Law Times

LaW TIMeS • NOVeMBeR 2, 2015 Page 7 www.lawtimesnews.com COMMENT First Teraview fee increases in five years take effect ood morning, Teraview users. I hope your October closings went well, but if you don't al- ready know, you'll notice as soon as you log on today that there's now something a little different in the way the land registration system works. Effective as of today, the fees for some of the more common land registration and search services are to increase ac- cording to an accumulation of 50 per cent of inf lation based on the consumer price index for each year between 2010 and 2015. So, for instance, the fee for pulling a property identificaiton num- ber (PIN) will increase to $29.35 from $28.00. Registering an instrument, meanwhile, will increase to $73.35 from $70.00, plus HST, in all cases. The key land registry office designation has also been eliminated for land registra- tion purposes so that the cost of pulling PINs has been harmonized across all offices at $29.35. These same fees will again increase according to 50 per cent of the con- sumer price index this time next year and annually thereafter, but it's ex- pected that yearly communication of the changes will be made once the in- f lationary benchmark has been deter- mined for that year. Indeed, since these increases will only occur at half of the rate of inf lation, the cost of land regis- tration and searching in this province has gone down in real dollar terms over the past five years and will continue to do so even as fees nominally rise. Bulletin 2015-03 issued last month sets out all of the land regis- tration and search fees that take effect today. The bul- letin doesn't include HST calculations, and determin- ing the amount of the tax on land registration and search fees is complex as it's not as simple as applying the cur- rent HST rate to the new fees. Teranet, however, has set out the HST calculations at teranetexpress.ca/csp/tvusers/tera- viewUsers.htm. Although just coming into effect to- day, these new fees have actually been in the works since 2010 when the for- mer minister of government services first announced the pending increases. The 2010 minister's order (and the cor- responding Land Titles Act bulletin is- sued at the time) was an effort to give stakeholders notice of the fee increase well in advance of the effective date. Bulletin 2015-03 just reaffirms the fee increases announced in 2010 but with monetary precision based on the con- sumer price index over the past five years. Not all fees will be increasing. There are, in fact, a number of land registra- tion and search fees that will remain exactly the same. So, for instance, the cost of viewing and copying instru- ments, plans or maps doesn't change, along with all of the other items listed in schedules II and III of Bulletin 2015-03. That said, there are some fees that will be increasing by more than half the rate of the cumulative inf lation since 2010. For in- stance, although almost all users of the electronic land registration system access the system electronically through Teraview, users can actually pull PINs and instruments from each lo- cal land registry division by using the Remote Online Search Capability Ontario (ROSCO) terminals situated at each land registry office. ROSCO terminals can only provide PINs and instruments from the local land registry office in which they're situated, but some users prefer making the in-person trip. Ef- fective today, the fee for pulling PINs from the ROSCO terminals at the land registry office will be harmonized so that it becomes the same as the charge for pulling them electronically off of Teraview (although nuances in the HST calculations still result in minor differ- ences in the final cost). ServiceOntario has committed to a digital-first approach to service de- livery to Ontarians, and harmonizing the fee structure for in-person searches from a ROSCO terminal and electronic searches off Teraview is an effort to en- courage customers to use the electronic system. Online searches using Teraview or Teranet Express offer convenient ac- cess with immediate results for inqui- ries from anywhere across the province all without leaving the comfort of the home or office. The fee increases will ensure contin- ued modernization and delivery of a se- cure, accessible, and dependable prop- erty registration system in Ontario. In the near future, users can also anticipate seeing a transformation of Teraview to a web-based platform that's fully bilingual and compliant with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Dis- abilities Act. Furthermore, while the overwhelming majority of electronic land registration system users never need to search behind the PIN, a small group of professional users (including historians, genealogists, and some title searchers) regularly need to perform deep searches back to the patent. We're also developing an exciting new system to store, search, and upload such histor- ical documents online for these profes- sional users. Although some of Ontario's land registration and search fees are now increasing, a recent review of the over- all closing costs for a land transaction across the Canadian provinces con- firmed that Ontario remains reason- ably close to the average cost. At the same time, Ontario enjoys a world-class digital land registration system that is, by far, the most technologically sophis- ticated in the country. LT Jeffrey Lem is editor-in-chief of Real Property Reports and director of titles for the province of Ontario. The opinions expressed in this article are personal to him and not attributable or referable to the Ontario government. Trudeau has an embarrassment of riches for justice post ow long will prime minister- designate Justin Trudeau keep on fighting his predecessor's legal battles? Every day, a case comes up in a court somewhere in Canada involving Prime Minister Stephen Harper's mandatory vic- tim surcharge that forces judges