bk59

That is gibberish. If they are both predetermined to win then nothing either one of them could do would change the outcome. If your point is that the person from Quebec should go to Alberta, that also makes no sense. Unless you want the entire Canadian population to move to Alberta. Again, this makes no sense. First, manufacturing is not a resource. Neither is shipping. Comparing the current demand for oil to the current demand for iron ore is a bit ridiculous. Also, the "age" of a province/society/etc. has almost nothing to do with its economy. It's like saying all older people must be more wealthy than all younger people (unless they screwed up along the way). It obviously does not make a lot of sense. Life just isn't like that.

OK... if you say so. It was you who said the ultimate job of the judicial system was to punish. No one had been talking about punishment before that. But I suppose you can believe whatever you want. Absolute unwavering sentences will never give you justice. You can't tailor any punishments to fit a crime with inflexible rules. As for why we had rigid sentences... well... that's a nice theory you have there. Unfortunately that's all it is. The term also used to include the right to not have your property searched without valid authority. But you don't seem to have a problem with changing the term when it suits your views. Here's an idea. Why not, in a democracy, we have a system where the people themselves can participate in the justice system and judge for themselves if someone accused of a crime is guilty or innocent? That seems democratic. Wait, you want me to waste my time finding statistics that prove your point? Of course I haven't produced any statistics. I was pointing out that you haven't produced any! Yes, statistics can be manipulated. But they are still more reliable than your anecdotal evidence about how you read the newspaper and therefore know all about the justice system. And yet you want to change the entire justice system because you read the newspaper and based on that information feel that the whole system is beyond hope. I don't know. Is this a rhetorical question? Is this something you made up? Or did you want to add some more information so that the rest of us can figure out what you are talking about? OK, you're a part of society. But drastically changing our justice system in the way you propose needs a bit more support than "I'm a member of society and I think the justice system is broken therefore we need to change everything." Lucky for me that is not what I was referring to. Call me crazy, but I do happen to think that the justice system should have justice as its goal. I'd even go so far as to say that I think the legal system should have justice as its goal. Although we should all thank you for that last line. It was pretty funny. Look, I can see that some sentences should be more severe in some cases. But that doesn't mean the whole system is totally broken. First, having a jury determine your guilt or innocence at a criminal trial is one of those human rights you were talking about above. So getting rid of it just because you think it is inconvenient isn't a persuasive argument. Second, in Canada, most civil trials do not use juries. Partially because the cases were quite complicated. Also, doing away with civil jury trials was more acceptable to most people because what is at stake in a civil trial generally isn't as important as what is at stake in a criminal trial. So the human rights factor is lessened in civil trials when it comes to being judged by your peers. Willing to experiment and reform is one thing. Wanting to change things without valid reasons or even understanding how they might affect the system is quite another thing. No. The committee is not just appointed by the government. Please take another look at my post or the links I provided. Using the positions filled by the law society as an example, the law society nominates a list of people who it wants on the committee. The government chooses from that list. But they are required to choose someone that the law society has already approved of. By saying that the government controls who is on the committee you are implying that the government controls the law society and who they put on their list. Your disdain for lawyers is quite apparent. And your bias is not worth debating. Why don't you throw other stereotypes in there? Do you think all police officers are fat, doughnut-eating incompetents who just joined up for the power trip? Or maybe you'd like to call all people who believe in a religion fanatic nutjobs? Having people self select means that some will apply just because they want the authority. But the application process can, and does, weed many of those out. When a committee or government goes about selecting people where are the checks and balances that they just won't stack the bench for their own political goals? And where do the elections fit in there? Don't people running for an office have to self select? I'm sure that is a comfort to those who have been wrongfully accused or imprisoned. Not to mention the fact that once a person has gone to trial the police have made those decisions. That does not mean that an impartial judge is no longer required. Particularly when that judge also has to judge the police methods. When one member of the Hell's Angels steals $100 the individual member is punished by the legal system. But the group does not get to keep the $100. It is taken away because the group does not get to benefit from one member's wrongdoing. Same with the police. Once evidence is collected through illegal methods that evidence is just like the $100. The Hell's Angels don't get to keep their illegally gotten goods. Neither do the police. Finally. Access to justice is definitely worth talking about here. Because yes, the legal system is hard to access. There is small claims court, which is fairly accessible, but for anything more than that, the price certainly does jump. Improving access to justice will take money to improve legal aid services. More money than current governments seem wiling to spend. Even the federal government cancelled an excellent access to justice program about a year ago. Back to basics. First, due process does not mean "following the present rules, whatever they happen to be." Far from it. Due process means that there are certain minimum standards that must be met. If the rules don't meet those minimum standards then you still don't have due process. Just look up the word "due" if you don't believe me. As an adjective it means "adequate" or "of the proper quality". Therefore due process is "adequate process" not "follow the rules whatever they are". Which makes most of your last point about due process off base. But it is interesting the positions that you take. You don't like how human rights have changed, but you have no problem changing the human right of due process. Particularly the aspect of it that requires evidence be collected legally, with search warrants.

