"In the modern-day vernacular, people often refer to a criminal case “being thrown out”. Obviously, this is little more than a figurative expression. Cases aren’t actually thrown out, in the literal or physical sense. Nevertheless, in the specific circumstances of this case, the Court is inclined to actually take the file and throw it out the window, which is the only way to adequately express my bewilderment with the fact that Mr. Epstein was subjected to an arrest and a fulsome criminal prosecution. Alas, the courtrooms of the Montreal courthouse do not have windows.
A mere verdict of acquittal will have to suffice."
Montreal police are some of the worst police in Canada and the Montreal prosecutors always take any arrests by police before a Judge even if there are glaring mistakes at play. I know of a cancer patient that wanted medical assistance in dying. The hospital didn't want to provide it to her and lied to the police about her threatening to take a life of a doctor. She in fact was explaining to the doctor she would be able to take someone else's life if the roles were reversed and if someone needed to die from medical assistance in dying; which is legal here in Canada but doctors are hesitant to treat young adults in her case with the same respect as the older generations.
In this case, they apparently ignored several prior complaints until the guy videotaped this guy giving the man (who tried to run over his kids on several occasions) the finger and making a gesture (wrongly) described as "throat slashing."
Of course, this nutjob is absolutely paranoid and was constantly driving in a reckless manner around small children who wanted to play in their neighborhood, some of whom he videotaped running away from his car which he did not attempt to slow down according to his own videos.
So once the prosecution heard all this, they actually told the judge to throw out the case. I grant he shouldn't have even been there to begin with based on what we saw, but sometimes it's hard to tell that until after the evidence is seen.
If COVID's social experiment (especially masks, on both sides, as some bizarre litmus for "Are you crazy or sane?") taught us anything, it's that we should remember to measure ourselves by our communities.
If 9/10 of my neighbors think I'm a paranoid asshole, then I'm probably a paranoid asshole.
I should then spend some time reflecting on why they think that, rather than rationalizing and conspiring with my immediate family about how the rest of the world is out to get us by tagging the street with chalk drawings.
The prosecutor didn’t ask for the case to be thrown out. The prosecutor decided not to cross examine Mr Epstein. She then asked the judge for an acquittal. She knew that the prosecution had lost after Mr Epstein testified and the “victim” lied under oath. There was no point cross examining and wasting more of the taxpayers money and courts time. Although the trial should never have taken place at all
That's a fair clarification and that is what happened, but to be clear, when I said they asked it to be thrown out, I was referring to the prosecutor asking the judge for an acquittal.
That's... not normal. And the judge praises her for this, specifically. I assume he knows more about the total situation than most of us and would generally defer to him on that point, since he's obviously no fan of this farce.
> For reasons explained below, the Court is resoundingly acquitting the accused. Since I’m hesitant to draft an entire decision in bold and caps-lock characters, I offer the following observations instead.
I don't see how it could have turned out any other way.
I'm just surprised he was actually arrested for something that's obviously covered by the first amendment. This reeks incompetence from the district attorney, trying to intimidate the man out of his rights like that.
To be fair, despite being Canada, the judge agrees with you. At the start:
> [5] To the complainants, the presence of young families outside it is a source of scorn and vivid resentment that ultimately spilled over into a criminal complaint against their neighbour. A school teacher. A caring father of two young daughters who committed no crime whatsoever. A man who has somehow been subjected to criminal charges for almost two years.
> [6] This injustice ends today.
And at the end:
> [168] To be abundantly clear, it is not a crime to give someone the finger. Flipping the proverbial bird is a God-given, Charter enshrined right that belongs to every red-blooded Canadian. It may not be civil, it may not be polite, it may not be gentlemanly.
> [169] Nevertheless, it does not trigger criminal liability. Offending someone is not a crime. It is an integral component of one’s freedom of expression. Citizens are to be thicker-skinned, especially when they behave in ways that are highly likely to trigger such profanity – like driving too fast on a street where innocent kids are playing. Being told to “fuck off” should not prompt a call to 9-1-1.
> [170] On that topic, the evidence in the case at bar established that even after the accused’s arrest, therefore after the period covered by these charges, Michael Naccache called the police again to report that Mr. Epstein’s wife had given them the finger while walking on the street.[55]
> [171] This needs to stop. The complainants are free to clutch their pearls in the face of such an insult. However, the police department and the 9-1-1 dispatching service have more important priorities to address.
Yes, but there’s no first amendment in Canada. There’s the Charter of Rights and Freedoms at the federal level, and the Charte des droits et libertés de la personne at the provincial level.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is meaningless given the notwithstanding clause. The government can violate the “rights” in the Charter as long as they’re willing to pass legislation to do so every five years.
Section 1 doesn't even require the every-five-years bit, the violation just needs to be "demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society". Drinking and driving laws and traffic checkstops, for example, fall under this; there's no evidence that a crime as been committed or any probable cause at all at the moment you're being temporarily detained, and it's a crime to refuse to provide a road-side breath sample. Both of these have been assessed by the SCC and determined to, yes, be charter violations, and yes, perfectly ok because they're justified in a free and democratic society.
Canada's charter of rights and freedoms isn't worth the paper it's printed on, especially in Quebec where the government actively pre-empts it (it has a clause that allows this, explaining why it's worthless) when it doesn't line up with their ideology.
Outside the specifically legislated scopes where those overrides are in use, or for the parts of the Charter that aren’t subject to the override, courts can and routinely do enforce the charter by invalidating actions or laws. It’s very far from worthless, even if you and I both would rather the override clause didn’t exist.
At least, the overrides expire after 5 years if not re-legislated for a new 5 years, so politicians can’t enact them once and then permanently flee accountability.
is there any merit to the complaint that some recent legislation in Canada has turned purview of some free speech matters over to "human rights tribunals" which, the complaint alleges, do not accord the same robust due process rights defendants have in courts?
I don't know what particular complaint you're referring to, but I've seen decisions by Canadian human rights tribunals get challenged in courts, and none of the laws governing Canadian human rights tribunals invoke the legislative option to override to Charter free speech rights, so I think whoever filed that complaint is misunderstanding the reality of the situation.
Blockades are not fundamental rights. Honking is not a fundamental right. Situating massive private objects on public property is not a fundamental right.
Also, the government declared a state of emergency, the whole point of which is to create a temporary environment where certain rights may be ignored.
I don’t see the government of Quebec declaring an emergency because of an epidemic of people flipping the bird before proceeding with legal proceedings against this guy.
There’s literally no comparison between the 2 situations.
You may disagree with declaration of emergency, and there are ways for the people to protest that. Doesn’t seem like the vast majority of Canadians were interested.
There may have been issues with the response to the trucker blockade. But an illegal suppression of fundamental rights wasn’t one of them.
So-called “Freedom Convoy” protesters were ultimately responsible if banks froze their accounts under the Emergencies Act last winter, but the government was not trying to “punish” those who took part, senior bureaucrats said Thursday.
The government set a precedent that donating to causes deemed "threatening" is worthy of an emergency freeze on your bank account.
If people don't educate themselves on why the government acts against others, then when the government acts against them, who will listen to their cries?
This comment is exactly why we need Charter Rights the government can't easily suspend. The utter lack of understanding of why these protections are needed is astounding. I wonder what they are teaching the kids in school.
The government (and voters) won't hesitate to call the opposition "terrorists" and claim donating $5 to a cause is "supporting terrorism" and freeze your bank account so you can't pay rent or buy food.
It's really scary. This time it's the other side, next time it's you.
From what i understand, a significant portion of those people would have had their bank accounts frozen from civil lawsuits anyways. So even without the emergencies act it was likely to happen anyways.
> This time it's the other side, next time it's you.
First they came for the violent criminals, and i did not speak up because i wasn't a violent criminal... oh wait i'm actually totally ok with that.
If the horns are loud enough to cause permenent hearing loss, than yes (these weren't just car horns). Allegedly they were significantly above that threshold, even from inside buildings.
There's also mental torture aspect of doing it 24/7 (literally a tactic used in war to break troops).
Additionally people living in the area reported experiencing significant harrasment from protestors.
It doesn't seem like anybody who donated had anything happen to them.
