Can counsel speak to the jury in an opening about the law?

There was a reference during the course of the submissions to the impropriety of counsel speaking to a jury in an opening about the law. The decision of Justice Groves in Aberdeen v. The Township of Langley, 2006 BCSC 2062 is referred to, at paragraph 26 where His Lordship stated: Counsel is not supposed to discuss law during an opening statement, although to completely avoid doing so would be difficult. Comments on the law should be limited to framing legal issues for the jury while avoiding intricate and lengthy discussions.

From that it is argued that any statement of law in an opening ought to be avoided. I would not go that far. I do not disagree with what is said by Justice Groves in Aberdeen v. The Township of Langley. I specifically agree that it is not always possible to avoid discussing the law, and, in fact, in many cases it is probably required in order to give the jury a sense of the evidence that they are about to hear and the issues that they are going to have to grapple with. And this is case of that nature.