Canadians are definitely getting screwed by the cell phone companies up here. The "system access fee" is a great example. On top of paying the regular bill to access the system, we then have the privilege of paying an extra fee. This text messaging plan was a particularly bad idea. Since when do consumers have to pay for something that someone else does? If they really are losing money (which let's face it, they aren't), then charge more for sending a text, not receiving one.

Let's start with our ideas of the justice system. You said: So when you ask what I believe your definition of a justice system is, well... so far I have to believe that it is the definition you gave me (and everyone else on this forum). YOUR previous definition of the justice system ignored the civil aspect of the legal system. It only focused on punishment. I'm glad to see that you recognize the other aspects of a justice system when you say that you can agree with lesser punishment or diversion where the circumstances warrant it. And where you can agree that there are areas of law where punishment has no place at all. When you previously wrote about the justice system it came across as a "only punishment will do" type of justice system. Perhaps. And maybe there is even a case that more severe sentencing should be used in general. I'm not going to debate that here (I might even agree with you a little bit). But even if that were so, it does not warrant changing our legal system in the way you envision. Nothing you are proposing prevents judges or lay people from handing down the sentences that they think are appropriate within the law. Which is more or less the exact same as what we have when judges issue sentences today. "Massive injustice"... you do like to use hyperbole don't you? Hardly unrecognizable. Besides, I was talking about your attempts to remake the entire justice system. You have now taken the post only in reference to sentencing. And even then, there are principles used in sentencing that are used today that would not be foreign to a judge fifty years ago. The fact is, you want to replace the judge & jury system that has existed for centuries. And based on what? Well... it appears based on not much. Exactly. The range is there for a reason. That applies to both ends of the range. And when a judge looks at all of the facts before them, they will make a determination. What makes you think that people are going to be any different under your system? The judges will still look at all of the facts of the case and make a determination. What the community would want to see is not always just either. We can circle these examples all day. At the end of the day all we are going to agree on is that there are some cases where punishment should be emphasized and some cases where punishment should not be emphasized. That discussion has almost nothing to do with the drastic reforms you want to make. Those in a position to judge, after being educated on what the law is and looking at all of the specific facts, will probably give similar sentences in many circumstances. There will still be cases that have what you would consider inappropriate sentences. And here is where some of our problems lie. The bottom line here is that: 1) You think every single murder, manslaughter and severe assault case gets reported in the media. 2) You think that reading newspapers over a lifetime is equivalent to looking at actual statistics. 3) You actually believe that the media are reporting 100% accurately and 100% of the information. While I'm sure that most serious crimes are reported, I'm sure that many are only reported in the local area where it is of interest. You better be reading a lot of newspapers every day. And maybe you do. Who am I to say? You might also want to consider the fact that newspapers print articles that they think people want to read. By printing a story it has to have at least some "attention grabbing" aspects. The newspapers will not print stories that they don't think will attract attention. So if all you are reading is newspapers, how do you know there aren't cases out there that they aren't reporting? Reading a newspaper is not the same as actually looking and comparing the real numbers. Memory plays tricks on us over time. And everyone always remembers the past being better than it was. And finally, the media don't report all the details of a case. A judge will look at all of the facts regarding the situation and the people. Newspapers just print "X was convicted of Y". It will give some details, but not nearly the information that (for example) a judge will get from a pre-sentence report. It is very easy to get a distorted view of a specific case just by reading a newspaper article. And let's face it, a lot of times the media just plain gets it wrong. Have you ever been on the inside of a story and then read an article in a paper about it? Or seen a news report? It happens more often than you think that someone actually involved in the story will be able to pick out mistakes and misstatements. The media doesn't do it on purpose (I think), but these things happen. It appears that most of your opinions are based on media reports. I would be hesitant to suggestion a massive overhaul of the justice system just because I've been reading the newspaper for years and don't like what I