However, generally speaking people who give money to someone in order to further a criminal act are comitting a criminal act. This is hardly a new concept.
“Just to be clear, a financial contribution either through a crowdsourced platform or directly, could result in their bank account being frozen?” Conservative MP Philip Lawrence asked Department of Finance Assistant Deputy Minister Isabelle Jacques.
Such action, she said, would only be taken on donations made after Feb. 15’s emergency declaration and isn’t retroactive — adding such a case would be “very unlikely,” but definitely possible.
The main solid takeaway from that article is that 206 accounts were definitely frozen .. accounts that very probably donations were flowing into.
The rest of the article is weasel phrased, there are allegations of donors having their accounts frozen but no corroboration and then later details on how some of those stories don't add up.
A solid reference would be the actual public records that were requested to be kept:
The committee gave unanimous consent to a motion tabled by Chambers compelling government departments and agencies to report weekly to the committee on how many accounts they’d recommended frozen, who owned them and the reasons thereof.
Who cares if it was "only after the emergency declaration"? Who cares if it wasn't "retroactive"? Who care if the government is sending updates on who they freeze?
Those sound like a lot of attempts to say "oh, seizing people's assets without trial for the crime of a small donation only happened to a few people, so no big deal".
Some blue collar guy trying to make ends meets hears about the protest after the emergency and says "yeah, I think the government is overstepping, I'm going to send $10 in support". Never stepped foot in Ottawa, never blocked any bridges, never honked any horns. Now his bank account is frozen and he can't pay the rent.
How in any way is that acceptable in a country that claims to respect person freedoms? These are the tactics you'd expect from authoritarian systems. I used to laugh at the irony when Vietnam would charge some protestor for "abusing democratic freedoms", but hey, that's kinda what Canada did.
People should be really pissed off that it happens at all. But you know what, I'm ok if people aren't that pissed off. What's more maddening are people who saying "yeah, that should have happened. In fact, I'm glad it happened".
Jesus Christ Canada. I don't know what it is with Commonwealth countries but you see places like New Zealand and Australia doing the same. "The right of the state supersede the rights of the individual".
Sending money to support something the government has decided is a criminal enterprise ... getting your accounts frozen would seem to be the least thing to be concerned about - if indeed this even happened, there seems to be vanishingly little evidence. By the date they're talking about, a state of emergency has been declared to try to do something about the situation. If you're still sending money after that, you need to acknowledge the risks and maybe think about your actions.
> "The right of the state supersede the rights of the individual"
The rights of people to go about their lives freely, specifically those living and working around the 'protest' site, and the residents and workers of the city in general, should supersede the rights of noisy assholes to block roads and blast their horns at all hours of day and night.
In general, you don't get to ruin everyone else's life for your cause. This is why most protests in western countries work with police and have a window of time during which streets are shut down etc. And why (for example) everyone cheered when an environment protestor in London was ripped away from a train he was trying to glue himself to at peak commuting time and given a kicking by the crowd (not that we should praise violence but really, think about what you’re doing).
You don't get to just shut down everyone else's use of a public space, or disrupt people's sleep with your airhorns, or block their access to transport and services, indefinitely. You absolutely have the right to be heard, but you don't get to hold the population or the government to ransom like that, and not expect society to take steps to stop you.
Sending money to support something the government has decided is a criminal enterprise
The government never decided the Convoy was a "criminal enterprise". I have no idea where you go that from.
The government decided the protests were going beyond that allowed, but that had to do with the people protesting, not the people sending in $10.
What's amazing to me is how you just dismiss all this. "Oh well, some guy who Paypaled $10 to an organization (and did nothing else) deserves to get his account frozen. Sucks to be him if you he can't afford rent or food."
What ever happen to due process? What happened to restraints on the government. What even happened to "innocent until proven guilty"?
Canada like to point to the US abuses like Gitmo and say they are better, but I think they are worse. Canada does it with no concern at all, no self-reflection on consequences, no public outcry.
They say that democratic freedoms are fragile and now I know why. So many people are will to take them away from others without a thought.
You don’t have the democratic freedom to fuck with everyone else’s day, and night, and day and night for weeks.
And the thing is, AFAICT there is no “guy who PayPal’d $10 and got his accounts frozen”, so if there’s no outcry, if people like me dismiss it, that might be because it didn’t happen.
From here it looks like you bought into the ‘freedumb!’ narrative, that any action taken to deal with the situation was bad. We had people here on HN lamenting that with the invocation of emergency powers, Canada had seen it’s last election, they would never be rescinded and that Trudeau was now a dictator for life. The whole thing is hyperbole built on childish notions of freedom that are pretty incompatible with the democratic functioning of a country.
And the thing is, AFAICT there is no “guy who PayPal’d $10 and got his accounts frozen”, so if there’s no outcry, if people like me dismiss it, that might be because it didn’t happen.
The Deputy Minister of Finance said they had that power.
And instead of being pissed your government can lock your bank account down with no evidence, no trial, no ability to defend yourself and your response is “you bought into the ‘freedunb!’ narrative.
Governments and police have all sorts of powers. Freezing bank accounts pending investigation is not particularly outlandish (look at all the “I may have done some money laundering… why are my accounts locked?” threads that pop up in relation to cryptocurrency on Reddit)
The theoretical but non-exercised power to put a temporary freeze on the bank account of someone contributing to a blockade which is being dismantled under the provisions of a national emergency, with both democratic and judicial oversight …
Yeah there are bigger things to get worked up about. I would expect national emergency legislation to come with all sorts of powers, and only the appropriate ones to be exercised, with Parliamentary and democratic accountability down the line for those doing the exercising.
Yikes indeed, that people are surprised by the availability of financial interventions available to governments, in extremis.
I think you need to bone up on your civic lessons.
As a Canadian citizen, your bank account cannot be arbitrarily frozen by the RCMP and some politician because they feel like it.
Your bank can do it, but no the government cant without evidence, a court order and your right to argue your case before a judge. It’s called “due process”.
How do you not know that?
I think I get it now. You’re not upset because you didn't even understand the rights you had before they were taken away.
I had a huge long reply but I’ve removed it, in the end we’re never going to see eye to eye.
In the circumstances, I don’t believe that power is disproportionate, particularly as it was not exercised. You do. I think that’s really all we can learn from this conversation.
Again, I'd encourage you to do a deep dive into the laws of Canada. Like I said, it's clear you don't understand the rights you have - so not surprising you don't see the problem.
The banks can and will freeze accounts when the police or other agencies raise suspicions with them in most western nations
The police or a politician cannot arbitrarily order a bank account frozen without a court order (again due process). Sure, the police could say "hey that looks suspicious", but the bank is under no obligation to do anything.
You say there is no distinction there - I'd say it's a massive distinction.
I’m not upset because it’s not unreasonable to grant powers to perform an emergency breakup of a blockade, particularly when not all of those powers are going to be exercised (as they weren’t here), and when under the scrutiny of parliament and with democratic accountability.
What scrutiny of Parliament? The decision to enact the Emergencies Act was a decision by the Prime Minister, done with his cabinet, and those discussions were secret.
Sure, there was a inquiry after the fact, but hey, the horse is already out the barn by then.
> Some blue collar guy trying to make ends meets hears about the protest ..
> Now his bank account is frozen and he can't pay the rent.
Where does your linked article say that happened though?
The article does not say that the frozen accounts were donor accounts ( ie accounts of blue collar workers ).
The part you highlighted was in response to a question about whether that might happen .. and the response was it's technically possible .. but pretty unlikely.
The Deputy Minister literally said "yes, that can happen under the powers of the Emergency Act".
Yet you skip over to the "well, I see no proof someone was affected so what's the big deal?"
I'm horrified by the fact it could even happen at all. That the government had the power to arbitrarily freeze someone's bank account with nothing more than a note from the RCMP. No evidence, no presumption of innocence, no right to argue in front of a judge.
Why aren't you horrified? Because it didn't affect you?
One of the most frustrating things about that whole situation with the Emergencies Act is the people simultaneously shouting "they have to use it, it's the only way for them to have the power to shut it down!" and "no one's rights are being violated!"
