New Practice Direction – Scheduling of Civil Motions

Effective immediately, the Civil Motion Coordinator (Cheryl Laniuk) is to be contacted (phone number – 204-945-3043) regarding the scheduling of all civil motions, including those returnable on the civil uncontested list, contested motions and seized motions.

Coming into effect

This Practice Direction comes into effect immediately.

Original notice available here.

Decision of the Week

On January 15, 2019 the Supreme Court of Canada heard the appeal of R. v. Fedyck and rendered the following decision:


The Court — We agree with the reasons of the majority in the Court of Appeal. Accordingly the appeal is dismissed.

2019 SCC 3

The original appeal was not unanimous. R. v. Fedyck, 2018 MBCA 74 featured a significant dissent by Justice Beard. The evidence was circumstantial, and the issue on the appeal was whether the verdict was unreasonable or could not be supported by the evidence.


[24]                     The role of an appellate court, in reviewing a conviction based on circumstantial evidence, is to focus on “the question of whether the inferences drawn by the trial judge, having regard to the stan­dard of proof, were reasonably open to him” (Villaroman at para 67).

2018 MBCA 74

Manitoba eLaw – New Edition – Litigation

December 2018, Issue No. 86 Highlights:

The full edition is available here

Legislative Updates: New Proclamations

The Government of Manitoba has proclaimed the following Acts:

  1. The Energy Rate Stabilization Repeal Act, S.M. 1991-1992, c. 40,  (section 2), effective December 20, 2018.
  2. The Traffic and Transportation Modernization Act, S.M. 2018, c. 10, Schedules A, B, C, D, and E, effective March 1, 2019.
  3. The Regulated Health Professionals Act, S.M. 2009, c. 15, various sections, effective January 1, 2019.
  4. The Planning Amendment Act (Improving Efficiency in Planning), S.M. 2018, c. 14, various sections, effective December 15, 2018.
  5. The Employment Standards Code Amendment Act (2), S.M. 2018, c. 15, sections 2, 3, 8, and 14, effective November 26, 2018.
  6. The Film and Video Classification and Distribution Act, S.M. 2018, c. 11, effective December 17, 2018.