see. I can agree with that, right up until you suggest harming people severely solely on the basis that someone else has been harmed severely. I don't buy into the eye for an eye garbage. You have made a general statement. I can easily think of examples that poke holes in that statement (think severe harm caused by someone who mistakenly thinks they need to defend themselves). You seem like a reasonable enough person that could agree that would require a lesser sentence. So why not just rid of that one sentence about people who harm need to be harmed? Then we can get back to deciding on each case individually. Which (again) is what judges right now do. So you can argue that you think they need to be a bit harsher without saying let's destroy the Canadian justice system. Yes yes... you don't agree with "them" therefore they must be totally crazy and from another planet. Judges are not an evil "them". Nor does this help your position in any way. Where there are jury trials, yes. But you want to get rid of them. Although truthfully I'm still not sure why that is. Why do you want to get rid of juries? I happen to think that when you elect people to the bench there is the temptation to be less impartial. Nothing you have said has convinced me otherwise. In fact, it is quite curious that you have so little faith in judges who are experienced in the law and who take the time to look at all of the facts of a case, but you have complete faith in someone who would have to pander to voters in order to get elected, has less experience in the law and who also would take the time to look at all of the facts of a case. To me you just come across as anti-establishment and are looking for any alternative even if it won't actually fix the problems you see in the current system. So, when a law society gives the Attorney General a list of nominees for positions on the committee you think this is the government stacking the committee? You think the government "entirely controls" the committee? And the law society? At some point you are going to have to take off the tin foil hat. The government does not control everything. In fact, I think you'd have a greater risk of having political people run for your elected judge positions than you do of having political people end up on the bench today. Why? Because political people love to run for things. And judges today are vetted (not 100% by the government as you would like to believe). Let's be honest here, that doesn't sound practical at all. And would make the process even more open to political abuse. All of a sudden the evil government is only approaching the people it wants to see as judges. Besides, it doesn't even account for the number of people who take pay cuts when they become a judge. All this shows is your bias against judges. You appear to think they are just people who couldn't make it as lawyers. The job of the police is to build a case against a suspect and do what they can, within the law, to put them in jail. The role of a judge is to objectively weigh evidence, hear the legal arguments, and issue fair sentences. These are not the same purposes. It is not that far fetched to think that a police representative would be more favourable towards judges that are less impartial and more pro-police. It might have helped had you not cut my sentence in half. Then you would have realized that I was taking issue not with the fact that your example could be real, but with the fact that it is an uncommon situation as compared to examples of police breaking the rules to get information from a suspect. Assuming we do not count wishful thinking, day dreams or "Leave it to Beaver", there was never a time like that in the entire history of humanity. As for all this stuff about a police state... We have long accepted the principle that no one should benefit from their wrongful behaviour. No one. Not even the police. If the police break the law then they don't get to reap the rewards of that breach of trust. It doesn't matter if you put the individual officer away or not. Why? Because it was not just the individual, but also the institution that broke the law. If the criminal breaks something then yes, you can sue him. If he steals something then yes, you can sue him. If the police were to break down my front door with no cause, you're darn right it will be the police who pay to fix it. If the police detain you for no reason at all so that they can go on a fishing expedition then you bet you can sue them for wrongful imprisonment. If a criminal breaks the law he should be punished appropriately. If you don't think fear of being arrested, fined or imprisoned will stop criminals from arbitrarily breaking into houses then I'm not sure where you're coming from. Oh... wait... that logic doesn't quite work does it? I mean, if it did, we wouldn't have to have a debate about how to deal with criminals. Never mind the fact that another poster here has also brought up the issue of how much they trust the police to prosecute the police. And that is violating the person's due process rights. It really is that simple. Due process means that you cannot gather evidence against a person without following the law. You want to use evidence that was illegally obtained. That means you are doing away with due process. I'm not sure how to make that more clear.