I found the final report on the whole EA invocation to be reasonable. It found that the use of the EA was warranted, but also made it crystal clear that a) other people could look at the same facts and come to a different conclusion, and b) that the only reason it got to the point where it needed to be invoked was due to government incompetence at the municipal, provincial, and federal level.
While I agree with most of your comment, I don’t think the application of emergency necessarily contradicts fundamental rights.
For example, a truck may be allowed to park on a road for a while. They are allowed to honk occasionally as needed while driving. This is completely legal. However, that doesn’t mean they have a fundamental right to park private objects in public space and disturb the peace by honking unnecessarily for extended periods of time.
Laws allow people to do a lot more than just what fundamental rights allow. Often those laws will never consider scenarios that are not fundamental rights but are possibly hurting the fundamental rights of others, and then for practical reasons, an emergency would be the only way to resolve the situation in a reasonable amount of time.
If the emergency was abused to suspend fundamental rights that can be opposed in courts and at the ballot box. Emergencies don’t give the government carte blanche to abuse citizens’ rights. They give government a reprieve to act quickly, and let the legal system get involved later.
In most jurisdictions (I don’t know if this is true in Canada, but it’s certainly true in the US, where courts required governments to overturn emergency laws during the pandemic), people can still petition the courts that their rights were suspended illegally.
Emergency laws don’t eliminate rights. They suspend them and courts absolutely have the ability (at least in the US) to get involved and penalize the government if it finds the suspension of rights are unwarranted.
I don’t believe any Canadian court has found that to be the case in the truckers blockade, which probably reflects that fundamental rights were not suppressed.
> Emergency laws don’t eliminate rights. They suspend them and courts absolutely have the ability (at least in the US) to get involved and penalize the government if it finds the suspension of rights are unwarranted.
One of the key differences between the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the US Constitution is that the charter was an escape hatch right in section 1:
> The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
When there’s an allegation that someone’s charter rights have been violated by the government, there’s a 3 part test known as the Oakes test that the courts use to determine whether or not the violation is appropriate per section 1. When an action by the government makes it to court and fails the Oakes test, the courts come up with a remedy.
> I don’t believe any Canadian court has found that to be the case in the truckers blockade, which probably reflects that fundamental rights were not suppressed.
I believe you are correct, but with a bit of nuance. From what I can tell, the convoy lawyers are somewhat incompetent. I don’t personally have much of a horse in this race, but as a citizen it would have been a really nice outcome for me to have seen some clarity and consistency come out of the Canadian courts on what exactly is or is not acceptable and when one side is doing a terrible job of arguing their case you end up with weak precedent.
Beyond the trucker convoy, in the past couple of years we have also had several rail lines and an oil refinery blockaded for many weeks. National, provincial, and municipal police forces have handled these situations very differently, the courts have handled them differently, and the current legislative and precedent situation is very very hazy.
I agree with all of this except the last bit: I don't think the federal government was incompetent, they simply don't have the tools to deal with that kind of policing crisis and rely on the lower tiers to provide policing, and have very few tools to deal with such a thing if they don't do it.
Honestly I generally think Canadian federalism doesn't work anymore, at least in English Canada. Our media and voter landscape stubbornly refuses to understand and respect the separation of powers, so all it does is creat messes of misdirected blame and perverse incentives.
Section 25.2 says this in the context of the "fringe minority" comments made by the Prime Minister early in the protests:
> I expect that the Prime Minister was intending to refer to the small number of people who were expressing racist, extremist, or otherwise reprehensible views, rather than to all Freedom Convoy participants. It may well be that his comments were taken out of context, including by some media. However, in my view more of an effort should have been made by government leaders at all levels during the protests to acknowledge that the majority of protesters were exercising their fundamental democratic rights.
And further in 25.3:
> Had there been greater collaboration at the political level from the start, it could well have assisted in ironing out the communication, jurisdictional, and resourcing issues that plagued the early response to the protests.
All in all I found it to be a really well written document that does a really good job of breaking down the timeline, the various players, the affected legislation, etc. The media headlines lost so much of the nuance of this report and I was pretty disappointed by the general reception of it.
> Canada's charter of rights and freedoms isn't worth the paper it's printed on
While this is certainly technically true, the charter is something of a representation of the social contract that already existed between Canadians and their government, and given that we are a country of common law, that does mean something.
This charter and the constitution was imposed unilaterally, and adopted at night without the presence of Quebec representatives. So.. can't really blame us for not being in love with it..
Can't blame Quebec for disagreeing that people are entitled to basic freedoms?
(I'd encourage people to read the charter and Quebec's concerns, Quebec objects to it because it doesn't allow them to discriminate against foreigners, there's not some legitimate concern)
Unfortunately people agreeing to sacrifice their own rights in favor of more government overreach as long as it’s marketed as hating on the other (usually immigrants, but also, for example, black people in the US) is not unique to Quebec, and is distressingly popular across the world.
Unbound rights means french will disappear along with a culture. For long and still today, french speaking citizens in Quebec earn less than the English minority. The plan was always to assimilate us, and it's mostly working, but you can't blame us for pushing back.
Well i guess this proves that Godwin's law was alive and well pre internet.
However, fair is fair - that was more secretive than i was aware, although i would still say that quebec was actively participating in the negotiations up to that point.
I don't know the full story behind this; but if, as you say, the national government had to go behind Quebec's back to enact basic civil liberties, that says more about Quebec than the government. Using it as a defense does more harm than good to your case.
An alternative way of stating this is that the Quebec government was unilaterally required to give its citizens rights.
The people of Quebec may be unhappy with the mechanism but surely the principle of protecting people from government overreach should not be in dispute.
The Quebec gouvernement is limiting some individual right to protect the culture and language. It probably hard to understand form outside when you are not seeing your culture completely swallowed by Canada and America.
>> especially in Quebec where the government actively pre-empts it
It would make sense for Quebec to ignore it since, well, they didn't sign it. Just like the US constitution doesn't apply since, well, Canada didn't sign it.
> Sadly, other political bodies do this as well, and it is becoming more common.
What makes no sense is the federal government can apparently decide to "suspend the constitution" as it pleases (and did so for peaceful freedom of speech demonstrations by truckers recently).
Yep. If you don’t live in Ottawa, please stop trying to tell us how peaceful and reasonable the attempt at overthrowing our democratically elected government, attended by nazis flying swastikas on our monuments and involving people trying to burn down buildings, was.
(Just to be clear, is case anyone doesn't know about this, the above is either an absolutely insane or absurdly dishonest characterization, it's easy to do your own research)
I did my own research on the subject when I attempted to skate down the canal (a usually enjoyable winter activity) during that time period. The above characterization is mostly correct. However they forgot to mention the racial slurs. They also forgot to mention the constant harassment of medical staff at city hospitals just trying to get to and from work.
A bit ironic to get upset because your canal skate was disturbed by people peacefully protesting a government that was forcing everybody in the country to comply with all sorts of absurd measures.
I apologize for not presenting my experience more clearly then. Ottawa is a city that is used to protest. Being the nations capital, they happen quite frequently. I am quite used to having certain aspects of my day distrupted by protest. So allow me to share some experiences that demonstrates what made this event unique:
- being unable to sleep for weeks due to train horns being blared at all hours of the night.
- having every single one of my friends and family who is some sort of visual minority having racial slurs hurled at them daily.
- seeing someone waving a nazi flag near the War Memorial.
- Having fireworks explode in between apartment buildings right next to where people lived.
- Daily harassment of any medical staff, sometimes coming directly into hospitals to shout conspiracy theories about doctors killing people with vaccines. Nurses self-organized into protection groups and were instructed not to come to work wearing scrubs to avoid harrassment.
- a group of grown men yelling at a kid who could not have been more than 17, who was unfortunate enough to be working at Tim Hortons, calling him a mask wearing faggot.
All these are personal stories either directly from myself or from those who were close to me. I share these because I am well aware of the those attempting to frame these types of stories as small, performed by a few bad actors,not representative of the movement, and that the media was highlighting a few isolated incidents to spin the image as negative. So let me assure you, these types of behaviours were constant, everywhere, and actively encouraged by many who were there. The supposed "media narrative" was quite real, as was apparent by anyone who lived in the area.
