what we're doing in the master class. We are breaking down all of these topics and we're starting our next hack series coming up next month. But everything's recorded and you have access to our faculty, you have access to Wing for sort of one on one discussions. So with that being said, I think we're going to wrap it up. Wing, do you have any closing comments? Dr. Wing Lim: [00:42:50] Well, I'm going to say that there's certainly things you should not do with DIY. If you do DIY, you do DYI - you do yourself in. So tax is just one of those. I have people take time off work and do their own books. Like how smart is that, right? You know, but then yeah, so, we're here to empower you, right? It's peer-to-peer empowerment. Empower you to ask smarter questions, to ask your advisors smarter questions, and get smarter advisors for some people. Right? If you have outgrown your advisors and like Jason says, it doesn't hurt to have a second opinion. Right? And so yeah, so little plug is in a couple of weeks time we start a masterclass series. For those of you enrolled, so we'll have faculty members teach this third year of Masterclass. So first year Kevin taught, second year I taught, third year I teach co-teach with the faculty member like Jason, all the other high-level professionals that came and worked with us. Yeah. So and I would love to see all of you at Masterclass if we can. Right? And then we'll break down in different topics and then we'll spend a few months doing that and then we'll do some case studies. Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:43:55] Awesome. Thank you again. Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:43:58] Thank you so much for listening to the Physician Empowerment podcast. If you're ready to take those next steps in transforming your practice, finances or personal well-being, then come and join us at PhysEmpowerment.ca - P H Y S Empowerment dot ca - to learn more about how we can help. If today's episode resonated with you, I'd really appreciate it if you would share our podcast with a colleague or friend and head over to Apple Podcasts to give us a five-star rating and review. If you've got feedback, questions or suggestions for future episode topics, we'd love to hear from you. If you want to join us and be interviewed and share some of your story, we'd absolutely love that as well. Please send me an email at KMailo@PhysEmpowerment.ca. Thank you again for listening. Bye.

The Supreme Court's ruling on Vriend v. Alberta has impacted the lives of countless 2SLGBTQI+ people. Not just in Alberta, not just in Canada, but around the globe. In this episode we look at the ripple effect Vriend v. Alberta has had over the past 25 years since first making its splash at the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench in Edmonton. We also return to where this story began, and look at how The King's University has worked to address its complicated legacy as ground zero for the court case that brought equality to Alberta's and Canada's 2SLGBTQI+ communities. Welcome […]

The Supreme Court of Canada granted Delwin Vriend's legal team the leave to appeal Justice McClung's ruling in the Alberta Court of Appeal. As the team arrived in Ottawa, the excitement and tension was palpable. It was their last shot to compel the Government of Alberta to include “sexual orientation” as  protected ground in the Province's human rights legislation. In this episode, we take a deep dive into Sheila Greckol's opening argument and visit a few of the submissions from the many interveners who spoke in support of Delwin's case. This would conclude the first half of the hearing before […]

Dr. Wing Lim takes the lead in interviewing KPMG tax lawyer Jason Pisesky. Jason explains the specialties of a tax lawyer, how they operate with accountants, and how tax lawyers like himself benefit incorporated physicians with their knowledge. Jason will also be part of the roundtable AMA at the May 6 and 7 Toronto conference. Dr. Lim actually met Jason Pisesky in a personal capacity before working with him - they met at a dance class. Wing says this is the benefit of meeting professionals and staying in contact, sometimes in the future you realize you need a person with specific expertise and you already have someone to contact. Wing talks about his personal experiences working with Jason and asks Jason to share his insight on taxation law. In this episode, Wing Lim and Jason Pisesky examine exactly how lawyers become specialists in taxation law. Jason details how familiarity with tax strategies leads him to new ways of benefiting clients, the differences in liability between accountants and lawyers, the cost analysis of hiring a tax lawyer versus ROI, and what tax laws have changed since 2017 that directly impact professionals like physicians. Jason's knowledge is profound and very applicable to doctors today. About Jason PiseskyJason's practice covers a broad spectrum of taxation law matters including corporate, personal, farm and estate tax planning as well as representation in dispute resolution and litigation mattersJason joined KPMG in January 2021. Prior to starting at KPMG, he spent over six years working at a leading western Canadian boutique tax law firm. Jason has experience in both the tax dispute and tax planning for both personal and corporate taxpayers.Jason has worked with small and medium-sized owner managed operations to reorganize structures in a tax efficient manner, acting as counsel for vendors and purchasers in arm's length deals as well as families in the midst of related party estate and succession planning. He has argued on behalf of taxpayers in many contexts and obtained favourable results for taxpayers from auditors, appeals officers and lawyers at the Department of Justice. Jason has appeared before the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench.Resources Discussed in this Episode:Save the Date for May 6-7, 2023 in TorontoJason Pisesky on LinkedInKPMGTOSI—Physician Empowerment: website | facebook | linkedin __TranscriptDr. Kevin Mailo: [00:00:01] Hi, I'm Dr. Kevin Mailo and you're listening to the Physician Empowerment Podcast. At Physician empowerment we're focused on transforming the lives of Canadian physicians through education in finance, practice transformation, wellness and leadership. After you've listened to today's episode, I encourage you to visit us at PhysEmpowerment.ca - that's P H Y S Empowerment dot ca - to learn more about the many resources we have to help you make that change in your own life, practice and personal finances. Now on to today's episode. Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:00:34] All right. Hi, everyone. I'm Doctor Kevin Mailo, one of the co-founders of Physician Empowerment. And today we've got Dr. Wing Lim, another co-founder, interviewing Jason Pisesky. And Jason is a tax lawyer with KPMG. And the three of us go back a number of years, but today's topic is probably going to be one of our best, one of our most relevant and very unique because this is not something you typically find when you sit down with your accountant, your financial planner, or even your regular lawyer. And what Jason is going to be doing is getting interviewed by Wing as they go through different aspects of tax law and why this applies to incorporated physicians and why everybody should be consulting with tax lawyer as we go through our financial lives. And so with that being said, I think I'm going to step back. I'm going to let you, Wing, go for it and let's get started. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:01:33] Okay sure. Yeah. Welcome, everyone. And so, yeah, I'm Dr. Wing Lim. I'm one of the co-founders of Physician Empowerment. And so this webinar series slash podcast, because every webinar will be reincarnated as podcast and I'm working on still the proper motto, but we interview interesting people on interesting topics that will impact physicians' lives, will help physicians live better lives. And with that, Kevin, I'm reminded me to put a plug in May 6th and 7th. Make sure you guys register for that. This year it's going to be Dynamo and May 6 and 7, it's going to be jam packed with information. And we're actually going to invite Jason in Sunday, the 7th, as part of the panel discussion. And it's basically roundtable AMA, ask me anything about, well, planning and whatnot. So Jason and I went back a while back. So this is supposed to be a fireside chat, sorry, I couldn't find a fireside background. And Jason, as you can tell, is a really lovely dude and he doesn't have a big ego, unlike most other tax lawyers I've met. And so actually I met Jason probably five years before we talked on a professional basis. So I met Jason on a dance floor of all places. And why would we meet on a dance floor? Because it's one of those life up to 50, what are you going to do when you turn 50? And my wife says, Let's go dance and it took her only four years for me to say yes and dance like Pinocchio. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:03:07] And my kids corrected me and say, No, Dad, Pinocchio can dance. Okay, I stand corrected. I can't even dance like Pinocchio. And that's where we met at Dance lesson. Right? And so we had a lot of fun in the class. And then a number of years later, Jason, how much of that do you remember? I was kind of stuck in a spot, right? And I was doing major corporate reorg in a few tax strategies. And we hired a tax lawyer. No, sorry. Yes, we hired tax lawyer through a specific accountant who trapped himself as the tax accountant. And then we were just stuck because the building was crazy. What they proposed was ridiculous in terms of price, and they're not very honest with their pricing with the billing practice. And then anyways, I turned over to to Jason and said, Jason, I think you're a tax lawyer, right? And then we went and turned on the file and Jason and his group, there was a top tax firm and they revamped a bunch of things and I got up really, really happy. So that's how we met. Hey, Jason, how much of that do you recall? Jason Pisesky: [00:04:10] I remember most of it, although, yeah, it's now been I think I've stopped dancing because of COVID in late 2020. Obviously shut down because of COVID and then started doing private lessons just with, you know, 2 or 3 people in the room at a distance. But yeah, now it's been probably two years since I've been dancing, so you need to get back to that. Yeah. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:04:30] Yeah, it's been a while. Yeah. And then so the topic today is why, when do I need a tax lawyer. Right? So let me maybe prep something for everyone - everyone dialing in or future podcast listeners - we all, most of us are incorporated. And even if you're not, you're still a provider. You will have an accountant, you will have a lawyer. And isn't that enough? Right? Why would we ever need a tax lawyer unless we get audited? I think that's the everyday doctor's first notion of it. And so, and I reached a point because as you know, when you build your businesses and of course I do a lot of entrepreneurial stuff and real estate, so each time you start a venture, you start a company. So before you know it, I've literally have a spider web of so many corporations. I think by the time I brought it to Jason, I have about 8 to 12 companies and every year there's just money flying everywhere and it's just become bonkers, right? And my accountant can't even keep track. And actually one of my ex bookkeeper made a six figure mistake in these loans, and it would have been a disaster. So we said we need to simplify, right? And then we built a strategy to have a family trust. We did major reorg. There was pipeline, there was a few strategies we're doing and then so we just needed somebody to clean it up and have a look in from the tax code, right? So, Jason, when you encounter professionals, business owners, especially doctors included, why do they come to you? Jason Pisesky: [00:06:04] Yeah, so, and that's a great kind of summary of how people often do come to us is, you know, the structure has just grown to a level of complexity where it's hard to keep track of and it's good to have even just a second set of eyes to look at it, at where you've ended up. So you definitely hit the nail on the head of the easy answer of when the tax lawyer comes in, is when a dispute comes in. That's definitely a subset of tax lawyers. I, small mix of my practice, I do spend more time on the planning side, which is, of course, where I met you, so on the planning side, it's kind of a mix of tax lawyers, we kind of exist in the middle between the accountants and lawyers because tax for both of them is a specialty. I think people kind of inherently know that for lawyers, you know, you have family lawyers, criminal lawyers, real estate lawyers, litigation lawyers. I think sometimes people don't realize that with accountants, not every accountant is a tax accountant. There's auditors, there's evaluators, there's compliance people, there's all different kinds of accounting. And even amongst taxation, there's different kinds. There's indirect taxation - ie GST - international, there's M&A tax, there's domestic, international, US, all these different types of tax too. Jason Pisesky: [00:07:20] So I think people, first of all, need to kind of appreciate that, that not every accountant knows exactly the same things and what to look out for in every type of file. So, and that's a good thing about tax lawyers is we kind of exist in that middle ground and where a lot of people come to us, and kind of it was your experience of, you know, you may have an accountant who is not a tax specialist who needs that tax expertise and they'll come to a tax lawyer because we're very non-threatening, am not going to take anyone's accounting work. I'm not an accountant. I don't want to do your financial statements and bookkeeping and all that stuff. I want to help with the tax side of things. By the same token, you may also have an accountant who is really strong in tax. There are lots of them and they may be doing something complex and your lawyer may not feel comfortable doing that and assisting with that. Right? They might be a general practitioner or just a corporate lawyer who doesn't do very much in tax. And so they feel that, you know, the transactions are sufficiently tax motivated. You know, you want to make sure you do it right so you don't trip up with Canada Revenue Agency. Jason Pisesky: [00:08:25] And so they, again, bring in a tax lawyer specialist side to assist on the the lawyer side, the corporate side, to make sure things are done correctly and with the code. And that kind of circles back to the point of - and I'll use the analogy, I think everyone here is probably a doctor everyone's familiar with, you know, the GP, right, for medical practitioners, and in order to speak to a specialist, you have to go to your GP first. You know, if you want to talk to a heart or a brain specialist, you have to get referred to them, at least in our province. That's not the case with tax lawyers, or accountants and lawyers, I should say, generally. And that was your experience, right? You wanted a second opinion. You didn't have to go back to your, you know, your general practitioner and wait 6 to 9 months. You were able to pick up the phone or meet me on the dance floor and say, Jason, I want a second opinion here. Can you give me one? Which is, and there is a sizable amount of work to do, just kind of pick up the phone and say, Hey, I'm not sure things are right or I just want a second set of eyes or, and what also happens when you do have an accountant or a lawyer who's the GP type and there's certainly nothing wrong with it, having a GP for an accountant lawyer is great. The job is to just issue spot and again make those referrals. Sometimes you disagree though, but sometimes GP's can also be on the more conservative side because if they're not super deep into the tax things, they can be put off by maybe advanced strategies and say, Ah, it's too complex. I don't understand where the win is there. Why would we do that? Let's keep it simple. Um, so yeah, being able to just pick up the phone and talk to a specialist if you've heard, you know, a great idea on this, on these webinars or this podcast, you say, you know, Wing's telling me that this is a good idea, I want to explore it, and your accountant kind of maybe has never heard of it before or is afraid to try it. Then again, talk to me directly and then I can kind of speak to your accountant to explain it to them myself or another tax lawyer, of course, can kind of explain it to them and get them onside and make them feel comfortable with it. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:10:21] Yeah, so let's dwell there a little bit because I've got a few horror stories to share. Um, yeah, so I have some colleagues - I'm in a partnership - and I've deliberately planned for them to retire gracefully, right? I know, I tell people I'm not a tax lawyer, I'm not an accountant, I'm a doctor, but I know enough just to be dangerous. Right? So we structure our company carefully so that when they retire, they can be bought out and take advantage of the lifetime capital gains exemption. And then to do that, you need to purify your company. That's another concept. Sorry, guys, we just throw these things out because they are relevant but we will delve into them later on. So actually, definitely by the end you'll know how valuable Jason is. Jason will be coming back. And actually I'm drumming up something called a tax series that I want to have Jason come in on a podcast level. Right? And I'm thinking like tax hacks for busy physicians, something like that. And we'll dive into a few of these. Yeah, so anyways, and so ten years came and gone and their accountant says oh no you don't need to purify, purification is for people who are dead. So, what? And so a lot of, we find out a lot of accountants are so risk averse, right, and so compared to them like how do you see, it's the same tax code, right? How do you guys see it differently than the average GP accountant? Jason Pisesky: [00:11:49] Um, I think it just comes with that experience. I mean, I, from practically day one that I kind of stepped out of law school and right into a tax law firm, I was doing kind of the advanced strategies and that is definitely an advantage of the lawyer side where the career of an accountant is much longer to get to doing tax practice. You know, you've got to spend a couple of years just grinding through audits, usually at a big four accounting firm. Then you enter as a specialist, they're called. Then you have to slowly work your way up. Then you have to take the tax specialist program put on by the Tax Foundation. And then you have to switch to your tax group. So to become a tax specialist in accounting sometimes takes ten, 15 years and then they start to work on, oh, I want to roll over some assets, I want to do an estate freeze, I want to, again, these kind of more routine transactions, whereas again, kind of right out of law school while I was still articling, the first thing that kind of appeared on my desk was some of these strategies. And so I think just that familiarity with them and kind of a good understanding of the risk levels just because from day one that's what I've been working with. The familiarity of them I think is probably biggest one. And yeah. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:13:03] Yeah. So to finish the story, so my partners eventually, one got bought out, one did not, the one got bought out because the passive income was too good, stock market was too good. They ended up with losing this small business deduction and ended up with 53% tax bracket. And accounting just gladly says right a tax and and this guy makes a lot of money, so that year was $530,000 of tax. I would have thrown up. Right? So, and the other guy did not listen. Finally there's a time to be bought out and this guy did not purify the company, so he said no. And then the chance is gone. Now the company has no money to buy him out. And then I met another lady - so I think I send that person to to Jason - so the husband died, right? And unfortunate, so this is a fresh widow. And the husband got bought out by the company. And except the money was given to the kids and my friend was given a tax bill. And so because, again, did not do it right, did not purify, did not do the lifetime capital gains exemption. So this poor widow, fresh widow, apart from morning and running the funeral, was told by her accountant, say, did your husband invest in something? There's a T5 for $400,000 and now you have a tax bill of $200,000 due in two months. It's just such a horror story. Right? And so she didn't see the money, but she has to cough up 200 grand. And if she's not liquid enough, then she would have been in trouble, right? You know. So do you see horror stories like these, Jason? You must have seen some of these. Jason Pisesky: [00:14:55] Absolutely. And I mean, the hope is always that you can turn the horror story around because not a small portion of the practice comes from people who, oh, I've built this business over the last 20 years, I'm ready to retire, I just got this offer in the mail, help me structure this for sale. And it's well, again, often we can help, but it is usually more complex and expensive when you're doing it on the precipice of retirement, when again, you have to do these purifications, take all these extra steps, where again, but I'm sure, again, speaking to, you know, medical analogy, the preventative care doing it all along usually leads to a much better end result at the end of the day, the last stages of the business as well. Making sure that you, you know, if you're generating tons of surplus money, you have a place for that to go that you don't have to purify as much, making sure you have the right types of shares and the right types of places to get the most efficient tax treatment at time of sale. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:15:52] Right. So I think most of, I'm talking about personal experience, most of my tax advisers are very conservative. Right? This side, you never get audited, this is the side that you may get audited. And so they say, remember the first accountant, you'll never be audited with me. But of course, I pay taxes through my nose. And ten years later, I went to seminars, webinars, whatever, and I say his name was John Whatever, John, can we do this now? He said, yes. Could have done it last year. Yeah, could have done it ten years ago. Yeah. Right? Wow. Like the tax implication was huge. Right? And so as our financial IQ goes up, these advanced tax strategies show up. And then you find that, oh, people who are high up in the high net worth sphere, some of them do it every single year. You know, but then the accountants don't want to touch it. And then so my first tax lawyer met, he says, I stamped approved my advice and I go to court on your behalf. Right. And he told me that the difference is the penalty. The accountant versus the lawyer. So do you want to expound on that a little bit, Jason? Like, how much are they liable? Jason Pisesky: [00:17:05] Sure. Yeah. So at least in Alberta, and I think several other provinces, accountants have the ability to limit their liability as low as the fees paid. So they come up with a complex tax strategy that's going to save you $1 million, but something goes wrong. Whose fault it is? Who knows? The fees may be limited to, sorry the liability may be limited to just the fees paid. So you're fighting with the CRA. You owe them a million bucks, but you only pay the accountant the $50,000. That's what you can get back. Off you go. Lawyers generally do not have the ability to limit their liability. So, and that's an important point. Lawyer's fees are often higher than accounting fees, but that comes with kind of you're paying almost for insurance at that point too, where if something goes wrong, you have the ability to, you know, the lawyer is liable for that amount. And generally the the lawyer's kind of liability funds are, take that into mind, too, that lawyers have higher liability as well. So that's definitely a relevant consideration when you're choosing between a tax accountant and a tax lawyer. Yeah. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:18:17] Right, Right. Yes. Now, talking about cost, I often have people say, well, I don't want to pay the money to see a tax lawyer. And last month our webinar is with Goran, and some of you were there, and he's a tax strategist and he's not a lawyer. And so Goran and Jason, they do work together and he threw a lot of these things out. Right? And people said, well, how do we do that? And then somebody is typing in the chat and say, sounded expensive. Right. So then, so okay, let's address the elephant. Doctors are cheap. Doctors go to seminars, learn to DIY yourself to financial independence and the wealthy land right? You know. Hello. Hello. Hello. You never went to school. How do you think you can DIY? Right? But doctors are cheap, right? They want to fire all their advisors and buy some index funds and then buy some crypto on the fly and be rich. So what are kind of the costs? You know, we have a national audience, right? Nationwide. How much a tax lawyer is worth? Like, do they charge by the hour? Do they charge by the case? Jason Pisesky: [00:19:26] It depends. Usually by the hour. Although if you're kind of doing something kind of more routine planning, I am comfortable block quoting and saying this is what that particular strategy for you, based on all your circumstances, should cost and sticking to it. I do that quite a bit because I find clients do like that. You know, we can all quote in ranges and say what your hourly rate is, but then, you know, what does that really mean? Of course you give a range and the client sees the low end of the range and the professional sees the high end of the range. So I do find it to the extent possible, it is always great to give a fixed quote because everyone knows what it is. And oftentimes for when I can give a fixed quote, it's for a strategy where the the benefits are easily calculated. So I can say, you know this planning strategy, whether it's on a sale, whether it's a kind of annual planning, it's going to result in tax savings of X, it's going to cost you Y, X is bigger than Y, why would we not do this? On hourly rates, but so that's where, again, it's, you know, relatively predictable what's going to be involved. You know, assuming people have clean minute books and no skeletons in the closet, once you start moving into more bespoke unique things, hourly rates are definitely relevant. It's hard to to tell you exactly, I mean fresh out of school I'm sure there's tax lawyers somewhere in this country where their rates are, you know, $200 an hour. I know there's some in Toronto their rates are over $2000 an hour. So it does depend on seniority, what region you're in. Good thing about tax practice, though, is it's national. So you do have the opportunity to pick your professional, generally speaking, across the country because our tax code is a national code and I can work on someone who has an issue in Ontario with the national tax code as well as someone in Alberta. So yeah. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:21:15] Yeah. So there's a wide range of course there, hundreds of dollars per hour. Right? And then people say, well, you know, do you get the money worth? So I can say from my personal experience, yeah, we did a strategy where Colombo, I think my fee was about 30, 35, and we saved about $375,000. So the net savings was about $300,000 north of it. So and I talked to my colleagues, just I tell people I put the money where my mouth is, where everything I share, I've done it, right? And so people chase the returns, chase stock, the stock is hot, right? Go up, crypto hot or this real estate is really good, flip it. Make the money. Well, are you ever going to make that kind of return? 10 times. 100 times, right? Like, but if you don't, well, first of all, when you put it like that, it's a no brainer, right? You spend 30 K and save 300. But most people don't even understand that, right? They're just chasing the DIY index fund. Jason Pisesky: [00:22:16] Absolutely. And that's usually the conversation I do have with people. And it's always good to have it at the outset, right? I mean, if I went to you and said, hey, pay me 20,000 and I'll give you 200,000, you know, if that's, and that can usually be fairly easily quantified close to the beginning, maybe not precisely if you're talking something more complex like a sale or something, maybe it's you know, it's going to depend on some of the attributes of the companies. But you can often get pretty close to, you know, what the advantages are to a plan. And again, they're not always pure tax savings. Sometimes they're tax deferral, which is more confusing, where you've saved immediate tax, but the tax has been kicked down the road and it'll have to be paid later. But that does have advantage if you've deferred tax in a company and you can invest it, you know, a higher starting nest egg. Yeah, so the ability to kind of talk about those advantages, that's definitely great for a tax practice generally. I know I sometimes feel for my family and criminal law colleagues who, it's much more uncertain what someone is willing to, I don't want to go to jail, I'll pay any amount not to go to jail, until you get $100,000 bill. And it's like, well, how long was it in jail, really? Like, you know, I want my kids, you know, 100% access to my kids. Right? And again, until you get the massive bill from your lawyer and maybe you just ended up at 50% anyways, but you got your lawyer to fight for that. So I do like tax practice generally because you can, it is math of here's my fees, here's the savings. Yeah. And so I think clients generally appreciate again that and I think you probably know those numbers because you know how I draft my reporting to you. I set them out. I'm like, here's itemized exactly what we did and the results you got from it. Yeah. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:23:55] Right. And then I kept sharing with my colleagues as we lived through especially the last few years, CRA has been changing dramatically how they deal with business owners, professionals, especially medical PCs. Right? So, and every time I heard about something, I have to pick up the phone and talk to somebody smart like Jason or my other tax consultants. Right? So what have you seen since 2017? What big changes are there and how does that eat us up as professionals? Those new tax laws. Jason Pisesky: [00:24:29] I mean, the big one is the the TOSI, the tax on split income, which I don't know if you've talked about it on past ones, basic rules kind of being before the TOSI rules, I'll call them, people used to have spouses and children being shareholders of their active PCs and they would pay dividends to them. It's great if you had a non-working spouse, you could take advantage of their lower brackets. Same if you had kids going to university or, you know, buying their first home or a first car, you can kind of put the money right into their hands, use their brackets as opposed to taking it all at your high brackets. So those rules came out in 2017 and they were definitely a wrench. And they changed the tax landscape. There have been some other changes. I think it was, gosh, now I can't remember it was before or after that, they also changed the - I think it was after - the ability to practice in a partnership and have kind of the ability to have everybody get their small business deduction, the 500,000. Yeah, that was a big, that was a big one. It used to be able to have, and I knew of them, you'd have practices of, you know, 50 to 100 doctors in a clinic. And despite the size and the revenue, everybody was able to get their small business deduction. That's not the case anymore. They've closed that with a very, very complicated series of rules. And then, so now it's kind of like everyone shares one crack at it, the one $500,000 limit, as opposed to everybody having their own $500,000 limit. So the general... and I don't, I think it's unfair, although maybe I'm biased, Parliament does definitely have a take that professionals generally, be they accountants, lawyers, doctors, you know, that they're not business owners, which I strongly disagree with. I don't know what that means. You know, we go out, we get clients, we drum up business, we start clinics, put up signs, all these things, and take significant risks. But they seem to like to treat, or seem to be trending towards the direction of, you know, they should be treated like employees. It's not fair for them to have PCs. And so think that I haven't seen anything softening that tone of, you know, professionals need to be treated differently than a business, you know, producing widgets or whatever the classic university example is of your textbook business, and economics is my undergrad, it was always the widget factory they used. Jason Pisesky: [00:26:56] But I think a lot of times I'm sure a lot of people on this webinar and a lot of people listen to this podcasts spend a lot of sleepless nights at times thinking about, you know, if their business has been going through a rough patch or how they're going to grow or what the next year looks like, and how they're going to retire because they don't have a pension plan like like someone who's, so yeah. And we see technicals come out where there's a technical recently where CRA made some off the cuff comments about a medical professional that was working for a hospital, that kind of a bit of a uproar there about, again, were they really in business if they were just working directly for the hospital as a director? And so kind of a lot of off the cuff comments and material tax changes as well, that they don't necessarily... I mean, the rules that talked about TOSI, and changing those rules around the $500,000 limit so people couldn't get multiple, those don't just go after doctors, but they definitely impact doctors materially. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:27:54] Right. Now so we need to wrap the formal part up and then we'll open up to Q&A. But I think, I've been around three decades and I've seen a lot of changes, and definitely it's eaten up autonomy from professional level and also from the taxation point of view. Right.? Our take home pay has been less and less, not just from our respective colleges and provincial payment mechanism, but also from the taxation point of view. It's less and less friendly, right? And if you don't understand it, if your tax accountant is having this, your accountant is having same lesson plan as 20 years ago, it's like Mrs. Jones teaches English for the last 20 years, the same Macbeth, same same playbook. Right? So it's changing, right? And I definitely see way too many of my colleagues still using the same outdated tax strategy. And then so, a lot of these off - what we call it - the off cuff discussion, right? And people like you, Jason, read those all the time. That's your pastime. Right? And then you can tell us, well, hey, is this a smart one or not so smart one, right. For example, one is just did one prescribed rate loan for my daughter. And who just getting her first condo and based out of college and I'm exactly the guy sitting next to me his daughter in the same boat said, have you heard of this? He said, No, I haven't. So if you plug in with smart people, you get smart advice and that could change dramatically, dramatically your cash flow, your long term tax planning, even estate planning. Last mastermind we had was, masterclass, was beginning with the end in mind, right? With estate planning all that, it could be huge difference to your offspring. Right? So anyways, I just want to wrap it up and say we need - our goal here at Physician Empowerment is not to sell you guys anything but to share our ideas and to disrupt you so that you can think, and to equip you so that you can ask smarter questions next time you meet with your accountant or with your tax consultants. Right? So I want to thank Jason and we'll have Jason back again May the 7th. Virtually, him and other panelists will talk and we'll open for Q&A at the end of our whole weekend. Okay, so and Jason, yeah, as I said, and Kevin introduced, he works for KPMG. It's a national firm. It's one of the biggest firms in accounting. And he is in the law division. And I heard that you're doing your West Coast division, right? Right now. Jason Pisesky: [00:30:28] Yes, I'm working towards starting up kind of western Canada arm, to the extent it does exist in Calgary and Vancouver, but we're seeing kind of a bit of an expansion and stuff. So looking into that. Dr. Wing Lim: [00:30:39] Yeah well so congrats and hope everything turns out good. So I definitely thoroughly enjoy our friendship and every time I get smart advice from Jason. Dr. Kevin Mailo: [00:30:53] Thank you so much for listening to the Physician Empowerment Podcast. If you're ready to take those next steps in transforming your practice, finances or personal well-being, then come and join us at PhysEmpowerment.ca - P H Y S Empowerment dot ca - to learn more about how we can help. If today's episode resonated with you, I'd really appreciate it if you would share our podcast with a colleague or friend and head over to Apple Podcasts to give us a five star rating and review. If you've got feedback, questions or suggestions for future episode topics, we'd love to hear from you. If you want to join us and be interviewed and share some of your story, we'd absolutely love that as well. Please send me an email at KMailo@PhysEmpowerment.ca. Thank you again for listening. Bye.

