Law Times

Law Times • November 8, 2010 NEWS Printing still an option: Millar Continued from page 1 "Th at's an issue we need to come to grips with," said Millar, who nevertheless added that electronic voting isn't a cure-all for voter apathy. He pointed to last year's paralegal election that was entirely electronic but still drew less than 30 per cent of eligible voters to the ballot box. "I don't think that the method of voting will increase voter participation," he said. "It's whether or not you have the electorate en- gaged that will increase voter participation." Th ose comments left some benchers, includ- ing Constance Backhouse, wondering whether the shift to electronic voting was worth it. Spread over the four-year bencher term, an electronic election would save less than $2 per lawyer per year. In 2007, when electronic bal- lots were an option, just 43 per cent of voters opted to make their choice online, compared to the 53 per cent who mailed their votes in. "I think that the voting rates are far more important to the future of the law society and the profession than the small amount of mon- ey, and it is a relatively small amount of money that we're looking at," Backhouse said. But Bencher Christopher Bredt played the Rob Ford card by calling on the law society to embrace the cheaper option and suggest- ing few members would see $300,000 as a small sum. "I think that it's important that in these hard times that we be prudent with our members' fees," he said. "Th is is our mem- bers' money." Still, Bencher Th omas Heintzman fears the move to cut mailed-out bencher booklets may actually reduce turnout during the next election. He said he likes to carry his booklet around with him and takes it to the cottage to peruse at his leisure rather than relying on a computer with Internet access to view the materials. "I'm a little concerned that those who do that are not going to vote because they won't have it in paper," Heintzman said. According to Millar, there's a simple solu- tion to that issue. "If you need it in paper, press print. Th at's all you need to do. Put sta- ples down the side, and it's exactly the same as if we had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to send it out." But Backhouse said printing isn't an option for many lawyers who are reluctant to spend the money to print a booklet of that size. At the same time, she feels reading a computer screen simply doesn't cut it. "I do a better job and I am more likely to enjoy doing the job on paper," she said. "Th at may not be the next generation, but we've got a lot of old people out there in the profession, too. It's the kind of thing where many people would say, 'I just won't vote.'" Millar, however, hopes information ses- sions will get lawyers to engage in the process, with 11 slated for prospective candidates in 10 diff erent cities across Ontario in December and January. Two are scheduled for Toronto, with one each in Kitchener, Barrie, Ottawa, Windsor, Oshawa, Sault Ste. Marie, Th under Bay, Sudbury, and London. Convocation also voted to give bencher candidates access to the e-mail addresses of more than 12,000 lawyers who consented to receiving correspondence, as well as mailing labels for all 42,000 lawyers in the province. But Bredt suggested the LSUC had missed an opportunity to tackle benchers' incum- bency advantage by granting candidates ac- cess to all of the 39,000 e-mail addresses it has and thereby allowing for a cheaper way of contacting voters. "Th is is an election," he said. "People should have the right to communicate with the voters. And if people think it's a nuisance they are going to get 80 of these e-mails, they can delete them. Some voters might be inter- ested and they might be interested in fi nd- ing out about people who can't aff ord to pay $18,000 for the labels." But Millar said fears over anti-spam legis- lation had prompted the LSUC to ask law- yers for permission to provide their e-mail addresses and noted it was too late to go back and change that process. LT PAGE 5 Investors fear abuse Continued from page 1 instructions. With each step, the chance for technological or administrative error increases, which makes vote confi rmation virtually impossible. Almost all Canadian interme- diaries contract out their proxy voting services to one American company, Broadridge Financial Solutions Inc. Hansell says that while Broadridge has helped streamline the proxy voting sys- tem, the company isn't regulated in Canada. "Issuers and investors can't see how Broadridge has han- dled the voting instructions for any particular meeting." As a result, Hansell says it's impossible to know how many votes have been aff ected by faulty votes and whether they could have changed the decision. Cases tend to come to light only when a large shareholder becomes sus- picious about whether their vote was counted, she adds. Th e paper notes several ex- amples of voting errors. In 2006, B.C.-based Gateway Casinos Income Fund approved a trans- action with a 52.4-per-cent vote in favour. A press release later admitted that a number of votes, both for and against the proposal, weren't counted. Th e transaction remained valid, although the company didn't reveal what the real result should have been. In 2004, Toronto-based IAM- GOLD Corp. rejected a proposed merger by 16 million votes. Just one day earlier, the company had discovered and discounted an over-vote of 26 million shares. Stephen Griggs, executive di- Meehan & Sharpe on Appellate Advocacy DVD Eugene Meehan, Q.C. and The Honourable Robert J. Sharpe How to develop an 'appealing' case Winning on appeal requires a different set of skills than winning at trial. With this video you'll get tips on written and oral advocacy and expert advice on how to triumph on appeal. Features winning techniques and strategies and identifies common pitfalls, you'll learn how to: • • • • Canada Law BookNew! write an effective appellate factum construct a compelling argument improve your oral advocacy skills marshal the facts and law for a successful case This 'how-to-win-an-appeal' video is an excellent guide to the essentials before an appellate court. Also includes tips on appealing board decisions useful in: Order your copy today DVD • $195 • May 2010 P/C 0765150001 ISBN 978-0-88804-496-9 • Labour Law • Human Rights • Provincial, Federal and Territorial Tribunals rector of the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance that repre- sents the interests of institutional investors, says the report will be an invaluable resource for his members. In his view, it marks an important turning point by trans- forming countless anecdotal com- plaints about faults in the system Carol Hansell hopes interest in the paper will put shareholder voting issues on regulators' agendas. into a professional and exhaustive account. "When company votes do not refl ect the votes cast, it's a fundamental problem. It's basic bookkeeping and for some reason it's not working," he says, noting that doubts about the integrity of the system are damaging to cor- porate governance. "Investors fear the potential for abuse and whether a company can somehow skew the numbers to get the result they want." Groves, meanwhile, says the ef- fi ciency with which issuers make dividend payments through inter- mediaries shows it's possible to fi x the system. "It's the same group of shareholders, but there's no incen- tive for the intermediaries to have the same kind of rigour to the vot- ing process," she notes. After a week online at sharehold- ervoting.com, the paper Hansell helped write had already attracted signifi cant interest, something she hopes will force the issue onto regulators' agendas. "We certainly need regulatory involvement to get anywhere," she says. "We hope people will appre- ciate the importance of this is- sue and reach out to the regula- tors and say, 'We need to fi nd a solution here.'" LT ANNOUNCEMENT canadalawbook.ca For a 30-day, no-risk evaluation call: 1.800.565.6967 Canada Law Book, a Thomson Reuters business. Prices subject to change without notice, to applicable taxes and shipping & handling. LT1108 www.lawtimesnews.com ntitled-1 1 10/29/10 11:30:12 AM

• Cover
• Revising Retainers
• Victim Impacts
• Focus On Family Law