I believe in the right to protest, but there is a line where a "protest" becomes harassment to those around you. Let's recall that parliament was remote at the time, so the government who this anger was directed at was not even present at the location. Nor do government employees typically live in the city. So the justification of getting back at those who wronged you was not even present. They weren't even inconveniencing the people they came to protest. Instead they blared horns in residential areas, shot fireworks next to high-rises that were people's homes, threatened health care workers, and yelled at Tim Hortons employees. They had / have a legitimate right to protest. They instead chose to occupy a city who's inhabitants were not even those who they were angry at.
People in Ottawa used to get about as upset about Bluesfest when it was held downtown, because there was some music from a summer festival for a few nights. They're not really a good measuring stick for how disruptive something is, more like a bunch of entitled civil servants that don't want to be disturbed while they cross off the days until their pensions arrive.
Comparing truck and ship horns with closed circuits for 22 hours or more a day to "music from a summer festival" might not be the MOST disingenuous comparison I've heard, but it's pretty close, if not.
> It would make sense for Quebec to ignore it since, well, they didn't sign it. Just like the US constitution doesn't apply since, well, Canada didn't sign it.
I mean, if we're going to make this analogy, the thing that was signed was Treaty of Paris of 1763.
The usa only requires 3/4 of state legislators to agree before it becomes binding on all of them. In canada, the rule depends on the thing, but generally its 7 provinces containing >50% of population. Quebec was the only province not to agree to the charter.
If we're making a comparison to the usa, it works basically the same way.
> What makes no sense is the federal government can apparently decide to "suspend the constitution" as it pleases (and did so for peaceful freedom of speech demonstrations by truckers recently).
This is incorrect. The emergencies act did not suspend the constitution.
No more clear than simply reading the decision including the parts where the judge states that it would violate Charter rights.
“To be abundantly clear, it is not a crime to give someone the finger. Flipping the proverbial bird is a God-given, Charter enshrined right that belongs to every red-blooded Canadian.”
I'm just saying, you don't really have freedom of speech if the government can decide to violate it if they feel like it.
Edit: I'm apparently rate-limited. Anyway, if words on paper don't mean anything, then bringing up the Charter as evidence that Canadians have free speech is completely irrelevant.
Second, the notwithstanding clause isn't a theoretical possibility.
> I find my American friends sometimes freak out over the “but they could take your freedoms away!” when they read about stuff like that. Well, yeah they could do anything. Like make secret courts that ignore constitutional freedoms.
This is a cute way of pretending the clause is never used.
It’s also written somewhere that I’m subject to a king, so I’m not really free anyways.
Also I don’t actually own any land. It all belongs to my king. That’s written down too.
This is actually a really fascinating subject but not for a Friday night. Long story short: what’s written, and what actually is, are often quite different. I find my American friends sometimes freak out over the “but they could take your freedoms away!” when they read about stuff like that. Well, yeah they could do anything. Like make secret courts that ignore constitutional freedoms.
I think it’s healthier to be aware that it’s all a social construct that demands political activism.
> I find my American friends sometimes freak out over the “but they could take your freedoms away!” when they read about stuff like that
But did they?
> It’s also written somewhere that I’m subject to a king, so I’m not really free anyways. Also I don’t actually own any land. It all belongs to my king. That’s written down too.
Is it something that people are proud of? A big part of the culture?
Nobody here really cares about the monarchy beyond the novelty. But we don’t feel threatened by the fact that technically the monarchy has sweeping powers to dissolve government and walk away with our freedoms. Heck we aren’t even accumulating weapons just in case!
> But we don’t feel threatened by the fact that technically the monarchy has sweeping powers to dissolve government and walk away with our freedoms.
FWIW, technically they do not have that power. In a constitutional monarchy the monarch is subject to the constitution. The king can't technically abolish canadian parliment anymore than the us president would be able to technically abolish congress.
Of course there is a certain truth to the idea that its all a social construct, and anyone can abolish the government if they are backed by a large enough number of people with guns.
The government can decide to violate any freedom you think you have at any time for any reason regardless of what any law may or may not say. Freedoms are social constructs, nothing more. They exist to the degree that people believe in them.
Got nothing to do with Quebec in particular. Every Canadian province and feds can invoke Not Withstanding Clause which is basically fuck you and your rights.
I think the point is that quebec has a longer history of invoking the notwithstanding clause, where in other provinces it is slightly more taboo. And even when invoked in other provinces, it often ends up not really being used (either turns out not to be needed, law not brought into force, or law declared unconstitutional despite notwithstanding clause).
So actually it is, but not in the way that it applies to other countries.
The First Amendment is a a flat limitation of Congressional power, not a rights grant. So in that way, it is globally binding as it applies to laws that the United States Congress may make as they pertain to e.g. US citizens residing in Canada, or really even Canadians at home or in the US.
> That said, Canada does have their own freedom of speech, under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
So basically the same amendment, covering the same rights and inspired by the same document (pretty sure the US constitution came first) just under a different name.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was inspired by documents such as the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Other international influences included the 1950 European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The concept of individual freedoms existed in Canada long before the Charter was put pen to paper, as it inherited its culture from European origins, where elightenment ideals had been evolving since the 17th century. So the Charter and the US Constitution are similar (but do differ in a few important areas) because they are derived from the same set of values.
Its not the first amendment to the canadian constitution (hello manitoba) and the specifics of the rights granted and their limitations are different [sometimes very different than usa. E.g. gay marriage and abortion].
Additionally prior to the charter canada had some limited freedom of speech from the implied bill of rights, so its not like it introduced it.
Americans are harassed and arrested _ALL THE TIME_ for obvious 1A protected speech. This is why Courts of nations with true free speech are very eager to push back when police abuse their power. This prose is just that. An absolute scolding.
God help you, you made an honest mistake, and now everybody gets to jump down your throat about it. Here's an upvote from one of the few people on HN who occasionally commits and error and can sympathize.
If you look past the headline, this story is almost "basic sanity". The guy's neighbour didn't want the accused's kids playing in the street (in the suburbs) because they have a yard. To "prove" his point that it was dangerous he drove recklessly around the kids in the street.
The accused flipped him off and (allegedly because he denies it) threatened him.
Now frankly, I don't see why this would be hackernews-worthy, but it's still a basic triumph of common sense. If I had kids and they want to draw in chalk in a slow suburbs street, having a nosy neighbour calling the police after speeding next to them to illustrate his point would likely make my blood boil.
Did you read the whole report??? The complainant is essentially stalking his neighbour with surveillance footage, recording any time the neighbour so much as looks in his direction, and keeps a stalker-ish log book with insults. On top of that his wife and his father nearly hit the neighbour's 4 year olds with a car and then say they refuse to slow down. The report says the car was "inches away" from another person and that kid would have been run over!
And then the complainant has the audacity to file criminal suit over his neighbour giving him middle finger after he does it first! This story is about basic insanity.
The suburbs are ironically, but not so surprisingly filled with crazy assholes that feel like the world belongs to them, or otherwise have some absurd levels of entitlement. They feel like they own the sidewalks, or if there's no sidewalks, they own the street and everything on it or not on it in front of their house, they feel like they should control whether or not a marginally higher density building should be built down the street or whether a neighbor can paint their house a different colour. When there's no land left, they want more cul-de-sacs built for them because it's the suburban dream and fuck wetlands anyway, and when there's no social services left, they want new ones built for them at everyone else's expense and they don't really want to be part of a community; they want to be by themselves, on their fat asses, in front of their fucking TV, the only quality of which they understand is how big it is.
I absolutely loath that world and never want to return.
"If you look past the headline, this story is almost "basic sanity""
Actually, I think "basic sanity" would have been, if the accuser would have been charged with something - as clearly they were the aggressors and actually intentionally endangering children.
And the judge seems to think so as well, but it seems all he could do in his position, was to metaphorical throw the case out of the non existing window. (if I am ever charged with something, I hope I am to be judged by someone like him)
> And the judge seems to think so as well, but it seems all he could do in his position, was to metaphorical throw the case out of the non existing window.
