Advocate Jan 2014

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36 VOL. 72 PART 1 JANUARY 2014 THE ADVOCATE which had been entered by the defence as the only exhibit in the trial. The record disclosed 23 convictions between 1985 and 1991, albeit none for sexual assault. It appeared that a good proportion of the community was in the courtroom to support the accused, and they broke into applause when the foreman announced the verdict. After court, determined to avoid bears, I walked along the Alaska Highway to the end of town and back. This was only about seven kilometres, but I began to consider the challenges that getting fresh air and exercise posed to an unarmed cityslicker without mace. I went to dinner with the court staff. We had a great time telling stories, despite the fact that the restaurant was sold out of meat, chicken and fish. That night, another live band, louder than the first and much worse, struck up at 10:30 p.m. and “played” through until 3 a.m. The lead “singer” invited audience participation and, presumably increasingly under the influence of strong drink, the audience grew ever louder and less melodic. I decided that the last words anyone in bed wants to hear at one in the morning are those of the leader of a country rock group yelling “We’ll just take a break and be right back!” I entertained fantasies beginning with phoning the front desk and asking “This is a hotel, isn’t it?” and escalating to unplugging the entire sound system and throttling the lead singer with the electrical cords. The last fantasy was fortified by the fact that there were no media in Watson Lake to report me. We flew back to Whitehorse in an older Piper Chieftain that seemed smaller than the first one. While we were standing on the airport runway in Watson Lake, we learned that a Cessna 170 had just made a forced landing on the North Klondike Highway outside Whitehorse and then steered into a ditch to avoid traffic. Our flight back was turbulent, but happily we all had nerves of steel and stomachs of iron. t t t t t
THE ADVOCATE VOL. 72 PART 1 JANUARY 2014 37 THINK YOU KNOW CANLII? A CLOSER LOOK INTO A PRIZED ASSET OF THE BRITISH COLUMBIA LEGAL COMMUNITY By Colin Lachance The results of a 2012 survey tell us that 90 per cent of B.C. lawyers used CanLII in the 12-month period preceding the survey. The same survey disclosed that only 52 per cent of those lawyers knew that CanLII (full name: Canadian Legal Information Institute) was funded in part by their annual law society dues. British Columbia’s lawyers are certainly not alone in being unaware that their most frequently accessed legal resource is also one of their greatest contributions to supporting access to justice for all Canadians. Indeed, their awareness actually exceeds the national average (44 per cent) among the over 4,300 survey respondents from law societies across the country. To quote Allan Fineblit, Q.C., CEO of the Law Society of Manitoba: All CanLII funding comes from law societies. No public money goes into it and yet it is a public resource. Anyone can use it for free. It’s one of the many nice things lawyers do in the public interest. In respect of CanLII’s annual operational funding, Mr. Fineblit speaks true, although CanLII occasionally receives direct grants for various projects from provincial law foundations as well. The Law Foundation of British Columbia has played a major role in securing CanLII’s entitlement to reproduce B.C. legislation, and it also provides an ongoing grant to the Law Society of British Columbia that is earmarked specifically to CanLII’s benefit. Nuances aside, what matters is that CanLII exists and thrives because the legal profession came together and made it happen. I am grateful to the publishers of the Advocate for the opportunity to use this article to thank members of the B.C. legal profession and to remind them of their pivotal role in CanLII’s creation and success. I will go further and share details of the evolutionary and revolutionary opportunities that lie ahead.
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Because not everyone is this lucky.
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Advocate Jan 2014

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