Fwd: MOU - ILPO Revisions
Behrouz Amouzgar
Behrouz Amouzgar
Business Lawyer
LEXPAND
LEGAL PROFESSIONAL CORP
642 King St. West Suite 224
Toronto, Ontario M5V 1M7
t 416.LEXPAND (539.7263)
f 416.LEX0FAX (539.0329)
From: Bobby Vakili <bva...@vakililaw.com>
Date: Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 12:33 PM
Subject: RE: MOU - ILPO Revisions
To: Behrouz Amouzgar <bamo...@lexpand.com>
I only circulated your revisions yesterday as I’ve been very busy this week. No one has responded yet, but I will keep you posted.
Best,
Bobby Vakili, B.A., J.D.
Barrister and Solicitor
VAKILI LAW GROUP, Professional Corporation
Head Office: 100 York Blvd. Suite 110 Richmond Hill, ON. L4B 1J8
Satellite Office: 5700 Yonge St. Suite 200 Toronto, ON. M2M 4K2
Tel: 647.352.BAIL (2245)
Fax: 647.352.2246
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From: Behrouz Amouzgar [mailto:bamo...@lexpand.com]
Sent: November-22-13 11:01 AM
To: Babak Vakili
Subject: Re: MOU - ILPO Revisions
Hi Bobby,
Any updates on this?
Regards,
Behrouz Amouzgar
Business Lawyer
LEXPAND
LEGAL PROFESSIONAL CORP
642 King St. West Suite 224
Toronto, Ontario M5V 1M7
t 416.LEXPAND (539.7263)
f 416.LEX0FAX (539.0329)
On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 6:36 PM, Behrouz Amouzgar <bamo...@lexpand.com> wrote:
Hi Babak,
Attached are our revisions along with a blackline.
Regards,
Behrouz Amouzgar
Business Lawyer
LEXPAND
LEGAL PROFESSIONAL CORP
642 King St. West Suite 224
Toronto, Ontario M5V 1M7
t 416.LEXPAND (539.7263)
f 416.LEX0FAX (539.0329)
Behrouz Amouzgar
Behrouz Amouzgar
Business Lawyer
LEXPAND
LEGAL PROFESSIONAL CORP
642 King St. West Suite 224
Toronto, Ontario M5V 1M7
t 416.LEXPAND (539.7263)
f 416.LEX0FAX (539.0329)
From: Bobby Vakili <bva...@vakililaw.com>
Date: Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 5:05 PM
Subject: FW: MOU - ILPO Revisions
To: Behrouz Amouzgar <bamo...@lexpand.com>
Here it is again. In case you didn’t get it earlier.
From: Bobby Vakili [mailto:bva...@vakililaw.com]
Sent: December-02-13 2:25 PM
To: Behrouz Amouzgar (bamo...@lexpand.com)
Subject: FW: MOU - ILPO Revisions
Hi Behrouz,
We have essentially made two revisions. One revision is something that I neglected to include in the original MOU. The other revision is more in line with what we discussed at our meeting with regard to the mandate of ICLP.
1. The first revision I think is important because we want it to be clear that we as the board members did not unilaterally decide to merge the two organizations and the MOU should be clear in that regard.
2. The second revision is in regard to the mandate that was discussed and agreed to by all parties at the meeting. In my view, any concerns that your members have with the new organization becoming a political organization can be addressed through the guidelines that will be determined by us.
Please review and advise. Let’s move forward and get the survey out before everyone starts leaving for Christmas holidays.
Sincerely,
Behrouz Amouzgar
- The Problem: While it may be a good idea to have an organization that takes a stance on issues that affect the Iranian community to advocate on their behalf, it would be a challenge for any ICLP board to determine and assure of the non-political nature of such issues. Given this difficulty, coupled with the politically charged nature of most issues that have most recently affected and will likely continue to affect the Iranian community, the addition of an advocacy mandate on behalf of the Iranian community, will risk detracting the ICLP from its non-political nature, resulting in potentially alienating members and affiliated organization, and as such its detrimental effects could far outweigh any perceived advantages.
- The Proposed Solution: To avoid the above mentioned problem, the ICLP can provide resources to organizations which have been formed for the sole purpose of advocating on behalf of the Iranian community, such as the Iranian Canadian Congress (the "ICC"), to assist them with their advocacy endeavours. This can be achieved for example through raising awareness among ICLP members of the initiatives taken by the ICC in an effort to have them join forces with ICC if they find the issues close to their hearts and if they find their particular legal skills beneficial to ICC's efforts. In this way, it will not be the ICLP that will be taking on the advocacy role, but the interested ICLP members, in their personal capacities in partnership with other community organizations.
- Ambiguity in ICLA's Proposed Revisions: My understanding is that the mandate of an organization should not contain ambiguities and uncertainties and should to the extent possible contain clear boundaries within which the organization can conduct its activities. I know for example that the CRA and the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee, when considering granting charitable status to an organization, review the mandate and the object clause of the organization to ensure it does not contain such ambiguities. Same is reviewed in the applications that organizations make to receive government grants as the government wants to ensure that the organization's funds are spent on clearly set out initiatives and not ones that may be subject to change. It seems to me that the current language proposed by ICLA to the effect that the ICLP shall advocate on behalf of the Iranian Canadians in accordance with "guidelines that shall be determined by the board members of ILPO and ICLA" contains this type of troubling ambiguity as the guidelines referred to in this clause have not even been remotely discussed let alone determined.
