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Today’s blog was co-written with Demetre Vasilounis, Student at Law at Fasken LLP. As a new year approaches, people often take a moment to reflect on their lives over the past year and determine ways in which they could have improved themselves. Some may try to realize such improvements through new year’s resolutions, which often involve goals such as improving physical fitness, quitting an addictive habit or curbing wasteful spending…..

As the calendar year draws to yet another close, and each of us mentally checks off items on our year-end checklists, trustees of a discretionary family trust should take this time to determine whether to make a discretionary distribution of income or capital for the year ending.  Often the terms of a trust will grant the trustees a discretionary power to pay out income or encroach on capital of the….

In July, the Ontario Minister of Children, Community and Social Services (“Minister”) announced that the provincial government was set to spend 100 days developing a plan “to reform social assistance so it helps more people break the cycle of poverty, re-enter the workforce and get back on track.” [1] At that time, the Ontario government also announced it was rolling back changes to ODSP that had been introduced by the….