People’s Law School has recently released three new publications. They are designed for newcomers and others wanting to know more about these topics.

Paying Taxes answers questions like, What taxes am I expected to pay?  Who do I pay taxes to? When do I pay taxes?

Driving in BC  is both for newcomers and new drivers in British Columbia who want to know about the laws that protect you when you are learning to drive in BC and when you are a licensed BC driver. This booklet answers questions like how do I get a BC driver’s licence? What should I do if I have a car accident?

Consumer Law: provides information about the laws that protect you when you pay for goods and services, when someone owes you money, or when you owe someone money.

Check out Clicklaw for more great resources on paying taxes, driving in BC, and consumer law.

You may be wondering if a will is different for people living on a reserve. If you are registered under the Indian Act and you live on reserve, the process for creating and administering a will is guided by the Indian Act.

Recently Clicklaw has added additional resources that may help to answer your questions.

Estate Administration On-Reserve: A Guide for Executors and Administrators in British Columbia, produced by Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, provides general information about the routine tasks of administering a simple estate under the Indian Act. It is aimed at people who have been appointed by the Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development office as the executor or administrator of the estate of a family member or friend who has passed away.  

The Guide is designed to be used with the Estate Administration on Reserve Templates Package, which contains forms and sample letters.

 For more resources on this topic, such as Writing Your Own Will: A Guide for First Nations People Living On Reserve, start your search with Clicklaw’s common question on wills for people living on reserves.

West Coast LEAF has added the 2011 CEDAW Report Card to the Reform & Research section of Clicklaw.

This report was produced by the West Coast Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) with input from various community agencies in BC. It looks at the government’s performance against the international standards of women’s rights and freedoms outlined in the United Nations’ Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

The stated goal of West Coast LEAF’s CEDAW Report Card project is to raise public awareness about the shortcomings and successes of BC in meeting its international obligations on women’s rights, and to advocate for adequate responses to the CEDAW Committee’s concerns.

SmallClaimsBC.ca can help you find the information you need, no matter what side you are on.

This website by Justice Education Society provides information for all British Columbians who have a legal dispute worth less than $25,000.

Exciting new updates to the site include a map that lists all Small Claims Court locations in BC, an overview for the process at each court location, as well as three new videos – also now available on Clicklaw - on the small claims process, settlement conferences and collecting after judgement.

 SmallClaimsBC.ca also includes access to Small Claims Court forms (Filing Assistant and PDF versions), rules, fees and procedural guides, and five additional videos that help self-representing litigants

SmallClaimsBC.ca is the Justice Education Society’s second most popular website, with almost 42,000 visitors last year.

For more information on handling your Small Claims Court case, take a peek at these great resources on Clicklaw.bc.ca.

Clicklaw contributors produce hundreds of legal information resources, and many of these resources are available in a variety of languages. The Clicklaw team has added some features to our site to make it easier to find them.

We’ve added quick links to information in Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Punjabi, Korean and Farsi in the header of every page on Clicklaw. In addition to these languages, when you select “more”, you get a list of the languages that are available through Clicklaw.

You can also browse through our resources by language. For example, if you click “employment” from our homepage, you can see what resources are available in other languages by selecting “language” on the left. Simply choose your language, and you’ll get search results that meet your needs. When you’re searching for service on the HelpMap, you can also narrow down your search results by language.

When you click on ”more details” for a Clicklaw resource or HelpMap service, you’ll see what languages that resource or service is available in.

BC is a province rich in diversity and the Clicklaw team is proud to be supporting improved access to legal information for all British Columbians. Some of this year’s Clicklaw updates have been made possible thanks to funding from the Government of Canada and the Province of British Columbia.

With the goal of improving access to their services in rural, remote, and/or Aboriginal communities, the Legal Services Society (LSS) has formed partnerships with service providers throughout BC.  These new Community Partners provide legal information; connect people to legal aid intake offices and the LSS call centre to apply for legal aid; refer people to other community, print, and web resources; raise awareness of legal aid services; and promote and provide law-related community development and/or public legal education activities and information.

 According to Mike Delaney, Community Engagement Coordinator at LSS, the idea behind the project is to

“engage community agencies who are already trusted and familiar sources of help…to partner with them, to form a hub of information in those communities.”

Delaney went on to say that the Community Partnerships project is one aimed at sustainability; that is, the goal is to enable communities from within, rather than having them rely as much on the central Vancouver office.

So far, according to Delaney, feedback has been positive:

“Community Partners have reported that this new model is being very well received by the community.”

 For more information about LSS’s Community Partners check out the LSS Website.

 To see a map of Community Partner locations, take a peek at the Clicklaw HelpMap!

Refugee Hearing Preparation: A Guide for Refugee Claimants was added to Clicklaw this week. The Guide is published in English and Spanish by the Salsbury Community Society of Vancouver, and is a useful complement to the Legal Services Society’s title Your Guide to the Refugee Claim Process.

Tags: refugees

Recently added to Clicklaw is Small Town Justice, a report published by the BC Civil Liberties Association.  David Eby, executive director of BCCLA, is the principal researcher and author.

This report is the product of 16 workshops held in 14 centres in rural and northern British Columbia by the BC Civil Liberties Association on the topic of Canada’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police and their future in polic­ing the province. More than 300 people participated in the workshops.

Now available on Clicklaw: check out the final conference report recently released by Just a Click Away!

Coordinated by Courthouse Libraries BC, and supported with funding from the Access to Justice Fund (administered by the Law Foundation of Ontario), Just a Click Away, is an initiative to enhance how technology can be used to deliver legal education and information to the public in Canada.

As part of the second stage in the initiative, the Clicklaw public legal education and information (PLEI) portal website was featured in a webinar that explains how it provides access to PLEI to British Columbians. To access the webinars, click here.

The final stage of the initiative was the two-day intensive national conference in Vancouver held this past February. The conference was aimed at those who provide and support public legal education and information, and want to improve how the Internet and emerging technologies can be used to deliver PLEI. The conference featured such themes as best practices for PLEI websites, evaluation of online PLEI, and using social media and web 2.0 technologies.

We’ve recently added dozens of new common questions to Clicklaw on a variety of topics.

There are now over 130 common questions on the Clicklaw site. Each question features resources that are good starting points for information on common legal problems.

Here are a few examples of recently added questions:

• I am a grandparent raising my grandchild. What are my rights and what kind of benefits can I receive?
• How can I protect myself against identity theft?
• I know a family who has just immigrated. What information would help them? 

If you have suggestions for common questions, please  contact us. We’d love to hear from you!