Canadian Lawyer

September 2020

The most widely read magazine for Canadian lawyers

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www.canadianlawyermag.com 9 July. The police found Moore had texted him about purchasing firearm ammunition. The police got authorization to intercept July's cellphone communications and tracked him arranging the sale of a gun to a man named Deshawn Herbert. July was arrested and indicted on four counts of firearms traf- ficking in Nov. 2012. The process by which police obtain authori- zation for wiretaps is under s. 186 of the Code. The police are required to show the authorizing judge that granting such an order would be in the best interests of the administration of justice, that other investigative techniques have been tried and failed and others are unlikely to succeed. The latter two requirements are known as the investigative necessity require- ment. July submitted to the court that in R. v. TELUS Communications Co., the Supreme Court of Canada had decided that police needed to show investigative necessity when getting an order to intercept future text messages, just as with a telephone wiretap. July argued that seizing private text messages carries the same privacy intrusion whether they are text messages delivered in the future or the past. "Why should the police have to show anything less than investigative necessity when they are compelling the production of historical text messages as opposed to future text messages when the text messages could be exactly the same?" says Chan. Virtual document sharing and storage part of MAG's modernization push: AG Q&A Legal career: » In 2001, co-founded law firm Lewis Downey Tornosky & Lassaline » Ontario Bar Association secretary from 2009 to 2010 and treasurer from 2010 to 2014 » Created the first municipal conservation easement in Ontario » Completed the first court-ordered dissolution of a time-share condo in Canada Doug Downey Attorney General of Ontario, MPP for Barrie-Springwater- Oro-Medonte Why did the ministry choose to implement the virtual document sharing and storage program, CaseLines? Before I was even a lawyer, I was a court clerk and a court registrar. So, I worked at the counters in a courthouse. I've spent really most of my adult life dealing with court filings and I've been pushing for modernization in our system from the moment I became the attorney general. When COVID came along, it really accentuated the challenges we have in our system. So, we went to all the justice partners, whether it be the practising bar or the judiciary, the different courts, and effectively said, "'What functionality do you need?" And then we went to the market to see what was available. What are you expecting with CaseLine's implementation? It's a phenomenal program. There's just a ton of functionality in there. And so, I think we're going to find people are excited about it, and it works. The feedback so far from people who have been calling for this kind of online presence has been very, very positive. And the experience in other jurisdictions is that it helps deal with the volume of courts and helps bring resolution and allows us to do fewer hearings on a particular matter. How has the provincial court system, in your opinion, dealt with the unprecedented challenges that we have with COVID-19? Everybody's done their part to try and keep the system moving. But there were big challenges. My ministry . . . put forward $1.3 million to invest in laptops and VPNs and portable digital recording devices. We got operating remotely. Every bail and remand hearing for in-custody was happening remotely. Very quickly. We brought in things like virtual witnessing for wills and powers of attorney brought forward the notaries and commissioners — allowing that to be done online. That's now active and live. Oyen Wiggs is pleased to welcome Nicholas Garner to the firm as senior counsel. Nick is a patent lawyer, registered patent and trademark agent, and engineer with particular expertise in preparing and prosecuting patent applications for inventions within the mechanical arts. patentable.com Oyen Wiggs Green & Mutala LLP We're here to help. You're building the future. ANNOUNCEMENT

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