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Nanny wins landmark suit after Star investigation
A foreign caregiver brought to Canada with a job offer from a “ghost employer” has been awarded $10,000 in damages in what is believed to be the first court victory against a nanny recruiter.
Bon Cop, Bad Cop
Today the dramatic and costly case against the Toronto drug squad officers see-saws yet again when prosecutors try to revive charges thrown out by a judge in 2008. The charges were tossed because the Crown took too long to bring the case to trial.
Canadian Options for American Protectionism
Mitch Potter of the Star reported this week on the increase in protectionism in the U.S.,
A small army of Canadian diplomats fanned out across Washington today in a full-court press to “contain the contagion” of Buy America trade protectionism.
Stressing that the frantic round of lobbying was “to educate, not to threaten,” Canada’s Deputy Head of Mission Guy Saint-Jacques led Ottawa’s effort to reach out to more than 75 members of Congress with a barrage of raw statistics showing how the benefits of free trade flow both ways.
Does the US have an argument that there should be an exception in dire situations, such as the current economic recession?
To put a hold on NAFTA and focus their attention domestically in order to revive a severely damaged economy?
With their international trade obligations, the US cannot legitimately argue or act on protectionist measures without some sort of backlash internationally, especially from Canada and Mexico through NAFTA.
The US does have an obligation to abide by NAFTA (although any NAFTA country can opt out of NAFTA so long as a 6 month cancellation notice is provided to the other members)
If US senators do not back down from the “Buy America” mentality and the US acts on additional protectionist measures, to the extent Canadian trade and investment is hindered, possible courses of action for the Canadian government include:
- Chapter 11 of NAFTA (which includes article 1122 – requiring each member government to consent to settle disputes by arbitration) – is concerned with investor-state dispute settlement; where complainants (investors) can bring a case against a state in front of a tribunal.
- Chapter 19 of NAFTA – deals strictly with goods; and complainants can urge their own national governments to take action.
- WTO – that can also issue binding rulings that can issue a reward for damages or compensation to a country
Online Privacy: The Noose Tightens
The scholars, captains of industry and champions of justice who compose Law is Cool’s readership will have long since scoured their online social networks for photos or other items tending to compromise their integrity — reports of “the dark side of social networking” are thick on the ground. But a recent court decision may renew paranoia that privacy is an artefact of the twentieth century, doomed to join its contemporaries (pagers, Chris Tucker, student activism, literacy, the Ark of the Covenant) in oblivion.
Just weeks after finding that Canadians have no expectation of privacy in their online identities, Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice has ruled that posts on Facebook and other online social networks may be discoverable against their makers, according to the Star’s Tracey Tyler.
Plaintiff John Leduc claims that injuries sustained in a car accident in 2004 have lessened his enjoyment of life. The court found that Leduc may be cross-examined on the contents of his Facebook account where such contents are relevant to his claim — despite the fact that security settings on his account restricted access to his profile to only his close friends.
If Leduc’s Facebook account contained evidence of him
- exerting himself,
- stopping to smell roses,
- “seizing the day” in any fashion, or
- otherwise engaged in merriment,
such evidence might undermine his claim. Pictures of him sitting on the roof of his car watching the sun set over a northern lake, or snowboarding through thick powder with the caption “Go for it!” beneath him, would be especially damning.
The decision overturns a Superior Court case management master’s ruling that forcing Leduc to produce the contents of his Facebook account amounted to a “fishing expedition”, since there was nothing — except Leduc’s opposition to disclosure — to suggest that any compromising photos in fact existed. Leduc’s profile consisted only of his name and picture.
A search of Facebook for accounts registered to “John Leduc” yielded 129 results — many of whom appeared to be enjoying themselves.
Sysomos Has Your Info, and Has Some Interesting Results
Yesterday, Nicole Baute of the Toronto Star covered a new social networking analysis company, Sysomos. The Canadian company gathers data from Twitter, Facebook, and 30 million blogs. Yes, 30 million.
It’s a new start-up by a UofT prof and one of his grad students, and they received financial support from the province to get things going.
They claim to go beyond brand monitoring by identifying what people are saying, who these people are, and what their tone is.
One recent practical application is mentions of Stephen Harper when parliament was prorogued. They also say it could be used for crisis communications, such as the recent Maple Leaf scare.
Privacy concerns are also raised by one marketing professor,
I’m no lawyer, but my general sense here is that there’ll be some noise in the system (from privacy advocates) about this. I think it’s user beware, and if you choose to blog, you’re putting stuff out into the public sphere.
I’m no lawyer either, but I would agree that if the information they are collecting is made publicly available by the user and only analyzed in the aggregate, there is little room to complain.
As for ads that watch you through a hidden video camera and use facial-recognition software, that’s a totally different issue.
Cross-posted from Slaw
Toronto is Canada’s Safest City?
Below is a rather ironic screenshot from the front page of the Toronto Star’s website just after the release of a report claiming that my beloved Toronto is the safest metropolitan area in Canada. Note the circled sections.
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