With his legal team behind him, Delwin Vriend won his case at the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench. Justice Russel pulled no punches in her written ruling, stating that discrimination against the gay and lesbian communities was an historical, universal, notorious, and indisputable social reality.  It was a big win for Delwin and his team, however it would be short lived as the Government of Alberta appealed the ruling. The next stage in the legal process would not be so kind to Delwin's pursuit for equality for Alberta's 2SLGBTQI+ community. Welcome to episode 4 of Vriend Versus Alberta. *NOTE: The […]

This case comes before the Court as of right following a dissent in the Alberta Court of Appeal. In September of 2017, police investigated the purchase of virtual gift cards using fraudulent credit card information. There were two IP addresses of interest which police believed were used in the transactions. Warrants were executed at both residences associated and the appellant was arrested. The Appellant was charged with 33 offences relating to firearms and the possession and use of third parties' credit cards and personal information documents. At trial, he argued that his section 8 Charter rights, inter alia, had been violated.The trial judge held that it was not objectively reasonable to recognise a subjective expectation of privacy in an IP address used by an individual and found no section 8 breach. The Appellant was convicted of 13 counts. The majority of the Court of Appeal of Alberta agreed with the trial judge in her interpretation of the law governing the section 8 analysis and dismissed the appeal.Veldhuis J.A., in dissent, would have allowed the appeal and ordered a new trial, holding that the appellant did have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the IP addresses, leading to a section 8 breach. The Appellant appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada as of right.

John comments on his recent Western Standard column about his Dutch ancestors and how they inspire him to continue the fight for freedom. Then he and Kevin go through the Justice Centre press release archive to pick out the best and the worst from a very eventful 2022. The passing year included the Freedom Convoy, the Public Order Emergency Commission and a sad loss in an organ transplant case, among other things.John Carpay in The Western Standard, Dec 27, 2022: Canadians in 2023 can take an example from 1940s HollandSELECTED JUSTICE CENTRE PRESS RELEASES 2022Mar 24: Tamara Lich appeals bail conditions that violate her Charter freedomsNov 22: Justice Centre at Public Inquiry into Use of Emergencies Act – Watch the Videos HereDec 1: Jost et al. v. CanadaJan 26: The Charter's only living signatory sues Canada over travel mandatesOct 21: Federal Court Strikes Down Travel Ban Legal Challenge for MootnessSep 21: Nurse Amy Hamm fights for sex-based freedom of expression today in CourtJun 24: Saskatchewan surgeon sues Health Authority and College of Medicine after being terminated and defamed for questioning covid vaccines for childrenFeb 1: Victory for Charter rights and freedoms as Québec scraps punitive tax against vaccine-freeApr 29: City of Calgary surrenders as citizens seek to challenge court injunctionNov 7: SK Nurses College Drops Discipline Threat Against Nurse Expressing Counter-Narrative Views on CovidJul 7: BC firefighter reinstated after Justice Centre demand letterNov 8: Alberta Court of Appeal Upholds Covid-19 Vaccine Requirement for Transplant CandidatesDec 12: Court Ruling Fails to Resolve the Issue of Coercive Imposition of Spiritual Practices on ChildrenSep 15: Justice Centre releases new Report on excess deaths caused by government interventionsTheme Music "Carpay Diem" by Dave StevensSupport the show

We begin the show talking about the international news coverage of the dark side of Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying law. John then goes through a recent court ruling upholding Ontario's vaccine passport which claims Charter rights were not violated. John also highlights a false characterization of a Justice Centre client in a B.C. Court of Appeal ruling.Project Gutenberg: A Christmas Carol, by Charles DickensIMdB: A Christmas Carol 1951Daily Mail, Dec 16, 2022: Killing fields of liberal Canada: Shocking figures reveal thousands including those who aren't terminally ill are choosing to end their lives under the world's most open assisted suicide system as fears emerge scheme could be rolled out to childrenBPR, Dec 13, 2022: Canadian editor issues 'dire warning' over major push for assisted suicide, featured on clothing adsDaily Mail, Dec 6, 2022: America, be very afraid: astonishingly, Canada is now euthanizing 10,000 of its citizens a year - and some of the horrific stories of its ultra-permissive policy will horrify you…National Review, Nov 14, 2022:  Assisted Suicide for PovertyForbes, Aug 15, 2022: Canada's New Euthanasia Laws Carry Upsetting Nazi-Era Echoes, Warns ExpertAmerican Thinker, Dec 12, 2022: Canadian government prepares to 'expand care' and euthanize more of its citizensCanLII, Feb 6, 2015: Carter v. Canada (Attorney General)Justice Centre, Dec 13, 2022: Harjee v Ontario, Judgment (PDF)Justice Centre, Nov 8, 2022: Alberta Court of Appeal Upholds Covid-19 Vaccine Requirement for Transplant CandidatesEdmonton Journal, Dec 5, 2022: Smith says she'll seek 'second opinion' in case of transplant patient who refuses COVID vaccineJohn Carpay in the Western Standard, Dec 17, 2022: Imposing spirituality on kids is not cultureJustice Centre Video, Dec 16, 2022: Servatius v. Alberni School District No. 70: Setting the record straightYoutube, 2011: A Christmas Carol--Barbara AllenTheme Music "Carpay Diem" by Dave StevensSupport the show

John focuses on the testimony of Jody Thomas, the National Security and Intelligence Advisor to the PM, at the Public Order Emergency Commission hearing on November 17. He is critical of what Thomas called her "broad interpretation" of Canada's Emergencies Act, pointing out that it basically gives the federal government the right to declare an emergency at any time or for anything, which is the opposite of what is intended. Later, John calls for a public pressure campaign to save the life of Sheila Annette Lewis, who cannot get a life-saving transplant operation because she has refused the experimental Covid vaccine.Public Order Emergency CommissionCarson Jerema in the National Post, Nov 19. 2022: Trudeau adviser decided to pretend Freedom Convoy was a security threatJustice Centre on Youtube, Nov 17, 2022: Day 25 - Miller cross-examines ThomasJustice Centre on Youtube, Nov 18, 2022: Day 26 - Miller cross-examines Charette and DrouinPOEC archive, Nov 18, 2022: CCF cross-examines Charette and Drouin on briefing full cabinet of the CSIS analysis, Time 7:42:11Toronto Star, Nov 17, 2022: Justin Trudeau's top security adviser contradicts top Mountie Brenda Lucki at ‘Freedom Convoy' inquiryJustice Centre on Youtube, Nov 17, 2022: Day 25 - Kittredge cross-examines ThomasJustice Centre on Youtube, Nov 16, 2022: Day 24 - Kheir cross-examines OssowskiJohn Carpay in the Western Standard, Nov 19, 2022: Alberta Health Services consigns patients to death, based on vaccine statusJohn Carpay in Epoch Times, Nov 19, 2022: Denying Life-saving Organ Transplant to Unvaccinated Woman Breaks Every Ethics RuleJustice Centre, Nov 8, 2022: Alberta Court of Appeal Upholds Covid-19 Vaccine Requirement for Transplant CandidatesCTV Calgary, Jul 5, 2022: Deaths with unknown causes now Alberta's top killer: provinceCityNews, Oct 11, 2022: Danielle Smith calls unvaccinated 'most discriminated-against group' in her lifetimeCBC, Nov 17, 2022: Premier Danielle Smith fires Alberta Health Services board, appoints administratorJustice Centre, Nov 15, 2022: Alberta Health Services sentences transplant patients to die – contact Premier Danielle Smith to change this policyTheme Music "Carpay Diem" by Dave StevensSupport the show

