Canadian Lawyer

electronic signature is something that is actually doable." Sarailis equates the current use and understanding of electronic signatures as being at the same point now as electronic commerce was in 2000. It's existing and it's clearly part of our future, but there is still some hesitation to use it. It was while doing an international deal involving many partners in different jurisdictions that Sarailis saw the need for the efficient, effective, and authorized use of electronic signatures. He needed something that speeded up the traditional process involving a courier moving paper. What he wanted was a service that could take care of the technical end of things while he focused on the legal aspects. Having found nothing that satisfied him, he eventually partnered with a web development group creating Signsquid. The company presents itself as a practical alternative for businesses that sign contracts with customers and clients no matter where they are. Sarailis identifies it as the country's only web-based solution which binds the consent to the parties. But it isn't alone in what it does. Real estate transactions are verified by notaries in Quebec, considered to have a tight jurisdiction. Notarius was launched by Quebec's notaries association for the effective use of electronic signatures in real estate transactions and has since expanded to service other professionals across the country. The provinces are all essentially moving in the same direction, and all are expected to eventually allow the use of electronic signatures in all transactions, finally including those involving real estate. Ontario's Ministry of the Attorney General counsel John D. Gregory has been following this evolution closely and has written on it extensively. At the 2011 Uniform Law Conference of Canada his paper "Real Estate Transactions in the Uniform Electronic Commerce Act" suggested the time had come to remove the real estate exclusion. "The exclusion is still a message, not a prohibition but a warning, a special status that can lead to confusion and lack of certainty about the applicable legal rules and thus to a chilling effect on innovation," wrote Gregory. "It is time for that to change." That position has been adopted by Ontario. "It is not clear that there is enough difference between real estate transactions and other documents to justify a different treatment for electronic documents. The intent of the Electronic Commerce Act is how to give legal effect to electronic communications (documents and signatures), especially in the light of legal rules that appear to assume the use of paper," says Brendan Crawley, a spokesman for Ontario's Ministry of the Attorney General. "A great amount of work has been done over time to devise secure and reliable signature systems. The electronic land registration system in Ontario (as distinct from the transactional documents that the statutory amendment is about) relies on secure, digital signatures based on cryptography. This is used between lawyers and the director of land titles in a tightly regulated system." djacent properties, and any easements ovided in this agreement and save and e are complied with; you (b) any registered un with the land providing that such are telephone lines, cable television lines or e, where the central to the real estate transaction.ass Keeping you original mortgagee has s for the supply of domestic utility or tele le of the mortgage and the right to recei titleplus.ca do not materially affect the present use ments with publicly regulated utilities prov * * ® The TitlePLUS® policy is underwritten by Lawyers' Professional Indemnity Company (LAWPRO®). Registered trademark of Lawyers' Professional Indemnity Company. TitlePlus_CL_Sep_13.indd 1 www.CANADIAN 1-800-410-1013 L a w ye r m a g . c o m 13-08-13 9:17 AM November/December 2013 25

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