Canadian Politics

[Eriol]

A good summary of the Dairy Industry in Canada in what Supply Management has done to it, and the rest of us:

It's also useful for our USA friends in that it summarizes the current dispute between the countries and Dairy.

Warning: this is an incredibly right-wing website, but the summary is quite good, sticking to the facts (for the most part) IMO. The largest fallacy here IMO is that the # of farms in the country by absolute number has gone down over the same time period, but I don't know a good way to look up those numbers as a whole and so to see how the numbers line up for that section of agriculture versus the other parts of it. IMO the rest of it is pretty on-the-line and good.

 

[Eriol]

Neat graphic for government spending since WWII in Canada, adjusted to real dollars, per person, rather than raw:

Yes Fraser Institute for those inclined to dismiss right-wing sources, but it's still public data from Statistics Canada.

I'd love to see an overlay of this with revenue and/or deficit along with cumulative debt too.

And starting with Mackenzie King (not on a label there, but is the WWII one), the parties are:
Liberal, Liberal, PC, Liberal, Liberal, PC (briefly), Liberal, PC, Liberal, Liberal (brief, but not AS brief as Clark), Conservative, Liberal.

Turner and Campbell aren't on there, but they ruled for mere months.

 

[Eriol]

Andrew Scheer wins Conservative leadership vote: New Conservative leader Andrew Scheer convenes his caucus

So that's a thing. I don't really know much about him, as I didn't follow this very closely.

 

[ThatNickGuy]

A friend of mine was really pulling for Maxine Bernier. I don't really follow politics, so I don't know why.

 

[Gruebeard]

A friend of mine was really pulling for Maxine Bernier. I don't really follow politics, so I don't know why.

Maxime is the guy who left classified documents at his girlfriend's house.

Maybe your friend is a spy. A lazy spy.

 

[Eriol]

Maxime is the guy who left classified documents at his girlfriend's house.

Maybe your friend is a spy. A lazy spy.

Ya, that'd be way too much like American Politics, with their candidates and leaders leaking classified information all over the place. We don't want that up here.

 

[PatrThom]

Maybe your friend is a spy. A lazy spy.

Ya, that'd be way too much like American Politics, with their candidates and leaders leaking classified information all over the place.

--Patrick

 

[Eriol]

Nice editorial IMO about the new conservative leader and our current government: Trudeau is the scary one, not Scheer

Having for months warned Canadians about the dangers of electing the “libertarian” Maxime Bernier, they immediately shifted gears to attacking the “social conservative” Scheer whom, they warned, would deny women abortions and gay couples the right to marry.

It was the same hysterical rhetoric Liberals hauled out when Stephen Harper won the Conservative leadership in 2004, none of which came to pass.

...

For example, Trudeau’s broken election promise that “modest” Liberal deficits over his first term in office would total $24.1 billion, with a $1 billion surplus in 2019-20.

Current Liberal projections put that figure at $93.3 billion, an increase of 287%, with a $20.4 billion deficit in 2019-20, $18.7 billion in 2020-21, $15.8 billion in 2021-22 and no plan to return to a balanced budget, ever.

I wonder how much that figure will increase beyond that estimate by the time all is said and done in 2020.

And those are excerpts, not the whole editorial.

 

[ThatNickGuy]

My province (Nova Scotia) had their big election tonight. I didn't bother voting. Didn't see the point.

 

[Gruebeard]

My province (Nova Scotia) had their big election tonight. I didn't bother voting. Didn't see the point.

Aye. Nova Scotia is rather irrelevant

 

[HCGLNS]

Aye. Nova Scotia is rather irrelevant

You suck.
And you don't even suck very well.
You sucky sucker you.

 

[Eriol]

My province (Nova Scotia) had their big election tonight. I didn't bother voting. Didn't see the point.

I couldn't vote. Haven't been in the province for 6 months yet.


And I am A-OK with that! Not having to care during an election? Booyaa!

 

[Eriol]

Mulcair commits political suicide: Karla Homolka not worthy of forgiveness

“Everybody is going to have to take their own stock of that and ensure that first and foremost that the security (of the kids at the Montreal school where Homolka has volunteered) is taken care of,” Mulcair told reporters outside the House of Commons on Wednesday. “Beyond that, it becomes a question of forgiveness.”

Being on Homolka's side on this is just waiting to be dropped on his head next election.

 

[Chad Sexington]

Mulcair commits political suicide: Karla Homolka not worthy of forgiveness

Being on Homolka's side on this is just waiting to be dropped on his head next election.

