Canadian Lawyer

w w w . c a n a d i a n l a w y e r m a g . c o m A P R I L 2 0 1 9 39 And there were big infrastructure projects being built around the province. However, contractual disagreements can take years to brew into actual litigation. Now numer- ous cases — particularly involving engineering, procurement and construction contractors — says Maxwell, are percolating through his and other major Calgary law firms. In a year where both the shifting provincial and federal regulatory environments posed new hurdles for Alberta resource companies, Osler's Calgary office still managed its best year post- 2014, says Feasby. "Despite some of these chal- lenges in the industry, it was a reasonably strong year because a lot of those headwinds actually create legal work." His cites his firm's work with Kinder Morgan on Trans Mountain — with Osler teams working on numerous judicial reviews, injunctions, environmental hearings and all manner of appeals — as a classic example. As oil businesses suffered, wind and solar energy began to shine under the NDP. The prov- ince, as part of its climate leadership plan, vowed to shut down all coal-fired electricity plants by 2030 and add 5,000 megawatts of renewable 37.6 – Average age of Calgarians, second youngest city after Brampton, Ont., at 36.5 2,300 – Average number of hours the sun shines on Calgary annually, making it Canada's sunniest city 3,430 – Number of homeless people counted on Oct. 19, 2016 by the Calgary Homeless Foundation 15 – Number of degrees Celsius a Chinook wind can raise the temperature in just a few hours 3,230 – Number of millionaires in Calgary in 2015, an increase of 42.9 per cent in the decade since 2006 $64,098 – Calgary's personal income per capita in 2017, highest of Canada's metropolitan areas 24.7 – Percentage of downtown vacancy rate in the fourth quarter of 2018. It was 26 per cent during the same period in 2017 8.7 – Percentage of oil production the Alberta government ordered companies to cut at the beginning of 2019 to nudge oil prices higher electricity to Alberta's grid. The related legal work involved in competition tenders for renewable power projects helped offset, to a degree, some of the billing hours Calgary law firms lost from the fossil fuel sector. "Renewables is absolutely a big area, not just for us, but for a number of our competitors," says Feasby. "I think a lot of people see it as a new opportunity." So far, the Alberta government has held three competitions for renewable energy, most of them wind projects. The approved projects have brought $2.2 billion in investments to the province, creating 1,700 jobs, the government says. BLG acted for the Alberta government on its first solar RFP. That led to the development of the $30-million Brooks project, which began producing power in mid-December. The largest solar project in Western Canada so far, the 50,000 solar panels in a farm field near Brooks, Alta., will power 3,000 homes. Political factors have also clearly had a significant impact on Calgary's legal community in recent years, with another provincial election expected in May and a federal election in October. A swing toward conservative governments could reverse many of the regulatory, business, tax, employment and climate legislation enacted by Rachel Notley's NDP and Justin Trudeau's Liberals. That could mean yet another influx of legal work as firms guide clients through yet another tide of regulatory headaches. There have been plenty of those headaches to keep labour and employment law- yers such as Frank Molnar busy since the NDP came to power in 2015. A partner with Field Law, a regional firm with 120 lawyers in Calgary, Edmonton and Yellow- knife, the NDP, says Molnar, brought "massive" changes to Alberta's labour laws. Bill 7 was the Alberta government's response to a 2016 Supreme Court of Canada decision that the Saskatchewan government violated the constitutional right of some public employees, including essential services, by prohibiting their right to strike or engage in collective bargaining. By bringing post-secondary institutions under a revamped Labour Relations Code, Bill 7 gave Alberta's academic staff the right to strike. It also requires that post-secondary institutions negotiate essential service agreements with employees. Another piece of legislation, Bill 17, the Fair and Family-Friendly Workplaces Act, came into force on Jan. 1, 2018. The first change to Alberta's Employment Stan- dards Code since 1988, Bill 17 improved compassionate care provisions, including increasing the compassionate leave period to 27 from eight weeks. It all meant significant work for labour lawyers around the province. "These changes have come upon our clients quickly, one after the other," says Molnar, who counsels post-secondary institutions, municipalities, hospitals, manufacturing and, of course, oil and gas companies. "So, they need a lot of help understanding what these changes meant to them." If there was one practice area that seemed to remain steady through Calgary's economic turmoil, it was family law. "I get asked a lot whether the downturn has created an uptick in divorces," says Heather Davidson, co-founder of Davidson Fraese Family Lawyers. "The answer is no." But, she adds, her divorce clients face a hard reality now; the assets they bought before 2014, such as homes, are now worth significantly less than their purchase price. "Or," she adds, noting that many of her clients are in fact employed in oil and gas, "they have to face the reality that their stock options, for example, maybe aren't worth exercising because they are not in the money." In past years, divorcing couples might well have relied on the exercising of stock options to soften the blow of dividing up assets and living separately. Davidson is finding more former spouses now want to leave Alberta after a divorce, complicating child custody arrangements. There's also more reluctance to agree to fixed spousal support terms because the partners earning more income have greater uncertainty about their job futures than they did five years ago. It's made for more frictional proceedings, says Davidson. But it's been relatively smooth sailing for Calgary's family law practices during the downturn. "Our prac- tice," says Davidson, "is kind of recession proof."

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