What a gold mine

Happy Friday. Is it the holidays? Is it safe to check out yet?

— Dylan Gibbs

• Hallucinations and lies

• UNDRIP packing a punch

• An Alberta hand slapping

• A big ol’ criminal law reform

• And a big break for international med students

SPOTLIGHT 🔦

A new era for UNDRIP

Gitxaala Nation v. BC (Chief Gold Commissioner), 2025 BCCA 430

Indigenous groups struck gold with this recent BC Court of Appeal decision, which gives the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples real force in the province.

A bit of context: UNDRIP affirms Indigenous peoples’ rights to self-determination, land, resources, culture, and governance. It’s not a binding treaty, and most Canadian jurisdictions haven’t done anything to give it teeth. But BC is a notable exception.

The province enacted DRIPA in 2019, under which it committed to bring all provincial legislation into conformity with UNDRIP. Legislators also amended the provincial Interpretation Act to say that provincial legislation must “be construed as being consistent with [UNDRIP].”

There’s been some debate about the legal effect of those enactments. Can Indigenous groups ask courts to decide whether provincial laws conform with UNDRIP? Or are they stuck complaining to the government and asking for legislative reform?

In the lower court: The Gitxaala and Ehattesaht First Nations challenged BC's former mineral tenure regime, which let miners stake claims through an online system. No consultation was required, even if the staked claim had potential to interfere with rights claimed by Indigenous peoples.

The chambers judge accepted that the regime unlawfully sidestepped the Crown’s duty to consult, but wasn’t willing to comment on whether the regime conflicted with UNDRIP. He said BC’s commitment to align provincial law with UNDRIP “[didn’t] create justiciable rights."

On appeal: Justice Dickson, writing for the majority, said DRIPA does more than just require government action. In her view, UNDRIP has “immediate legal effect” in BC — inviting courts to decide whether individual laws are consistent with UNDRIP and exposing every BC law to potential UNDRIP challenges.

For the majority, without judicial oversight, the province’s commitment to implementing UNDRIP would be hollow.

Room for disagreement: Justice Riley agreed that DRIPA committed the province to implementing UNDRIP. But he doesn’t think courts are the bodies tasked with deciding whether specific BC laws are inconsistent. In his view, it’s up to the executive to align laws with UNDRIP through consultation and reform.

Big picture: Premier David Eby already announced that the government will amend DRIPA to clarify that courts can’t decide. It sounds like the plan is to legislate Justice Riley's dissent into law. That would kill the case before the SCC gets a chance to weigh in on the effect of DRIPA, but there’s also a similar case to look out for in the federal court system.

One final thought: Can we take a minute to appreciate the style of cause for this case? BC has a real government official called the Chief Gold Commissioner.

THINGS NOT TO DO 😤

Don’t keep digging

Phase 2 of improper AI use is upon us. The caution to “read the law you rely on” is yesterday’s news, taking a back seat to the caution that should be even more obvious: “don’t lie about it once you get caught.”

For the first time, a Canadian lawyer is facing a criminal contempt prosecution over AI-related misconduct. And hallucinations didn’t get her there — it was her cover-up.

A bit of context: Last spring, an Ontario lawyer filed a brief with fake cases generated by ChatGPT. At first she denied using AI, but she later clarified that a student drafted the brief and took responsibility for failing to review it. Justice Myers accepted that she was remorseful and decided not to proceed any further with a contempt hearing.

But then the Law Society investigated. No doubt realizing that the Law Society would actually get to the bottom of things, the lawyer sent a letter to Justice Myers admitting that she wrote the factum herself. There was no student. She made it all up "out of fear of the potential consequences and sheer embarrassment."

Now? The confession led Justice Myers to kick off fresh contempt proceedings and refer the case to the Attorney General of Ontario. He also appointed amicus to assist with the proceedings, because the lawyer wouldn’t stop confessing and apologizing (despite Justice Myers caution that she should retain counsel). In Justice Myers’s view, the lawyer didn’t seem to appreciate that she was now facing much greater jeopardy — submitting fake cases is bad, but lying to the court is much, MUCH worse.

