News & Updates
Michael Drouillard Presents to the Continuing Legal Education Society of BC
December 4, 2025
Michael Drouillard presented a paper to the Continuing Legal Education Society of BC (CLEBC) at their 2025 Residential Real Estate Conference in Vancouver on the topic of residential landlord obligations when dealing with a deceased tenant.
CLEBC is a society that focuses on providing continuing legal education and information to practicing lawyers in British Columbia.
Michael Drouillard Presents to the Manufactured Home Park Owners Alliance of BC
October 4, 2025
Michael Drouillard presented to the Manufactured Home Park Owners Alliance of BC (MHPOA) at their AGM in Harrison Hot Springs on the topic of dealing with the estate of a deceased tenant in a manufactured home park.
The MHPOA is a trade association of manufactured home park owners in British Columbia, representing tens of thousands of manufactured home sites across the Province.
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Sale of International Plaza in North Vancouver to Nch'kaý Development Corporation
September 10, 2025
Drouillard Lawyers acted for the Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust ("CAPREIT") with respect to the sale of its leasehold interest of International Plaza, located in North Vancouver, British Columbia, to Nch’kaý Development Corporation ("Nch’kaý"). Nch’kaý is the economic development group of the Squamish Nation.
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International Plaza was built in 1975 and includes over 65,000 square feet of gross leasable area across 471 residential and 11 commercial units.
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Recent Notable Litigation by Drouillard Lawyers
August 15, 2025
Recently, Drouillard Lawyers was involved, on a pro bono basis, in a decision that confirms a very basic common law right for tenants living on reserve land. This right is a reasonable opportunity to leave, after the tenancy is ordered ended, before being subject to enforcement or injunction proceedings.
Tenant rights can be next to non-existent on reserve land when the local First Nation hasn't adopted its own tenancy laws. There is no Federal tenancy law that applies by default. In these circumstances, tenants must rely on their tenancy agreement and the common law. The common law is harsh on tenants and complicated to apply.
In McEwen v. Songhees Nation, Victoria BCSC, S213686, our clients, residents of reserve land, were ordered evicted. The First Nation argued that our clients should be ordered to leave within several weeks, to remove their homes within several weeks, and that they should be permitted to cut off utilities, even in the face of evidence that it was physically impossible to comply with such an order, and even though cutting off utilities would create a chaotic circumstance and unnecessary turmoil.
The First Nation argued that allowing our clients a reasonable opportunity to leave may be permitted on non-reserve land, but that reserve land was different. In effect, they submitted that the special nature of reserve land fettered the court's inherent jurisdiction.
The First Nation also sought an injunction. This would have permitted the First Nation to enforce their eviction through contempt proceedings, even though most landlords in British Columbia enforce evictions through a civil enforcement agency which the landlord pays for privately, rather than the court's contempt power, which is a public resource.
Fortunately, the Court accepted our submission that it had an inherent jurisdiction "to fulfill the judicial function of administering justice according to law in a regular, orderly and effective manner". In other words, it is one thing to declare a landlord has a property right, and another to have a court enforce that right. A court does not have to make an order that is not reasonably capable of compliance, even if the matter involves reserve land.
Our clients were given additional time to leave, and an injunction was not ordered.