Canadian Lawyer

CHIEF JUSTICE SOUNDS THE ALARM ON ���FREEMEN��� continued from page 8 be registered against my property for $25 million,��� says Rolland, who discovered other Quebec judges had received similar threats. Registering fake liens against the property of judicial or other authorities listed on personal property security registers (PPSRs) is a common tactic used by ���freemen,��� says Charles Dorion, a lawyer with the Quebec Justice department who speaks on behalf of Quebec���s Registre des droits personnels et r��els mobiliers. Dorion says provincial officials took unspecified measures last fall to make its system less vulnerable to such fake liens. But with an estimated one million new entries filed on the Quebec register each year, every new one cannot be checked for its validity, he says. Individuals must check their register entry personally, and if they find a fake lien against them, it must be struck down by court order, often necessitating the hiring of a lawyer for people who have been targeted. Those who are unaware of such liens may find their ability to add loans or buy and sell property limited by the registry, which is designed to protect the property rights of citizens and help them check for unknown liens on purchases for vehicles or other property. Dorion says he and other representatives from personal property security registers in other provinces and territories have exchanged information about abuse of the system by anti-government Central radicals and measures to prevent it. So called ���freemen��� activity in Canada���s courtrooms was brought into relief last year when Alberta���s Court of Queen���s Bench Associate Chief Justice John Rooke issued a scathing 185-page ruling condemning the anti-government movement in a divorce case of a man who offered up a series of arguments as to why the law was not applicable to him. ���It is a situation you have to take very seriously,��� says Rolland, who has instructed Quebec judges to report cases of people who say they are not subject to any law to him, but notes that otherwise, ���it is business as usual��� and such cases fall in the category of vexatious litigation. ��� KAThrYN LeGer kathryn.leger@videotron.ca lAw DeANs DeNouNce buDget cuts T he deans of the law faculties at four major Quebec universities have banded together to publicly denounce government budget cuts they say could have ���catastrophic effects��� on legal education in the province. ���We understand the constraints related to public finances and we take note of the government���s decision not to raise tuition fees,��� states a public letter written by the law deans published in Quebec newspapers in January. ���However, the reality is that the vitality of the legal community and of Quebec law relies on the sound condition of Quebec law faculties, which will suffer catastrophic effects from the announced cuts.��� The public letter notes Quebec law faculties already operate with 40-per-cent less financial resources and 25-per-cent less staff than the average for Canadian law faculties. Given that more than 90 per cent of law faculty expenditures are committed to human resources, the faculties cannot fully implement the 5.2-per- cent cuts in budget ordered by the government ���without making deep cuts in staffing, programs, and the quality education they provide,��� says the letter. S��bastien Lebel-Grenier, law dean at the Universit�� de Sherbrooke, which has 1,092 law students enrolled, says Quebec universities were told in December they must cut 5.2 per cent across the board, which applies to each faculty, for their financial year ending May 1. The move caught many by surprise since the government had talked publicly about investing in eduation, says Lebel-Grenier. He suggests Quebec universities may choose to go into deficit rather than fully implement the cuts. Other law deans who signed the letter include Guy Lefebvre of the Universit�� de Montr��al (1,668 law students); Daniel Jutras at McGill University (762 law students); and Eug��nie Brouillet at Universit�� Laval (1,147 law students). Together, the four universities have about 195 law professors on staff. Lebel-Grenier says the law deans are working together to see how they can save teaching jobs and lobby for support from the wider legal community. Several law firms made significant endowments to Quebec university law faculties in the last few years, and law faculties are actively seeking corporate financial support, he says. But a tradition of individual and corporate giving to universities is not as deeply rooted in Quebec as elsewhere in Canada, he points out, and law firms often want to support specific projects rather than contribute to current expenses and make up for operational shortfalls. ��� KL www.CANADIAN L a w ye r m a g . c o m March 2013 9

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