His Majesty

I just wrapped up the latest round of Inn Laws peer group meetings — quarterly sessions I facilitate for curated groups of 6–8 similarly situated lawyers.

I check in with members to see what's on their plates and what would be useful to hash out with peers. And that input shapes the agenda for our lightly facilitated group discussions.

One theme kept coming up this quarter: lawyers feeling overwhelmed and in need of support. If you're in the same boat, several members landed on hiring freelancers. More on that below.

PS: We're closing our Inn Laws founding member cohort December 31 — last chance to lock in a 35% lifetime discount. If you want peers who get it, now's the time to join.

— Dylan Gibbs

• Swearing off the King

• Freelance lawyering

• Duty to background check

• Partial stays in favour of arbitration

• Banishment, doctor pay, and methane rules

STAYING CURRENT 🗞️

Recent and notable

1. Negligent firearms licensing
   Sienna v Duckett, 2025 ONCA 867

The family of a man killed by his neighbour will have another chance to argue that the federal government is responsible. They allege Canada never should have issued the killer a firearms licence. The motion judge struck their claim, concluding that the government doesn’t owe a private law duty of care when issuing licences. But the Court of Appeal said there’s a sliver of hope. Though the government doesn't owe a duty to everyone potentially affected by the granting of a firearms licence, it might owe a duty to a specific group if it ought to know the licensee poses a risk to that group.

2. Swapping class action plaintiffs
    Prince George Airport Authority Inc v Roy, 2025 BCCA 442

Class action defendants argued that the original plaintiff in a BC class action is the only person who can apply to certify that class action. An important distinction in this case, because the original plaintiff wasn’t a BC resident and ended up getting swapped out for someone else. The Court of Appeal rejected the defendant’s overly technical argument.

3. Competing arbitration and litigation claims
   RW Tomlinson v LIUNA, Local 527, 2025 ONCA 861

A strike disrupted worksites owned by three companies. Only one was party to the union's collective agreement. All three sued. The union moved to stay proceedings in favour of arbitration. The motion judge stayed all claims, leaving non-employer companies in limbo — unable to arbitrate or proceed in court. The Court of Appeal called that a jurisdictional dead end and ordered a temporary stay instead, preserving their right to return to court once arbitration wraps up.

SPOTLIGHT 🔦

Alberta lawyers no longer committed to the King

Wirring v. Law Society of Alberta, 2025 ABCA 413

Do you need to pledge allegiance to the reigning monarch to practice law? In most jurisdictions, no. But in Alberta, the answer was yes — until this week.

A bit of context: Prabjot Singh Wirring is an amritdhari Sikh. His beliefs prohibit putting anyone — or anything — above his Creator, Akal Purakh. He applied to join the Alberta Bar after his articles, but the legislative requirement requiring him to swear “true allegiance” to the King presented a roadblock. So he applied to strike it down as a violation of his freedom of religion and equality rights.

In the lower court: The chambers judge dismissed Wirring’s application after concluding that the oath was symbolic — a commitment to Canada’s governance structure, not literal fealty to the monarch. She concluded that Wirring had no issue committing to Canada’s legal order, and therefore saw no infringement.

On appeal: The Court agreed with the chambers judge that the oath is a symbolic pledge rather than a personal promise to the King. But that didn’t solve the issue.

The chambers judge erred by concluding that Wirring's beliefs only prohibited pledging allegiance to an individual. According to the Court of Appeal, the evidence showed Wirring believed he couldn't prioritize any allegiance over his commitment to his Creator.

And in their view, that’s exactly what Alberta’s Oath of Allegiance called for. The Court saw the pledge of “true allegiance” to the King as an overriding commitment that necessarily trumps personal and religious views.

Given that the oath forced Wirring to choose between practicing law in his home province and his religious convictions, the Court found that it infringed his religious freedom.