Seriously. JFC

 

[Eriol]

I'm putting this here, but hoping a number of our USA friends watch this and imagine if their system was like ours, and the powers therein for the PM/President were the same:

 

[DarkAudit]

I'm putting this here, but hoping a number of our USA friends watch this and imagine if their system was like ours, and the powers therein for the PM/President were the same:

It's the Westminster system and this is just one guy bitching about it for three minutes.

 

[Eriol]

It's the Westminster system and this is just one guy bitching about it for three minutes.

Absolutely it is, but it's still kinda funny to me seeing the "discussion" over confirmations, and everything else about your President, and then compare and contrast to the powers of the Prime Minister in Canada, and as you rightly say, other Westminster systems.

 

[DarkAudit]

Absolutely it is, but it's still kinda funny to me seeing the "discussion" over confirmations, and everything else about your President, and then compare and contrast to the powers of the Prime Minister in Canada, and as you rightly say, other Westminster systems.

He doesn't mention that no Canadian Parliament has yet made it through an entire five year term. Which would suggest the Prime Minister's hold on power is a little more tenuous than it is here. The only way a Democrat gets to the White House before 2021 is if the Dems take control of Congress in 2018 and remove both Trump and Pence. Then the Speaker is next in line.

 

[Gruebeard]

He doesn't mention that no Canadian Parliament has yet made it through an entire five year term.

This is a bit you don't quite understand, I think. The maximum length of the term is 5 years, but making it to that 5 year mark is not a sign of success. It's a completely unimportant statistic, in fact.

The government in power decides when an election takes place, and it must occur by that 5 year mark - and they have far stronger reasons for calling the election early rather than squeezing out a couple extra months (or even a couple years) . See, they will call an election when they are riding high in the polls, or when they're sinking in the polls and predict no improvement. Or anything like that.

That is, an election is called when the governing party thinks it has the best chance of winning it.

It's not about hitting the 5 year mark, it's about getting re-elected.

 

[DarkAudit]

This is a bit you don't quite understand, I think. The maximum length of the term is 5 years, but making it to that 5 year mark is not a sign of success. It's a completely unimportant statistic, in fact.

The government in power decides when an election takes place, and it must occur by that 5 year mark - and they have far stronger reasons for calling the election early rather than squeezing out a couple extra months (or even a couple years) . See, they will call an election when they are riding high in the polls, or when they're sinking in the polls and predict no improvement. Or anything like that.

That is, an election is called when the governing party thinks it has the best chance of winning it.

It's not about hitting the 5 year mark, it's about getting re-elected.

And sometimes it bites them in the ass.

(Not often, but you end up with a leader out of office after just a couple of months. Doesn't happen here without a funeral or a conviction.)

 

[Gruebeard]

And sometimes it bites them in the ass.

(Not often, but you end up with a leader out of office after just a couple of months. Doesn't happen here without a funeral or a conviction.)

That couple of months thing only happens during Minority Governments, though, which are rare in Canada.

 

[Eriol]

That couple of months thing only happens during Minority Governments, though, which are rare in Canada.

The other example would be Kim Campbell, which she was very near the end of the 5 year maximum of the Government she took over, so she HAD to call an election despite only governing herself for less than a year.

 

[Gruebeard]

The other example would be Kim Campbell, which she was very near the end of the 5 year maximum of the Government she took over, so she HAD to call an election despite only governing herself for less than a year.

Oh, yeah.

Although that's more because our system is about electing the government, not just the leader.

That's also an excellent example of how making it to the end of that 5 years isn't a mark of success, since the Progressive Conservatives not only lost the next election by a resounding defeat (winning two! out of ~300 available seats) but they also stopped existing as a party at all, and are now just History.

 

[Eriol]

Oh, yeah.

Although that's more because our system is about electing the government, not just the leader.

That's also an excellent example of how making it to the end of that 5 years isn't a mark of success, since the Progressive Conservatives not only lost the next election by a resounding defeat (winning two! out of ~300 available seats) but they also stopped existing as a party at all, and are now just History.

The fascinating part about that particular election is that on the day they called the election, they were supposed to win. Their popularity went down so much that they lost. Not from majority (160+ seats) to 2, but just because they had so many votes taken from them in battleground ridings. Popular vote wasn't as bad.

According to wiki, this was the popular vote for that election, along with seat totals:

Liberal - 41.24% - 177 seats
Bloc 13.52% - 54 seats
Reform 18.69% - 52 seats
NDP 6.88% - 9 seats
PC 16.04% - 2 seats

One of the best examples of "distorted" numbers from First-Past-the-Post systems that there is. No doubt that the Liberals won, but not a majority, and a party that went to 2 seats when they had the 3rd-highest number of votes.