Judges aren't prosecutors, by design they cannot bring charges against people. Otherwise the prosecutor/judge separation would be a nonsense.
> if I am ever charged with something, I hope I am to be judged by someone like him
Unless you're a crazed and/or paranoid nightmare neighbour :D
Can we really conclude that just because he films his neighbors and tries to run down their kids in the street by never slowing for small children playing and keeps a diary about them and tells the judge the neighbor is out to murder them?
Garbage is submitted literally constantly, but some stuff is just upvote-bait, and the mods are pretty lax about pushing anything off the front page unless it particularly irks them
I would posit that common sense is the antithesis to government. Consider children whose parents are arrested for letting them walk to the park, or the woman arrested for silently praying, in her head, while standing in front of an abortion clinic.
Prosecutorial abuse is equally, if not more of a crisis in the world, than police abusing their arrest powers.
or the woman arrested for silently praying, in her head, while standing in front of an abortion clinic.
Hmm... Looks like this happened in the UK:
The video shows an officer asking Vaughan-Spruce if she was praying, to which she answers: “I might be praying in my head.”
She was charged Dec. 15 with four counts of breaking a Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) around the abortion facility. A PSPO is intended to stop antisocial behavior.
So, they had so many problems that the local council put an order in place, with overwhelming public support. The woman then violated the order and even indicated that she was violating the order, by choice, all so she can play the victim.
Now it's being spun as "thought crime" so that they don't have to take responsibility for their abhorrent behavior and continue to pretend to be the ones who are victimized.
How can any sane person watch this video and say her behavior was "abhorrent?"
I'm talking about the behavior that led to the protection order.
She's trying to play the "thought crime" angle in order to get the protection order repealed and pretend that they're being victimized. It's disingenuous.
The behaviour in a vacuum might not be so bad but she was consciously trying to test how far she could go before they broke a law made specifically due to anti-abortion protesters like her intimidating woman to the point they wouldn't use the services.
Still shows what a police state the UK is, this lady is arrested and she was not causing any disturbance. Do we really want to live in a society where people who did not commit a crime are locked up?
How is standing there causing disturbance? The real disturbance is apparent in what the police did to her.
I really want you and people who hold these views to reflect on what the implications are if someone standing quietly by themselves on a street corner constitutes intimidation. She said she was not part of a protest.
She said she wasn't but she was clearly linked. The anti-abortion protests that lead to the law in the first place commonly claimed to be "prayer vigils" and she went into the buffer zone, outside an abortion clinic to pray.
I can see where you're coming from but at the same time it was a clear attempt to get as close as possible to protesting without breaking the law.
I have a conflicting opinions on this post. On one hand, I loathe the use of "the government" as though it is some sort of monoblock. There are plenty of people who get into public service as a way to tangibly improve society and the lives of the people.
OTOH, you are right that too many people get away with abusing their powers.
The "some abuses make it worth scrapping the whole thing" thesis is just pure folly.
Two parallel possible spins on that:
"Restrict the government since otherwise people will abuse government power."
"Have a lot of rules and regulations since otherwise people will abuse individual liberties."
Both of these make just as much sense on paper to me. On one hand you have examples of government harassment; on the other hand you have people literally being willing to sell other people poison to make a buck.
The problem in both cases is the people, not the system.
I've come to the thinking that you have to build societal values from the bottom up. You aren't gonna lawyer your way to a perfect system if you are still fostering an environment that encourages people to ignore that system, resist it, and take advantage of each other.
> I've come to the thinking that you have to build societal values from the bottom up.
And one way to build those values is by writing some basic rules down, communicating them to everybody, and enforce them. You will never have every single person refraining from taking advantage of something.
That seems irrelevant but consistent. In both scenarios they’ve affirmed that people have a right to just exist without duress against their existence. Seems obvious to me, but I’m just a he/them who doesn’t want to be hit by asshole drivers being assholes and who freely gives them the finger when they’re dangerous.
> To "prove" his point that it was dangerous he drove recklessly around the kids in the street.
It probably is dangerous [0] because people don’t let their kids play in the street anymore so drivers aren’t used to having them there.
Not like when I was a kid where we would get ball games going and pause to let the cars pass. People expected kids to be playing in the street so didn’t drive like complete lunatics.
Can’t even walk through parking lots anymore and everyone knows that there are going to be people walking around all over the place because that’s what they are designed for.
[0] Not advocating trying to scare the neighborhood kids
From reading the decision and looking at Google Maps: the street is a short, narrow dead-end street in the suburbs. Most of the people who live there have young children who play together.
It would be very difficult to accidentally find yourself on this street, driving quickly.
Of course, it's dangerous in the sense that anything to do with cars is dangerous. But it seems pretty safe as far as these things go.
> It would be very difficult to accidentally find yourself on this street, driving quickly.
As a parent of a 6 years old, I always assume all drivers are not paying attention to the road but rather to their phones when my kid is playing in the street (with supervision because I don't know if he will react quickly to a car coming his way)
It sucks, because I used to play in the street without supervision (to my best knowledge). But today, cars are faster and drivers are more distracted.
That's exactly why I'm sad of the precautions I take. Back then drivers had less distractions while driving. Of course there was the occasionally distracted driver but nowadays is more common than what it used to be thanks to the smartphone.
Teach your kids to move out of the street and stand in the sidewalk or yard. My 3 year old is trained to do this and will do it on her own, still working on doing it 100% of the time.
Neighborhoods have not gone up in speed limits it’s 25 in residential streets unless you live directly off a main road.
I live in a much more built up area than this. Mostly small apartment buildings, duplexes and three-deckers. The odd single-family home, usually on the small side. People here still let their kids play in the streets. Not the youngest kids or the busiest streets, but it's not at all unusual to see some kids kicking a ball or playing hockey in the street, or just tooling around on bikes going nowhere.
> Not like when I was a kid where we would get ball games going and pause to let the cars pass. People expected kids to be playing in the street so didn’t drive like complete lunatics.
In my neighborhood kids play in the street all the time. There are basketball goals up and down my street and the kids pause the ball games to let the cars pass.
Are you sure that you don't just live in a different place now?
for many people there's nothing beautiful in a child's laughter, especially if they don't have children of their own, so they are only getting the annoyance of noise without the good parts.
moreover, in my experience, when children play, 80% of their interactions is ugly insult-throwing, not laughter.
Also, why should the wishes of a group (children) be more important than those of another (those who wish to enjoy some quiet in their own home)?
In this case, it would be easy to reach a compromise. You want to play basketball? go to a proper public park. You want to sing your lungs off? go to a proper karaoke place. And so on.
Also, what's the beauty of a laughter achieved at the expense of others' pain?
A brief look at their comment history makes me quite sure they should be kept far away from... anyone, really. Except maybe a psychiatrist.
To the grand parent, if you're reading this: please get help. Your views on what activities are/aren't appropriate for children have no place in civil society.
nope, your comment is all about me personally, my mental health, not my ideas.
It's the age old "argument" used to dismiss rational conversation: "no point discussing it, it comes from a crazy guy"
for many people enjoying themselves means being able to enjoy their own home without being forced to listen to other people excessive noise even through closed windows.
My old place was on a Stroad with cars flying by at 40+ mph. I hated the car noise with a passion. I'll take children having good time over traffic noise any day.
For me, I personally have times where I don't like some noises (annoying, etc). My solution at those times is generally to find some music I'm ok listening to (through headphones) and drown out the noise that way.
As you mention though, if it's "any noise at all", then that's going to be tough.
> people don’t let their kids play in the street anymore
Careful not to generalise here. This will vary wildly from place to place and street to street. Here in the Netherlands with limitations on cars I see the streets busy with children year round.
I can't speak for Canada, not having been there, but I read favorable coverage on urban design channels different localities there who have committed to pedestrian friendly designs. It wouldn't surprise me if the street was quiet and designed with safety of children and other vulnerable users in mind.
Caveat: i read in another comment that the speed limit was 25 mph. That's over 40 km/hr. In .nl, speeds on roads in residential areas are typically limited to 30 km/hr (18 mph). And in woonerven, streets designed to enable kids playing on them, speed is limited to walking speed - by judicial ruling, 15km/hr (9 mph).
