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Annual Report 2021
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CHAIRPERSON'S ANNUAL REPORT
October 20, 2021
Collingwood Ontario
In the past year Canadians have faced many challenges because of covid-19. The government's decision to lock-down the economy affected almost everyone and had a severe effect on small business owners. In the face of this, we, as volunteer directors of the Canadian Justice Review Board (CJRB) have continued to raise public awareness of important legislative and legal issues.
The federal government re-introduced Bill-C-3 to purportedly amend the Judges Act and Criminal Code to insure that judges are better educated. The Bill was opposed by lobbyists from the Canadian Judicial Council and Judges' Association . This was a stance that University of Waterloo political science professor and constitutional expert Emmett MacFarlane described as merely a continuation of " a fight over whether the demands of justice should take a back seat to the more political tussle over judicial autonomy." Consistent with that view, the CJRB submitted a brief to Parliament pointing out that if victims of sexual assault are to have any faith in the justice system then the education of judges on these matters should not be optional as lobbyist for the judges want. The wording of the Bill should have said "must" instead of "may". In a democracy, governments make the law and some hand-picked lawyers are given commissions to sit as judges for the purpose of applying the law. As expressed by Chief Justice W. J. Ritchie – Fredericton, 1st Feb. 1870 Supreme Court Act, "...I am quite alive to the fact, that in the words of an English Jurist, "my duty is plain – it is to expound and not to make the law, to decide on it as I find it, not as I may wish it to be." and therein resides many of the failings of the current Canadian court system.
The CJRB also submitted a brief to the Canadian Senate concerning Senate Bill S-207. This Bill sought to give judges the ability to ignore minimum sentencing established in law by Parliament. The CJRB took the position that the Criminal Code did not require amendments and that the current code already gives judges sufficient discretion to select from the current range of sentences described in the Act. Therefore Bill S-207 was unnecessary and would only add to the public's mistrust of an increasingly arbitrary court system. When Parliament was prorogued for the recent election, Bill S-207 died on the order paper.
Our colleague Glenn Lucas has kept a keen eye on developments at the Assessment Review Board of Ontario (ARB). The ARB is a quasi judicial tribunal designed to settle disputes between taxpayers and the municipal property tax assessor. Its operations have been roundly criticized by the Auditor General of Ontario. In the face of that criticism, the ARB's operations appear to have gone from bad to worse. By introducing new "rules of practice and procedure" the ARB has virtually eliminate in-person hearings. This deprives taxpayers of the ability to cross examine the assessor. Instead, the new rules require taxpayers to complete complex ARB forms. A failure to dot all the 'i's and cross all the 't's results in the taxpayer's appeal being dismissed without a hearing. The ARB appears to have forgotten that its function is to provide a reasonable and lawful property assessment. By placing 'form over function' it becomes extremely difficult for self-represented taxpayers to have a fair hearing. It also creates the impression that the ARB does not want hear appeals at all.
I was contacted by the Rural United Property Owners Association of New Brunswick Inc, (RUPOA) because the New Brunswick government had, in the past, deprived them of their right to vote in local elections. In March 2021 the Local Government and Local Governance Reform study was initiated. The CJRB sent a letter to the Premier of New Brunswick supporting RUPOA's aspiration to have democratically elected municipal government. A "Green Paper" supporting expanded bureaucracy and a report titled "Models of Government Structure at the Local Level." indicated that a project by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) was collaborating with experts in academia in Canada and the Russian Federation. This concerned the local taxpayers and complaints were made to various provincial members of parliament. The pushback appears to have put a halt to what many would consider to be an anti-democratic program..
New municipal bylaws in Ontario were also an issue this past year. Some bylaws appear to be an over-reach. This over-reach arises when municipalities reference sections of the Municipal Act which had long since been repealed. In other words, some municipalities do not have the powers or authority that they claim. It appears that some recent municipal by-laws have been copied and pasted from other municipalities based on outdated understandings of what the Municipal Act actually allows or does not allow.
The Pinery Park community near Grand Bend Ontario was in touch with the CJRB because the Provincial Pinery Park Staff decided to ignore a right-of-way deeded to the Pinery property owners by the Armstrong Development plan prior to the establishment of the Park. The property owners have been prevented from driving to their respective properties even though the Provincial Parks Act (PPA) appears to make clear that the rights-of-way must be respected. A more recently enacted Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves Act (PPCRA) is an amalgamation of the Provincial Parks Act, the Wilderness Areas Act and sections of the Public Lands Act which one would think would not override the deeded right-of-way provisions that were a condition under which the Pinery Park acquired its land from the Armstrong developer in the first place. A court will need to decide. On the bright side there seem to be a number of court rulings which support the property owners. However, it is no secret that it is extremely difficult for people of limited means to finance a lawsuit against the deep pockets of government.
Most recently the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MOECP) asked for comments on some new regulation. I replied that this is a complicated procedure and I asked for a copy of the proposed regulations before offering a comment. I hope and expect that the Ministry will send the new regulations in their entirety to ensure that the "readers digest" version is the same as what is stated in the O. Regs.
As of last week I had been informed that the Ontario Landowners Association will be having a very important press release coming in the near future...Stay tuned!
I am pleased to report that this has been a successful year for the CJRB in attracting new supporters and followers of the CJRB website and facebook publications. I am grateful to the support of all of the directors of the CJRB and I am particularly pleased to welcome new director James McDonald MBA to the Canadian Justice Review Board. Mr. McDonald is a former director of policy with the federal government and a former director with Statistics Canada, and a former director with the Ontario government secretary of state. He is currently a professor at Centennial College specializing in strategic marketing , and international banking and finance. He brings to the Board an in depth understanding of policy and class litigation issues. Together with all of the CJRB directors I look forward to continuing successes in the coming year.
Yours truly,
E.F. Marshall