This week on The Alberta Roundup, Rachel discusses how a woman is being denied an organ transplant due to her Covid-19 vaccination status and how the Alberta Health Minister is accepting the Alberta Court of Appeal's ruling on the matter. Plus, United Conservative leader Danielle Smith will return to Alberta Legislature after voters in Brooks-Medicine Hat gave her the nod to be their next MLA. And a former NDP MLA has pleaded guilty to a charge under the Health Information Act after he was charged for illegally attempting to access private information contained in the Alberta Health vaccine portal in September 2021. These stories and more on The Alberta Roundup with Rachel Emmanuel. Tune in now! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike responds to a listener's question about a wife's surreptitious "search" of her husband's cell phone on which she locates child pornography, prints off screen shots of the images and brings them into the police station to report what she found.  The Alberta Court of Appeal  decision of R. v. King, 2021 ABCA 271 is used as a basis for discussion as it appears to address similar circumstances. A quick note on s. 8 Charter search and seizure law:Not every form of examination conducted by the police (government) will constitute a "search"' for Charter (constitutional) purposes.  Only  state examinations constituting an intrusion into a person's reasonable expectation of privacy (REP) will amount to  a "search" within the meaning of s. 8 of the Charter.State intrusions  into a reasonable expectation of privacy (searches) are  permissible if they are “reasonable”.  A search will be reasonable  if it is authorized by a reasonable law and carried out in a reasonable manner.SEARCH = POLICE + INTRUSION + REP The lower provincial court ruling for the King case can be found here.Thanks for listening! Feedback welcome at legalissuesinpolicing@gmail.com

Pastor Marzena Pawlowski and her son Nathaniel Pawlowski, the wife and son of Canadian Pastor Artur Pawlowski who was arrested and jailed unjustly spoke with Bishop Michael Petro at General Flynn's and Clay Clark's ReAwaken America Tour in Virginia Beach, VA. In this interview Pastor Marzena and her son Nathaniel Pawlowski share how their husband and father in February of 2022 was unjustly arrested for giving a sermon to the truckers convoy in Canada. Nathaniel shares how tyranny is coming to America, warning America - “You are only one step behind Canada. You can look at Canada and see your future. This will happen here unless Americans stand up and start viciously fighting for their rights, for their freedoms.” Pawlowski spent 51 days in prison under solitary confinement for 23 hrs a day in a cell with one hour for phone calls and a shower. He was denied bail for his arrest - due to the judges stating Pastor Artur was a danger to society inciting the people to violence. However, his son makes it clear three times in his sermon, he stated he was not talking about violence,,not talking about guns and words, but fighting by exercising your right. Later, he was released with strict conditions including house arrest, a curfew of 7PM - 7AM (because he was considered dangerous), not allowed to participate in protests in Canada, and a hefty bail fine to say the least. During the interview Bishop Michael Petro stated, “I have never done this on a television set, but I feel like I need to pray for your husband and for your dad. I just feel like the Lord is going to intervene in it…I command everything that they bring up against him will fall one after another, Lord even everything that they have to pay will be taken care of.” To God be the glory on July 22, 2022, Breaking News Headline states, “Canadian Pastor Who Was Arrested And Jailed For Defying COVID Just Won A Huge Legal Victory.” Rebel News states, “The Alberta Court of Appeal ruled that the injunction against him, his arrest, his jail time, the censorship order, and fines against him were illegal.” The judgment released Friday morning read:“The Pawlowskis' appeals are allowed. The finding of contempt and the sanction order are set aside. The fines that have been paid by them are to be reimbursed. “ Connect with #ArturPawlowski and His Family:https://www.streetchurch.cawww.savearthur.comwww.courageousfaithtour.com VOH Radio Sponsors:► My Pillowwww.mypillow.com/vohradioUp To 66% off - Use Promo Code: VOHRadio ► Buy Gold - Beverly Hills Precious Metals Exchange | General Flynn's Gold Buyer of Choice.Visit: https://bh-pm.comClick First-Time Customers Sign Up Form.Insert #VOHRadio - How Did You Hear About Us? ► Dr. Zelenko's Protocol Z-Stackhttps://zstacklife.com/VOHRADIOUse this link to get 10% off all your purchases.Use ‘VOHRadio' Coupon Code for 5% off every purchase! ► Dr. Mark Sherwood Courses and Supplements9,000 COVID-19 Patients (0 Deaths)https://sherwood.tvUse ‘VOHRadio' Coupon Code for savings on supplements and courses! ► Dr. Stella, MD - Covid Prevention Treatments and Telehealth Services:https://marketplace.drstellamd.comUse ‘VOHRadio' Coupon Code for 5% off every purchase! ► The Epoch Times - Digital Subscription Savings:$1 for 1 month trial, then $77/year - Original Promotion: $99/yearSubscribe Link: IReadEpoch.comUse Promo Code: VOH ► ReAwaken America Discounted Tickets:Text (918)-851-0102 or Visit www.timetofreeamerica.comUse Promo Code “VOH Radio” for a 10% discount! ► All Sponsors Click Here: https://vohradio.com/partners ► Sign Up For Our Newsletter! - https://vohradio.com/ ► Support and Partner: https://vohradio.com/donate ► Merch, Books, Teachings: https://voh.church/shop ► Watch ALL our content in FULL on Banned.Video: bit.ly/VOHRadio-BannedVideo ► Watch ALL our content in FULL on Rumble: bit.ly/VOHRadio-Rumble ► Watch ALL our content in FULL on CloutHub: bit.ly/VOHRadio-CloutHub ► Watch ALL our content in FULL on BitChute: bit.ly/VOHRadio-BitChute ► Connect with #VOHRadio:https://instagram.com/vohradiohttps://twitter.com/_vohradiohttps://gab.com/vohradio ► ALL LINKS: https://sociatap.com/TheVoiceofHealingRadio ► #VOHRadio Podcasts:Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2FFwIFoApple: https://apple.co/2FCIHnlAmazon Music: https://amzn.to/35WprLXTuneIn: https://bit.ly/33x3ZLhGoogle: https://bit.ly/35Dju76Deezer: https://bit.ly/3c55MLeStitcher: https://bit.ly/3iBnvfQRadio App: https://bit.ly/2El7nQOJioSaavn: https://bit.ly/35XKMVFGaana: https://bit.ly/39fxSV3 ► To learn more about Michael Petro visit http://michaelpetro.com/ ► Connect with #MichaelPetro:https://instagram.com/michaeljopetrohttps://twitter.com/michaeljopetro ► Business or Media Inquiries - Email us at: info@vohradio.comSupport the show: https://vohradio.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the first episode of True North's Alberta Roundup with Rachel Emmanuel, Rachel takes us inside the United Conservative Party (UCP) leadership race and breaks down the winners and losers of last week's debate. Danielle Smith - the perceived frontrunner to become the next leader of the UCP and Premier of Alberta -- fielded most of the heat on Wednesday night as the rest of the pack took advantage of their opportunity to square off with the highest profile candidate in the race.Also, an Alberta Court of Appeals judge ruled in Pastor Artur Pawlowski's favour this week, ordering the Alberta Health Services to reimburse the fines Pawlowski was forced to pay for refusing to comply with government-ordered church capacity limits.And Alberta Agriculture Minister Nate Horner took aim at Trudeau's newest fertilizer reduction scheme, saying that Ottawa pulled these emmision reduction targets "out of thin air".All of that and more on the first episode of Alberta Roundup with Rachel Emmanuel. Tune in now! Support the show: http://donate.tnc.news See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike discusses the Alberta Court of Appeal decision R. v. Bidlock-Hawkins, 2022 ABCA 201 where, during a Charter voir dire, a trial judge concluded the police had used excessive force and then had to decide an appropriate remedy under s. 24 of the Charter. This episode may help you understand how s. 25 of the Criminal Code applies to your conduct in a criminal trial in which you are not a defendant but a Crown witness. Thanks for listening! Feedback welcome at legalissuesinpolicing@gmail.com

The new threshold, included in an amendment to the Customs Act, is a "reasonable general concern". What's the legal definition of that? Here's the thing: There isn't one.In an attempt to create a higher barrier to opening Canadians' devices on entry, the Alberta Court of Appeals struck down the previous threshold, but left it to the government to create a new one. That's where "reasonable general concern" comes into play—and privacy advocates as well as a Canadian Senator are very concerned about the implications.GUEST: Senator Paula Simons

(PUBLICATION BAN) The appellant, Jesse Dallas Hills, pled guilty to four charges from an incident in May 2014 where he swung a baseball bat and fired a shot with his rifle at an occupied vehicle, smashed the window of a parked vehicle and shot a few rounds into an occupied family residence. One of the charges was the intentional discharging of a firearm into or at a place, knowing that or being reckless as to whether another person is present in the place under s. 244.2(1)(a) of the Criminal Code, which carries a minimum four year imprisonment sentence. Mr. Hills alleged that the minimum sentence under s. 244.2(3)(b) of the Criminal Code violated his constitutional right to not be subjected to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment by virtue of s. 12 of the Charter. At trial, Mr. Hills presented a scenario that he claimed could reasonably occur and for which the four year mandatory minimum sentence would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Taking into account this hypothetical case proposed by Mr. Hills where a young person intentionally fires an air powered pistol or rifle at a residence, the trial judge found that despite the minimum four year sentence not resulting in a grossly disproportionate sentence for Mr. Hills, it is reasonably foreseeable that it would result in a grossly disproportionate sentence for other potential offenders. The trial judge therefore found that the mandatory minimum sentence contravened s. 12 of the Charter and could not be saved by s. 1. As a result, he declared s. 244.2(3)(b) of the Criminal Code to be of no force and effect. Mr. Hills was sentenced to imprisonment for a term of three and a half years. The Alberta Court of Appeal overturned the trial judge's finding of unconstitutionality and set aside the declaration of invalidity in a judgment containing three separate concurring reasons. Justices O'Ferrall and Wakeling were critical of the expansive usage of hypotheticals in this Court's s. 12 Charter jurisprudence and invited this Court to abandon it. The appeal against the sentence for discharging a firearm was allowed and the sentence was increased to four years imprisonment. Argued Date 2022-03-22 Keywords Canadian charter (Criminal) - Criminal law, Sentencing - Charter of Rights — Criminal law — Sentencing — Mandatory minimum sentence — Whether the Alberta Court of Appeal erred in finding that s. 244.2(3)(b) of the Criminal Code does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment that violates s. 12 of the Charter — Whether the Alberta Court of Appeal erred in failing to consider the appellant's Métis status in re sentencing him — Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C 46, s. 244.2(3)(b). Notes (Alberta) (Criminal) (By Leave) (Publication ban in case) Disclaimers This podcast is created as a public service to promote public access and awareness of the workings of Canada's highest court. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Court. The original version of this hearing may be found on the Supreme Court of Canada's website. The above case summary was prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch).

We take a look at some of the recent recommendations from an expert panel that is now advising the federal government on how to craft legislation to regulate the internet. Then John brings us up to date on many of the Justice Centre's current cases including; dropped tickets in excess of $100,000 in B.C., a new lawsuit against the military's vaccine mandate, and a student filing a human rights complaint against his polytechnic for their refusal to recognize his vaccine religious exemption.CTV, May 11, 2022: Advisory panel calls for Liberals' online hate law to cover Airbnb, video gamesThe Post Millennial, Mar 30, 2022: Trudeau Liberals' 'expert advisory group on online safety' includes known misinformation spreader Bernie FarberCBC, Dec 24, 2019: Revenge porn and sext crimes: Canada sees more than 5,000 police cases as law marks 5 yearsCTV, May 12, 2022: 'Anger that I haven't seen before': Singh harassment incident puts renewed spotlight on politicians' securityThe Canadian Press via MSN, May 2, 2022: Hate-motivated crimes up 22 per cent annually in Toronto, police sayCBC via MSN, May 4, 2022: A spike in hate-motivated crimes in Edmonton has police urging people to report all instances of hateJustice Centre, May 3, 2022: Mandatory vaccine policy creates shortage of volunteer firefightersJustice Centre, May 4, 2022: Justice Centre retains prominent trial lawyer to defend soldiers who refuse Covid vaccineJustice Centre, May 5, 2022: Crown drops ticket against woman who refused PCR test due to medical conditionJustice Centre, May 9, 2022: Student expelled for declining Covid injection, files human rights complaint against NAITJustice Centre, May 10, 2022: Alberta Court rules protests were never banned by Public Health OrdersJustice Centre, May 11, 2022: Crown drops another 24 tickets against three BC pastors who refused to shutter churchesJustice Centre, May 12, 2022: Date set for Federal Court to hear challenge to travel ban in SeptemberTheme Music "Carpay Diem" by Dave StevensSupport the show

On today's show we tackle the impending Roe V Wade political fallout in the US, Israeli assassination of an Al Jazeera reporter, Skippy's hijacking of the CPC and our monetary system, Alberta Court of Appeal's attempt to build pipelines again, Jonathan Denis' never-ending 15 minutes of fame, there's a new Conservative Party in Saskatchewan, thanks for showing the way and Musk pulls another fast one on everyone! Thanks for Watching Albertastan Live we couldn't do it without you so, If you enjoyed what you saw and heard on this episode like, share & subscribe to the many options listed below and, help support the show or our other efforts including placement of sponsorships and donations (Thank you so much) FOLLOW US ! FACEBOOK— https://m.facebook.com/AlbertastanLive INSTAGRAM— https://www.instagram.com/albertastan.ca YOUTUBE— https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbGhoUAByTXOHd-h3WZq9Uw SPOTIFY— https://open.spotify.com/show/5JRQyDXMDEnltrdoU5NKas PODCAST— https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/albertastan-ca/id1431546582 STITCHER— https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=389474&refid=stpr TWITTER— https://twitter.com/AlbertastanLive OG WEBSITE— https://www.Albertastan.ca CONTACT US! EMAIL— Whatsyourdeal@Albertastan.ca SUPPORT US ! PATREON— https://www.patreon.com/albertastan PAYPAL— https://www.paypal.me/albertastanca

2:57 | Ryan starts the show with breaking news, as mourners at slain Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh's funeral are met with violence from Israeli defence forces. Plus, Elon Musk says his $44B Twitter purchase is "on hold": what does that mean moving forward? 11:49 | Veteran Alberta political correspondents Graham Thomson and Catherine Griwkowsky dig into the most important details of Jason Kenney's UCP leadership review, Brian Jean's presence at the Legislature, and a recent opinion from the Alberta Court of Appeal.  Read Catherine's work: https://www.politicstoday.news/alberta-today/ Read Graham's work: https://ipolitics.ca/opinions/kenney-takes-a-victory-lap-while-the-race-is-still-underway 38:46 | The stars of The Strategists podcast join for their bi-annual Real Talk Round Table. Zain Velji, Corey Hogan, and Stephen Carter make for a wildly-entertaining (and informative) half hour analyzing the federal Conservative leadership race, Kenney's UCP leadership review, and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh being harassed in Peterborough. See The Strategists live on May 19: https://thestrategists.ca/products/the-strategists-live-in-edmonton 1:15:36 | It's a grass roots political edition of Trash Talk, presented by Local Environmental, fuelled by your emails to talk@ryanjespersen.com!

Policy and Rights Question periond in House on Commons OttawaSpeaking briefly with reporters ahead of the weekly federal Liberal caucus meeting, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is asked about his government's upcoming announcements on firearms and access to abortion services.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and MPs speak with reporters on Parliament Hill as they convene for the daily question period in the House of Commons. The prime minister and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson react to the Alberta Court of Appeal ruling that the federal environmental impact law, previously known as Bill C-69, is unconstitutional. The minister confirms that Ottawa will appeal the ruling. NDP MP Leah Gazan discusses the calls for an external review of the RCMP following a report from the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA) on the misogyny, racism and violence against women by members of the national police force.

Today on the show, Scott found out why bricks-and-morter businesses are concerned about the Burlington Food Truck Festival, and then learned how difficult it is -- in theory -- to land a plane with no previous training. A team at McMaster University is looking into the social factors behind the apparent "orgasm gap," and a co-author of the study shared what has been discovered as well as why you will want to pay close attention to the results. We caught up with the Brott Music Festival's new interim director, and next looked at what will happen to the Liberal government's Environmental Assessment Act now that the Alberta Court of Appeals has quashed it. Hamilton youth will soon be able to ride the HSR at 50% of the price, and Scott got the details about how and why. Finally, a look at last night's provincial leaders debate and where this race is heading in Ontario, as well as an update on the saga of Roe vs. Wade and abortion rights in the United States.   Guests Brian Dean, Executive Director of the Burlington Downtown Business Association.   Keith Mackey, Mackey International   Dr. Melanie Heath, Associate Professor of Sociology, McMaster University   Alain Trudel, Interim Conductor/Artistic Director, Brott Music Festival   Bruce Pardy, Professor, Executive Director of Rights Probe and professor of law at Queen's University.   Nancy Purser, HSR's manager of transit support services   Brian Zeiler-Kligman, Vice President of Ontario Government Relations with Sussex Strategies   Brian J. Karem, Political Analyst for CNN, White House Reporter, Columnist for Salon.com and The Washington Diplomat, and host of ‘Just Ask the Question' Podcast, Author of the new book Free The Press: The Death of American Journalism and How to Revive It   Host: Scott Thompson Content Producer: William P. Erskine Technical Producer: Matt Taylor News Anchors: Dave Woodard & Diana Weeks Want to keep up with what happened in Hamilton Today? Subscribe to the podcast! https://omny.fm/shows/scott-thompson-show See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Guest: Dave Breakenridge, managing editor of the Edmonton Journal and Edmonton Sun, and host of the 10/3 Podcast

A big crack develops in the government's narrative justifying the emergencies act when the RCMP denies ever asking for it. Leo Knight says its time take apart the RCMP.Parker Gallant on the Alberta appeal's court putting the boots to ‘no more pipelines'

Today Danielle discusses the recent Alberta Court of Appeal decision on C-69

David Lametti, Justice Minister; Andrew Furey, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier; Robert Benzie, the Toronto Star; Greg McLean, Conservative MP; Tonda MacCharles, the Toronto Star; Karl Dockstader, One Dish, One Mic; and Laryssa Waler, GT & Co.