I don't have time to go through all three issues, so I'll just write a response to the last one for now. Well, what you said is more of a subset of what I said. I think the goal of a justice system is as I stated it. One of the mechanisms a society can use to accomplish that goal is punishment. But that is just one mechanism. By focussing your definition of justice on a single mechanism rather than on the overall goal, you risk ignoring crucial elements of any justice system. Rehabilitation efforts are crucial. It is not unheard of for a so-called minor criminal (e.g. a thief) to turn into a hardened criminal while in prison (e.g. comes out and starts assaulting people and/or increased rather than decreased thieving). Your definition/mechanism would be satisfied in those cases - the person would have been punished. My definition/goal would not be satisfied - society would be worse off. This is just one example, and certainly does not apply to every criminal out there, but shows why I think a definition of a justice system should be oriented towards the goal of bettering society overall and not simply the mechanism of punishing people. Of course your definition also ignores the civil aspect of the justice system. It may be fine to say that criminals should be punished, but what does that mean when two people have a contract dispute? Particularly where no one is guilty of malfeasance. There are areas of the law where the point is not to punish at all, but the point is to just restore the losses that someone may have suffered (as an example). The point is to be fair to people and help them get on with their lives, not to punish someone. So I am not saying that you are "wrong" with your definition, but you can see why I think that trying to redefine justice and/or change our entire legal system is more difficult than you might think. Our system is based on centuries of history and refinements. We don't need to just throw that away because we can find a few examples of where the system doesn't work. No matter what system you have there will be examples of wrongs that weren't righted, etc. Every system needs refining. But your proposals go a bit far (in my opinion - others are certainly entitled to disagree!). Maybe because the entire point of a judge is to decide what the punishment / remedy ought to be in the criminal and civil contexts? I mean... that is their job. If they don't do that, then what is the point of having a judge? If there is a range of remedies available, then any remedy on that range is valid. As for your observations, is that based on media reports or is that based on actually going through judgments? Without undertaking a huge review of the entire system, I would think that your observations must be limited to only the attention grabbing cases and not the run-of-the-mill stuff that gets churned out every day. But I could be wrong. Maybe you have seen a study of sentencing in the criminal justice system. In that case you have to ask yourself, if an educated person, looking at all of the facts of the case, decides on an appropriate sentence, why should they increase that sentence simply because a politician in Ottawa has made a longer sentence available? Appeals courts are there to correct any huge error made by a judge not to simply modify sentences. It is the judge's job to apply the sentence the judge thinks most appropriate in the circumstances. They should not be handing out sentences expecting an appeals court to reconsider every case for them. In fact, an appeals court is limited in what it can do. Since the judge is the one who hears the evidence, appeals courts are generally bound to follow the judge's opinion on the facts of what actually happened. So if a person thinks a more lenient (or tougher) sentence is required based on the facts of the situation, an appeals court will generally be unable to do anything about it, unless the facts were clearly ignored by the judge (in which case the judge did not do his or her job very well). I would rather have someone trying to act impartial on the bench. Someone educated in the law. See, this is why we have juries. To act as representatives of society. But in the role of judge? There is a reason we require judges to be lawyers and to have at least ten years experience practicing the law before they can apply to be a judge. I have bad news and good news for you. The bad news is that your understanding of the present system is incorrect. I can't give you names that the government wanted and the committee rejected because that's not how it works. The good news is that the government has already implemented the system you proposed. This is what I tried to say in my earlier posts. I will try to be more clear here. As an example, for the Ontario Court of Justice, applicants apply to a committee. The committee makes a short list, conducts interviews and then gives a ranked list of recommendations to the Ontario government. Look here under the heading "Process". Similarly, for the Ontario Superior Court, a committee looks at the candidates and then makes its recommendations to the federal Minister of Justice. The Minister of Justice then makes his or her recommendations to the cabinet. See here and see here. With respect to the appointments for the Superior Court, there was a big issue recently when Harper decided to put more representatives of the law enforcement community on the committees. It was felt that this would compromise the effectiveness of the committees since law enforcement is not exactly impartial in the process (and they are not supposed to be impartial). So you might want to argue about the composition of some of these committees, but you have the general process backwards. The government does not submit a list to the committees first. Resorted, eh? You mean like how you resorted to an example where a police officer illegally breaks into a house and just happens to find a blood soaked murderer? Who was apparently having a nice little nap? And you consider that a "real life example" that is somehow more common than forced confessions? No offence, but I think there are more examples of forced confessions than police officers finding blood soaked murderers by breaking into a house. You are essentially advocating a police state, where police can do what they want as long as they "get results". Our justice system long ago did away with the maxim "the ends justify the means". What happens when the police bust in and the blood happens to be from someone (or something) other than a murder victim? What happens when they illegally break in and find no evidence at all? You say the officer should be punished. Fair enough. Now we have a police officer in jail for a while. Of course now we also have to compensate the victim of the officer's crime. First, let's be clear. You are doing away with due process. Due process requires, among other things, the police to have a valid search warrant in order to enter a house. Your example above says no search warrant is necessary as long as the police "get results". That is doing away with due process - a concept that has been refined over centuries and continues to be refined. You have already advocated that police can randomly search people whenever they want. So what rules are there on police in those situations? You want to get rid of what we have, but I can't see what you want to replace it with. Aside from a presumption that alleged criminals do not have the same rights to privacy, security, etc. that everyone else has. Which also nicely does away with the concept of innocent until proven guilty.