There are a few different places within a few blocks of me where there are basketball hoops set up facing the street, so the street is the court. All on side streets, seems like it hasn't been a big problem. Some of them have been there for years at this point.
Not even that far out in the burbs. Mixes of ~5ish story apartment buildings, commercial, and SFH homes for miles in all directions.
Seems like "are people used to people being in the street" is very area-specific. If this was all 5+ story mixed-use apartment developments, like a few miles north? Yeah, you don't see it as much there. On the other hand, if it was even less developed, with basically no non-local through traffic? I've seen even more.
Here’s the specific “God-given right” passage from the ruling. So satisfying:
[168] To be abundantly clear, it is not a crime to give someone the finger. Flipping the proverbial bird is a God-given, Charter enshrined right that belongs to every red-blooded Canadian. It may not be civil, it may not be polite, it may not be gentlemanly.
[169] Nevertheless, it does not trigger criminal liability. Offending someone is not a crime. It is an integral component of one’s freedom of expression. Citizens are to be thicker-skinned, especially when they behave in ways that are highly likely to trigger such profanity – like driving too fast on a street where innocent kids are playing. Being told to “fuck off” should not prompt a call to 9-1-1.
Lol you yanks have an actual fascist movement underway passing laws against books and education and free expression and here you are repeating their talking points concern-trolling like free speech is under attack in Canada. Get your own house in order.
There’s no rule that says you can’t be critical of another country’s policies just because your own country also has problems. After all, there are 330 million people living in the US and you can’t hold the parent responsible for all of them.
Did I, with any authority, say GP can't repeat Republican FUD? Or did I merely have a critical response?
Republicans love to point to other countries as boogeymen, "they're coming for your freeeeedoms" all the while: through fear and scapegoat and boogeymen and "religious conviction" they fight tooth and claw to take freedoms away.
I assume nothing of the sort. Their
profile identifies them as a resident of the US, so I called 'em a Yankee. That they're spreading Republican FUD doesn't make them Republican. Anybody can repeat Fox "News" talking points. Hell, I'm sure I have at some time or another. Doesn't mean they necessarily agree with every single thing that comes out of Fibbin' Tucker's lying mouth.
Why do you assume they were influenced by Republican FUD for warning about the dangers of Incrementalism? I have heard many such “slippery-slope” arguments from people of all political persuasions (even though it is considered a logical fallacy).
Saying they are “repeating talking points” also implies they have not thought deeply on the issue and considered multiple points of view before arriving at this conclusion - or simply arrived at this position from their own judgment - which of course we have no way of knowing based on what they said.
The fact that something causes me anguish isn't the only factor in whether other people should be allowed to do that thing.
E.g. maybe I've had traumatic experiences around being called stupid, and whenever I perceive others as thinking I'm dumb, I remove those experiences. Should it be illegal for people to call me an idiot in such cases?
In the U.S., however, First Amendment protection for flipping the bird is not considered "clearly established" law in some portions of the country, and police officers can be protected by qualified immunity if they arrest you in retaliation for displaying the middle finger.
The U.S. Courts of Appeal for the 2nd Circuit and 6th Circuit have held that flipping the bird is protected speech. (See Swartz v. Insogna, 2013, and Ellis v. Davidson, 2004.)
But as far as I've been able to determine, the 3rd Circuit, which governs my own part of the country, has not made any definitive rulings on it.
That means that a case like Guessford v. Douglas et al, which was recently filed by a Delaware man, might end up with the police involved protected from punishment.
(Guessford held up a handmade "RADAR AHEAD" sign while standing near a speed trap, and the police ripped up the sign, then later pulled him over and cited him in retaliation for flipping them the bird.)
>(Guessford held up a handmade "RADAR AHEAD" sign while standing near a speed trap, and the police ripped up the sign, then later pulled him over and cited him in retaliation for flipping them the bird.)
The police can have fun fighting the likes of Google and Apple, since their map programs feature speed trap warnings.
Any SC that would rule against that hand signal as anything but speech would be clearly making new law. There are strong forces that would like to do this, but at the moment the SC majority+ is not. Sign language is language.
To the other side... it may be worth attempting to rewrite the sign dictionary such that dissent is assult. Billions of $ already are spent on it monthly.
It's a long road to the SC. I think that is a feature.
That was a very entertaining read. Pulling no punches in the conclusion:
> 'In the modern-day vernacular, people often refer to a criminal case “being thrown out”. Obviously, this is little more than a figurative expression. Cases aren’t actually thrown out, in the literal or physical sense. Nevertheless, in the specific circumstances of this case, the Court is inclined to actually take the file and throw it out the window, which is the only way to adequately express my bewilderment with the fact that Mr. Epstein was subjected to an arrest and a fulsome criminal prosecution. Alas, the courtrooms of the Montreal courthouse do not have windows.'
This was a much more entertaining read than the link the OP, in my opinion. I didn't realize official court documents could have such an attitude. The guy that wrote this fuckin hates the complainants and it shows, hahaha
Yeah I was surprised that they wrote an official court document like that, with plenty of sarcasm and snark. I actually wanted to keep reading it all the way to the end.
It is indeed shocking that this poor man was arrested, charged, and taken through a full prosecution despite the obviously flawed evidence. The crown prosecutor erred so greatly in taking this case on that it strains belief. In Canada, the crown turns down all sorts of cases if they aren’t highly confident they can win. This one? Prosecutors are appointed, not elected. They have nothing to gain from such legal tourism and whomever brought this case forward will have a black mark on their credentials for some time.
I don't know who exactly made the decision to let the case get this far, but it's worth noting the judge explicitly credits crown counsel with suggesting an acquittal:
> [7] After Mr. Epstein testified in chief, in a tremendous display of professionalism and objectivity, Crown counsel declined to cross-examine him since, in her view, it was not in the public interest to do so. Instead, she humbly invited the Court to enter an acquittal. Having heard the evidence, I can unreservedly confirm that she made the right call. Counsel’s integrity was commendable.
One thing that I found in reading the judgement was that French/English tensions came into play (the accused was Anglophone, the complainant had taken exception to him speaking English) which is a political hot topic in Quebec right now. It's possible there were some political motivations in play.
leaving aside the show of incompetence of that specific "crown prosecutor", what I find even far more shocking is that in 2023 there still is such a thing as a "crown prosecutor". I'd say it's high time to gain full independence and throw the English "crown" out of Canada.
“the crown” is an idea stemming from english constitutional law representing “the state”, i.e. the legal entity constituting the country. It doesn’t have a lot to do with the physical monarch except in metaphor. It looks like, based on some Googling, that Jamaica, which is a republic (canada is not) still uses the term “crown” in this sense: https://www.mof.gov.jm/careers/crown-counsel-mlss-legal-serv...
wanted to correct this one: I confused Barbados with Jamaica here. Barbados is a republic. I am sure its laws still use the term "the crown", but it looks like it uses the term "Public Prosecutor" instead of "Crown Prosecutor".
"English constitutional law" is any English law that pertains to something you consider to be "constitution".
The term "Crown" used to mean the prosecution in criminal cases derives from the actions of Henry I and particularly Henry II, in despatching teams of royal justices around the country, to hear cases in the provinces. Previously, such cases were heard mainly in baronial courts. In that sense, these kings made the English law more uniform, and more accessible.
One of the customary requirements of kings was that they should dispense justice. One of the classes of court in the UK is Crown Courts, which hear criminal cases in front of juries (and appeals from magistrates courts). They are not controlled by The Crown, and the judges are not appointed by The Crown.
In theory, the government here governs by the grace of The Crown; everything is by grace of The Crown. In practice, it's nonsense.
Mrs Smith sues his neighbour for calling her cow publicly all the time and wins the case. On the end of the ruling the neighbour asks the judge:
- Does this mean I cannot call Mrs Smith cow from now on?
- That is right.
- But can I still call a cow Mrs Smith?
- Yes, that you can do.
The neighbour turns to Mrs Smith with a big sarcastic smile:
- See you later Mrs Smith!
I have no idea what a UK version of this transcript would look like but I rather enjoyed this one from Canada.