Beaver Lake Cree Nation filed a claim against Alberta and Canada in 2008, seeking various declarations of rights, injunctions, and damages for the cumulative effects of resource developments allowed on their traditional lands protected by Treaty 6. The trial is currently scheduled for 2024. Thus far, Beaver Lake has spent approximately $3 million in legal fees, of which approximately one half has been paid from its own funds; it presently pays $300,000 in legal fees per year. Beaver Lake filed an application for advance costs in the amount of $5 million to allow them to proceed with their claim. The case management judge at the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench found that Beaver Lake met the test for advance costs, including the “financial means” branch of the test, The case management judge awarded partial advance costs to Beaver Lake, ordering Alberta and Canada to each pay $300,000 per year towards Beaver Lake's legal fees, until such time as the trial is concluded or the litigation is resolved, in addition to the $300,000 that Beaver Lake was spending annually on the litigation. The Alberta Court of Appeal reversed this decision and set aside the order for partial advance costs. It found that the case management judge had committed an error of law with respect to the manner in which the test for advance costs was applied to the facts of this case, and that Beaver Lake had failed to satisfy the “financial means” branch of the test for advance costs. In particular, based on fresh evidence adduced by Canada, the Court of Appeal found that Beaver Lake in fact had access or potential access to several million dollars in order to continue funding the litigation, including having received $2.97 million in December 2019 from a resolved Specific Claim. As a result of Beaver Lake's available resources, the Court of Appeal concluded that the original order for advance costs was unreasonable. Beaver Lake now appeals the Court of Appeal decision to the Supreme Court of Canada. Keywords Civil procedure - Costs, Advance costs - Civil procedure - Costs - Advance costs - First Nation pursuing claim against provincial and federal Crown for infringement of treaty rights - First Nation seeking advance costs to fund litigation - Case management judge finding criteria for partial advance costs order satisfied - Court of Appeal overturning order as unreasonable, and finding impecuniosity branch of test not met - Whether Court of Appeal erred in law in interpreting financial means branch of test by considering only whether funds available and excluding consideration of unique social, political, and economic context of impoverished First Nations, and consideration of reasonable financial choices - If answer to Issue 1 is ‘no”, whether Court of Appeal erred in holding that Beaver Lake did not satisfy test based on findings made by case management judge, including that Beaver Lake could not both fund the litigation and meet basic needs - Whether Court of Appeal erred in law in holding that case management judge's discretionary order was unreasonable by including defined annual cap, and failing to require repayment of award. Notes (Alberta) (Civil) (By Leave) (Sealing order) (Certain information not available to the public) Disclaimers This podcast is created as a public service to promote public access and awareness of the workings of Canada's highest court. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Court. The original version of this hearing may be found on the Supreme Court of Canada's website. The above case summary was prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch).

In Episode 90 of the Paw & Order podcast, hosts Camille Labchuk and Peter Sankoff discuss the groundbreaking Alberta Court of Appeal decision in R v Chen, in which Animal Justice was an intervenor. The appeal involves the appropriate approach to sentencing in criminal animal cruelty cases. The Court held that because animals are sentient beings that experience pain and suffering, crimes against them are crimes of violence and should be treated differently from property offences. In this episode, Camille and Peter also announce that the Paw & Order podcast is wrapping up at the end of 2021, after four wonderful years. The hosts give a heartfelt thanks to the incredible listeners, and everyone who came together to make the show possible, and reflect on some of the show's big accomplishments.

We had a huge win in court yesterday. A senior court — the Alberta Court of Appeal, the highest court in Alberta. GUEST: Sheila Gunn Reid

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan:More than three days after flooding caused massive damage in BC, the provincial government declared an emergency pursuant to the Emergency Program Act. The emergency declaration lasts for up to 14 days and can be renewed. Pursuant to the authority this affords, the provincial government has restricted travel on damaged highways and has limited consumers to purchasing no more than 30 liters of fuel at a time. The provincial government doesn't directly employ people to repair roads and relies on contractors for the work that is required.The provincial government does, however, have a direct role in providing information during an emergency. In this case, very little information was made available by the provincial government for several days. Timely information concerning damage and repair efforts was available on social and traditional media. In addition to authorizing emergency orders, the Emergency Program Act prohibits civil claims against the government or people asked to conduct repair work relating to disasters for anything they do, or fail to do, absent gross negligence.A small claims case over a couch damaged by a moving company is also discussed on the show. The couch was damaged while attempting to move it through a door to an apartment.The moving company relied on provisions of an email sent to the couch owner, after she booked the move, the purported to limit the liability of the moving company for items that were damaged in the move. The legal principles discussed included the concept of a “bailee for reward”.A bailee for reward is someone paid to keep or deal with property. It's distinct from someone who agrees to do this for free, such a friend who helps you move. A bailee for reward has the onus of proving that damage to property they were paid to deal with was not damaged by negligence.A second legal principle that was relevant to the case was that limits of liability unilaterally added after a contract is entered into may not be effective. In this case, the email with the limitation on liability was sent after the contract to move the couch was entered into over the phone. Finally, on the show, a Supreme Court of Canada case dealing with sentencing “ranges” or “starting points” is discussed. The case involved two men who were convicted of trafficking large amounts of fentanyl. They were sentenced to 7 and 11 years at trial. The Alberta Court of Appeal increased the sentences to 10 and 14 years saying that the starting point for this offence should be 10 years. The concept of a Court of Appeal setting a starting point for sentences is controversial because parliament hasn't seen fit to set a minimum sentence and because the Court of Appeal is only supposed to interfere was a sentence imposed by a trial judge if it's demonstrably unfit. The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the increased sentences, and the idea of a starting point or range of sentence being set out by a Court of Appeal. It did, however, conclude that a sentence imposed outside of the range or below the starting point should not be overturned on appeal only because it's outside of the specified range.Follow this link for links to the cases discussed and a transcript of the show. 

Episode 85 of the Paw & Order podcast features an interview with lawyer Chris Rudnicki. Chris is representing Animal Justice in an important case about appropriate sentencing principles that apply in animal cruelty cases. The case is R v Chen, involving a man who pleaded guilty to violently beat his dog, in which Animal Justice is an intervenor at the Alberta Court of Appeal.

Patrick King is making waves regarding his Alberta Court case where he got the courts to admit on record they have no record of isolation of covid-19. This would mean that all of the tyrannical actions would not be justified. Support the show here (patreon was deleted)

Today's podcast focuses on the experiences of people with cognitive disabilities (PWCD) who are trying to navigate the courts without a lawyer. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have heard increasingly from SRLs with cognitive disabilities about their lack of accommodation from the courts. It seemed that the accommodation processes in place – for example in Ontario, via an Accessibility Co-ordinator in each courthouse – had broken down. SRLs described making applications for accommodations in open court, disclosing private medical information to the other side, and having to “duke it out” over necessary accommodations to enable them to meaningfully participate in their own case. In preparation for Julie's recent presentation to the Ontario Courts Accessibility Committee, chaired by Associate Chief Justice Fairburn, on this topic, two NSRLP research assistants, Silvia Battaglia and Shannon Meikle, reached out to SRLs with cognitive disabilities and asked them to speak about their experiences seeking court accommodations. They discovered that almost all the SRLs were unaware of the presence of Accessibility Coordinators in their courthouses, or the process for requesting accommodations before a hearing. Their descriptions of feeling like there was no one to help them are captured in excerpts from the interviews, recorded with their permission. Their experiences are shocking and heartbreaking, and frustrating, since there is a process for seeking accommodations that is intended to be private, responsive, and to remove such requests from an adversarial setting. The problem? Almost no one knows about it, or how to use it. This episode also uses a short clip from a podcast recorded in 2017 with Judy Gayton, an SRL whose devastating experience in the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench was covered by CBC, and who describes graphically and poignantly the impact of her brain injury on her cognitive processing. In Other News: Guest Other News Correspondent Katie Pfaff today focuses on access to justice for Indigenous people in Canada. In the wake of the discovery of the graves of 215 Indigenous children at the Kamloops residential school, Chief Justice Richard Wagner states that there must be more education for the bench to understand Indigenous history and the histories of other cultures and communities. Katie's second news story focuses on a settlement reached to include hundreds Indigenous people who were left out of the residential schools' class action compensation protocols. We would also encourage our listeners to read Windsor Law Acting Dean Beverly Jacobs' recent piece in The Conversation, “Investigate discovery of 215 children's graves in Kamloops as a crime against humanity.” For related links and more on this episode visit our website: https://representingyourselfcanada.com/struggling-for-accommodation/ Jumping Off the Ivory Tower is produced and hosted by Julie Macfarlane and Dayna Cornwall; production and editing by Brauntë Petric; Other News produced and hosted by Katie Pfaff; promotion by Moya McAlister and the NSRLP team.

News at the Top – Fighting for Pipelines in Court We head to the Alberta Court of Appeal to fight Trudeau’s Bill C-69, better known as the No More Pipelines Law. Our Alberta Director Franco Terrazano and our Federal Director Aaron Wudrick talk about how much money Canadians are losing due to a lack of pipeline capacity. Link: https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/wudrick-and-terrazzano-taxpayers-are-losing-billions-without-pipelines?utm_source=Action+Updates&utm_campaign=48a8c46bc4-MC_g_FightBillC69_020520&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_59605796e2-48a8c46bc4-35402461 Deep Dive – Government Childcare a Pricey Proposal With speculation flying about a national childcare program, B.C. Director Kris Sims and Quebec Director Renaud Brossard talk about the potential price tag for a national government childcare program. Link: https://ipolitics.ca/2020/10/08/quebecs-auditor-general-flags-daycare-shortage-lack-of-access-to-family-doctors/ Waste Watch – Ontario’s French University Flops The Ontario and federal governments recently launched Université de l'Ontario français – Ontario’s new French university. With only a handful of applicants, the project could cost taxpayers at least $400,000 per student. Renaud stays on to break down the expensive failure with our Ontario Director, Jasmine Moulton. Link: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-french-university-applications-1.5884181 Like this show? Subscribe and give us 5-stars! This podcast is brought to you by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Canada’s premier grassroots advocacy group pushing for lower taxes, less waste and accountable governments. Sign-up as a Canadian Taxpayers Federation supporter at no-charge TODAY: https://www.taxpayer.com/join.

This is the Alberta Court of Appeal decision in R v Barton from 2017. The ABCA unanimously held that the accused should be retried for both manslaughter and murder. To see what the SCC made of this decision, head to our previous episodes in this series: R v Barton Parts I and II. To hear a broader context and Karly and Zach's thoughts on the case, head back to Episode 50. CW: This case is about the sexual assault and murder of an Indigenous woman in Alberta. If this content is not for you, please choose another episode. Take care when listening. Legal Listening - Where Audio Obiter is Our Thing! Link to Decision: https://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abca/doc/2017/2017abca216/2017abca216.html?searchUrlHash=AAAAAQAPUiB2IEJhcnRvbiBBQkNBAAAAAAE&resultIndex=1 Check us out at legallistening.com, look for us on CanLii Connects, find us on twitter @legallistening or email us at legallistening@gmail.com While you're here, check out our team! Julie Lundy: https://www.julielundyart.com/ Rad & Kel: https://www.radandkell.com/ Remember we're always looking for guest readers to come on the podcast. Have a decision you love? Want to see it recorded? Reach out!

The Cindy Gladue case drew headlines across Turtle Island from outrage that her most private body part was cut out and displayed in court to fury over the acquittal of the man who said rough sex accidentally killed her. An Alberta Court of Appeal slammed the trial and demanded a new one. Melissa Ridgen explores if this landmark ruling could affect future indigenous women victims of sexual violence.

In 2018, the Alberta Energy Regulator approved an application for a 10,000-barrel-a-day tar sands project adjacent to Moose Lake. The Fort McKay nation went to court to challenge the approval and, in May, the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled in their favour. Ben Parfitt is a long-time analyst with the BC Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. He explains the grounds for the decision and its significance for similar court challenges in BC.

In 2018, the Alberta Energy Regulator approved an application for a 10,000-barrel-a-day tar sands project adjacent to Moose Lake. The Fort McKay nation went to court to challenge the approval and, in May, the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled in their favour. Ben Parfitt is a long-time analyst with the BC Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. He explains the grounds for the decision and its significance for similar court challenges in BC.

This week Julie talks to lawyers Colin Feasby (Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP) and Brynne Harding (Bennett Jones), who jointly represented NSRLP pro bono in our recent intervention in Jonsson v Lymer at the Alberta Court of Appeal. This was a landmark case for self-reps, addressing the issue of vexatiousness, and just how careful courts should be when deciding to designate a litigant “vexatious” and restrict their future court access. Those designated as “vexatious” litigants are almost always self-represented litigants, and Julie, Colin, and Brynne discuss the unique situation in Alberta, where the vague and extremely broad doctrine of “inherent jurisdiction” has increasingly been used to designate SRLs as “vexatious” over the last few years, and to place multiple restrictions on them. The Lymer decision has poured (a lot of) cold water on this approach to “vexatiousness”, and Colin and Brynne discuss with Julie what this means for Alberta, and the rest of Canada. In other news: NSRLP continues to update our COVID-19 resources, and we have recently added a new page on wills and powers of attorney; we’re looking for access to justice all-stars who are doing great work during the pandemic – nominations can be sent to @representingyourself@gmail.com; we have two new blogs up, looking at the future of the legal system post-COVID, from both Julie and BC Chief Justice Robert Bauman; the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General announced that it will be shifting some of its traditional investments toward innovation and new technology; Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada Richard Wagner and federal Justice Minister David Lametti have created an Action Committee on court operations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; and finally, NSRLP is asking you to spread the word (and give if you can!) about our vital fundraising campaign, #Justice4All. For related links and more on this episode visit our website: https://representingyourselfcanada.com/vexatious-in-alberta-a-victory-for-self-reps/ Jumping Off the Ivory Tower is produced and hosted by Julie Macfarlane and Dayna Cornwall; production and editing by Braunte Petric; Other News produced and hosted by Ali Tejani; promotion by Moya McAlister and Ali Tejani.

Teck's abandonment of its Frontier mining project amid protesters hijacking national infrastructure reveals how a lack of leadership has made Canada so difficult to invest in. True North's Andrew Lawton discusses this, and exposes the media's double standard on press freedom. Also, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation's Franco Terrazzano joins to celebrate the Alberta Court of Appeal's blow against Justin Trudeau's carbon tax. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We ask Canadians, "Is the failure of the Teck Frontier deal the fault of the Prime Minister or the fault of the opposition?" Aaron Wudrick, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation Federal Director joins us to talk about the Alberta Court of Appeals ruling against a federal carbon tax. Journalist Markham Hislop talks with us about Teck Resources' killing its $20 billion Teck Frontier oil sands project in Alberta.  BC MLA and the former elected chief Councillor of the Haisla Nation, Ellis Ross, then talks about how the First Nations chiefs across the country are vowing to continue opposing the Coastal Gas Link pipeline project. Subscribe to the Charles Adler Tonight podcast to hear more: https://curiouscast.ca/podcast/135/charles-adler-tonight/

Libby Znaimer is joined by John Capobianco,Senior Vice President & Senior Partner, FleishmanHillard HighRoad, Karen Stintz, Former Toronto City Councillor and current CEO of Variety Village, as well as Charles Bird, Managing Principal of Earnscliffe Strategy Group in Toronto. Today's discussion: The Alberta Court of Appeal has deemed that the federal carbon tax is unconstitutional. Alberta's Premier, Jason Kenney, called this a "great victory" for his province. Libby and the panel discuss this topic and more. Listen live, weekdays from noon to 1, on Zoomer Radio!

We are BAAAACK!!! We talk about the UCP winning their appeal of the Federal Carbon Tax in the Alberta Court of Appeals, and the decision of Teck to withdraw their approval of the Frontier Oilsands mine. And why did someone call the police on Deirdre?

We're looking at the appeal of R. v. Barton from the Alberta Court of Appeal, dealing with the trial of Bradley Barton for the death of Cindy Gladue.  What happens when the criminal trial requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt risks providing cover for allowing stereotypes and biases into the criminal justice system? How does the right of an accused to a fair trial, where his very liberty is at stake, stand beside the need to eliminate myths about women, sex and consent? How do we push the reset button in criminal matters relating to sexual assault while also preserving our belief that only those we are certain are guilty should be punished? These are just some of the questions we'll be exploring on this episode of the General Appeal Podcast.   link to Factums in the Barton Appeal: https://www.scc-csc.ca/case-dossier/info/af-ma-eng.aspx?cas=37769  

Peter & Camille discuss a major new case from the Alberta Court of Appeal that rejected an attempt to help Lucy, a lonely elephant confined in the Edmonton Zoo. The hosts break down and critique the majority decision, praise the strong dissent, and explain what it means for animal law in Canada.

Peter & Camille discuss a major new case from the Alberta Court of Appeal that rejected an attempt to help Lucy, a lonely elephant confined in the Edmonton Zoo. The hosts break down and critique the majority decision, praise the strong dissent, and explain what it means for animal law in Canada.