Ontario tried a program like this back in 2000. Link here. It was meant to attract doctors to underserviced areas in Ontario. I don't know if the program is still running or not. Even if it was, it would have to be updated since the $40,000 max in 2000 will now only cover 2 or 2.5 years of medical school (I think). Even with this program though, many areas are still underserviced. To really make it work you couldn't just say "anywhere in the nation". You would have to make people go to underserviced areas. And possibly increase the service time from 3 - 4 years to something like 5 years maybe. It would also help if provinces helped universities out a bit more.

I think this is closer to the truth. And is also another reason why putting a user fee on people going to emergency is a bad idea. It won't actually solve the problem. The big difference between McGuinty and Argus is probably the fact that McGuinty has to pay for his plan. Argus does not. Remember what happened when the healthcare tax was introduced in Ontario? (Hint: people were not happy.) Now I'm not saying that McGuinty has done the best possible job ever. But it's very easy to agree with the sentiment "let's spend as much money as it takes" when you aren't the one trying to figure out how much it will actually cost and then trying to collect from a province full of people.

At least you are honest about this. I was worried that you might come back with some odd theory about how this could all be paid for and we could get a 200% tax cut as well. Again, I'd like to see where the data comes from that shows how a "very small group" are causing huge financial problems for the system. And again, does the fee get waived for someone who goes to a hospital in good faith thinking something is wrong? Do you have to get put on a list, and the third time you show up then you get fined? I have not seen these studies of yours, but it looks like your proposed solution may cause just as many or more problems than it would solve. Particularly in the "red tape" department. Did you mean optometrists? The problem with people seeing optometrists more than once every two years was that these were regular checkups. The problem you described above is people thinking they have a problem and then going to emergency unnecessarily. They aren't going to get yearly physicals (although that is probably a good idea for most people...). Those are two different sets of problems. You can tell someone they can only go to emergency once a year, but when there is an emergency, they aren't going to wait until next year to meet that quota. Nor should people have to. Different regions have different healthcare needs. From the municipal level to the provincial level to the problems that we face nationwide. If all you are going to do is recreate the same bureaucracy to deal with these issues, but then add a federal level on top of that, then the suggestion will cost more than it saves. At some level in our system, it isn't just $X per Y people. Someone decides what priorities to focus on. And those "someones" will have to be at the provincial and municipal levels. So what does your federal level add? Or take away? I am asking just to get details. I am not necessarily opposed to a federal healthcare system, but there are many forms that this could take - not all of them desirable. I searched for demographics limited to your postings. Only found one link to an Ontario government site, but the link was dead (page not found). Unless I missed other links... If you have it handy please link it. If not, well... that's OK, but please understand that it makes it harder for me to come around to your way of thinking without seeing actual data that says immigration is hurting us. A poll of people who think immigration is bad really means nothing. I'm sure someone could generate a poll that says people have "discomfort" with UFOs. That doesn't mean we need to start a multi-billion dollar anti-UFO program. Superficial, eh? Are they superficial because you don't agree with them, or for some other reason? Because they certainly are not pointless. Ontario will need more workers for the reasons laid out in the article. Baby boomers are retiring, birth rates are not keeping up, and the economy is growing (i.e. there are more jobs available). Without those workers jobs will go unfilled, etc. Now I can agree with you on the point that we don't need to simply be focused on attaining a number for no reason (i.e. I don't support people who say that we need more than 11% growth just because they say so). But the simple fact is that when you look at industries like the construction industry in Canada, people are saying that we are short workers. And we will continue to be short skilled workers when a large chunk of the current work force retires. Is your answer simply going to be that we just stop building those houses? Slow down or stop building infrastructure projects that need to be completed? I don't mean to beat a dead horse here, but... you oppose the data in the article because you don't like the 200% figure (which didn't really have much to do with the numbers anyway), and you didn't like that figure because "data on family wealth and disposable incomes" show... something? But no link to that data. You don't have to cite everything, but so far the only numbers that have appeared in this thread show that stopping all immigration would be a bad thing for our economy. And responses that claim to have support in data, but that don't show that data, seem a bit weak. I'm not trying to be offensive, but even a single article would help clarify your point. Actually I would say that the point of the justice system is to make life safer and fair for everyone, as much as such a thing is possible. Sometimes that means punishment. But sometimes that means rehabilitation. And sometimes, when people read a biased report in a paper they want punishment when what the situation really calls for is rehabilitation. And sometimes, when people read a biased report in a paper they want rehabilitation when what the situation really calls for is punishment. All I'm saying is that sometimes the right decision will not be the popular decision. Sometimes there will be pressure to appease the masses rather than do what is right for the people involved. It won't always happen, but elections increase the chance that those situations, when they do arise, will not be handled well. You claimed it would be a "unique election" with "no platform or particular policy for the candidate to be running on". Is this no longer your position? Because these types of elections would be politicized faster than you could say "go vote". No, all lawyers are definitely not qualified. And these committees weed out many of them. In many cases the committees will, at the very least, give a short list of only a few names to the government out of many applications. So the committees are doing more than just checking to see if a lawyer has paid his yearly dues. They have to decide who rises to the top of the batch. Which brings us back to the question, if the government has "final approval" in your system, what is the difference? Does the committee just decide on one name then? Is this the only thing you really want to change? Well I, and many others, are not OK with police doing whatever they want. I happen to think that if a cop beats "information" out of a suspect then maybe that information isn't that reliable. After enough beatings you would confess to murdering someone just to make the officer stop. Does that mean you, in that situation, should be convicted of murder? And then the police officer fired and sent off to jail for a lesser period of time? Seems a bit odd to have a system that would allow an innocent person to go to jail for life while the person who beat the false confession out of him only gets five years. I think you may need to rethink this one. Well, right there you just showed the hole in your argument. Two people can watch the same movie and one would call it art and the other would call it pornography. So I'm not sure that everyone "knows what it is". Likewise, I and many others think that people have the right to due process and that this right is essential for a fair justice system. But that right involves putting restrictions on what police can and cannot do. Something which you would do away with.