A justified infringement? Not without evidence. The court accepted that promoting loyalty to constitutional principles is a legitimate objective. But Alberta didn’t lead any evidence to explain the need for its specific “bear true allegiance” language. Other jurisdictions have either made the oath optional or eliminated it altogether. Given the lack of justification, the Court of Appeal struck the oath requirement down.

For Wirring, the victory is a bit abstract — he got called to the Alberta bar through interprovincial mobility after first getting called in Saskatchewan. The Court of Appeal only heard the moot case because of broader public interest. But for future lawyers in a similar boat, the path to the Alberta bar just got clearer.

Big picture: Courts have rejected similar challenges to the Canadian citizenship oath. Could this decision create a new avenue of attack? Maybe, but the Court of Appeal did give some ammo to anyone trying to confine this ruling to the legal context:

FROM OUR COMMUNITY

Freeing time with freelance support

I heard from several Inn Laws members this month that they were looking for help but weren’t quite ready to commit to a full-time hire. As we workshopped that issue in some of our peer groups, others shared the value they’ve seen from freelance support.

I found one member’s approach in particular really neat. When she hires new staff, she worries more about whether they fit the team than whether they have years of experience. Then she hires freelancers to help fill some of the gaps. When a freelancer completes a file, it becomes a training resource — the next time that type of matter comes in, her staff can pull up the freelancer's work and see exactly what good looks like.

It was a timely discussion for me personally, because I recently joined Flex Legal Network. I'll be dabbling in freelance legal work to stay fresh, and to implement some ideas I have about practicing more efficiently.

If you're like some of our Inn Laws members — wanting help but not looking to hire full-time — Flex is worth considering. They offer flexible, as-needed support from vetted freelance lawyers and law clerks. Heck, if I haven't put you off with this newsletter, I might even be able to help you out myself.

MAKING HEADLINES 🗞️

💨 BC is suing JUUL to recover public health costs linked to youth vaping. The province filed a civil claim alleging the e-cigarette maker targeted youth and failed to warn about addiction risks. It's the first major test of BC's vaping cost-recovery legislation, which mirrors the playbook the province used successfully against tobacco manufacturers and is currently using against opioid manufacturers. JUUL has already settled for billions in the US over similar claims.

⚖️ The World Anti-Doping Agency says Canada’s privacy commissioner doesn’t have jurisdiction to investigate how it handles athlete data. The commissioner is investigating a complaint that alleged the Montreal-based agency shared biological samples with sports federations for sex-eligibility testing without athletes' consent. The case could clarify how far the commissioner's reach extends over international organizations headquartered in Canada.

🌿 Canada released its long-awaited methane regulations. The new rules target emissions from oil and gas operations and landfills, aiming to cut 304 megatonnes of CO₂ equivalent by 2040.

🍦 Toronto is beating the heat next year with dedicated cooling rooms. A city bylaw will require apartment buildings without AC to offer tenants a building amenity to escape the heat.

🏛️ Banishment is alive and well. A BC court renewed a ban keeping 78-year-old Stanley George Nikal, a Wet'suwet'en hereditary chief, at least 50 kilometres from his home community. Nikal was convicted of multiple sexual assaults 30 years ago, but the court found he still poses a threat — not so much because he might reoffend, but because he's vowed to force out community members who testified against him when he returns.

💰 The Canada Energy Regulator issued its largest-ever cumulative fine. Trans Mountain got dinged $196,000 for failing to monitor floodwater after a 2024 storm at its pipeline expansion near Abbotsford.

THINGS NOT TO DO 😤

Don’t make unhinged comments about opposing counsel.

An Alberta family lawyer was reprimanded and fined $5,000 for inflammatory comments about opposing counsel. In a letter to the judge, she accused another lawyer of "bad faith conduct," being "blinded by obsession," and unable to "separate her emotions from her professional obligations."

The lawyer doubled down during the Law Society complaint process, writing that opposing counsel had "a mental illness" that "impair[ed] her ability to practice law in an ethical manner," and that she had “a personal hatred for single biological mothers due to her own personal circumstances."