Justice

  • Giving Drunk Driving Laws a Breathalyzer

    The arguments on either side of the debate are familiar. Those in favour of toughening the law point to the fact that deaths by drunk driving have been reduced by 40% in British Columbia since it passed its law in September 2010. In other words, "it works," so don't fix it. Those opposed to this legislation note that it comes with a significant extension of arbitrary police powers and huge potential for unfairness.

    Just in time for the holiday season, an impassioned debate is taking place in our legislatures, courts, and op-ed pages regarding drinking and driving laws.

    The arguments on either side of the debate are familiar. Those in favour of toughening the la...

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  • Taking responsibility together

    Well, it might not be the single biggest moral issue—I can think of one that is bigger—but, that aside, his words ring true. The state of life on native reserves in this country is an absolute disgrace. The idea that people in our land should suffer from the indignities experienced by those living on reserves—especially northern reserves—is shameful and cause for great national consternation.

    "It's an absolute disgrace. It's the single biggest moral issue we face as a country." So says Paul Martin about the state of life on Native reserves in Canada.

    Well, it might not be the single biggest moral issue—I can think of one that is bigger—bu...

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  • Occupy Birmingham Jail

    It matters for the worse that the movement was such an utter and embarrassing flop, for at least three reasons. The second is the polarity created by the stone fecklessness of the generally peaceful Occupy movement and the bloody-minded violence of the British smash mobs last summer. If these are now the only two imaginable modes of protests, and if standing one's ground without burning things down is deemed both futile and wimpishly humiliating, what do we think the odds are that violence will become the default option in future? Hello, London? .

    With our cities emptied of even the detritus of the Occupy movement, it's worth reflecting on why it was so utterly vacant.

    It matters for the worse that the movement was such an utter and embarrassing flop, for at least three reasons.

    The fir...

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  • The Globalization of Graffiti

    The road from countercultural to mainstream is always pockmarked with ironic hypocrisies, but the high art brand and consumption of dissenting disempowerment must be one of the richest. And like many American past-times, it is a medium which is being reinvented and reinvigorated as it travels the face of the globe.

    It is as though Coca-Cola, as it spread across the globe, turned out to be a great nutritional drink." —Blake Gopnik, Foreign Policy

    The collapse of American graffiti, ...

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  • Money Ain't a Thing

    Debating in favour of this were Paul Krugman and David Rosenberg. Laurence Summers and Ian Bremmer—the wittiest of the bunch—were opposed. There were two items that I took away from the event:

    Monday night's Munk Debates saw two sides debating the resolution that "North America faces a Japan-style era of high unemployment and slow growth."

    Debating in favour of this were Paul Krugman and David Rosenberg. Laurence Summers and Ian Bremmer—th...

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  • Pressing against intellectual corruption

    We imagine corruption as something requiring fat, greasy-skinned men wearing expensive suits and long dark coats, and exchanging paper packets stuffed with hundred-dollar bills. The story in question concerns a purported "study" from the Royal Society of Canada that calls for the legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

    Perhaps because they are usually so trivial, we do not normally think of newspaper stories as being corrupt. Foolish, yes. Illiterate, frequently. Wrong, invariably. But corrupt?

    We imagine corruption as something requiring fat, greasy-skinned men we...

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  • Feeling Gutless on Remembrance Day

    Ray Pennings reflects on the difficulty of stomaching Remembrance Day and the ugliness of war, commemorating those who have gone before us. 

    Remembrance Day is important to me, in my head at least. I am very conscious to wear poppies, try to attend a cenotaph event whenever possible (either live, or viewing the national memorial event as my location and schedules allow), and read articles that d...

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  • Zoning out religion

    The Montreal woman was back in front of a judge yesterday to fight a ticket she received for participating in an "illegal Mass" at a rented facility in the borough of Lachine. But the case was put over until February 22, 2012 when Celani's lawyer will argue the ticket is invalid because it is an abuse of a zoning bylaw and, more importantly, because it violates her Charter rights. In the interim, Celani engaged a Montreal constitutional lawyer to argue the case, at least in part on Charter grounds. She acknowledged after her appearance on Tuesday that her reflex was to simply pay the $144 fine and settle the matter. Then she got mad, and the madder she got, the more she became determined to fight.

    Paula Celani's day in court has become a six-month legal odyssey.

    The Montreal woman was back in front of a judge yesterday to fight a ticket she received for participat...

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  • Hockey and Politics Don't Mix

    I'll grant him his basic premise: the Canadian brand is changing. The Pan-Canadian consensus—that set of values the media brands as mainstream—is declining. Arguably, we used to see our identity in multiculturalism, our preference for international peacekeeping rather than taking sides, the Charter of Rights, and government social programs as expressions of our kindness and tolerance. While Mr. Martin blames Mr. Harper for this change, we publicly argued at the time of Stephen Harper's election in 2006 that this decline had already been a decade or two in the making. In other words, Mr. Harper isn't changing Canadian values. Canadian values changed in the eighties and nineties, and the election of a Conservative government was a consequence of that change. It is taking others a bit longer to adjust to the changes that have already taken place.

    Lawrence Martin's recent Globe and Mail column talked about the change of the Canadian brand under t...

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  • Plus ca change one more time

    1) "The conditions which surround us best justify our co-operation; we meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot box. The people are demoralized, public opinion silenced, homes covered with mortgages, labor impoverished, and the land concentrating in the hands of capitalists.

    Two citations provide a wonderful historical frame for the Occupy Wall Street movement, now well into its second month.

    1) "The conditions which surround us best justify our co-operation; we meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge...

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  • Some corrections from last week

    First, there was the smug elitist tone of the thing. It had that early morning pre-caffeinated quality of rant that is out of place in a written format. It was smug and rude, but I deny its elitism. Elitism gatekeeps; I begged for joiners, if not on the Hill at least at the polls.

    It seems a bit narcisstic to offer correction and commentary on something I've written, but a surprising number of people would probably find it cathartic to know I've given further corrective thought to ...

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  • The small laws of civil life

    There was no time to do anything but lean on the horn to make sure she saw us and swerve into the oncoming lane to steer around her. We made it past her safely as she took urgent steps back toward the curb, children in tow.

    She was waiting at the corner of Sanguinet as my wife and I drove along Ontario early on a Sunday morning in downtown Montreal. We had the green light but she, pushing a stroller and with a toddler by the hand, casually started strolling acro...

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