Health Care Your healthcare proposals all seem to involve "greatly increased funding". Where exactly is this money coming from? Or is this just a wish list? Let's assume it's a wish list so that we don't have to debate how to get from our current system to your proposed system. So... "small user fees" for "non emergency" visits? If a parent is legitimately worried that their child is sick, and it turns out to be a "non emergency" do we really want to slap a fine on them? This could have a chilling effect on people, particularly if they are poor. I'm not sure we want to discourage people from seeking healthcare when they are doing so in good faith. I am similarly skeptical about how a privately run clinic will be part of the public healthcare system. I am also curious to see how you think a national healthcare system should be set up to deal with local healthcare issues without essentially duplicating much of the system we have now. Immigration. Could you please link to this demographic data you are referring to? Was the poll mentioned above a poll of the general population? If so, then people believing that immigration should be cut does not count as "proof" that immigration is too high. It just tells you what people believe, not what the actual situation is. A lot of what I have seen contradicts what you are saying. As one example, please read this article. It looks like the data shows we are not bringing in enough people (or having enough babies). Justice This election idea really does not sound like a good plan. It would create the temptation to give popular decisions in order to get re-elected rather than good decisions. Wisdom and good judgment are so subjective and a person's history in this regard cannot be separated from a platform or particular policy. As one example, some people would say that supporting mandatory minimums is good judgment, others would say this is simply supporting a particular policy. Isn't this extremely similar to what we already have now (if not identical)? Where a committee reviews applications from lawyers who want to be judges and then passes on the recommended names to the government who has the final approval? The Constitution applies to the judiciary as much as it applies to the Parliament. So how exactly would judges "defer to the basic elements of justice" if we are not talking about the Constitution (also see my last question below)? What do you mean with that last part of the quote (issues of "apprehension of prosecution")? Are you saying that police should do whatever they want in order to get an alleged criminal behind bars and that we shouldn't care about that? My apologies if that is not what you are saying. How would you suggest doing that? As in, how would you define justice? I think you might find that once you try this, you may come to realize that the system we have right now is pretty good. Even when you include the judicial decisions that you don't like.

Actually, no, you don't need reasonable grounds to sue someone. To sue someone all you need is about $200 and some paper filed with a court. To go to trial you need to have something worth having a trial about. To win you need to be right (or as close to right as you can get in a court). But to sue someone? You really don't need anything at all. And the Crown has absolutely nothing to do with civil suits. Except you apparently don't mind it when MPs are able to "utter slander and libel with impunity" just because they are MPs in their seats in the House? Personally, I would love to see MPs actually do business in the House. Stuff like actually debate issues, or maybe even work together to get something useful done. Perhaps this is expecting too much from our current crop of elected officials. I guess my bottom line is, why bother suing the Liberals over this? It's a big waste of time and money. Did the Liberals say something mean about poor PM Harper? Ah, that's a shame. He gets as much sympathy from me as PM Martin or PM Chretien did when the Conservatives or Reform Party said something mean about them.

Oh yes, because the whole world envies the justice systems of places like Iran and even China where rights are ignored and punishments are severe.

Never said it was just one person. But the opposite side of the coin is that I know many people who think our justice system is one of the best in the world. No one is necessarily right or wrong, because let's face it - no system is perfect. But Argus' post was nothing more than drivel. The equivalent of "I think X is bad. Everyone who disagrees with me must be immoral. Everyone from party Y is immoral." You'll have to forgive me if when I got up this morning I felt like calling BS on that post. Of course, as far as our justice system is concerned, I do have to wonder about the people who simply declare that it is "broken". Many people may not think the system is perfect, but consider the system far from "broken". In fact, our justice system has served as an example to other countries where people have either come to see our system in action, or Canadians have gone to other countries to teach about our system. Perhaps it isn't so bad after all.

Hmm, Gomery himself said there was no evidence that Chretien was involved in stealing money, simply that he should be blamed because he set up the program. One would think that had he found evidence he would have brought it up. Where exactly is your overwhelming evidence? Thinking for yourself is not the same as being able to think rationally. Ah, more reasoned debate, without resorting to gross generalizations or hyperbole. The hallmark of any great internet forum post.

Actually I don't think many people at all have any care or concern with what you think a justice system should look like. Whether they are Liberals or not. Most people are capable of looking at the justice system we have with some objectivity, taking the good and the bad. Yes, yes. And all accountants are boring and all CEOs are evil and all 7/11 stores are run by immigrants... blah blah blah. Sometimes there just isn't anything worth reading on the internet. I guess I should have learned that from these forums by now.

