My June 2017 blog described that most seniors appoint a continuing power of attorney for property (CPOAP), partly to avoid having the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee (OPG&T) assume the role of statutory guardian of property under the Substitute Decisions Act (SDA) or the Mental Health Act (MHA)…
Undue influence results in benefits to a beneficiary/donee which would not have occurred except for the undue influence imposed by the beneficiary/donee upon the testator/donor. Undue influence can be conceptualized into two distinct types: (1) “actual” undue influence and (2) “presumed” undue influence. Actual undue influence is concerned with coercive…
Section 4(1) of the Health Care Consent Act (HCCA) sets out a two-part test for determining whether a person has the capacity to consent to medical treatment, to be admitted to a care facility, or to receive a personal assistive service/device: Is the person able to understand information relevant to…
This blog was written by Ronald Neal, student-at-law at de VRIES LITIGATION LLP. Even those with the “right stuff” are not immune to elder abuse. Such is the apparent case with Buzz Aldrin, a retired astronaut, lunar module pilot, and engineer who is now finding himself in the midst of…
Written by Jessica Rochman Fowler The tech industry is no stranger to age bias in employment practices. Several articles have been written over the past few years about ageist assumptions that permeate the tech world, including that older people can’t keep up with improving technology, or that older employees should…
In 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada held that the ban on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) was unconstitutional (for a summary of the decision, click here). However, MAiD is not available to all persons; to qualify, a person requesting MAiD must have a grievous and irremediable medical condition including…
Case Example 1: John, was a 93 year old, well -to -do gentleman, never married and had no known family. He lived in his own home in a nice part of the city. His next door neighbor had kept an eye out and assisted him over the years by shoveling…
This Blog was written by: Natalie Bender For many of us, Harper Lee’s acclaimed novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” was a staple on our high school reading list (and was likely one we re-visited in university). The novel is a Pulitzer Prize winner, and has become a classic in…
The sad story of our Long Term Care crisis continues and this blog will focus on what’s available and the seniors who apply for them. As we know, Long Term Care homes provide Ontario residents with access to 24 hour nursing and personal care and are available to those 18…
In law, expressed choices are not necessarily a reflection of capable decision making. For example, regarding testamentary capacity, the Ontario Court of Appeal in Hall v. Bennett Estate (2003)[i] stated in paragraphs 15 and 16 that it is not sufficient simply to show that a testator had the capacity to…