Time to revisit the standard of proof. An important new decision that came out of the Alberta Court of Appeals (R v Ryon, 2019 ABCA 36) can not only reduce wrongful convictions, but it can also free some of the wrongly convicted and jailed (if defence and appeal attorneys know about it). As a non-lawyer I try to break it down for you. Original YouTube video

In April 2019, Jason Kenney returned the Conservatives to power in Alberta. Is this a return to normal in Alberta politics, where one party usually rules? What's happening underneath the platforms and rhetoric? And what do these events tell us about politics, populism and power elsewhere? Ben is in Calgary to address these questions with renowned pollster and political analyst Janet Brown, lawyer and former politico Denise Brunsdon, and University of Calgary political scientist Anthony Sayers. About the Guests Janet Brown Based in Calgary, Janet Brown is one of Alberta’s most-recognized pollsters and political analysts. With over 25 years experience in polling and marketing research, Janet has developed a knack for asking the right people the right questions. Janet sees beyond the headlines and talk radio chatter to assess and interpret what’s happening beneath the surface in Alberta politics. In partnership with journalist Paul McLoughlin, Janet publishes the Wild Ride Update – a quarterly report on Alberta’s rapidly evolving political scene. She is co-author of "Marginally Better: Polling in the 2015 Alberta Election", a chapter in Orange Chinook: Politics in the New Alberta, an edited volume released by the University of Calgary Press in 2019. Janet is a regular commentator on the CBC Calgary News at Six, Alberta Primetime on CTV2 in Alberta, and The Weekend Morning News on Global News Calgary. Learn more about Janet or follow her on Twitter (@planetjanetyyc). Denise Brunsdon Denise is a confident and creative thinker who works tirelessly for her clients and community. She is a general commercial litigation lawyer at Bennett Jones in Calgary, Alberta, with particular experience in court and arbitration disputes in digital, intellectual property, construction, health, and real estate matters. Besides appearing before arbitration tribunals, Denise has appeared before the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench, the Alberta Court of Appeal, and the Federal Court of Canada. Denise is a co-founder and member of Lawyers for Education, Access, and Diversity (LEAD Alberta), and volunteer legal counsel for the Women’s Centre of Calgary. Prior to law, she was a senior director in public relations and a researcher for the Centre for Research & Education on Violence Against Women & Children. She worked for the Liberal Party of Canada as well as the BC Liberal Party for political leaders such as Stephane Dion, Paul Martin and Christy Clark. Denise has earned awards in sex discrimination law, leadership in business and the law, and outstanding community leadership. She is proficient in French and Spanish. Learn more about Denise or follow her on Twitter (@brunsdon). Anthony Sayers Anthony is a previous guest on the What on Earth is Going on? podcast, when he discussed the division of political power with Ben. He received his undergraduate education at the University of Western Australia and completed an MA and Ph.D at the University of British Columbia. His research deals with major political institutions including political parties, elections, federalism and parliaments. He is particularly interested in the organizational and campaigning aspects of political parties and the distribution of power in federal states, and wrote Parties, Candidates, and Constituency Campaigns in Canadian Elections. He also writes about Alberta provincial politics. Listen to Anthony in Episode No. 13 or learn more about him. The Quote of the Week "Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen." - Winston Churchill

The scope of practice for paralegals, especially to help family litigants, has become a central issue in the debate over A2J in Canada. In this episode, Nancy Merrill, a family lawyer and mediator, and now the President of the BC Law Society, talks about her vision for expanding alternative legal services in BC, and her hopes for change. Will BC become a battleground for this issue as it has in Ontario, in the wake of the (still not implemented)Bonkalo report? Nancy’s commitment to the BC Law Society being a “courageous and innovative regulator” extends to rethinking legal education and training, promoting diversity initiatives, and increasing awareness about mental health challenges in the legal profession. In other news: NSRLP will have intervener status in a case at the Alberta Court of Appeal, in the context of the apparently increasing frequency with which SRLs are designated vexatious, or have contempt orders issued against them; the Ontario Court of Appeal has published an order providing CBC the right to place cameras in particular courtrooms to record, live-stream, and broadcast specific proceedings, and we’re hopeful this could result in more openness and transparency in court proceedings; the Ontario government has announced a fundamental change to the justice system by vastly expanding the pool of potential jurors, to better reflect economic and racial diversity; and finally, Julie and Bernie Mayer recently presented a joint keynote address for the annual conference of the Ontario Association of Family Mediators and the Ontario Collaborative Law Federation, discussing the role of mediators in administering access to justice. For related links and more on this episode visit our website: https://representingyourselfcanada.com/can-bc-lead-the-way-on-paralegals/ Jumping Off the Ivory Tower is produced and hosted by Julie Macfarlane and Dayna Cornwall; production and editing by Brauntë Petric; Other News produced and hosted by Ali Tejani; promotion by Moya McAlister and Ali Tejani.

The Notley government spent Tuesday afternoon at the Alberta Court of Appeals making the case for why they shouldn't be held responsible for their unconstitutional actions against private businesses. It all started in late 2015 when overnight, the Alberta government raised the beer tax on out-of-province beers by up to 166 per cent. Two Canadian brewers, one based in Saskatoon and the other in Toronto, took the Alberta government to court, arguing that the tax hike amounted to an interprovincial barrier to free trade which was a violation of the constitution. After three years of legal wrangling, a court ruled in favour of Great Western Brewing and Steam Whistle Brewing, awarding $2M total in restitution to the two companies. Consequently, Alberta taxpayers are on the hook to two out-of-province companies because the NDP thought they could do things that were not allowed. But instead of cutting their losses, the NDP continue to drag these two private companies back to court to appeal the restitution order. My guest tonight suspects the NDP don't want to be associated with the bad optics of a two million dollar payout and a court loss on the eve of an election. And she should know, since she fought the same battle against the unconstitutional tax hike, only she did it before a trade tribunal — and she won. Joining me tonight to discuss the Notley NDP’s latest attack on private enterprise is Bo Vitanov of Calgary's Artisan Ales.

Finally a new episode! Sorry Sorry Sorry. We have been slammed at home and at work.Almost three weeks ago we sat down with Peter Sankoff and Dino Bottos the night before they headed to the Supreme Court to argue the appeal of Barton v. The Queen. The case is complicated with important legal issues and the facts are tragic. Barton was charged with the death of Cindy Gladue. Gladue died of injuries sustained during sex - the question is whether the sex was consensual or not.Barton was acquitted by a jury but the Alberta Court of Appeal found that errors had been made and sent the case back for a new trial. Now its the Supreme Cours turn to weight in.There have been strong feelings about the case - it involves allegations of sexual violence that can be very disturbing.For more information check out the Supreme Court of Canada website for the legal factums and a webcast of the arguments made by all parties and interveners.After Barton we talked about Brett Kavanaugh - which I swear was topical at the time.And we promise to get a new episode out soon!

Cannabis legislation is being debated on Parliament Hill. One MP called me a renowned lawyer and one MP said marijuana was as dangerous as fentanyl. At lest one of those MP is batshit crazy. Yes, Peter Kent claimed that by legalizing marijuana we might as well as be force feeding our kids fentanyl - well that was the gist of it. So we make some fun of him.We also update the tragic Ezekiel Stephan case. The Alberta Court of Appeal upheld Ezekiel's parents conviction for their role in his death. We looked at the case way back on episode 41 and we will likely do it all again because this thing is headed to the Supreme Court. I also tell Emilie a long story about the worse courthouse in Ontario - welcome to Smiths Falls.And then we talk about mental health in the justice system. The House of Commons Justice Committee is looking at the mental health of jurors. Ontario took action last year. But we need to do more for everyone in our courts. We don't talk about mental health enough but maybe that is changing.

“Coloured” Albertan is refused hotel room.On May 13, 1959, a young man trying to reach a friend phoned Barclay’s Motel in Calgary, only to be told, “We don’t allow coloured people here.” What the hotel didn’t know was that this Mr. King was president and chairman of the grievance committee of the Alberta Association for the Advancement of Coloured People in Calgary. When King and a friend dropped into the motel an hour later, he was refused a room for the same reason. Later, the hotel owner would claim it was because staff had noted King’s Calgary license plate and concluded he wasn’t really a traveler. King went to court for being “deprived of his lawful right to accommodation.” He claimed damages of $500 for “humiliation, indignity and insult.” But on May 4, 1960, the judge found that Barclay’s Motel was not an inn because it did not sell food – and therefore didn’t fall under rules dictated by the Innkeepers Act of Alberta. He also ruled that because King was not a traveler – he was there merely to investigate – the facility had no legal obligation to give him a room. On February 14, 1961, the Alberta Court of Appeal came to the same conclusion. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Mandatory retirement reasonable, says Supreme Court of Canada.As a professor at the University of Alberta, Dr. Olive Patricia Dickason had signed a contract agreeing to the university’s employment terms. One of those terms dictated mandatory retirement at the age of 65. When she was showed the door at 65, however, Dickason didn’t want to go, so she took her case to the province’s human rights body. She won both there and on the case’s first appeal, but the Alberta Court of Appeal sided with the university. The Supreme Court of Canada heard Dickason’s case on May 5, 1992; five months later the majority of judges stated that while her equality rights had been violated, the mandatory retirement policy had been a reasonable limitation of those rights under the circumstances. Although professors are forced to retire, the court noted, they have tenure to ensure academic freedom, and to prevent them being fired for anything but just cause; that makes for a fair trade-off. Further, the court pointed out, universities need to be able to hire a steady stream of young new faculty to keep teaching and research fresh. Although some regarded the court’s decision as a slap in the face for older workers, the majority of Canadians were not clamouring to work past the age 65 regardless of the equality issues. Years after this decision, most provinces did away with mandatory retirement. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sexual orientation is “read in” to Alberta’s human rights legislation.Delwin Vriend worked as a laboratory coordinator for King’s College in Edmonton, Alberta, until fired when the institution discovered he was gay. When Vriend filed a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission, he was told that sexual orientation was not a protected ground in Alberta. Vriend and others took their case to court, where the judge agreed there should be protection for gay men and lesbians. The court “read in” sexual orientation as a protected ground (that is, included it in their human rights legislation), but found that move overturned by a majority in the Alberta Court of Appeal.On April 2, 1998, the Supreme Court of Canada agreed with the original trial judge and read in sexual orientation, saying that denying gays and lesbians protection from discrimination is contrary to the equality provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The court stated that although adding protections the legislature had not might be somewhat intrusive, it was much better than striking down the entire act and therefore depriving all Albertans of human rights protections. Premier Ralph Klein considered overriding the court’s decision, as allowed in the Charter, but hurtful public opinion swayed him to conclude that gays and lesbians really were in need of legal protections. While Albertans now receive sexual orientation protection from the Supreme Court, overt wording of this has yet to be passed by the province’s legislature. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