The Décision is spelt out with exquisite precision throughout the entire document. King Charles III's Justice is quite clearly very well dispensed in Canada.
tl;dr: <https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/JCO/Documents/Ju...> (wiki overview <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_joke_trial#cite_ref-Hi...>), which summarizes the very different first-instance trial (in England & Wales) of Chambers from this first-instance trial of Epstein (in Canada). In particular, Chambers was accused of threatening to blow up an airport, which is rather different than giving someone a finger. The finger was meant seriously, whereas the "threat" was clearly not meant seriously, and the conviction of Chambers is widely considered a miscarriage of justice that was only belatedly corrected. I am fairly sure that to the extent the Canadian acquittal becomes widely know, it will be considered a correct and just outcome.
The UK has at least three different criminal jurisdictions. The most readily comparable one is that of England & Wales ("E&W"). Most criminal law in modern times flows from legislation in the various parliaments based at Westminster in London ("Westminster" for short), however in Scotland and Northern Ireland there is law that is variously old enough to predate Westminster's legislative control; there is also old law in England and Wales together and separately; and finally there is new law legislated by the devolved assemblies in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
In terms of criminal law, there has been a sort of quasi-federalism in the UK and its predecessor kingdoms for centuries.
In Canada there is only one criminal law, and it is exclusively controlled by the federal parliament.
In England & Wales the criminal law is generally not codified; one finds criminal offences were (and continue to be) created in topical legislation, for instance there are new criminal offences throughout the Landlord Tenant Act, 1985, a topical act rebalancing landlord-tenant responsibilities and liabilities. In Chambers, the topical Communications Act, 2003, created the relevant criminal offence.
The Criminal Code of Canada is (practically) the only place where criminal offences can be itemized, and the creation of new offences require an amendment to the Criminal Code. These amendments are usually done in standalone Acts of Parliament, however from time to time a topical Act may amend the Criminal Code. When that happens, the Code is where one looks to understand the criminal law, not the Act which amended it.
The Code is meant to be uniformly applied and interpreted in every province and territory. However, as in most systems in which criminal law is codified, the code is not especially verbose nor exhaustive of possibilites (the law is not a computer program), and first-instance courts (and appellate courts) can resolve a prosecution with a particular set of facts differently from one another. Sometimes differences in the highest appellate courts in provinces are dealt with by modifications to the Criminal Code by the federal parliament; sometimes the matters are resolved by the Supreme Court of Canada; sometimes the differents are just left different, and typically those are situations which will require such unusual circumstances that they will never be comparable to prosecutions (for the same criminal code offence) brought elsewhere in Canada.
In Epstein the judgment makes reference to various paragraphs of the Criminal Code. The Court did not see the need to make explicit reference to paragraphs in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is part of the Canadian constitution.
In Chambers the judgment makes explicit reference to the (UK) Human Rights Act, 1998, ("UKHRA") and articles of the European Convention on Human Rights (which UKHRA imported into the laws of England & Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, etc.). It also looks to other sources of law to consider what was meant by the wording of the Communications Act, by referenes to other legislation (e.g. the Malicious Communications Act, 1988) and case law (DPP v Collins (2006)).
Epstein was acquitted at trial. Chambers was convicted, but ultimately the High Court (in the chain of appeals against the initial conviction) quashed the conviction.
The judgments share some features, namely the use of long numbered paragraphs, and a detailed itemization of the law and evidence considered by the two Courts. Some court systems using codified criminal law tend to have very short judgments, and an acquittal might be memoralized in a single short paragraph which might take the form of, "the conditions for the conviction of the accused were not met so he is not convicted". This is fairly common in systems which descend from 19th century French law (Québec is not an example; it lost legal ties to France before then) or which have been highly influenced by it in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Finally, King Charles III of Canada is not really involved in matters of Canadian criminal law. The Constitution of Canada obliges him to delegate legislative, executive, prosecutorial, and judicial authority to Canadian institutions. The (less consolidated but very much written) constitution of the United Kingdom likewise ousts its monarch from a significant role in shaping and enforcing the criminal laws in the various UK jurisdictions; those powers are exercised by Parliament (or the national legislatures), various executive bodies and various courts.
Nobody would take the expression "King Charles III's Justice" seriously in either country, although in some contexts one would hear pretty much exactly that formalism being uttered as an essentially empty tradition.
If you want to get some decent information, then riling experts on HN is a good start! Thank you for putting me in my place. You clearly know what you are on about.
I feel this. I'm late to the party. But... I want to counter ask... how do folks feel about honking? Is honking a god-given right? Does this vary from giving the finger? How and why?
I don't have great answers for all the above. But I seriously wholeheartedly embrace the idea of giving people the finger, and I seriously am fed up with all the honking shit and don't think people are entitled to >50% of it (and should be punished for it). And I don't really see or get how to navigate these two "protests", what maxims to apply, how to see these cases which I think have different judgements as actually different.
Maybe it's just the social cost: a personal insult of a middle finger versus a civically-disturbing loud horn blow. And that kind of checks out. This decision feels right on to me (which I understand countries like Germany highly disagree on atm): you're free to express that. Maybe the social cost is that, once you start using a very loud system of alert as a way to indicate anger, you dilute the exigency of this alert system, become a cause of false-alarm that creates a real risk that real-alarm goes unnoted. Maybe that's a good enough case against letting drivers honk, a check.
But to go back to the general: this decision is about not limiting, but what are the limits? What are problematic displeasures? What lines shouldn't we accept? If someone flips the bird, how much counter-permission do you have to be a terror? This case suggests flipping the bird back might be a counter-God-given-right, but can we scream our head off back? Can we honk for the next 5 minutes after seeing someone flip a bird at us? Can we drive aggressively?
In the UK, the Highway Code is clear that the horn may be used only to alert another driver of your presence. It is preferable to flash your lights, especially late at night. It is not permissible to use the horn to celebrate a sports victory, to signal sympathy with a striker's picket, to demand that another driver get out of your way, or for any other purpose than to signal your presence.
The Highway Code isn't law, but you are required to be familiar with it to get a driving licence, and failure to comply will predispose courts to find you guilty if you are charged with harrassment, obstruction, intimidation and so on.
For those who don’t know Montreal, Laval is a suburb of the city. It’s mostly white, French-speaking majority has been in decline for years relative to newcomers who speak other languages - including anglophone Canadian. The complainants in the case are definitely Québecois and emblematic of the resentment toward newcomers expressed by many.
>[3] To most, this scene represents a blissful snapshot of a suburban utopia. Peaceful, friendly community life.
[4] Yet, to the complainant and his family, this is an unbearable nuisance. An affront on many levels. So much so, that according to the objective video evidence, they drive dangerously near the children as a way to protest their presence and express their discontent.[..]
it reminds me of South Park, the episode where they go to Canada.
Everyone : " Welcomes friends to Canada
Canada friends loves you "
Scott : "What the hell is going on ?"
Everyone (screaming and running away) : Scott ! It's Scott !
When you reach this level of being ridiculed on worldwide news, you don't need to be sued. Counter-suing Scott would be like shooting at the ambulance !
> He even claimed that “dipshit” is not really an insult. It is merely a nickname like any other; an innocuous form of slang
What an amazing self own. Especially when you could very plausibly say you had a heated reaction and accept it with very minimal consequences for judgement. But by all means double down!
> [149] On what basis did he fear that Mr. Epstein was a potential murderer? The fact that he went for quiet walks with his kids? The fact that he socialized with the other young parents on the street? If that is the standard, we should all fear that our neighbours are killers in waiting. Hide your kids, hide your wives. We are all in mortal danger.
Australian here. I find the excessive emotive flair throughout the judgment as pressing the boundaries on occasion. A court is supposed to act impartially and emotions kept in check. This kind of language could be appealable in Australia, see for instance, this news report from yesterday:
Reminds me of https://www-dagsavisen-no.translate.goog/nyheter/innenriks/2... where swearing at a police officer in Norway was "ok in this instance since they're both northeners and that's just how they talk up there", while in other cases people have been given fines.