 

[DarkAudit]

The fascinating part about that particular election is that on the day they called the election, they were supposed to win. Their popularity went down so much that they lost. Not from majority (160+ seats) to 2, but just because they had so many votes taken from them in battleground ridings. Popular vote wasn't as bad.

According to wiki, this was the popular vote for that election, along with seat totals:

Liberal - 41.24% - 177 seats
Bloc 13.52% - 54 seats
Reform 18.69% - 52 seats
NDP 6.88% - 9 seats
PC 16.04% - 2 seats

One of the best examples of "distorted" numbers from First-Past-the-Post systems that there is. No doubt that the Liberals won, but not a majority, and a party that went to 2 seats when they had the 3rd-highest number of votes.

That's a great big case of apples and oranges you've got there. National vote totals don't mean squat when the seats are all individual races. Win by 1 vote or 100,000, you still win ONE seat. Lose by 1 or 100,000, you still lost ONE seat.

 

[Eriol]

That's a great big case of apples and oranges you've got there. National vote totals don't mean squat when the seats are all individual races. Win by 1 vote or 100,000, you still win ONE seat. Lose by 1 or 100,000, you still lost ONE seat.

Dark, that's exactly what I was talking about in the final sentence of the post you quoted, about how national numbers don't reflect seats, often radically.

 

[Eriol]

Interesting on security vs rights legislation: National security vs individual freedoms: How the Liberals aim to strike a balance

My favorite quote from the article is this:

"Canadians have made it very clear that they don't trust the NDP with their safety and they don't trust the Conservatives with their rights," Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said in the Commons.

It's a good burn, because while I might not agree with the analysis, I agree that it's what most people believe.

Honestly, I'd need to go through the thing line-by-line. IMO a lot of these things look fine-ish, but the devil is in the details. Unfortunately a lot of "the debate" often comes down to "well I don't trust (insert party here) with the ability to do (X), but when MY party gets in, I trust them!" So I always try and look at "what could be done with this power" rather than "this is how we intend/say we'll use this power" that is in legislation.

Add to that my opinion that the federal Liberals are basically the "we'll say anything to get elected, then do what our benefactors pay us to do" party (even more so than the others), and my natural distrust is there. That being said, no "big" red flags IMO, and the conservative opposition unfortunately is just saying "look at how bad stuff is, we can't be 'weakening' things now!" Give a real criticism on how things may be mis-used, not just FUD people.

 

[Eriol]

This is utterly disgusting:

Because remember, beat your wife with a hockey stick for HALF AN HOUR and that's only worth 8 days because nobody explained to them when they entered the country that beating your wife is against the law.



Then it gets worse. After a tweet highlighting this story, the federal minister for immigration's statements:

Social media erupted after Ms. Leitch tweeted Sunday: “A battered wife and a bloodied hockey stick. That’s the legacy of Trudeau’s Syrian refugee program,” quoting and including a link to a Toronto Sun column about a Syrian refugee in Fredericton who beat his wife with a hockey stick. Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said Ms. Leitch’s tweet is as disgraceful as domestic violence itself.

“It’s [domestic violence] clearly something that we abhor and we condemn. What Ms. Leitch is doing is equally reprehensible because she’s tying in a problem that exists everywhere – both in refugee communities and in … our society. This is a problem that many societies grapple with. She’s tying that in with our refugee policy,” Mr. Hussen said in an interview with The Globe and Mail on Monday.

Remember, Tweeting about not screening refugees who might have somewhat... different? Ya let's go with different "views" on women's rights and/or domestic violence. Tweeting about that, and blaming the deficiencies in the refugee program is the same as actually committing those violent acts yourself.

Speech is not the same as actual heinous violence. No matter how heinous the speech (which this isn't) it's still far different than actual violence, which was committed.

 

[Covar]

So ignorance is an excuse for the law in Canada? Sounds like some fun times could be had.

 

[DarkAudit]

Can the prosecution appeal sentences in Canada?

 

[Eriol]

Can the prosecution appeal sentences in Canada?

My thought on that is "no" but IANAL. I think @Frank would be the person to ask, since he's at least a part of the Criminal Law system, IIRC.

 

[Denbrought]

Can the prosecution appeal sentences in Canada?

