Tag Archive for 'Canadian legislation'

Division of Powers – Criminal Law

Published on October 6, 2010 in Canada, Courts, How to Become a Professional Private Investigator, Legislation, Private Investigator and Sources. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Under the division of powers, the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction over criminal law and procedure (section 91(27) of the Constition Act of 1867) the provinces have jurisdiction over the administration of justice, including criminal matters (section 92(14)) and penal matters (section 92(15)) regarding any laws made within provincial jurisdiction. Thus Canada has a single Criminal Code but many provincial laws that can result in incarceration or penalty.

Criminal and Civil Courts

This means that the Administration of Justice in the Province, including the Constitution, Maintenance, and Organization of Provincial Courts, both of Civil and of Criminal Jurisdiction, and including Procedure in Civil Matters in those Courts are matters handled by the Province. It also means that the Province handles the Imposition of Punishment by Fine, Penalty, or Imprisonment for enforcing any Law of the Province made in relation to any Matter coming within any of the Classes of Subjects enumerated in  Section 92 of the Constitution Act of 1867.

For the Investigator, this means that the majority of the criminal prosecutions occur in courts administered by the provinces and that most civil actions are issued in provincial courts.

Division of Powers

Published on October 4, 2010 in Canada, How to Become a Professional Private Investigator, Legislation and Private Investigator. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

This is the first in a series about how Canada works. An Investigator must know these things about his country in order to know who is responsible for creating and maintaining the information that he may need.

The Canadian Federation

Canada is a federation with two distinct jurisdictions of political authority: the country-wide federal government and ten provincial governments.  Presently, the three territories are creations of the Federal Parliament and exercise delegated power and not sovereign power.

The federal nature of Canadian constitution was a reaction to the range of colonial diversities of the different regions of Canada. Federalism was also considered essential to the co-existence of the French and English Canada.

The division of powers between the federal and provincial governments was initially outlined in the British North America Act, 1867 (now the Constitution Act, 1867), which, with amendments to both, form the Constitution of Canada. The federal-provincial distribution of legislative powers (also known as the division of powers) defines the scope of the power of the federal parliament of Canada and the powers of each individual provincial legislature or assembly.

PIPEDA & The PI

Published on September 29, 2010 in Canada, Courts, Legislation, Privacy and Private Investigator. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

This year, two events indicate the federal privacy commissioner’s attempts to control private investigations in Canada may soon end. Continue reading ‘PIPEDA & The PI’

Reckless Personal Information Handling

Published on November 29, 2007 in Canada, Fraud, Identity Fraud, Identity Theft, Legislation, Privacy and Security. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

If Bill C-27 (2nd Session, 39th Parliament with first reading on 21 Nov 07) will make it an offence to recklessly make available or sell personal information knowing it will be used to commit fraud.

The wording that concerns me:

Everyone commits an offence who transmits, makes available, distributes, sells or offers for sale another person’s identity information, or has it in their possession for any of those purposes, knowing or believing that or being reckless as to whether the information will be used to commit an indictable offence that includes fraud, deceit or falsehood as an element of the offence

How will the term “reckless” be defined and measured? The people writing this law need to take into consideration what has happened with the requirement to safely store firearms.

In the case of the law requiring the safe storage of firearms, a group of street gang members rappeled down the side of an apartment building and broke into an apartment, and for four days, they continuously used industrial power tools to open a huge money safe and steal some handguns. Without a clear definition in law of what constitutes “safe storage”, the gun owner was charged with unsafe storage of the firearms. This type of malicious misuse will surely follow if Bill-C27 is passed without a clear definition of what constitutes being reckless.