“God gave me ten fingers, and said ‘arrange them as you see fit’ and I said holy f* you’re actually God why are you operating the drive thru window, anyway thanks for the chicken fingers your holiness”
You should read the ruling. If anyone deserves the finger it would be this dude and his family. After one of them assaulted the victim, multiple threatened to hit their kids, they accusing his flipping the bird at them as being a death threat with a "throat slitting" gesture.
It sounds like he flipped him off, and the victim of the nonsense claim says he flipped the bird then waved off the asshole. Everything shows that the victim never did anything threatening no matter how belligerent the complainant was - the most "threatening" thing you could claim he did was shout at them after they almost drove over his kids and said that they would do it in future.
So while the video in question is apparently not super clear in this particular "death threat", the only person who says he did anything neck related is the guy who also made numerous other claims directly contradicted by his own video. The same guy that - and the court notes - repeatedly lies about things that have happened whenever facts are inconvenient, even when the complainant's own video demonstrates the falsity of the claims.
Reminds me of the time a cop hassled me on a really bad day and I gave him the finger as I walked away. "You're lucky I can't arrest you for that!" I didn't look back. Thanks, Canada, for being a bit better than your shithole neighbor.
I know saying "fuck the police" is an overused cliche at this point but how the fuck can anyone have any respect for the police as a whole when this is the shit they do? In canada they arrest you for a hand gesture and in america they arrest you for letting your children walk outside. How could any sane member of society go to a person's house and arrest them for these things? And they still have the nerve to complain that people don't respect them! Do cops in canada have discretion like american cops do?
I am not completely anti-police and I do think that it's a tough job and is ultimately necessary for a society. But I really think we need to completely start over because our current implementation of policing is completely fucked.
TBH, I think the conduct of the cops is fine here. If someone alleges that the other party is making death threats, I want them to investigate. It's not alleged that the cops mistreated Mr. Epstein. Obviously being arrested is traumatic, but the fault here lies with the unhinged neighbour, who will hopefully be prosecuted.
What's beyond the pale for me is that the Crown prosecutor brought the lawsuit at all. She's even a 16-year veteran. I'd be interested in reporting about how this case made it to trial once they had collected all the evidence.
On the one hand, knowing what we know now, I certainly agree it would be preferable if he wasn't arrested.
On the other hand, the neighbour had made at least 4 reports to the police about harassment and death threats. I believe the neighbour's brother and parents had also spoken to the police in support of these claims. On the day of the arrest, the neighbour had _just_ made the most serious claim yet--about death threats.
Given that context, I can understand why the police legally have the right to arrest, and would be willing to arrest.
"I certainly agree it would be preferable if he wasn't arrested."
We should actually be completely fucking outraged that any citizen can be forcibly detained on the whim of the police for non-violent behavior. Yet you seem to think it's just fine to deny a person every basic human right on the whim of some cop?
The kind of person it takes to make 4(!) official complaints and have the local police office in their contact list is exactly the same person to exaggerate dramatically, play the victim, and ultimately be the true source of anti-social behavior. I don’t believe there’s any veracity behind their claims, and the police department should have forwarded their calls to a therapist instead.
A friend[1] of mine (and his neighbours) have made a lot more than 4 official complaints about an absolutely deranged lunatic[2] on his street.
It took years of complaints and police calls, for the guy to get a court date (For harassing the neighbors and vandalizing their cars.)
Unless you actually go through many of the steps of investigating, you have no idea if the person making the complaints is the anti-social shithead, or if the person being complained about is. '4 official calls = complainer is full of shit' is a terrible heuristic.
[1] Who I trust and respect very much. I doubt that he's full of crap.
[2] Who, from all accounts, wouldn't benefit from a fine or prison sentence - he needs therapy.
That's actually addressed in the article if you read deep enough. The judge praises the prosecutor for cutting the case off halfway and asking it thrown out after they heard from the defendant.
They did have a video of a guy giving both middle fingers and making a motion that could ambiguously look like throat slashing. Now it wasn't that and the guy had a credible explanation of why and his neighbor is both a bad driver and a paranoid nutjob, most of which was proven by the paranoid guy's own videos wherein he (but not his innocent neighbor) can be seen doing all manner of things that might credibly be offenses like driving over the limit, driving dangerously and not slowing around kids, etc.
So it's not too clear to me what the prosecutor knew and when, beyond that video, but at least when the evidence did come out, they folded immediately, which makes me believe they must not have known that earlier.
> which makes me believe they must not have known that earlier.
But why not? The evidence that was presented to the court was the complainant's evidence. The case failed on the prosecution evidence. The prosecutor should have known it wouldn't stand up.
I mean, you're right that there's a good case that they should have known if they'd done things more thoroughly, but the fact that they simply did fold tells me they probably didn't actually know (even if they really should have!) because otherwise, why embarrass yourself in court like that?
The prosecutor eventually asked the judge to acquit. For which the judge gave her credit. But I don't understand why she prerssed charges in the first place; was she so unfamiliar with the evidence that she was going to have to present, that she didn't realize it was full of holes until it came to court?
There's a missing backstory here. I wonder whether the case was prepared by a junior, and this prosecutor barged in and decided to take over at the last minute, for the sake of personal glory. I can't see why she deserves the judge's approval.
>In his testimony, Naccache simply says that the police treated it like a neighbourly dispute and accordingly declined to press the matter further. They were “not keen of processing a harassment complaint”.[11] However, he conveniently omits mentioning what he noted in his written log.
>The log reveals that, to his dismay, the police officer informed him that his brother Ari could have been charged with assault and his father Frank could have been ticketed for driving dangerously. In his notes, Naccache took the officer’s warning as a “threat”. He also complained that the officers did nothing about Mr. Epstein not wearing a COVID mask… outdoors.
Hard to imagine "the right thing" ever involves using force to detain a citizen who poses no urgent threat and has not engaged in violent behavior. That detainment may be temporary, but it is a complete and utter denial of all basic human rights to the person being detained.
If you resist arrest, police will use force to detain you. That's how that works. Did you think arrest was voluntary? I'll pretend you're not trolling and actually needed this explained to you.
What is there to "feel?" Is there some reason we shouldn't let our basic human tolerance apply here as well?
> God-given, huh.
Typically, when used by governments, it's meant to mean rights that aren't endowed upon you by the state and thus aren't within the purview of the state to police or remove.
Except when I say it's God-given and the state disagrees, then I don't get the right. When states do it, they do it so that they don't become the object of frustration when they don't grant the right. Anyone believing it (god given, or natural, or universal human) is willingly letting the state dupe them into this arrangement at their expense and the benefit of the government.
Colloquialisms abound, and they are not to be taken literally or we'd have actors with broken femurs everywhere in the English-speaking world. Understandably, colloquialisms can be very problematic for those learning a new language. Is that the situation in your case?
If @ggambetta believes that there are people with influence in society who take the idiom literally then it would be reasonable for @ggambetta to be concerned and to have a problem with the idiom.
Perhaps the judge could have used a more precise legal formula to avoid just this kind of concern.
> If @ggambetta believes that there are people with influence in society who take the idiom literally then it would be reasonable for @ggambetta to be concerned and to have a problem with the idiom.
Can't the same be said for people who believe the world is flat? After all they believe it, so their concern about the round world conspiracy has to be reasonable, right?
I think there might be a tiny gap in your reasoning.
I do have a problem. It's like the sexist language or the N word. Their just words so nothing to be offended by, right? But they just perpetuate and normalise the concepts. In this case non-sensical religious things.
I'm an atheist but when people sneeze I still sometimes say "God bless." It's just a phrase at this point, nobody believes that Canada is a genuine theocracy.
No it doesn't. Unless such actions have consequences for the police and prosecutors beyond their case being thrown out, this injustice persists. To claim otherwise is like saying the injustice of a robbery has been rectified because the robber was not allowed to keep the stolen goods. That's not what "justice" means.
What the judge is really telling police and prosecutors is: You failed this time, but by all means keep trying.
I am really unsure what was going on here - it seems the crown made no attempt to find the victim guilty, and the police had formally rejected charges (and as the ruling says literally told the complainant that if anyone had committed crimes it was them).
The judge also seems to believe that this is what the crown was wanting, so is there some reason that they could have been required to bring the case?
