This week in legal AI — Canada

5 updates on the record, 2026-07-16 to 2026-09-05.

• Analysis · 2026-09-04
  May judges and court staff use AI in their own work?
  The regulation map records 39 country answers on judicial AI use: binding rules, guidance, proposals and one case-law answer.
• Analysis · 2026-09-04
  Must lawyers verify AI output before relying on it?
  Across 130 country records, 50 have a binding, guidance, proposed or case-law answer on verification of AI output.
• Incident · Canada · 2026-08-12
  Arbuckle v. Tanner, 2026 NSCA 62
  The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal dismissed a family-law appeal for failure to perfect it and ordered lump-sum costs of CAD 20,000 after the self-represented appellant filed AI-generated transcripts containing invented testimony and a forged transcriber's certificate. Gogan J.A. rejected his explanation that the AI had hallucinated the certification, calling the filing knowingly misleading.
  Primary source: Arbuckle v. Tanner, 2026 NSCA 62 (12 Aug 2026), chambers decision (Charlotin database archive PDF of the CanLII judgment)
• Incident · Canada · 2026-08-11
  A.P. v. S.K. (Droit de la famille, 261234), 2026 QCCA 1092
  The Quebec Court of Appeal ordered a self-represented family-law appellant to pay CAD 1,000 under article 342 of the Code of Civil Procedure after he conceded that four cited judgments, including two attributed to the Supreme Court of Canada, were ChatGPT fabrications. The court held that litigants cannot assume AI output is free of hallucinations.
  Primary source: Droit de la famille, 261234, 2026 QCCA 1092 (11 Aug 2026), judgment (Charlotin database archive PDF)
• Incident · Canada · 2026-07-16
  Law Society of Ontario v. Lee, 2026 ONLSTH 136
  The Law Society Tribunal suspended Toronto lawyer Jisuh Lee's licence for six months and ordered CAD 10,000 in costs after she filed a factum containing AI-generated fictitious or irrelevant precedents in a family law proceeding that had become an estate matter. It follows Mazaheri (June 2026) and is reported as Ontario's first licence suspension for AI misuse.
  Primary source: Lee v. Law Society of Ontario, 2026 ONLSTH 136 (CanLII; mirrored PDF of the tribunal reasons read 5 Sep 2026; CanLII blocks automated access)

Source: SafeLegalAI (safelegalai.com), published by Cognesio LLP. Data CC BY 4.0. Scope: Canada. As of 2026-09-05. Records: safelegalai.com/tracker/canada · Feed: RSS