Wikipedia thinks so, at least.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms includes provisions such as section 11(h) prohibiting double jeopardy. However, this prohibition applies only after an accused person has been "finally" convicted or acquitted. Canadian law allows the prosecution to appeal an acquittal: if the acquittal is thrown out, the new trial is not considered to be double jeopardy, as the verdict of the first trial would have been annulled. In rare circumstances, a court of appeal might also substitute a conviction for an acquittal. This is not considered to be double jeopardy, either – in this case, the appeal and subsequent conviction are deemed to be a continuation of the original trial.

For an appeal from an acquittal to be successful, the Supreme Court of Canada requires that the Crown show that an error in law was made during the trial and that the error contributed to the verdict. It has been suggested that this test is unfairly beneficial to the prosecution. For instance, lawyer Martin Friedland, in his book My Life in Crime and Other Academic Adventures, contends that the rule should be changed so that a retrial is granted only when the error is shown to be responsible for the verdict, not just a factor.

A notable example of this is Guy Paul Morin, who was wrongfully convicted in his second trial after the acquittal in his first trial was vacated by the Supreme Court of Canada.
In the Guy Turcotte case, for instance, the Quebec Court of Appeal overturned Turcotte's not criminally responsible verdict and ordered a second trial after it found that the judge committed an error in the first trial while giving instructions to the jury. Turcotte was later convicted of second-degree murder in the second trial.

 

[Gruebeard]

So ignorance is an excuse for the law in Canada? Sounds like some fun times could be had.

Where do you get that at all?

Can the prosecution appeal sentences in Canada?

There's probably not much need, too.

The sentence doesn't seem wildly out of line with other cases. I'm not gonna go full @stienman here, but here's a pertinent set of statistics from a very reputable source

According to the linked police-court file, offenders convicted of spousal violence [38] were less likely than other convicted violent offenders to receive prison (19% versus 29%) (see figure 1). When examining specific offences, the difference in the probability of prison between spousal violence offenders and other violent offenders still exists but is smaller. For common assault, the most frequently occurring offence, 17% of convicted spouses received prison, compared to 21% of other violent offenders. The difference was similar for aggravated assault: 32% for family violence offenders and 36% for other violent offenders.

This guy, according to the Sun column, got 8 days in prison along with probation. That makes him one of those 17% mentioned at the end of my quote. And that was with pleading guilty (which often helps reduce a sentence). This guy's sentence makes it look to me like he was dealt with as though his crime was worse than average domestic assault, so I can't see how appealing the sentence is gonna be meaningful.

---------

Also, That Sun column that Kellie Leitch referred to was just using this case to attack our refugee policy.

And Kellie Leitch was using it to incite hate and fear in an assolish grab for popularity and votes. She can just fuck off.

 

[strawman]

I'm not gonna go full @stienman here

I LIIIIIVE!

/blurry eyes

What's all this then?

/googles

Eh. I can't find any non biased news sources that provide the details of the case. All I've heard was "hockey stick", "blood", and "30 minutes", and most of the sources appear to be anti-refugee sites crowing over the idea that they were right all along and the country should WARBLGLARBLEADJFLSJA.

How long was she in surgery after the beating? How many broken bones? Any long term effects (brain damage, internal organ damage, etc)? Were there significant facial injuries that will result in permanent disfigurement? All of these will result in a heavier sentence. I mean, I know cases of bar room altercations lasting longer that resulted in both significant life-long injury and resulted in no jail time, and unfortunately (for those calling for more jail time) and fortunately (for those seeking some semblance of "justice") the details of the case do matter.

Can it be considered torture? That's a heavier sentence.

Is it his first offence? That's a lighter sentence.

Did she ask for leniency during trial (usually the biggest reasons family/spousal abusers get off more easily)?

Is there a situation where she cannot support herself and their family, and as the primary breadwinner it might be in the best interest of the family to force anger management, probation, and a host of other oversight (possible separation) until either he reforms or she finds a better living situation?

Is he considered a danger to society in general? Heavier sentence.

Does the event and his testimony suggest this is a one time and/or rare event? Lighter sentence.

I expect those are answered by the court transcript itself. Would be an interesting read... but I'm not going to spend time reading it. Maybe someone else can and then get back to us.

Or, you know, just WARBLGLARBLEADJFLSJA away, it's the in thing to do. (not directed to anyone in particular, more a response to the news stories)

 

[@Li3n]

I don't know what y'all are complaining about, he was clearly trying to assimilate to the local culture by using a hockey stick.

...

But seriously now, how is that an issue with immigration, as opposed to being one with your justice system?