But no funding has been committed to address increased demands on mediators, arbitrators and family justice counsellors
The Province of British Columbia’s new Family Law Act took effect on March 18, 2013, replacing the Family Relations Act, which has governed family law in the province for the past 35 years. The new Act makes a number of significant changes to the law which, it is hoped, will better protect women’s equality, safety, and rights in family law cases. It includes a range of legal changes to areas such as property rights, family violence, protecting children, and dispute resolution. (more…)
More than twenty years after Parliament enacted the Corrections and Conditional Release Act allowing the Correctional Service of Canada to enhance Aboriginal community involvement in corrections and respond to the unique needs and circumstances that contribute to high incarceration rates for Aboriginal people, disparities in opportunities and outcomes between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal offenders continue to widen, 
A report by Canada’s Correctional Investigator Howard Sapers has found that disparities in opportunities and outcomes between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal offenders continue to widen. Aboriginal offenders now account for 21.5% of Correctional Service of Canada’s (CSC) incarcerated population and 13.6% of offenders supervised in the community. The total Aboriginal offender population (community and institutional) represents 18.5% of all federal offenders. The situation of Aboriginal female offenders is even more concerning. In 2010-11, Aboriginal women accounted for over 31.9% of all federally incarcerated women,9 representing an increase of 85.7% over the last decade. 
A report by Howard Sapers, Canada’s Correctional Investigator, has found that over-representation of Aboriginal people in federal corrections is pervasive and growing. Today, 23% of the federal incarcerated population is Aboriginal, a 43% increase in the Aboriginal inmate population since 2005/6. One in three federally sentenced women offenders are Aboriginal. The highest concentration of Aboriginal prisoners is in the Prairie Region, and recent growth in correctional populations is primarily attributable to rising numbers of Aboriginal admissions and readmissions. 
The 
By the time the mainstream media began to focus its attention on the protests being held at the Pidgin Restaurant in the downtown eastside of Vancouver, the protesters had been on the sidewalks in front of the new business for several weeks. Front page stories followed. 