But these actions are a double-edged sword. Yes, they attract media attention. But you are also right to say that governments respond to the general taxpayer. And more often than not, the general taxpayer gets pissed off by blockades, etc., and demand that nothing be given to the Aboriginals involved. The economic hardship on businesses does not just affect party donations, it causes people to lobby the government to not settle with Aboriginal peoples. In many ways these actions hurt the Aboriginals involved as much as it helps them. Action speaks louder than pussy foot negotiations? This perspective is what makes the entire process that much harder to engage in. The two treaties that were mentioned above in this thread are clearly beneficial to the Aboriginal communities involved. Seems to me like the negotiations spoke much louder than anything else that has been tried. As Canadians we obviously need to speed up the process of land claims negotiations and work together to get these issues resolved. This means putting more resources into the process. And it also means avoiding the unnecessary stalling. But to say that government always negotiates in bad faith is misleading and only serves to increase the distrust between the government and Aboriginal communities. When you complain about government spending money on lawyers and defending against the claims you imply that the Aboriginal claims are automatically correct and should simply be agreed to. This is not the reality we live in. Many claims are not successful. This is not because the government stalled, or was simply acting like an a**hole. It was because the claims had no merit based on the historical treaties between the community in question and Canada. It is necessary to defend these claims to ensure that the settlement is fair to everyone. And that really is the key: we must have a system that is fair to everyone. For too long it has been unfair to Aboriginal peoples. That does not mean that we should now go the other way and allow criminal activity to go unpunished, or assume that everything the government does is underhanded and in bad faith.

The best line in your post is the following: "The only way we can be better off is if we work collectively and co-operate." I couldn't agree more. As for the rest, I would mostly agree with you. However I would probably go a bit further. I think defining property and contract law is necessary. But is that enough? I am not sure. We could clearly define property and contract law and still have a system that is unworkable. If property rights only apply to white, adult men for example, I am not sure we can say that a workable system has been created. I would think that the definition of property rights must meet some minimum criteria before we can claim that it is workable. You can easily create a system of property and contract law that disenfranchises large minorities and this would be just as disastrous as having no property or contract law at all. We must also be mindful of what we mean when saying property or contract law. In Western societies the term "law" has a very specific meaning. We talk about legislation and case law, regulations and administrative rulings. I would suggest that we should not impose this thinking on other cultures. Just because another society or culture has a different way of establishing "law" does not mean that they have no "law". Uncodified, social norms can sometimes be more effective in getting parties to adhere to acceptable behaviour than codified law. Simply because a culture does not have a written law, or more precisely does not have a law written in a Western format, does not mean that parties will feel free to break contracts whenever they want (for example). So we should be careful to not impose Western thinking or ways of doing things on others when it is not necessary. Rich country or poor country, we are discussing things at an abstract level. In fact, these ideas have nothing to do with where anyone comes from. However there is a second part to the equation. Simply having a defined property and contract law system (that is fair, etc.) may also not be enough. Without enforcement measures the system could become meaningless. An impartial system for resolving disputes and applying the system is often needed. Again though, we need to be careful not to impose a Western system on other cultures. A society may not have a Western style court system, but this does not mean that there are no enforcement mechanisms. I think we too easily look at another culture and say "They have no property law. They have no contract law." When in fact the reality is that they just don't have a Western style legal system. sharkman's post above is a perfect example. He says: And yet Sharia law, followed in Muslim countries, does have contract law. In fact, it may be that some of the contract law concepts that we still follow today in English, common law countries were actually formulated and followed in Sharia law before they were used in English, common law systems. All of this is to say that having property and contract law is good, but may not adequately address the problem you have identified. Many of these countries do have a system of property and contract law.

Agreed! Besides, I happen to think that even if this is drift, it can't help but raise the level of discussion from where it started in the OP. Most people familiar with the law, at least in common law countries, interpret the phrase "rule of law" to mean that no one is above the law. It is a defined legal concept not open to interpretation based on whatever someone happens to believe. It simply means that government officials must obey the law just like everyone else. It has very little to do with a specific area of law. The rule of law does not really depend on a "referee". What it really says is that the referee must abide by the same rules as the players (if we were to continue your hockey analogy). I only brought this up because you were talking about property and contract law. These are two specific areas of law. I was just trying to make you aware of the fact that when using the phrase "rule of law", people familiar with common law legal systems would interpret that phrase in a very specific way and not the open ended interpretation you were talking about. This was perhaps a minor point, but there it is anyway. I am not as familiar with civil law countries, but it is my understanding that the concept has the same meaning in civil law countries as it does in common law countries. As much as I hate to link to wikipedia, well, here is a link to wikipedia: click here. This is just me being nit picky about your choice of phrase. I'd rather discuss your ideas on property and contract law in my next post.

This treaty and the Nisga'a Treaty are good examples of how we need to address Aboriginal issues. Work with the communities to try to find what works best for everyone. None of these treaties can be used as templates for other communities though. As hard as it may be, we must deal with each community separately. The examples of self-government found in the Nisga'a Treaty are good ideas though. It sets out where the Aboriginal leadership has jurisdiction and where provincial or federal laws apply. I think that these self-government deals are the way of the future.