to impose extra monetary fines even on people who don't have the money to pay. It could be a homeless man who steals a bottle of liquor or a single parent with two children caught pilfering baby dia- pers from a drugstore. Recently, a provincial court judge in Van- couver called Harper's mandatory victim surcharge on a homeless man "cruel and un- usual punishment." How does a surcharge he can't pay make the man more account- able? The judge threw out the surcharge. Some people tell Trudeau that's the kind of law the new justice minister should scrap. There's a monstrous workload, however, that awaits whoever gets the justice job two days from now. There are years of legislative work ahead, and the Conservatives won't easily give up Harper's approach to justice during his years in power. What about mandatory minimum sen- tences for gun possession? And then there's a Harper law allowing Canada to send Ca- nadians convicted of terrorism who hold dual citizenship in another country, even if they were born in Canada, to a place they've never lived. So what happens if that country doesn't want the Canadian terrorist? "They've got a lot of decisions to make," says Josh Paterson, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association. "They're going to have to take a good, hard look at the whole suite of laws that have been passed by the current gov- ernment and the legal challeng- es that are out there and figure out what to do." Some decisions will be easi- er. The B. C. Civil Liberties As- sociation, for example, wants to have the Justice Department re- vise some parts of the Conser- vatives' Fair Elections Act. The John Howard Society is suing the federal government for the increased use of solitary confine- ment. Which side will Trudeau be on when the case gets to court? Trudeau has already decided Muslim women will be able to wear a niqab or other facial coverings at citizenship ceremonies as long as they step into another room be- forehand to identify themselves, so it seems obvious what will happen with that issue. Marijuana legalization, however, will be a big issue, and the debate could easily last several years. And one of the major justice issues, of course, will be the challenge by the Cana- dian Civil Liberties Association and Ca- nadian Journalists for Free Expression of five sections of Bill C-51 for violating the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The new Liberal government is going to have to ask itself if it really wants to keep on fighting Harper's cases in the courts. Do the Liberals want to take on the same court battles Harper wanted to fight so he could lose them and then blame the judiciary for going against the public will? With Trudeau trying to balance defi- cits against surpluses in the coming years, does he really want to spend taxpayers' money in the courts fighting cases he doesn't believe in? One of the big issues com- ing up for the Department of Justice is what to do about legal decisions made by the previous Conservative gov- ernment on the grounds of political ideology. One of them involves the case of Edgar Schmidt, a for- mer general counsel for the legislative branch of the De- partment of Justice whom the government suspended without pay in 2012 after he be- came a whistleblower. He claimed the federal justice minister was failing in his duty to tell Parliament when a proposed law was or wasn't con- sistent with the Charter and sometimes even the Canadian Bill of Rights. Schmidt claimed the Harper govern- ment was approving legislation that in his view had a chance of five per cent or less of success in the courts. Harper didn't care if he won or lost. He could always blame the judges if he lost. So Trudeau can tell his justice minister to introduce a new law correcting the prob- lem or he could reintroduce the Law Reform Commission abolished by Harper in 2006 and have it come up with a solution. A lot comes down to who could be his justice minister. Fortunately, Trudeau has an embarrassment of riches with veteran ministers and a lot of new talent among the ranks of Liberal MPs. Of course, Trudeau has promised a smaller cabinet than Harper had. People thought that meant maybe 35 ministers, but by mid-week, some Liberals were talk- ing about as few as 30 or less in cabinet. And with 184 MPs elected, having women fill half of the cabinet won't be a problem. If it's just new talent that he wants, there's Catherine McKenna, the new MP for Ottawa Centre who's young and en- ergetic, knows international affairs, and has worked as a former legal adviser to the United Nations. She's also co-founder of Canadian Lawyers Abroad and would be ideal for the job. There's also Mélanie Joly, the new MP for Ahuntsic-Cartierville. A former Montreal mayoralty candidate, she's a darling of the municipal scene and a noted election orga- nizer who has worked hard for Trudeau. But if it's experience and stability that Trudeau wants, there's Stéphane Dion and Prince Edward Islanders Lawrence MacAuley and Wayne Easter, all of whom have been in cabinet before. But what about loyalty? That counts, of course. And nobody has more of that with Trudeau than his old friend from New Brunswick, Dominic LeBlanc. His father was Roméo LeBlanc, a former Liberal MP, senator, and governor-general. As a youth, the younger LeBlanc bab- ysat Justin and his two brothers at 24 Sus- sex Dr. Today, LeBlanc has a degree in arts and political science from the University of Toronto, a law degree from the Univer- sity of New Brunswick, and a master of laws from Harvard University. And significantly, he was one of the first aboard the Trudeau bandwagon and, to tweak a recent popular phrase, is quite ready for a cabinet post, one might say. LT Richard Cleroux is a freelance reporter and columnist on Parliament Hill. His e-mail address is richardcleroux34@gmail.com. The Hill Richard Cleroux H The Dirt Je rey Lem Je rey Lem G

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