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looking at canlii from different provinces

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  • looking at canlii from different provinces

    How relevant are decisions from other provinces? How much of family law is nation vs provincial and are there some areas open to interpretation that tend to get different results based on the province you live in? Im not thinking of any specific issue, just wondering in general. Is it worth it to read decisions from other provinces than the one you live in?

  • #2
    Very relevant, particularly if the decision is from a Court of Appeal. Here is a an example. The senior Alberta judge goes into quite a bit of detail of relevance of cases from other provinces.

    https://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/do...17abqb428.html

    In my own experience, my lawyer often used to cite cases from Manitoba Court of Appeal.

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    • #3
      Outside of Quebec (which is Civil Law), Canada uses a common law system. So decisions made by other provinces will carry weight so long as they are on point. They aren't given the same weight as a decision from the home province, especially if the laws aren't quite the same, or if there has been another decision in the home province that says something else.

      But yeah, extraprovincial decisions do hold weight. How much weight will depend on the case and laws involved.

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      • #4
        Use Supreme Court case law from other provinces. If it deals with federal law, Divorce Act for example, then it is relevant to every province.

        Another thing that a lawyer told me to do; there is a link near the top of the page of CanLii case law called "Cited", when you go to a case law from a different province, click the "Cited" link and you will be given a list of cases that cite the case you were looking at, find cases in your province that are similar to what you are looking for.

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