CanadianImmigrationPodcast.com Mark Holthe: I'm here with my good friend and colleague, Raj Sharma. Raj, thanks for joining me. Raj Sharma: My pleasure. Mark Holthe: We're testing this out with our digital recorder here. I usually do these interviews via Skype call, but I've got high hopes that the audio is going to be great regardless. Thanks for putting up with me, Raj, and happy to have you with us. Today, Raj has agreed to come in and talk a little bit about criminal inadmissibility and some of the consequences that can flow when people get themselves into trouble here in Canada, but before we get into that I want to take a moment to share a little bit of background on Raj, and where he's come from professionally, and where he's at. Raj Sharma's a lawyer and founding partner of Stewart Sharma Harsanyi, one of Western Canada's largest dedicated immigration law firms. He received his masters of law from Osgoode Hall and is a former refugee protection officer with the Immigration and Refugee Board. Now, I'll get to the question of how you got into immigration and I'm going to go out on a limb and think that that probably influenced it a little bit. Raj Sharma: That's right. Mark Holthe: With over a hundred reported decisions, Raj has indicated to me, he frequently appears before all divisions, as well as the Federal Court, the court of appeal, and has also appeared before every level of court in Alberta. Raj regularly speaks on immigration matters in the media, and he's been a panelist and speaker at the CBA National Immigration Conference in 2014 and '15. He also writes a lot on immigration, multiculturalism, and diversity. Recently he was the recipient of the Legal Aid of Alberta's Access to Justice award and has been recognized as well as one of Calgary's Top 40 Under 40. Raj is an extremely accomplished individual and I know that he won't plug himself, so I'll do that for him, but whenever I have a difficult case with respect to enforcement, or appeal work, or anything like that I send it to him and his firm. Once again, thanks for joining, Raj. Raj Sharma: Thanks, Mark. I'm East Indian, or as I like to describe ourselves as brown, so no matter how accomplished I am, obviously given that I'm not a doctor I'm probably a disappointment to my parents. Mark Holthe: Well, we'll have to get your parents on to come back and I'm almost positive with everything that you've done, at least within our industry and how you've distinguished yourself, that there wouldn't be a parent on this planet that wouldn't be proud of you. Enough of the feel good stuff, fill us in. How did you get into immigration? Raj Sharma: I never intended to get into immigration law. I did my JD at the University of Alberta. While I was there, I didn't take any immigration courses, immigration just wasn't even on my radar. I summered at a large law firm here in Calgary, Burnet, Duckworth & Palmer. I didn't like the large law firm milieu so to speak. Then I spent some time with Dennis Edney, who's now the lawyer for Omar Khadr. Then I also clerked up the Alberta Court of Appeal and ended up doing my articles with the federal department of justice. I think I had at that point an understanding that I would be somewhat closer to a barrister or a litigator than I would be in terms a solicitor. There was one case that I handled and my mentor at that time at the federal Department of Justice was Glennys Bembridge, who is now a Federal Court justice with a different last name, but there was one case and it involved a family, they're doctors, and their son had autism. I was the articling student, so I had to put together the affidavit and supporting the officer's finding of medical inadmissibility. I found that really, really interesting, but I kept saying to my mentor at that why can't we just consent on this file, the family's really deserving, and ultimately I think that the family did get relief. After that, I'd met my wife at Winnipeg at a wedding ... Mark Holthe: I'm going to jump in. Raj Sharma: Yes. Mark Holthe: You said, "Why can't we just consent to this?" What was his response? Raj Sharma: It was a strange response. The response was just like, "Oh, we just have to ..." Mark Holthe: Carry it through. Raj Sharma: It was more like it was like, "Oh, the client instructions ..." I'm like, "What client? We're the government." I was explained that different departments are actually clients of the department of justice. I found that very odd because I don't think that's true. I think that a client/solicitor relationship doesn't encapsulate departments of government being clients of each other. I found that odd. In any way, I'd met my wife in Winnipeg at a wedding, my cousin's wedding. She was in Calgary, born and raised in Calgary, so I needed a way to get to Calgary somehow, so I was applying for jobs in Calgary and I got this called up to do this test or examination at the Immigration Refugee Board. I was offered this position to become a refugee protection officer. That's where in fact I met my partner, Bjorn Harsanyi, so we both started off as refugee protection officers, hearings officers in 2002. Mark Holthe: Obviously that makes a pretty nice background for sliding over to the other side. It gives you an opportunity at least having worked on the other side to get a better understanding of how the government operates, how the department operates, a little bit more inside to the minds of what goes through a decision maker on that side. I have to assume that that helped you as you moved over to the other side with your advocacy on behalf of clients. Raj Sharma: I think so and I think that, and again there's this tradition of this entrepreneurial tradition within my community, and of course my second and third languages also helped, there was a burgeoning South Asian community in Calgary at that time. Really, it was timing, and so Calgary's just really good to me. I'd moved to Calgary at about the right time and I went into private practice at about the right time, right before Calgary took off, so to speak. 2004 I started my practice, late 2004 I started my practice. At that time, just trying to take whatever you can get, so again, I wasn't really centered in immigration. Then there was this legal aid file, this three hour legal aid file for criminal inadmissibility. It involved a foreign national in Canada accused or there was an allegation of weapons, and gun smuggling, and weapons trafficking. At that point I thought, "Well, this is a foregone conclusion." I looked at the IRPA and I said, "Well, this is just, there's no way out here," but my partner at that time pushed me a little bit and so I looked at it, I looked at it again. I put in far more hours than the three hours allotted to me, and low and behold I was able to succeed. I think that was the first time that I was in the media, that was the first time I was on TV or the newspapers, at least when it came to my legal practice. It was after that that my practice in immigration took off because it was after that that I joined Caron & Partners and then again after I left Caron & Partners there was another Vietnamese fellow, [another] fork in the road. There was another Vietnamese client, Jackie Tran, and that file I took on in 2009. Both of these cases probably had something to do with the direction of my practice. Mark Holthe: Yeah, that makes perfect sense because I think for most of us business immigration lawyers, I guess that's how I classify myself, when there's a sticky situation I get uncomfortable pretty quick. I have a tendency to try to take the path of easiest and least resistance with my clients. If there's push back from the government, I tend to try and say, "Do we need to refile? Do we need to rethink our strategy?" Sometimes it's faster to just accept the stupid decision that you get from an officer and then just try to satisfy whatever they want, and refile, and get it approved, but there's a number of situations where people get themselves into a corner where they really don't have a nice, easy solution other than taking the government on. Raj Sharma: I think .. it depends on what you're facing. Now, in your case you have to solve a sort of business problem. Prior to 2009, before Tran, I was actually doing hundreds of LMIA's, or LMO's that they were called at the time, so I was representing major corporations, I was getting fat, I was just doing pure solicitor work, and I think again timing came to my rescue because once I got into the Tran file, which necessitated three different Federal Court applications, [emergency] stay application, IAD, ID, and right about that same time the economy in Calgary sort of collapsed, so to speak. If you're a one trick pony, that is you're only doing one aspect of immigration, you could be susceptible to that sort of change. I was very lucky in the sense of I did quite a bit of solicitor business work, but given that strong litigation year we were able to just basically switch our practices over to a litigation aspect. In business [immigration], you're tasked with making sure that the business runs smoothly. Where it's an individual facing loss of status, it's a zero sum game. In business there may be not, it's not a zero sum game, but in someone facing removal or deportation to a country that they haven't been in since they were a kid, it's a zero sum game which is you win or you lose, so at that point you start bringing out all the arrows in your quiver and you're doing whatever you can for your client because it is, for them to some degree, it's life or death in the sense of it's a death of a relationship, it's a death of your relationship to Canada, and it's a death of your status in this country. Mark Holthe: Let's shift to the topic at hand. I think a lot of our listeners, this isn't something that they're very familiar with because I think genuinely people try to avoid committing crimes in Canada and getting themselves removed. Raj Sharma: Right, and we know for a fact that immigrants or first generation Canadians have a lower crime rate than native born Canadians, so you're absolutely right. Most of your listeners and our clients, most of them, the vast majority enjoy a lower criminal rate or criminality than Canadians would. Mark Holthe: Yes, absolutely. As those that are listening in here, as I introduced when I started the podcast here, the interview with Raj Sharma, I indicated that we're going to be talking a little bit about criminal inadmissibility, so Raj, can you give us a little bit of an introduction? When we talk about criminal inadmissibility, how does that play into this world of immigration? Raj Sharma: Immigration is about, and notwithstanding whatever we hear these days from Donald Trump or Hilary Clinton, there are no such thing as truly open borders. A country will always dictate who enters and who remains, so there was a case that went to the supreme court of Canada involving a woman actually -- most of the cases I deal with actually do involve men -- but Medovarski involved a woman and Medovarski reaffirmed that concept that non-citizens do not have an unqualified right to enter or remain inside of Canada. When we look at criminality, the threshold for removing non-citizens from Canada is spelled out in intricate detail in the Immigration Refugee Protection Act and there is a bifurcation, i.e., it's somewhat harder to remove permanent residents from Canada and quite a bit easier to remove foreign nationals from Canada. When we talk about foreign nationals, we're talking about students and those here on work permits or those that are visitors in Canada. When we talk about permanent residence, obviously those are individuals that have applied for permanent residency, they're not citizens yet, and so we have a paradigm, a very detailed framework that deals with non-citizens that get in trouble with the law. Mark Holthe: When we talk about getting in trouble with the law, does the Immigration Act or the government, do they view certain crimes more seriously than others? How is that distinction set up? Raj Sharma: No, and maybe they should. That would have been a proper starting point. Maybe you should have been involved in this sort of legislation of these laws, but unfortunately the distinction of the severity of a crime is based on the maximum term of imprisonment or the actual incarceral or term that's imposed. When we talk about prison or incarceral term, we're including conditional sentences or sentences to be served in the community, so the distinction is not between the type of offense, someone that's convicted of a white collar offense such as fraud could face removal just as easily or perhaps more easily than someone accused or charged with simple assault. Mark Holthe: Even if an offense, let's say it's a hybrid offense, so it could proceed summarily or via indictment, the person that is sentenced to ten years imprisonment for that offense versus someone that's sentenced to six months under the eyes of the lovely immigration authorities, it's irrelevant. Raj Sharma: That's right, and it also doesn't take into account your length of time in Canada, so you could be a permanent resident and you could be here since you were two or three, and you could be [here] thirty years, and you could have an issue. Of course, this is the fragility of the human condition, we all make mistakes, so it doesn't take into account the length of time that you're in Canada…, nor does it take into account the nature of the offense, whether it's violent or whether it's non-violent. It's a blunt instrument unfortunately, Section 36 in particularly. Mark Holthe: If you have an individual that's committed a crime in Canada it's pretty clear we know what the offense is, we know what the conviction was, there's not a lot of debate about it, but what happens if someone wants to enter Canada or comes to Canada and has a conviction that occurred over seas or in another country, how does Canada treat those? Raj Sharma: Those things get complicated really quickly because different countries have different legal systems and different countries have different standards in terms of the ... You could have a situation [if] you're from China. Now, China has a 99.9% conviction rate. Mark Holthe: Wow, maybe I won't ask too many questions as to how that justice system plays out for those people accused, but ... Raj Sharma: I mean, so when we start making equivalent, or making offenses, or acts that individuals have done outside of Canada, and we have to somehow try and make them equivalent to offenses in Canada, those things get tricky really, really quickly. That's one subset of what we do.[But] I just keep getting reminded, even this morning, had a client applied on the Alberta Immigrant Nominee Program, skilled individual, excellent English, everything's fantastic, no criminal record whatsoever, applied on the ANP, got the nomination, applied for the PR forms to [CPC] Sydney. We got the passport request two days ago, three days ago, problem. Last week after a birthday party or someone's party, one in the morning, [he's] charged with impaired driving. Those are the sort of simple, understandable criminality because I think some politicians paint criminals as this broad brush, but criminals are no different than [you or I], it's just there's one incorrect decision. I think impaired driving is like that, this is impaired driving, could result in no jail time whatsoever, probably will result in a fine if he ever gets convicted, and a driving suspension. Won't spend a day in jail, but that's a hybrid offense and that [a conviction] makes him [as a foreign national] inadmissible. That's where I feel a lot of sympathy because you're seeing literally in front of you the end of a dream and you're seeing a person that for all other purposes would be an ideal addition to Canada's multicultural fabric. It's not really the media, it's not my cases that hit the news or the front pages that really give a proper idea of my practice. It really is those guys that are within an inch of permanent residency and we wouldn't consider them to be criminals, but of course they've made a grievous and horrendous error by drinking and getting behind the wheel of a car. Mark Holthe: Let's carry that through, I think that would be interesting. An individual who is in that type of a situation, this happens to them. What can they expect? Raj Sharma: Number one, if they come to me my first response to them, and there may be some sort of false hope, or some sort of strange fever dream that they're existing under, or they may get some sort of strange advice from someone, or a friend, or a cousin, and there may be a suggestion as to just somehow let it ride out and CIC may not figure this out. My first advice to them is that if they want my assistance, that we will be disclosing the charge and the encounter with the police immediately. That's the first thing that should happen and once they agree to these sort of terms, then we can start figuring out a solution. Now, the solution of course, and I kind of outlined that earlier today in my speech here, which is now start looking into conviction options or post conviction options. These conviction options, number one, beat out the charge in trial, because the system is binary, because it's a zero sum game, we can't now ... I think criminal lawyers and immigration lawyers that dabble in criminal law, there's no options now. You actually have to go and try to beat this out, you got to find, even if your client is factually guilty, you got to find a way to make him legally not guilty because if he's not guilty, that doesn't lead to any criminal consequences. If it's an offense, a domestic violence type of situation, and a peace bond is in the offering, take a peace bond. A peace bond doesn't have any criminal consequences either. There may be possibilities for some offenses for absolute or conditional discharges, take it, take it. That bird in the hand, we can safeguard that immigration at that point. In terms of a DUI, we're really looking to these curative discharges now and that's one option as well. Mark Holthe: Maybe you can explain what that is. What is a curative discharge? Raj Sharma: Curative discharge involves a process by which there is a guilt or there is factual guilt and there's again…. A curative discharge we've used where there's indication of alcoholism [as a] medical condition. If we can establish that, then the judge may see fit to grant a curative discharge. If that happens, then there is no criminal record that could waylay an immigration application or application for permanent residence. That's not to say, by the way, that that won't lead to other issues, i.e., you may still need a waiver to get into the US, but the curative discharge is something that we explore for impaired driving, and conditional, and absolute where ever possible [for other offences]. Now, bear in mind there's a whole host of offenses that result in mandatory minimum sentences and so we can't do any number of these things for those types of offenses, but those are some of the arrows in our quiver in terms of post conviction. Where ever possible, if you are facing a charge, either you're a permanent resident or a foreign national, try to get immigration lawyer involved alongside your criminal lawyer. There may be options to get positive sentencing remarks or positive remarks that are spoken into the record. Those transcripts can come in handy. If you are convicted, if you are sentenced, it's important that the client demonstrate remorse, and rehabilitation, engage in programming, and try to turn that life around. If we can demonstrate that, there are some options, which is that that initiating document to establish criminal inadmissibility, the Section 44 report, there is a scope for the officer not to write that report. Again, when I started down this journey I didn't realize the scope of discretion that's in the act. There is significant discretion. An officer may choose not to write a report against a permanent resident or foreign national and that may be the first, and maybe the last, real line of defense for a lot of these individuals. We've seen that happen, we've seen permanent residents, I've represented permanent residents, young guys, a technical armed robbery, four years plus sentence ... Mark Holthe: A technical armed robbery. Raj Sharma: A technical armed robbery... Mark Holthe: I love this terminology, technical versus a real, is there any distinction there? Raj Sharma: Let me tell you and you tell me whether that terminology or that splitting of hairs is appropriate. A guy got fired from a job at a liquor store, was angry, young guy, and decides to rob the liquor store as some sort of payback, buys a gun that is not operational, just this old, rusted out gun. There's no bullets in it, it's inoperable. Goes into the store, people see the gun, so they flee, so he goes to the cashier, he tries to open the cash box, is unable to do so, and runs out without stealing anything. Misfortune added to his idiocy, there's an off duty police officer who immediately arrests him outside the liquor store, so this guy goes through this process and his criminal lawyer after wasting tens of thousands of dollars of his money, pleads him guilty to an offense that includes a mandatory minimum sentence. At that point, and I met the judge actually afterwards and the judge said, "Hey, I wonder why that lawyer did that because if the lawyer challenged that on a charter ground of cruel and unusual punishment, that that mandatory minimum sentence in this case offends the Charter, I would have granted it to him." This lawyer tells this guy and his family, "That's it, game over, you will be deported," but of course that's not actually the end of it. [So] I do stand by my characterization of that as a technical armed robbery because this guy, he's more of an idiot than he was a criminal. This family went through a lot, this family, his sister in fact, who lived with was married, [her] husband had some mental issues, and she was attacked actually. The police attended and in fact that man was actually brought down by the CPS, so the family went through a lot. We put all this together, put the sentencing transcripts in, the judge, they got a really compassionate judge who said a lot of things into that record. [The client] was out on bail for four years, and upgraded himself, and it really was an ill advised decision. Ultimately, we had an understanding officer. She ended up interviewing him over the telephone, I think, at the Remand institution, and [she ultimately] decided not to write the report. Mark Holthe: I guess that's the beauty of this is the discretion that's laced into the immigration process. Raj Sharma: They won't lightly do it, but if you've got the goods .. it can be done. We had another case, we had another individual originally from Hong Kong, came over as a kid, got into some gambling issues, and then got into selling drugs to pay off some of those debts. Served his time, was a model prisoner, and his entire family was here, we set out everything. In this case we asked the Report not to be written, it was written. We challenged the Report at the Federal Court, we received approval or leave on one, it went back, and ultimately a Minister's Delegate decided to issue a warning letter. That's drug trafficking [involving a “hard” drug] and that was again significant, so these things can be done for the right individual. You will have people that have turned their lives around and you can see, you can tell. There's no faking this because it's a year's long journey. If you've got it, you've got it, and thankfully our officers, what I've seen is that we have fair individuals, open minded individuals, and that's not to say that I haven't lost on something that I think I should have won, I have, but even that decision, at least that individual had an open mind. I think our [CBSA/CIC] officers by and large are open minded individuals. Again, this may be the last line of defense for a lot of these individuals because there may not be an appeal to the ID anymore because the atrociously entitled Fast Removal of Foreign Criminals Act has amended the IRPA, so permanent residents that have been sentenced to more than six months, including conditional sentences, don't have an appeal to the IAD anymore. Whatever they've got, they've got to address that Section 44 report, that procedural fairness process, maybe Federal Court, maybe a TRP, maybe an H&C, a humanitarian and compassion application, but without that IAD backup, options are limited. Mark Holthe: That's really interesting because like I said, from my perspective, someone who does not do a lot of that type of work, very little in fact, I see walls, absolute walls sometimes for people that I can't see past, whereas individuals such as yourself who have a little bit of a broader perspective, and have actually gone and looked behind the wall have realized that sometimes there's ways through. The message that I got, especially, and just to clarify for the listeners, Raj and I are just meeting at the Canadian Bar Association Office here in Calgary after Raj gave a presentation [to the CBA Immigration Subsection] on this similar topic. One of the messages that came through loud and clear is that maybe people give up too easy, especially counsel, us. I put us under the bus in many circumstances because sometimes we're just too willing to roll over. We need to take a serious look at what the possibilities, are and not be afraid to question and challenge an allegation that's being made against our clients. Even in circumstances where based on a clear reading of the law there's a certain outcome that's supposed to flow doesn't necessarily mean there isn't discretion to go around that and that there isn't some compassion laced into the system. Raj Sharma: I learned this relatively recently. I went to visit my eighty-five, ninety years old grandmother in Edmonton. I didn't learn until much later -- my grandfather died, so my grandmother came over with my youngest uncle to Canada to her children here. None of us kids actually knew that our uncle was actually her sister's son. Her sister had died, so she had taken my uncle in. I guess his dad wasn't interested in caring for him, so I learned this later that Uncle is not actually our uncle, he's actually my mom's cousin. …I knew that there was some immigration issues that he was going through early on when he came, so my grandmother explained it to me, because there was no adoption papers and because my grandmother I think is incapable of lying, she's very straight out that we have no adoption papers, but he has nowhere else to be other than with me. They battled for like three or four years to try and get my uncle to be here. Ultimately CIC indicated, "Well, he can't be here, there's no adoption papers, we have no consent from his guardian, or his biological father, or whatever the case may be." We're from this small mining town in BC and the family was helped by an immigration lawyer out of Vancouver. Ultimately my uncle got what was then called a minister's permit, which is now we call a TRP, a temporary resident permit. When I learned that I was, "Well, I guess that's what I do." So I [do] think people minimize or perhaps don't understand the scope of discretion that's available. There are roadblocks, there's hurdles, [but] there's very few problems without an absolute solution. That being said, if you are unmitigated, incorrigible criminal, no officer's going to give you the benefit of whatever doubt there may be, but there are these avenues that can be pursued and there is a sort of system. You got to work through that system, work with the criminal lawyers, put your client in the best possible light, take advantage of any little nook, cranny, any little shaft of light, and you might be able to widen that crack a little bit for your client to step through, but yes, very few things are foregone conclusions and it's our job as counsel to put the best possible foot forward for the client. Again, in my twelve years of practicing immigration law there's very few actual incorrigible [criminals]. I said this before … that hard cases make bad law and outliers shouldn't make the world a harder place for the vast majority of people that simply want to come to Canada and give their families a better life. These outliers don't reflect the vast majority of cases that we deal with. The vast majority of cases we deal with are human fragility, human error, understandable mistakes. Mark Holthe: You mentioned this concept of a TRP, a temporary resident permit, which is now the new version of a Minister's Permit. Raj Sharma: That's right. Mark Holthe: In some circumstances, individuals will have appeal rights when there is criminality involved and they're facing some harsh consequences, they have appeal rights and other times they don't. You had talked a little bit about the discretion that an officer has to write that report to refer it or not. Can you maybe clarify that just a little bit for counsel who maybe have individuals that are at the stage where the consequences could be pretty nasty? Maybe there is no appeal right and you indicated that sometimes an officer does have some discretion whether or not to write it. Raj Sharma: That's right. That Section 44 report, so let's say there's a conviction in Canada. Establishing that would be pretty straightforward, pretty easy. What counsel can do is respond to a procedural fairness letter, say, "Please don't write the Section 44 report and here's why," and these are going to be [modeled on] the typical Section 25 type of application or submission, so time in Canada, establishment in Canada, those ties here, the family ties here, hardship, or adverse conditions, or challenges upon return, children that are affected by the decision, the circumstances leading to the events, any indicia of remorse, rehabilitation, insight. All those should be placed squarely before the officer and you say to the officer, "Don't write this report, please. The guy's been here for a long time, this is a singular mistake, the criminal record is limited or none other than this lapse in judgment." If the officer writes the report, its then has to be referred under Section 44 sub 2 by a Minister's Delegate. If it's referred, for a permanent resident that means it goes to the immigration division. If it's criminality or serious criminality in Canada, that's Section 44 sub 2, that becomes a removal order for a foreign national. Again, there's less options for foreign nationals here. If it's referred to the immigration division, not much you can do if it's a conviction in Canada. The ID is not going to look beyond the certificate of conviction. If it's a conviction outside of Canada or an allegation that some offense has occurred outside of Canada, that would be equivalent to serious offenses inside of Canada. Then the immigration proceeding becomes a substantive proceeding. That's when it takes on some degree of significance. You are then going to start talking about foreign legal laws, standard of proof, burden of proof, and at that point you probably should be retaining a foreign legal expert. It gets complicated really quickly at that point. After a removal order is issued, post removal order options are limited. A TRP can overcome or allow you to remain in Canada notwithstanding a removal order. An H&C can do the same. One option might be to get a TRP pending record suspension for a conviction inside Canada, for example, if there's eligibility. Mark Holthe: If an officer chooses to write the report when you've made your submissions, can you challenge that part before it gets to the immigration division? Raj Sharma: Yes, you can challenge both the writing of a Report to the Federal Court and the referral of the report to the Federal Court. You probably won't do that if the person concerned is a permanent resident and has an appeal right to the IAD, there's no sense in that, but if you don't have that appeal, you're left with these limited options, so you're going to buy some more time. By going to the Federal Court either you buy some more time, it goes back, a different officer might come to a different conclusion, or you simply might need time for record suspension. Mark Holthe: Just buying the time, interesting. Raj Sharma: Might be one because you need strategic depth, so strategic depth is usually time, more time in Canada gives you more options. Mark Holthe: Define strategic depth for those who are not following. What are you talking about when you use that terminology? Raj Sharma: Strategic depth I was thinking more in terms of war. If you've got a country like Russia and you want to invade Russia, and Napoleon and Hitler both tried that. One of the problems is that Russia has a lot of depth, so you can invade, and invade, and keep invading, and the Russians will have time to mount a response. You can contrast that with, for example, Pakistan, which is thin wasted [country] geographically speaking, there's not a lot of strategic depth there. If we were to apply that terminology to immigration in Canada, then I would say strategic depth would be time. A lot of time, we don't have time, and so give me some time, give me enough time and I can do quite a bit. You need time to marshal resources, to file Federal Court obligations, to file TRP applications, to file H&C applications, to maybe get a rehabilitation application in, so time is our strategic depth and most of the time we don't have it. Mark Holthe: Yes, that is abundantly clear within our practice. I really appreciate that overview and the insight, it was awesome. Let's talk about some practice tips maybe. If counsel finds themselves in these types of positions dealing with an issue, a potential criminal inadmissibility, what are some of the things that go through your mind right away that you'd give in terms of advice, things that people want to make sure they do every single time, or little tips or strategies? You've already indicated here that you want to try to buy as much time as you can, that's obviously really important, but are there any specific things or pieces of advice that we haven't maybe talked about yet that you'd like to share with the listeners? Raj Sharma: I think definitely take a look at the IRCC or CIC policy manuals, Enforcement Manual 5, Enforcement Manual 6, take a look at the loose leaf publication by Mario Bellissimo and Genova, Immigration and Admissibility, they've got a handbook as well. You need to get an understanding of the facts and understand the law in a relatively quick fashion. Once you understand the context that you're in, so if the context is a permanent resident, and there's an offense, and you're looking at the loss of appeal rights, and you've got a procedural fairness letter, and the sentence has been served, what I would do immediately is probably do ATIP requests, access to information requests, and I would try to get and reconstruct the client's immigration history as much as possible. That's probably the first thing I would do is do an ATIP request. I would do FOIP requests for the correctional service documents, the institution documents, and see what's been going on over there and try to get access to those parole documents, take a look at their recidivism rankings. I would probably get the sentencing transcripts right away, I would get any pre-sentence reports that were filed or that were before the sentencing judge right away. After I looked at that I would see if I could update that pre-sentence report by a qualified forensic expert and reassess recidivism. Then I would probably put together these substantive submissions. Again, relying on maybe the IRB, IAD, Removal Order Appeals publication. Having regard to the sort of H&C factors and Ribic and Chieu factors. I would put all that together and get it into that officer probably as soon as possible. That's probably what I would do and that's probably what anyone should probably do with a PR facing removal where there's been a length of sentence greater than six months. If it was less than six months, then obviously maybe I'd just keep my powder dry to some degree, I'd still put in something, but I'd probably just keep my powder dry for the IAD. Mark Holthe: It's pretty much they're going to send it that way and choose not to make a decision at that stage. Raj Sharma: I would think as an officer, this is not in the manuals at all, but ... Mark Holthe: This is what we want, Raj, yes. Raj Sharma: As an officer, and I used to be an officer, but as an officer if I saw that a PR had a right of appeal, then really I would probably give short shrift to any sort of request for exercising my discretion at the 44 stage. I'd be like, "Look, let me just do my job, let me write this 44 report, and refer it, and let them make whatever submissions he needs to the IAD." I think the relationship to discretion and the loss of appeal rights is inverse, so if there's an appeal right, then I would narrow my own discretion. Then if there's no appeal rights, then I would probably take and expand my scope of discretion within, of course, the ambit of the law. Mark Holthe: That's awesome and it makes perfect sense. Officers, despite how some people feel, are human beings. When they feel like someone is trying to screw the system over, they're probably not going to give you a lot of help, but if they feel people are genuine and they've made a mistake, and there's a whole host of ... Raj Sharma: The system, maybe the system has been narrowed against, for example, any further request for relief. I think that they'll substantively consider. Mark Holthe: That's awesome. I really appreciate everything that you've shared here. Raj Sharma: Any time. Mark Holthe: This is fantastic. Now, as always when I have guests on, people are going to listen to this and they're going to say, "Hey, I've got a friend," or, "I know someone who's in this exact situation," and their counsel that they have right now is telling them that they might as well start singing 'Happy Trails,' and packing their bags, and they're saying to themselves, "There must be something else that I can do." They're going to listen to this and they're going to say, "Raj Sharma, how do I get a hold of this guy?" How do people track you down? What's the best way of getting in contact with you and engaging your services? Raj Sharma: For sure, Mark. Anyone can email us at info@sshlaw.ca, that's info@sshlaw.ca, number is 403-705-3398. I think we have a toll free number, but I'm not sure what it is. Mark Holthe: You can go to the website, right, too. Raj Sharma: Yes, you can definitely reach us and we'd be happy to help. It's something that we've developed for the last seven, eight years or so. Mark Holthe: Awesome, thanks a lot. I appreciate your time. Take care. Raj Sharma: Thanks a lot, Mark.