- ICLA's True Mandate in Relation to Advocacy: The language that I had inserted in our revisions to the MOU in the mandates section was an amalgamation of the mandates of ICLA and ILPO without changing any of the terminologies used in either of the original mandates. The current ICLA board is however now introducing new language which in my opinion is not importing the advocacy aspect of the ICLA mandate but rather introducing a completely new concept of advocacy that was never part of ICLA's mandate. My review of the ICLA's current mandate suggests that the ICLA was to promote and advocate on behalf of lawyers and law students of Iranian heritage and not the Iranian community. A further review of this mandate reveals that in relation to the issues that affect the Iranian Canadian community, the ICLA was to only take on an awareness raising role. This reading suggests that the initiative taken by the ICLA in relation to paralegal regulation by the LSUC fell within ICLA's mandate whereas their initiatives in writing letters to the government in relation to the TD bank account closure issue and the immigration backlog or the embassy closure issues did not fall within this mandate. This point can perhaps be further clarified by Atoosa and Ali who were among the founding members of ICLA. As evident from ICLA's website (www.icla.ca), here is ICLA's current mandate:
- to promote and advocate on behalf of lawyers and law students of Iranian heritage; and
- to raise public awareness in and provide a forum for discussion on issues affecting the Iranian Canadian community.
Behrouz Amouzgar
Business Lawyer
LEXPAND
LEGAL PROFESSIONAL CORP
642 King St. West Suite 224
Toronto, Ontario M5V 1M7
t 416.LEXPAND (539.7263)
f 416.LEX0FAX (539.0329)
Atoosa Mahdavian
Hi Behrouz – you have encapsulated correctly the concerns that we raised when Rose insisted on having the new organization taken on as part of its mandate, advocating on behalf of Iranians. I pointed out to her that organizations such as ICC were mandated to that and it properly fell within their mandate to take on such issues. On the other hand, the law group could provide assistance or our members, acting personally and not on behalf of the law group, could also take on a cause.
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Ghiassi, Ali
I would agree with you Behrouz, I think your suggested changes solutions are very reasonable.
Ali Ghiassi
Vice President, General Counsel and Public Affairs
Mohawk College
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Behrouz Amouzgar
Behrouz Amouzgar
Business Lawyer
LEXPAND
LEGAL PROFESSIONAL CORP
642 King St. West Suite 224
Toronto, Ontario M5V 1M7
t 416.LEXPAND (539.7263)
f 416.LEX0FAX (539.0329)
Behrouz Amouzgar
Behrouz Amouzgar
Lawyer, B.Sc. (Hons), J.D.
LEXPAND
LEGAL PROFESSIONAL CORP
642 King St. West Suite 224
Toronto, Ontario M5V 1M7
t 416.LEXPAND (539.7263)
f 416.LEX0FAX (539.0329)
From: Behrouz Amouzgar <bamo...@lexpand.com>
Date: Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 9:42 PM
Subject: Re: FW: MOU - ILPO Revisions
- As you remember, in the meeting that we had between the ICLA and the ILPO boards, we all acknowledged that while it may be a good idea to have an organization that takes a stance on issues that affect the Iranian community to advocate on their behalf, it would be a challenge for any ICLP board to determine and assure of the non-political nature of such issues. Given this difficulty, coupled with the politically charged nature of most issues that have most recently affected and will likely continue to affect the Iranian community, the addition of an advocacy mandate on behalf of the Iranian community, will risk detracting the ICLP from its non-political nature, resulting in potentially alienating members and affiliated organization, and as such its detrimental effects could far outweigh any perceived advantages.
- In that meeting, we all collectively agreed to the following solution: to avoid the above mentioned problem, the ICLP can provide resources to organizations which have been formed for the sole purpose of advocating on behalf of the Iranian community, such as the Iranian Canadian Congress (the "ICC"), to assist them with their advocacy endeavours. This can be achieved for example through raising awareness among ICLP members of the initiatives taken by the ICC, or other similar organizations, in an effort to have them join forces with that organization if they find the issues close to their hearts and if they find their particular legal skills beneficial to the organization's advocacy efforts. In this way, it will not be the ICLP that will be taking on the advocacy role, but the interested ICLP members, in their personal capacities in partnership with other community organizations. We also acknowledged that this approach has the benefit of providing an equal opportunity to all ICLP members to get their names out there and get involved with advocacy endeavours on issues they find close to their hearts.
- To avoid differences of opinion and to ensure that this mergers goes through seamlessly, it would be best if we adopt as the mandate of ICLP an amalgamation of the mandates of ICLA and ILPO without introduction of new language. The language that we had inserted in our revisions to the MOU in the mandates section was an amalgamation of the mandates of ICLA and ILPO without changing any of the terminologies used in either of the original mandates, with the exception of replacing instances of "lawyers and law students" with "legal professionals" and replacing instances of "Ontario" with "Canada". Our review of the ICLA's current mandate suggests that the ICLA is to promote and advocate on behalf of lawyers and law students of Iranian heritage and not the broader Iranian community. A further review of this mandate reveals that in relation to the issues that affect the Iranian Canadian community, the ICLA is to only take on an awareness raising role. As evident from ICLA's website (www.icla.ca), here is ICLA's current mandate:
- to promote and advocate on behalf of lawyers and law students of Iranian heritage; and
- to raise public awareness in and provide a forum for discussion on issues affecting the Iranian Canadian community.
Behrouz Amouzgar
Lawyer, B.Sc. (Hons), J.D.
LEXPAND
LEGAL PROFESSIONAL CORP
642 King St. West Suite 224
Toronto, Ontario M5V 1M7
t 416.LEXPAND (539.7263)
f 416.LEX0FAX (539.0329)
Behrouz Amouzgar
Regards,
Behrouz Amouzgar
Lawyer, B.Sc. (Hons), J.D.
LEXPAND
LEGAL PROFESSIONAL CORP
642 King St. West Suite 224
Toronto, Ontario M5V 1M7
t 416.LEXPAND (539.7263)
f 416.LEX0FAX (539.0329)