The Honourable Gord Mackintosh, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Province of Manitoba, retained the writer, and retired family court judge A. C. Hamilton, on June 19, 2001, pursuant to Terms of Reference which were released publicly and a copy of which are attached hereto as Schedule 1.

We were retained to give advice on three issues respecting persons in common-law relationships, namely:

• adoption;
• conflict of interest and protection of the public interest; and
• legislation dealing with property interests;

and were requested to provide our opinion on these issues by December 31, 2001.

The Terms of Reference authorized us to consult with experts in relevant areas of the law, as well as with interested individuals or groups. We were specifically directed not to conduct public hearings.

We chose to commence our consultations by publishing in July, 2001, in urban and rural newspapers throughout the province, a notice inviting written submissions. Attached hereto as Schedule 2 is a copy of the notice and a list of the 56 newspapers in which it was placed. The notice permitted submissions to be sent on a confidential basis so that every person who was interested in the issue would feel free to respond if they so desired. Of the 37 written submissions received, only 3 requested that their names be kept confidential. A detailed listing of the submissions received, both from individuals and from organizations, is contained in Schedule 3.

In addition to reviewing these written submissions, we also read the transcripts of the oral submissions before the Standing Committee on Law Amendments hearings conducted on June 18^th and 21^st, 2001, as well as copies of all written submissions provided to that Committee.

We then arranged for private consultations with 26 persons representing a wide variety of views on the issues including legal experts, representatives of various local and national organizations, and individual Manitobans. The great majority of consultations took place in person, in small groups of like-minded individuals and concerned all three areas that we were retained to study. Several, particularly those involving national organizations with head offices in other provinces, involved telephone consultations. Attached as Schedule 4 is a list of the persons with whom consultations were undertaken together with the name of their organizations where applicable.

We are grateful to those who took the time to write to our Panel or meet with us in consultation. Experts and lay persons alike gave freely of their time and were of great assistance in producing a comprehensive analysis and report.

We were also authorized by our Terms of Reference to access relevant employees within the Department of Justice if we found that such access was helpful in providing our advice. We obtained from employees of the Manitoba Justice Department some background information, assistance in placing our notice, and assistance in setting up our office, computer, and telephone lines. Employees of the Departments of Justice in other Provinces and Territories were also helpful to the writer in providing information pertaining to their various legislative models. Finally, Laurie Messer contracted to provide very able administrative support. For all of this assistance and advice we are most appreciative.

At the conclusion of our research and consultations, we decided to provide two separate reports to government although it had been our initial intention to deliver a common report. It was once we began the analysis phase of our project that it became apparent that we saw the same issues through different eyes and we wished to give the government the benefit of our separate analyses and thinking on the three issues that we had been retained to consider. We sought and obtained government approval for this approach in October, 2001.

Also in October, 2001 we were requested by the Minister to provide our opinion on adoption as soon as possible, and separately from the other matters if they were not yet complete. Accordingly, we each expedited our advice on adoption and provided an interim report by October 31, 2001 pertaining to the adoption issue, which report has been included as a part of this final report.

Opinion on Common-Law Relationships of Jennifer A. Cooper, Q.C. - Volume 1 II) Introduction
I) Executive Summary	III) Adoption
Opinion on Common-Law Relationships of Jennifer A. Cooper, Q.C. Volume 1 Volume 2 (proposed Statute Amendments) Opinion on Common-Law Relationships of Hon. A.C Hamilton, Q.C. Final Report