I'm not sure, but I think you may have misunderstood what I was saying. I am saying that we must all take our fair share of responsibility for the situation that exists today in Aboriginal communities. This would most certainly mean that Canadians must work with these communities as partners, not as Canadians have dealt with these communities in the past (e.g. residential schools). I was arguing against a certain tactic used by some people. Often, when person A says "Europeans have a responsibility for the problems they caused", person B will respond with "Oh, but people like the Aztecs or the Muslims were way worse". Person B's response is nothing but a straw man argument that should not be accepted. It is person B's way of deflecting the argument so that they do not have to take responsibility. And it really isn't helpful to simply say that we are willing to point the finger at the average Canadian. Casting blame for the sake of casting blame is pointless. To help fix the situation we do need to make people aware of their misconceptions, but then offer a way forward, a way to educate people and realize that we are better off working together to solve these issues.

You use a natural disaster to try to show that a society has no respect for human life? Disgusting. Next time why don't you show how Americans have no respect for human life because New Orleans was hit by a hurricane. Or instead of that, next time just leave your moral superiority at home.

Do you have numbers showing how many white, male recruits there were in the years you are talking about? I am curious to see. My gut feeling is that "very limited" might be a bit of an exaggeration, but you may be right. Read what I wrote again. Actually, I will copy & paste for you: No doubt this is an advantage. But this is only one factor that you have chosen to focus on. Many aptitude tests have been found to have ethnic biases. Think IQ tests written by old, white men. Is this a factor? Maybe. Some people do spend years training, volunteering and practicing. What about those who are not able to spend that time? Think of an individual from a visible minority who, because of their socio-economic background, does not have the time or financial resources to prepare to that level before taking the initial tests. This individual may be just as good, or better, after completing RCMP basic training than the white man who spent years volunteering before being accepted to that same basic training. One of the rationales for setting aside spots for people of visible minorities is because in some cases, these people must work much harder to reach the same point in life as a white male (for example). When looking at an individual's complete experience, your 21 point difference in test scores may not accurately reflect the difference between the candidates. Even at a 21 point difference, someone who has had to work harder to get where they are might be a better candidate. As a side note, wanting to be a police officer because of a Hollywood movie is hardly helping your point. In fact, I almost think that wanting to be a police officer because of a movie should count against you. Almost. Do you see how racist you sound? [sarcasm] Obviously the little girls are going to want to play with dolls. Just like all women will want to stay at home, cooking in the kitchen and making babies, right? Women don't really want to vote either. [/sarcasm] As role models appear in the police force, this will encourage others to join. 75% eh? That sounds a bit high. And even if true, completely irrelevant. Where you come from does not determine whether or not you are fit to be a police officer.

This discussion about who is worse than who is pointless. Shall we spend all day comparing Muslim imperialism (post #28) with those European bastards (post #55) with Aztec or Haida slavery (post #58)? Maybe we can throw in some stuff about the Crusades, or Japanese treatment of the Chinese in World War II, or let's even throw in something about the Nazis. This double standard you speak of is a straw man. The conduct of the Aztecs or Muslim empires have nothing to do with the situation facing Aboriginal communities in Canada today. The fact is, when looking at many of the problems found in Aboriginal communities the sources of those problems are primarily the treatment of Aboriginal peoples by non-Aboriginals. In Canada, generally Europeans. The report that started this thread showed the link between the residential school system and incidents of sexual abuse and substance abuse. Shall we blame non-Europeans for the residential school system? This is not to say that we should just point the finger at white Canadians and say "shame on you." And this does not mean that all of the responsibility is on non-Aboriginals. As I have said in earlier posts, there are some Aboriginal leaders who do not serve the best interests of their people. But the only way we can solve the hard issues is by having everyone face their share of the responsibility and then moving on together to find solutions. Nothing is gained by trying to avoid responsibility by claiming that someone, somewhere, in a situation that has nothing to do with the topic under discussion, committed worse acts.

A joke indeed. Maybe you need to look at how the system works before criticizing it. If you fail at the Supreme Court level there is nowhere else to go. The Human Rights Tribunals are BELOW even the provincial courts. They are not above the Supreme Court.

Without getting into your theory on property and contract law and how this affects rich or poor countries, the term "rule of law" does not mean quite what you imply in your post. The "rule of law" generally stands for the principle that no one is above the law, including governments and government officials. It does not relate specifically to property or contract law. The idea has been around for quite some time; the Magna Carta is an example of the principle.

So after reading about this three season drought you are willing to declare the whole country unfit for human habitation? There are many who look at New Orleans as a great example of how to locate a city in a terrible spot, maybe even a spot unfit for human habitation. I guess that means the inhabitants of New Orleans were undeserving of aid after the hurricane destroyed their city? Obviously a country has no (contractual or legal) obligation to help any other country. That does not mean there aren't moral or humanitarian reasons to help others.