Lessons learned?

Hopefully there's no need to stress the obvious point: don't lie to the court. But taking a step back — is legal research really a good use of AI?

Personally, I’m not convinced. Sure you can get a quick win if there’s a case on the tip of your tongue and you just can’t track it down. And there are pricey specialized tools that at least don’t muck up the research completely. But there are far better ways lawyers can apply AI to make their lives easier.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, spending a good portion of my week playing around with AI, exploring legal use cases, and sharing the best bits with Inn Laws. We run a monthly tech session where I demo useful workflows and answer questions from our members.

I’m not saying joining our community is the best way to avoid ending up in a criminal contempt hearing, but I’m also not not saying that.

PS: We're closing our founding member cohort at the end of this month, so it’s the last chance to lock in a 35% discount on membership (guaranteed to founding members for life). If you want to surround yourself with innovative lawyers and work together to practice more effectively in 2026, now's the time to apply.

NOTEWORTHY NEWS 🗞️

🩺 An Ontario court blocked the province’s attempt to shut out international medical students. A new provincial policy would have limited the first round of medical residency matching (where 92% of placements are awarded) to graduates with at least two years of high school education in Ontario. Justice Koehnen granted an injunction, saying there’s a strong prima facie case that gutting residency chances for international students violates mobility and equality rights under the Charter.

💊 Saskatchewan hopped on the involuntary treatment train led by Alberta and BC. A newly tabled bill would allow for court-ordered treatment of people with severe substance use disorders.

🏠 The Federal Court recognized fresh rights on reserves. In two companion cases, Justice Favel said the Crown has a duty to provide adequate housing and clean drinking water to Indigenous peoples living on reserves.

🗳️ Alberta got a bit too cute with its referendum legislation. Passed earlier this year, the statute lets ordinary citizens kick off a referendum. The first question out the gates was separation — the only issue was that the legislation expressly prohibited referendums that would violate the Charter. After plenty of court time spent arguing about whether you can carve a province out of Canada and still comply with the Charter, Alberta amended the statute to remove the Charter compliance requirement and end the ongoing proceeding. The province even wrote to the Court, before the amended legislation passed, asking to terminate the case.

Justice Feasby didn’t endorse that approach. Instead, he published a decision concluding that separation would violate the Charter, and threw in a few choice words for the legislators:

BY THE NUMBERS 📊

The federal government tabled one of the biggest criminal law reforms in years. The Protecting Victims Act primarily targets intimate partner violence and child exploitation, with new offences for coercive control, sextortion, and distributing illicit deepfake images. It also upgrades every hate-motivated murder to first-degree (including the all too common “femicide” that crops up in intimate partner violence cases), reinstates minimum sentences struck down by the courts, and takes a shot at limiting the effect of Jordan.

Here’s a quick look by the numbers

30. The number of months that currently serves as a hard cap on prosecution time. The amendments put a significant asterisk beside that number, carving out time spent on certain pre-trial applications, requiring courts to consider alternative remedies besides throwing cases out with a stay of proceedings, and spelling out what it means for a case to be "complex" enough to warrant more time. The CCLA hates it, calling the bill an attempt to "legalize proceedings routinely running over two and a half years."

40,000+. The bill’s doozy of a word count. For those interested in the nuance that can’t be captured in an email newsletter, here’s a link to the full text.

9. The number of years it took the federal government to embrace judicial dialogue and implement a quick fix for minimum sentences. As the SCC spelled out in Lloyd, the only unconstitutional thing about mandatory minimum sentences is the “mandatory” part. Legislators can always “build a safety valve” to let judges exempt offenders from the minimum sentence in cases where it would amount to cruel and unusual punishment. Nearly a decade later, here’s that safety valve: