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CACC Meets with UHM Voice of the Workers and Malta Government Lawyers
In 2022, UHM Voice of the Workers marked a significant milestone by negotiating the very first collective agreement for the Attorney General’s Office. The groundbreaking efforts of UHM Voice of the Workers have not gone unnoticed. Their achievements resonated across borders, drawing the attention of the Canadian Association of Crown Counsel (CACC). At a recent meeting on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Lawyers Association conference in Malta, representatives from the CACC engaged with UHM delegates to learn from their experiences.
[ ...Suite ]Date de parution : 2025-04-11
A system in crisis: Rebuilding the dwindling Crown Attorney’s Office
With more files, more complex files and less resources, not surprisingly, Crown Attorneys are burning out and quitting. The lack of sufficient lawyers, especially experienced lawyers, has led to crisis in many provinces. Associations representing Crown Attorneys in Alberta, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have recently sounded the alarm...
[ ...Suite ]Date de parution : 2025-03-14
Crown attorneys call on Manitoba government to help address 'dangerously heavy caseloads'
The Manitoba Association of Crown Attorneys (MACA) is calling on the provincial government to help reduce mounting workloads that it says are making it difficult for prosecutors to meet their professional responsibilities. grievance it filed in April 2023. It says the grievance it filed back in April 2023 regarding 'dangerously heavy caseloads' won't be heard by an arbitrator until October 2025.
[ ...Suite ]Date de parution : 2025-01-10
Preparing RCMP body-cam evidence for court will be monumental task, prosecutor says
The RCMP is phasing-in the use of body-worn cameras across the country and expects 90 per cent of frontline members to be wearing them within a year. Shara Munn, president of the New Brunswick Crown Prosecutors Association, said while the body-camera evidence will be great to have, it will also mean a huge influx of work for prosecutors.
[ ...Suite ]Date de parution : 2025-01-06
N.L. government invests in 18 new Crown attorneys amid severe staffing crunch
Newfoundland and Labrador Justice Minister Bernard Davis announced Wednesday afternoon that the provincial government is investing nearly $24 million to improve the province's justice system.... The investment comes after CBC News reported in numerous stories that Crown attorneys in the province were "suffocating" from overwhelming workloads and a critical staffing shortage.
[ ...Suite ]Date de parution : 2024-11-14
Newfoundland to add more Crown prosecutors
Newfoundland and Labrador has agreed to hire more Crown lawyers following cries of a shortage of prosecutors in the province. The “multi-year investment” will include the hiring of 18 new Crown lawyers, according to a news release.
[ ...Suite ]Date de parution : 2024-11-13
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B.C. judges should get pay and pension hike: appeal court
31-03-2015
B.C.’s Provincial Court judges have won another round in their salary battle with the province.
In a 2-1 ruling in Provincial Court Judges’ Association of British Columbia v. British Columbia (Attorney General), the B.C. Court of Appeal said Provincial Court judges are entitled to the suggested salary and pension recommendations first made in a 2010 report by the Judges’ Compensation Commission. They were rejected by the B.C. legislature in 2011.
A B.C. Supreme Court judge had directed the government to reconsider the matter, but last year, the legislature rejected the recommendations again.
The judges appealed and the B.C. Court of Appeal said last Friday, they are entitled to the compensation as recommended.
The compensation commission’s 2010 report said judges in the province earned about $231,000 a year. That put them in second place for provincial court judges in Canada after Ontario.
The commission made 15 recommendations to the government regarding provincial court judges’ pay. They included freezing pay in 2011-12 and 2012-13 but increasing 2013-14 salaries by the accumulated increase in the B.C. consumer price index over the preceding three years.
The government rejected six of the 15 recommendations, saying pay would be frozen in 2013-14 as part of attempts to control public spending.
However, the Provincial Court Judges’ Association of B.C. won a judicial review ordering the government to reconsider.
In his decision, Justice Edward Chiasson wrote that the legislature should not have considered financial data from 2013, and should not have given new reasons for its decision denying the increases.
“In my view, the Legislature was neither entitled to reconsider its response to the 2010 JCC report on the basis of 2013 financial data, nor to advance new substantive reasons for rejecting the report. On that basis, I would allow this appeal.”
“I would declare that the PCJs are entitled to the recommendations in the 2010 JCC report,” he concluded.
Dissenting Justice David Harris said the court is intruding on the province’s turf of allocating public funds.
“The second basis for rejecting the salary recommendation was that the actual financial circumstances of the Province had turned out to be worse than they had been forecast to be in 2010,” Harris wrote. “I agree that it was illegitimate to rely on the actual data, rather than the forecast. Nevertheless, it is artificial to read the 2013 response without any regard to the 2011 response. Part of the rationale for the 2011 response was that it was unfair and unreasonable to award judges’ salary increases out of the public purse when others paid from it were shouldering the burden of hard times. In my view, that rationale continues to inform the 2013 response. On a fair reading, it is the foundation or the underlying premise of the rejection of the recommendations.”
Chaisson agreed that a court “must be very reluctant to instruct a Legislature how to proceed . . . but in the context of establishing judges’ compensation there is precedent for doing so.”
“Continuation of uncertainty is not in the best interest of either party and is not consistent with the scheme of the process mandated by the Judicial Compensation Act. PCJs still do not know what remuneration they are to receive for the period 2011 – 2014,” he added.
The commission in 2010 also recommended pension-accrual rates of 3.5 per cent for judges starting April 1, 2013, and that the government change the law so judges who work past the age of 70 can make pension contributions.
