Our Team North Group
For our clients and their interests above and just below the 60th parallel, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP's Team North has the resources and expertise to achieve the best possible results. Team North is comprised of over 70 lawyers from multiple practice areas and industries and works in regions including Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and the upper regions of British Columbia, Alberta and Québec.
Focusing geographically, Team North lawyers draw together to ensure they have a thorough understanding of the rapid pace of socio-political, commercial, and environmental developments in northern Canada, where legal issues can often be complex and interrelated. Undertaking a multi-faceted approach to issues in the North, our Team North members provide thorough coverage to these geographically and culturally distinctive areas of Canada. Our knowledge base is derived from a combination of constant business dealings in the North, and also from our involvement in the formal analysis and recommendations for management of northern business and regulatory issues. Team North Chair, Neil McCrank, QC is the author of the McCrank Report of May 2008 to the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development on improving the regulatory system in all Northern jurisdictions. Further, Neil is among this country's most respected lawyers, with a high profile and credibility throughout northern Canada.
Industries that we regularly serve in Canada's North include oil and gas, energy, mining, local governments, communications, health services, education, transportation and financial services to name only a few.
BLG truly speaks your language and acts as your strategic partner – no matter how complex the issue – in the North.
Our Services
BLG's Team North Group assists clients with a full range of services, including legal advice with respect to:
- Privacy
- Land Claims issues
- Legislative review
- Intellectual Property
- Leasing and Property Rights
- Corporate Commercial
- Pensions
- Constitutional Issues
- Litigation
- Climate Change and Green initiatives
- Labour and employment
- Marine and Land Transportation
- Oil and gas
- Aboriginal Law
- Insurance
- Tax
- Energy
- Regulatory Regimes
Our Experience
Representative transactions include:
- Purchase of mining claims and investigation of the release of Crown reservation of trees;
- Advice regarding new legislation governing loans to municipalities located in the Territories in connection with federal “green” funding;
- Leases and charterparty for sea trucks purchased from one entity by another, and then leased to a third entity;
- Assisted with an injunction on behalf of a school board to stop self-government negotiations between Canada, Québec and a private corporation;
- Establishment and administration of pension plans for a mining company;
- Allocation of funds for annual grants intended to support telecommunications infrastructure development and promote online learning;
- Advise with respect to contracts for the supply of heavy equipment to the diamond mining industry;
- Advice to an aviation company regarding a contaminated site matter;
- Real estate investment trust investing in residential income-producing properties;
- Intervened in an application to exempt a gas storage facility from the Utilities Commission Act ;
- Financial advice for a banking syndicate active in the NWT;
- Employment and labour advice (including employment law, human rights, WCB coverage obligations, labour standards, etc.) to a variety of industries;
- Acquisition of several Northern businesses in heavy equipment distribution and pipeline construction;
- Resolution of a blockade issue on railroad land passing through a reservation;
- Advice regarding an historical contaminated site relating to a refinery that was decommissioned shortly after WWII.