Section
National Elder Law Section
Date
June 20, 2015
Location
Sheraton Ottawa
Submitted by
BC Branch Representative: Rose Shawlee
Report
Agenda attached.
Highlights:
- Guest Speaker: Martha Jane Lewis of BCCEAS regarding legalities of long term care facilities. Notable resource for elder law practitioners:
- Friesen talks from SFU's gerontology department
- capacity evaluation forms prepared by BCCEAS
- End of Life discussions.
- Note that Peter MacKay has requested an extension to implement the Carter decision.
- the CBA National Elder Law Section unanimously voted to be a co-sponsor of the resolution re end of life decisions, which will be voted on at the upcoming CLC.
- Resolution was passed to correct unintended effects of existing rules that limit the term of an executive member who steps in to fill a vacancy.
- Scheduling of future meetings: It is intended that there will be meetings every other month by phone, with meetings of the exec in the intervening month. These will likely be the 3rd Tuesday of each month.
- Notables from individual branch reports:
- Possible topics:
- clinical ethicist speaking on PAD and ethics of capacity assessments
- use of reverse mortgages (on marital breakdown of elder couples) - also attracted banking section
- predatory marriages - also attracted family section
- divorce and separation where there's dementia - also attracted family section
- elder abuse response team with local police forces
- jointures and banking
- ageism in employment - attracted employment section
- here are ongoing discussions amongst bankers and lawyers regarding joint assets and disclosure of concerns of abuse under PIPEDA. One bank has advised that it is going to start advising clients of the effects of joint ownership, but the 'advice' is highly unhelpful (it basically says that jointures may not result in a right of survivorship, but offers no meaningful guidance or reference to resulting trusts).
- recent Manitoba and Ontario judgments indicate a trend of looking to extrinsic evidence regarding the interpretation of Wills (McCorkill being the most notable)
- family members who are caregivers who are highly negligent are starting to be found criminally liable for neglect (case of Viola Simonds)
- CBA national prepares informationals called 'legal health checks' for various different topics - it's worth checking these out on the website. they are primarily geared toward the public.
- A well kept secret is that there are grant opportunities available for programs/research with national impact.
See below PDF for Agenda.