CanadianImmigrationPodcast.com Mark Holthe: I'm here with my good friend and colleague, Raj Sharma. Raj, thanks for joining me. Raj Sharma: My pleasure. Mark Holthe: We're testing this out with our digital recorder here. I usually do these interviews via Skype call, but I've got high hopes that the audio is going to be great regardless. Thanks for putting up with me, Raj, and happy to have you with us. Today, Raj has agreed to come in and talk a little bit about criminal inadmissibility and some of the consequences that can flow when people get themselves into trouble here in Canada, but before we get into that I want to take a moment to share a little bit of background on Raj, and where he's come from professionally, and where he's at. Raj Sharma's a lawyer and founding partner of Stewart Sharma Harsanyi, one of Western Canada's largest dedicated immigration law firms. He received his masters of law from Osgoode Hall and is a former refugee protection officer with the Immigration and Refugee Board. Now, I'll get to the question of how you got into immigration and I'm going to go out on a limb and think that that probably influenced it a little bit. Raj Sharma: That's right. Mark Holthe:  With over a hundred reported decisions, Raj has indicated to me, he frequently appears before all divisions, as well as the Federal Court, the court of appeal, and has also appeared before every level of court in Alberta. Raj regularly speaks on immigration matters in the media, and he's been a panelist and speaker at the CBA National Immigration Conference in 2014 and '15. He also writes a lot on immigration, multiculturalism, and diversity. Recently he was the recipient of the Legal Aid of Alberta's Access to Justice award and has been recognized as well as one of Calgary's Top 40 Under 40. Raj is an extremely accomplished individual and I know that he won't plug himself, so I'll do that for him, but whenever I have a difficult case with respect to enforcement, or appeal work, or anything like that I send it to him and his firm. Once again, thanks for joining, Raj. Raj Sharma:  Thanks, Mark. I'm East Indian, or as I like to describe ourselves as brown, so no matter how accomplished I am, obviously given that I'm not a doctor I'm probably a disappointment to my parents. Mark Holthe: Well, we'll have to get your parents on to come back and I'm almost positive with everything that you've done, at least within our industry and how you've distinguished yourself, that there wouldn't be a parent on this planet that wouldn't be proud of you. Enough of the feel good stuff, fill us in. How did you get into immigration? Raj Sharma: I never intended to get into immigration law. I did my JD at the University of Alberta. While I was there, I didn't take any immigration courses, immigration just wasn't even on my radar. I summered at a large law firm here in Calgary, Burnet, Duckworth & Palmer. I didn't like the large law firm milieu so to speak. Then I spent some time with Dennis Edney, who's now the lawyer for Omar Khadr. Then I also clerked up the Alberta Court of Appeal and ended up doing my articles with the federal department of justice. I think I had at that point an understanding that I would be somewhat closer to a barrister or a litigator than I would be in terms a solicitor. There was one case that I handled and my mentor at that time at the federal Department of Justice was Glennys Bembridge, who is now a Federal Court justice with a different last name, but there was one case and it involved a family, they're doctors, and their son had autism. I was the articling student, so I had to put together the affidavit and supporting the officer's finding of medical inadmissibility. I found that really, really interesting, but I kept saying to my mentor at that why can't we just consent on this file, the family's really deserving, and ultimately I think that the family did get relief. After that, I'd met my wife at Winnipeg at a wedding ... Mark Holthe:  I'm going to jump in. Raj Sharma:  Yes. Mark Holthe: You said, "Why can't we just consent to this?" What was his response? Raj Sharma: It was a strange response. The response was just like, "Oh, we just have to ..." Mark Holthe: Carry it through. Raj Sharma: It was more like it was like, "Oh, the client instructions ..." I'm like, "What client? We're the government." I was explained that different departments are actually clients of the department of justice. I found that very odd because I don't think that's true. I think that a client/solicitor relationship doesn't encapsulate departments of government being clients of each other. I found that odd. In any way, I'd met my wife in Winnipeg at a wedding, my cousin's wedding. She was in Calgary, born and raised in Calgary, so I needed a way to get to Calgary somehow, so I was applying for jobs in Calgary and I got this called up to do this test or examination at the Immigration Refugee Board. I was offered this position to become a refugee protection officer. That's where in fact I met my partner, Bjorn Harsanyi, so we both started off as refugee protection officers, hearings officers in 2002. Mark Holthe:  Obviously that makes a pretty nice background for sliding over to the other side. It gives you an opportunity at least having worked on the other side to get a better understanding of how the government operates, how the department operates, a little bit more inside to the minds of what goes through a decision maker on that side. I have to assume that that helped you as you moved over to the other side with your advocacy on behalf of clients. Raj Sharma:  I think so and I think that, and again there's this tradition of this entrepreneurial tradition within my community, and of course my second and third languages also helped, there was a burgeoning South Asian community in Calgary at that time. Really, it was timing, and so Calgary's just really good to me. I'd moved to Calgary at about the right time and I went into private practice at about the right time, right before Calgary took off, so to speak. 2004 I started my practice, late 2004 I started my practice. At that time, just trying to take whatever you can get, so again, I wasn't really centered in immigration. Then there was this legal aid file, this three hour legal aid file for criminal inadmissibility. It involved a foreign national in Canada accused or there was an allegation of weapons, and gun smuggling, and weapons trafficking. At that point I thought, "Well, this is a foregone conclusion." I looked at the IRPA and I said, "Well, this is just, there's no way out here," but my partner at that time pushed me a little bit and so I looked at it, I looked at it again. I put in far more hours than the three hours allotted to me, and low and behold I was able to succeed. I think that was the first time that I was in the media, that was the first time I was on TV or the newspapers, at least when it came to my legal practice. It was after that that my practice in immigration took off because it was after that that I joined Caron & Partners and then again after I left Caron & Partners there was another Vietnamese fellow, [another] fork in the road. There was another Vietnamese client, Jackie Tran, and that file I took on in 2009. Both of these cases probably had something to do with the direction of my practice. Mark Holthe:  Yeah, that makes perfect sense because I think for most of us business immigration lawyers, I guess that's how I classify myself, when there's a sticky situation I get uncomfortable pretty quick. I have a tendency to try to take the path of easiest and least resistance with my clients. If there's push back from the government, I tend to try and say, "Do we need to refile? Do we need to rethink our strategy?" Sometimes it's faster to just accept the stupid decision that you get from an officer and then just try to satisfy whatever they want, and refile, and get it approved, but there's a number of situations where people get themselves into a corner where they really don't have a nice, easy solution other than taking the government on. Raj Sharma:   I think .. it depends on what you're facing. Now, in your case you have to solve a sort of business problem. Prior to 2009, before Tran, I was actually doing hundreds of LMIA's, or LMO's that they were called at the time, so I was representing major corporations, I was getting fat, I was just doing pure solicitor work, and I think again timing came to my rescue because once I got into the Tran file, which necessitated three different Federal Court applications, [emergency] stay application, IAD, ID, and right about that same time the economy in Calgary sort of collapsed, so to speak. If you're a one trick pony, that is you're only doing one aspect of immigration, you could be susceptible to that sort of change. I was very lucky in the sense of I did quite a bit of solicitor business work, but given that strong litigation year we were able to just basically switch our practices over to a litigation aspect. In business [immigration], you're tasked with making sure that the business runs smoothly. Where it's an individual facing loss of status, it's a zero sum game. In business there may be not, it's not a zero sum game, but in someone facing removal or deportation to a country that they haven't been in since they were a kid, it's a zero sum game which is you win or you lose, so at that point you start bringing out all the arrows in your quiver and you're doing whatever you can for your client because it is, for them to some degree, it's life or death in the sense of it's a death of a relationship, it's a death of your relationship to Canada, and it's a death of your status in this country. Mark Holthe:  Let's shift to the topic at hand. I think a lot of our listeners, this isn't something that they're very familiar with because I think genuinely people try to avoid committing crimes in Canada and getting themselves removed. Raj Sharma:    Right, and we know for a fact that immigrants or first generation Canadians have a lower crime rate than native born Canadians, so you're absolutely right. Most of your listeners and our clients, most of them, the vast majority enjoy a lower criminal rate or criminality than Canadians would. Mark Holthe:  Yes, absolutely. As those that are listening in here, as I introduced when I started the podcast here, the interview with Raj Sharma, I indicated that we're going to be talking a little bit about criminal inadmissibility, so Raj, can you give us a little bit of an introduction? When we talk about criminal inadmissibility, how does that play into this world of immigration? Raj Sharma:  Immigration is about, and notwithstanding whatever we hear these days from Donald Trump or Hilary Clinton, there are no such thing as truly open borders. A country will always dictate who enters and who remains, so there was a case that went to the supreme court of Canada involving a woman actually -- most of the cases I deal with actually do involve men -- but Medovarski involved a woman and Medovarski reaffirmed that concept that non-citizens do not have an unqualified right to enter or remain inside of Canada. When we look at criminality, the threshold for removing non-citizens from Canada is spelled out in intricate detail in the Immigration Refugee Protection Act and there is a bifurcation, i.e., it's somewhat harder to remove permanent residents from Canada and quite a bit easier to remove foreign nationals from Canada. When we talk about foreign nationals, we're talking about students and those here on work permits or those that are visitors in Canada. When we talk about permanent residence, obviously those are individuals that have applied for permanent residency, they're not citizens yet, and so we have a paradigm, a very detailed framework that deals with non-citizens that get in trouble with the law. Mark Holthe:  When we talk about getting in trouble with the law, does the Immigration Act or the government, do they view certain crimes more seriously than others? How is that distinction set up? Raj Sharma: No, and maybe they should. That would have been a proper starting point. Maybe you should have been involved in this sort of legislation of these laws, but unfortunately the distinction of the severity of a crime is based on the maximum term of imprisonment or the actual incarceral or term that's imposed. When we talk about prison or incarceral term, we're including conditional sentences or sentences to be served in the community, so the distinction is not between the type of offense, someone that's convicted of a white collar offense such as fraud could face removal just as easily or perhaps more easily than someone accused or charged with simple assault. Mark Holthe: Even if an offense, let's say it's a hybrid offense, so it could proceed summarily or via indictment, the person that is sentenced to ten years imprisonment for that offense versus someone that's sentenced to six months under the eyes of the lovely immigration authorities, it's irrelevant. Raj Sharma: That's right, and it also doesn't take into account your length of time in Canada, so you could be a permanent resident and you could be here since you were two or three, and you could be [here] thirty years, and you could have an issue. Of course, this is the fragility of the human condition, we all make mistakes, so it doesn't take into account the length of time that you're in Canada…, nor does it take into account the nature of the offense, whether it's violent or whether it's non-violent. It's a blunt instrument unfortunately, Section 36 in particularly. Mark Holthe: If you have an individual that's committed a crime in Canada it's pretty clear we know what the offense is, we know what the conviction was, there's not a lot of debate about it, but what happens if someone wants to enter Canada or comes to Canada and has a conviction that occurred over seas or in another country, how does Canada treat those? Raj Sharma:  Those things get complicated really quickly because different countries have different legal systems and different countries have different standards in terms of the ... You could have a situation [if] you're from China. Now, China has a 99.9% conviction rate. Mark Holthe:  Wow, maybe I won't ask too many questions as to how that justice system plays out for those people accused, but ... Raj Sharma:  I mean, so when we start making equivalent, or making offenses, or acts that individuals have done outside of Canada, and we have to somehow try and make them equivalent to offenses in Canada, those things get tricky really, really quickly. That's one subset of what we do.[But] I just keep getting reminded, even this morning, had a client applied on the Alberta Immigrant Nominee Program, skilled individual, excellent English, everything's fantastic, no criminal record whatsoever, applied on the ANP, got the nomination, applied for the PR forms to [CPC] Sydney. We got the passport request two days ago, three days ago, problem. Last week after a birthday party or someone's party, one in the morning, [he’s] charged with impaired driving. Those are the sort of simple, understandable criminality because I think some politicians paint criminals as this broad brush, but criminals are no different than [you or I], it's just there's one incorrect decision. I think impaired driving is like that, this is impaired driving, could result in no jail time whatsoever, probably will result in a fine if he ever gets convicted, and a driving suspension. Won't spend a day in jail, but that's a hybrid offense and that [a conviction] makes him [as a foreign national] inadmissible. That's where I feel a lot of sympathy because you're seeing literally in front of you the end of a dream and you're seeing a person that for all other purposes would be an ideal addition to Canada's multicultural fabric. It's not really the media, it's not my cases that hit the news or the front pages that really give a proper idea of my practice. It really is those guys that are within an inch of permanent residency and we wouldn't consider them to be criminals, but of course they've made a grievous and horrendous error by drinking and getting behind the wheel of a car. Mark Holthe:   Let's carry that through, I think that would be interesting. An individual who is in that type of a situation, this happens to them. What can they expect? Raj Sharma:  Number one, if they come to me my first response to them, and there may be some sort of false hope, or some sort of strange fever dream that they're existing under, or they may get some sort of strange advice from someone, or a friend, or a cousin, and there may be a suggestion as to just somehow let it ride out and CIC may not figure this out. My first advice to them is that if they want my assistance, that we will be disclosing the charge and the encounter with the police immediately. That's the first thing that should happen and once they agree to these sort of terms, then we can start figuring out a solution. Now, the solution of course, and I kind of outlined that earlier today in my speech here, which is now start looking into conviction options or post conviction options. These conviction options, number one, beat out the charge in trial, because the system is binary, because it's a zero sum game, we can't now ... I think criminal lawyers and immigration lawyers that dabble in criminal law, there's no options now. You actually have to go and try to beat this out, you got to find, even if your client is factually guilty, you got to find a way to make him legally not guilty because if he's not guilty, that doesn't lead to any criminal consequences. If it's an offense, a domestic violence type of situation, and a peace bond is in the offering, take a peace bond. A peace bond doesn't have any criminal consequences either. There may be possibilities for some offenses for absolute or conditional discharges, take it, take it. That bird in the hand, we can safeguard that immigration at that point. In terms of a DUI, we're really looking to these curative discharges now and that's one option as well. Mark Holthe:  Maybe you can explain what that is. What is a curative discharge? Raj Sharma: Curative discharge involves a process by which there is a guilt or there is factual guilt and there's again…. A curative discharge we've used where there's indication of alcoholism [as a] medical condition. If we can establish that, then the judge may see fit to grant a curative discharge. If that happens, then there is no criminal record that could waylay an immigration application or application for permanent residence. That's not to say, by the way, that that won't lead to other issues, i.e., you may still need a waiver to get into the US, but the curative discharge is something that we explore for impaired driving, and conditional, and absolute where ever possible [for other offences]. Now, bear in mind there's a whole host of offenses that result in mandatory minimum sentences and so we can't do any number of these things for those types of offenses, but those are some of the arrows in our quiver in terms of post conviction. Where ever possible, if you are facing a charge, either you're a permanent resident or a foreign national, try to get immigration lawyer involved alongside your criminal lawyer. There may be options to get positive sentencing remarks or positive remarks that are spoken into the record. Those transcripts can come in handy. If you are convicted, if you are sentenced, it's important that the client demonstrate remorse, and rehabilitation, engage in programming, and try to turn that life around. If we can demonstrate that, there are some options, which is that that initiating document to establish criminal inadmissibility, the Section 44 report, there is a scope for the officer not to write that report. Again, when I started down this journey I didn't realize the scope of discretion that's in the act. There is significant discretion. An officer may choose not to write a report against a permanent resident or foreign national and that may be the first, and maybe the last, real line of defense for a lot of these individuals. We've seen that happen, we've seen permanent residents, I've represented permanent residents, young guys, a technical armed robbery, four years plus sentence ... Mark Holthe: A technical armed robbery. Raj Sharma: A technical armed robbery... Mark Holthe:  I love this terminology, technical versus a real, is there any distinction there? Raj Sharma:  Let me tell you and you tell me whether that terminology or that splitting of hairs is appropriate. A guy got fired from a job at a liquor store, was angry, young guy, and decides to rob the liquor store as some sort of payback, buys a gun that is not operational, just this old, rusted out gun. There's no bullets in it, it's inoperable. Goes into the store, people see the gun, so they flee, so he goes to the cashier, he tries to open the cash box, is unable to do so, and runs out without stealing anything. Misfortune added to his idiocy, there's an off duty police officer who immediately arrests him outside the liquor store, so this guy goes through this process and his criminal lawyer after wasting tens of thousands of dollars of his money, pleads him guilty to an offense that includes a mandatory minimum sentence. At that point, and I met the judge actually afterwards and the judge said, "Hey, I wonder why that lawyer did that because if the lawyer challenged that on a charter ground of cruel and unusual punishment, that that mandatory minimum sentence in this case offends the Charter, I would have granted it to him." This lawyer tells this guy and his family, "That's it, game over, you will be deported," but of course that's not actually the end of it. [So] I do stand by my characterization of that as a technical armed robbery because this guy, he's more of an idiot than he was a criminal. This family went through a lot, this family, his sister in fact, who lived with was married, [her] husband had some mental issues, and she was attacked actually. The police attended and in fact that man was actually brought down by the CPS, so the family went through a lot. We put all this together, put the sentencing transcripts in, the judge, they got a really compassionate judge who said a lot of things into that record. [The client] was out on bail for four years, and upgraded himself, and it really was an ill advised decision. Ultimately, we had an understanding officer. She ended up interviewing him over the telephone, I think, at the Remand institution, and [she ultimately] decided not to write the report. Mark Holthe:   I guess that's the beauty of this is the discretion that's laced into the immigration process. Raj Sharma:    They won't lightly do it, but if you've got the goods .. it can be done. We had another case, we had another individual originally from Hong Kong, came over as a kid, got into some gambling issues, and then got into selling drugs to pay off some of those debts. Served his time, was a model prisoner, and his entire family was here, we set out everything. In this case we asked the Report not to be written, it was written. We challenged the Report at the Federal Court, we received approval or leave on one, it went back, and ultimately a Minister’s Delegate decided to issue a warning letter. That's drug trafficking [involving a “hard” drug] and that was again significant, so these things can be done for the right individual. You will have people that have turned their lives around and you can see, you can tell. There's no faking this because it's a year's long journey. If you've got it, you've got it, and thankfully our officers, what I've seen is that we have fair individuals, open minded individuals, and that's not to say that I haven't lost on something that I think I should have won, I have, but even that decision, at least that individual had an open mind. I think our [CBSA/CIC] officers by and large are open minded individuals. Again, this may be the last line of defense for a lot of these individuals because there may not be an appeal to the ID anymore because the atrociously entitled Fast Removal of Foreign Criminals Act has amended the IRPA, so permanent residents that have been sentenced to more than six months, including conditional sentences, don't have an appeal to the IAD anymore. Whatever they've got, they've got to address that Section 44 report, that procedural fairness process, maybe Federal Court, maybe a TRP, maybe an H&C, a humanitarian and compassion application, but without that IAD backup, options are limited. Mark Holthe:   That's really interesting because like I said, from my perspective, someone who does not do a lot of that type of work, very little in fact, I see walls, absolute walls sometimes for people that I can't see past, whereas individuals such as yourself who have a little bit of a broader perspective, and have actually gone and looked behind the wall have realized that sometimes there's ways through. The message that I got, especially, and just to clarify for the listeners, Raj and I are just meeting at the Canadian Bar Association Office here in Calgary after Raj gave a presentation [to the CBA Immigration Subsection] on this similar topic. One of the messages that came through loud and clear is that maybe people give up too easy, especially counsel, us. I put us under the bus in many circumstances because sometimes we're just too willing to roll over. We need to take a serious look at what the possibilities, are and not be afraid to question and challenge an allegation that's being made against our clients. Even in circumstances where based on a clear reading of the law there's a certain outcome that's supposed to flow doesn't necessarily mean there isn't discretion to go around that and that there isn't some compassion laced into the system. Raj Sharma:  I learned this relatively recently. I went to visit my eighty-five, ninety years old grandmother in Edmonton. I didn't learn until much later -- my grandfather died, so my grandmother came over with my youngest uncle to Canada to her children here. None of us kids actually knew that our uncle was actually her sister's son. Her sister had died, so she had taken my uncle in. I guess his dad wasn't interested in caring for him, so I learned this later that Uncle is not actually our uncle, he's actually my mom's cousin. …I knew that there was some immigration issues that he was going through early on when he came, so my grandmother explained it to me, because there was no adoption papers and because my grandmother I think is incapable of lying, she's very straight out that we have no adoption papers, but he has nowhere else to be other than with me. They battled for like three or four years to try and get my uncle to be here. Ultimately CIC indicated, "Well, he can't be here, there's no adoption papers, we have no consent from his guardian, or his biological father, or whatever the case may be." We're from this small mining town in BC and the family was helped by an immigration lawyer out of Vancouver. Ultimately my uncle got what was then called a minister's permit, which is now we call a TRP, a temporary resident permit. When I learned that I was, "Well, I guess that's what I do." So I [do] think people minimize or perhaps don't understand the scope of discretion that's available. There are roadblocks, there's hurdles, [but] there's very few problems without an absolute solution. That being said, if you are unmitigated, incorrigible criminal, no officer's going to give you the benefit of whatever doubt there may be, but there are these avenues that can be pursued and there is a sort of system. You got to work through that system, work with the criminal lawyers, put your client in the best possible light, take advantage of any little nook, cranny, any little shaft of light, and you might be able to widen that crack a little bit for your client to step through, but yes, very few things are foregone conclusions and it's our job as counsel to put the best possible foot forward for the client. Again, in my twelve years of practicing immigration law there's very few actual incorrigible [criminals]. I said this before … that hard cases make bad law and outliers shouldn't make the world a harder place for the vast majority of people that simply want to come to Canada and give their families a better life. These outliers don't reflect the vast majority of cases that we deal with. The vast majority of cases we deal with are human fragility, human error, understandable mistakes. Mark Holthe:   You mentioned this concept of a TRP, a temporary resident permit, which is now the new version of a Minister’s Permit. Raj Sharma:    That's right. Mark Holthe:    In some circumstances, individuals will have appeal rights when there is criminality involved and they're facing some harsh consequences, they have appeal rights and other times they don't. You had talked a little bit about the discretion that an officer has to write that report to refer it or not. Can you maybe clarify that just a little bit for counsel who maybe have individuals that are at the stage where the consequences could be pretty nasty? Maybe there is no appeal right and you indicated that sometimes an officer does have some discretion whether or not to write it. Raj Sharma:    That's right. That Section 44 report, so let's say there's a conviction in Canada. Establishing that would be pretty straightforward, pretty easy. What counsel can do is respond to a procedural fairness letter, say, "Please don't write the Section 44 report and here's why," and these are going to be [modeled on] the typical Section 25 type of application or submission, so time in Canada, establishment in Canada, those ties here, the family ties here, hardship, or adverse conditions, or challenges upon return, children that are affected by the decision, the circumstances leading to the events, any indicia of remorse, rehabilitation, insight. All those should be placed squarely before the officer and you say to the officer, "Don't write this report, please. The guy's been here for a long time, this is a singular mistake, the criminal record is limited or none other than this lapse in judgment." If the officer writes the report, its then has to be referred under Section 44 sub 2 by a Minister’s Delegate. If it's referred, for a permanent resident that means it goes to the immigration division. If it's criminality or serious criminality in Canada, that's Section 44 sub 2, that becomes a removal order for a foreign national. Again, there's less options for foreign nationals here. If it's referred to the immigration division, not much you can do if it's a conviction in Canada. The ID is not going to look beyond the certificate of conviction. If it's a conviction outside of Canada or an allegation that some offense has occurred outside of Canada, that would be equivalent to serious offenses inside of Canada. Then the immigration proceeding becomes a substantive proceeding. That's when it takes on some degree of significance. You are then going to start talking about foreign legal laws, standard of proof, burden of proof, and at that point you probably should be retaining a foreign legal expert. It gets complicated really quickly at that point. After a removal order is issued, post removal order options are limited. A TRP can overcome or allow you to remain in Canada notwithstanding a removal order. An H&C can do the same. One option might be to get a TRP pending record suspension for a conviction inside Canada, for example, if there's eligibility. Mark Holthe:  If an officer chooses to write the report when you've made your submissions, can you challenge that part before it gets to the immigration division? Raj Sharma:   Yes, you can challenge both the writing of a Report to the Federal Court and the referral of the report to the Federal Court. You probably won't do that if the person concerned is a permanent resident and has an appeal right to the IAD, there's no sense in that, but if you don't have that appeal, you're left with these limited options, so you're going to buy some more time. By going to the Federal Court either you buy some more time, it goes back, a different officer might come to a different conclusion, or you simply might need time for record suspension. Mark Holthe:    Just buying the time, interesting. Raj Sharma:    Might be one because you need strategic depth, so strategic depth is usually time, more time in Canada gives you more options. Mark Holthe:    Define strategic depth for those who are not following. What are you talking about when you use that terminology? Raj Sharma:  Strategic depth I was thinking more in terms of war. If you've got a country like Russia and you want to invade Russia, and Napoleon and Hitler both tried that. One of the problems is that Russia has a lot of depth, so you can invade, and invade, and keep invading, and the Russians will have time to mount a response. You can contrast that with, for example, Pakistan, which is thin wasted [country] geographically speaking, there's not a lot of strategic depth there. If we were to apply that terminology to immigration in Canada, then I would say strategic depth would be time. A lot of time, we don't have time, and so give me some time, give me enough time and I can do quite a bit. You need time to marshal resources, to file Federal Court obligations, to file TRP applications, to file H&C applications, to maybe get a rehabilitation application in, so time is our strategic depth and most of the time we don't have it. Mark Holthe:     Yes, that is abundantly clear within our practice. I really appreciate that overview and the insight, it was awesome. Let's talk about some practice tips maybe. If counsel finds themselves in these types of positions dealing with an issue, a potential criminal inadmissibility, what are some of the things that go through your mind right away that you'd give in terms of advice, things that people want to make sure they do every single time, or little tips or strategies? You've already indicated here that you want to try to buy as much time as you can, that's obviously really important, but are there any specific things or pieces of advice that we haven't maybe talked about yet that you'd like to share with the listeners? Raj Sharma:    I think definitely take a look at the IRCC or CIC policy manuals, Enforcement Manual 5, Enforcement Manual 6, take a look at the loose leaf publication by Mario Bellissimo and Genova, Immigration and Admissibility, they've got a handbook as well. You need to get an understanding of the facts and understand the law in a relatively quick fashion. Once you understand the context that you're in, so if the context is a permanent resident, and there's an offense, and you're looking at the loss of appeal rights, and you've got a procedural fairness letter, and the sentence has been served, what I would do immediately is probably do ATIP requests, access to information requests, and I would try to get and reconstruct the client's immigration history as much as possible. That's probably the first thing I would do is do an ATIP request. I would do FOIP requests for the correctional service documents, the institution documents, and see what's been going on over there and try to get access to those parole documents, take a look at their recidivism rankings. I would probably get the sentencing transcripts right away, I would get any pre-sentence reports that were filed or that were before the sentencing judge right away. After I looked at that I would see if I could update that pre-sentence report by a qualified forensic expert and reassess recidivism. Then I would probably put together these substantive submissions. Again, relying on maybe the IRB, IAD, Removal Order Appeals publication. Having regard to the sort of H&C factors and Ribic and Chieu factors. I would put all that together and get it into that officer probably as soon as possible.  That's probably what I would do and that's probably what anyone should probably do with a PR facing removal where there's been a length of sentence greater than six months. If it was less than six months, then obviously maybe I'd just keep my powder dry to some degree, I'd still put in something, but I'd probably just keep my powder dry for the IAD. Mark Holthe:  It's pretty much they're going to send it that way and choose not to make a decision at that stage. Raj Sharma:   I would think as an officer, this is not in the manuals at all, but ... Mark Holthe:  This is what we want, Raj, yes. Raj Sharma:     As an officer, and I used to be an officer, but as an officer if I saw that a PR had a right of appeal, then really I would probably give short shrift to any sort of request for exercising my discretion at the 44 stage. I'd be like, "Look, let me just do my job, let me write this 44 report, and refer it, and let them make whatever submissions he needs to the IAD." I think the relationship to discretion and the loss of appeal rights is inverse, so if there's an appeal right, then I would narrow my own discretion. Then if there's no appeal rights, then I would probably take and expand my scope of discretion within, of course, the ambit of the law. Mark Holthe: That's awesome and it makes perfect sense. Officers, despite how some people feel, are human beings. When they feel like someone is trying to screw the system over, they're probably not going to give you a lot of help, but if they feel people are genuine and they've made a mistake, and there's a whole host of ... Raj Sharma:  The system, maybe the system has been narrowed against, for example, any further request for relief. I think that they'll substantively consider. Mark Holthe:  That's awesome. I really appreciate everything that you've shared here. Raj Sharma:  Any time. Mark Holthe: This is fantastic. Now, as always when I have guests on, people are going to listen to this and they're going to say, "Hey, I've got a friend," or, "I know someone who's in this exact situation," and their counsel that they have right now is telling them that they might as well start singing 'Happy Trails,' and packing their bags, and they're saying to themselves, "There must be something else that I can do." They're going to listen to this and they're going to say, "Raj Sharma, how do I get a hold of this guy?" How do people track you down? What's the best way of getting in contact with you and engaging your services? Raj Sharma:   For sure, Mark. Anyone can email us at info@sshlaw.ca, that's info@sshlaw.ca, number is 403-705-3398. I think we have a toll free number, but I'm not sure what it is. Mark Holthe:  You can go to the website, right, too. Raj Sharma:  Yes, you can definitely reach us and we'd be happy to help. It's something that we've developed for the last seven, eight years or so. Mark Holthe:   Awesome, thanks a lot. I appreciate your time. Take care. Raj Sharma:    Thanks a lot, Mark.  

This week Emilie and I catch up on the last two weeks. She was in China and I kept the kids alive. I also wrote an open letter to Ottawa's Chief of Police about some shocking behaviour by the local cops and then wrote about issues I had with a report on major problems at the Ottawa jail. But then we dive into the really important and complex issue of medical assistance in dying, the Supreme Court's unanimous decision in Carter, and the government's legislative response - bill C-14. There are some real problems with the Liberal's new bill. The Alberta Court of Appeal and the Ontario Superior Court both indirectly questioned the constitutionality of bill C-14. The legislation is now before the Senate and Emilie and I reflect on the first day of testimony - including some serious questions raised by constitutional scholar Peter Hogg. So we sort of nerd out a bit.... Fun.

This week Emilie and I dive into two cases and then take aim at former Justice Minister Peter MacKay. First After almost two and a half years in jail Connie Oakes is a free woman. Last month the Alberta Court of Appeal over turned Oakes' conviction and the Crown declined to re-prosocute. The case bears some similarities to the convictions documented in Making a Murderer - tunnel vision, questionable confessions, and lives destroyed. Second On April 26th David Stephan and Collet were convicted of failing to provided the necessities of life in the death of their 19-month-old son Ezekiel. How far can the criminal law stretch into parenting and what sentence might the Alberta couple receive. Last Peter MacKay defended the Conservative government's tough on crime legacy and wrote some other dumb stuff in a National Post op-ed. Emilie and I talk about it and throw up a little in our mouths.....

Supreme Court of Canada rules police may conduct a limited search of a suspect's mobile phone without obtaining a prior search warrant. The Supreme Court of Canada also agrees to hear the federal government's appeal of the Alberta Court of Appeal's decision that Omar Khadr who confessed to five crimes including murder during his trial at Guantanamo Bay prison must be permitted to serve his remaining time in a provincial prison. The federal government wants Khadr to serve his time in a federal prison. A 45 year old Winnipeg man who intervened in a domestic dispute between a 33 year old male and his girlfriend will not face criminal charges after becoming embroiled in a physical exchange with the 33 year old (Marlon Dean Laronde) who was punched, fell and died. The Crown Attorney calls it a homicide but says the 45 year old man intervened only because he was concerned about the woman's safety. And a New York rap song/video is calling for and depicting the murder of NYPD officers. Participating in the video are public defender lawyers known as the Bronx Defenders who have received more than $40 million from the City of New York. NYPD is furious. Guest: Scott Newark, Former Alberta Crown Attorney, former executive director of the Canadian Police Association and post 9/11 security advisor to the Ontario and federal governments. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on Hull on Estates, Natalia Angelini and Stuart Clark discuss domicile with reference to the Alberta Court of Appeal decision of the . If you have any questions, please e-mail us at or leave a comment on our blog page.