Machjo

How many Taiwanese have you met? I've not met many myself, but have met a few in Hong Kong. The one's I'd met definitely considered themselves to be Chinese and definitely held a low opinion of the government in Beijing. I've even met some mainland Chinese (i.e. not Taiwanese) on the mainland itself who also considered Taipei the legitimate government of China.

You didn't read what I typed. Taiwanese law recognizes that Taiwan is a province of China and that the government in Taipei is the rightful government of China presently forced into exile by the Communist-Party-backed illegitimate rebel government in Beijing. Mainland law recognizes Taiwan as a province of China too, but presently ruled by an illegitimate renegade government in Taipei and that the government in Beijing is the rightful government of China. Si both governments recognise one single China. They just don't recognise each others' governments as legitimate. Taiwan is sovereign in practical terms but not ideologically. Ideologically it aspires to an eventual reunification of China with annihilation of the government in Beijing and the repatriation of the Taipei government to Beijing.

Even legally and officially Taiwan recognised one indivisible China with the government in Taibei its legitimate government.

Actually, many Taiwanese still look forward to reunification, but under the government of Taiwan which they regard to be the legitimate government of China.

The Canadian constitution is flawed in so many ways. But given the attitudes of some, a flawed constitution is better than no constitution I suppose. With no constitution, some English Canadians would most certainly try to trample all over its minorities and French Quebecers too.

The Constitution of Canada recognizes the First Nations as Treaty Nations.

As for bilingualism in Quebec, I used to live in central Quebec. I think there is a myth on that front. Very few truly know English well. Many among speak very broken English but always with a risk of misunderstanding and overestimate how well they really know it. Remember that StatsCan is a self-assessment, not an objective assessment based on a language test. Yes, I'd say more French know English than vice versa, but let's not exaggerate it. Most Quebecers would never be able to function on this site for example. The language barrier is still very much there. Consider that we even our fedeal cabinet ministers need an interpreter to communicate between each other.

An interesting historical fact is that Germans sent their children to school in German in Berlin Ontario until WWI. I believe Ukrainians did the same in the prairies. The reason it stopped was not due to the free market but government suppression just as had happened to French. The reality is that English and French are more dominant in Canada than they ever were before. Wawa was the dominant trade language between English, French, indigenous, Spanish, and Chinese throughout the Western side of the Rockies until the turn of the last century. In fact, some English, Chinese, and other traders still did business in Wawa in parts of Seattle until the 1930's! One book, titled Making Wawa, is a fascinating linguistic history of Cascadia both on the Canadian and US side of the border. The only reason everyone is in panic mode today is because we're adjusting to the reconciliation era. After having abrogated the Chinese Exclusion Act, re-allowed French education in English Canada, ended the residential school system, established Nunavut, and now even allow schools and teachers colleges in Nunabut to teach in Inuktitut, and have re-opened our borders somewhat more like they had been prior to confederation, everyone is in panic mode. We're not used to such openness. Ironically enough, our ancestors at the turn of the last century would think even today's Toronto is very English linguistically. They might be shocked at the modern diversity of colours, but Canada is more Anglo-French today than ever in the past. It used to be far more multinational The greater openness we see today is in a sense a return to our past openness.

With China, you need to think outside the box. Here's one thing I could propose in some form or other. A Chinese can obtain a ten-year work and business visa by simply passing a test, and of course China must reciprocate for Canadian citizens. The catch? It would be a test on a general knowledge of the writings of the major world religions. This would totally undermine China's anti-religious propaganda campaign. Canada could play hardball on this: no test, no visa, no visa, you don't enter Canada. Maybe we can make an exception for those under fifteen, compassionate exemptions and refugee claimants, but that's it. A trade war could hurt Canada, but China too. Should the US and EU join in, China would really feel the pressure. We could present a similar deal to Iran, again playing hardball with it. In Iran's case, it would severely undermine decades of anti-Baha'i propaganda.

Question, does recognising the English and French tier in official bilingualism constitute racism?

I was thinking along the lines of Nunavut. Just as English and French are official languages in various parts of Canada, so is Inuktitut in Nunavut. Beyond that though, any one could move to Nunavut, just that knowing the official language would help independently of race.

I actually would support a maximally decentralized multinational state between English, French, and indigenous peoples. Do be fair though, given our advantage in numbers of taxpayers, we might want to give uninhabited land with resources to indigenous nations. That way, they they may have a small tax base, at least they'd have resources to sell. With so many languages though, federal would need an easy language as its official language or at least one of its official languages. But I could definitely support that. Also, with Canada being so decentralized with most power in each province, maybe the federal parliament would be represented by one province one representative, so somewhere around fifty or fifty representatives, but dealing mainly only with foreign and inter-preovincial issues and not much else.

TimG, you hage a point there. Of course Canada has also been criticized for having signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights yet still defends the separate school system for example. Canada could cut a deal with China whereby both sides would agree to conform to that Convention. If China says no, then we say no too, and no deal.

One possibility I cold see would be this: Both sides agree to respect the extradited person's rights as per the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Should either side violate the treaty when dealing with an extradited person, the Treaty becomes null and void. Since it's in China's best interest to maintain the Treaty (as it is in ours), however much China might violate international law when dealing with other arrestees, it would respect the international rights of an extradited person for the sake of the Treaty. China is not a great defender of international human rights, granted, but it's also not stupid and would recognize the value of preserving such a treaty.

One thing I did hear is that apparently they fear that rulings against them set a bad precedent and can undermine the credibility of the police, CBSA, etc. in the eyes of the judge since the next time, if they've lost many cases in the past, there is the risk of a judge thinking oh boy, here we go again, another case with no evidence, even though this time around there may be. In other words, the judge develops a certain prejudice against the police. I don't deny that can hapen, but then again, that's why we abvoid frivolous charges and vindictive appeals. Yes, the judge can develop a prejudice against the police or CBSA and so justquestion their competence. Again, don't bring stupid charges and appeals forward, and judges won't develop such prejudices. In one case, a CBSA officer interviewed a suspect. I'd read the original handwritten interview notes in extremely broken English. The officer had asked a series of questions and then recorded that the suspect did not know the answers. Based on that, she laid the charge. At the bond hearing, the accused proved in the simplest way posible that she knew the answer to the questions by answering them. Now I'm no lawyer so I don't know if it was possible for the CBSA to just drop the charge by then or if there is some legal Rubicon I don't know of that the CBSA had crossed essentially committing them to fight a losing fight. If there is such a legal Rubicon, maybe change the law so that when things like that happen, they have to power to dismiss it then and there.

I wonder if some of it has to do with pride. For example, they make an arrest and a charge, and then scramble to find evidence and there is none. They lose, and they take it personally somehow. In other words, based on prejudice or other reasons, they insist the person must be guilty in spite of all the evidence, they can't take a loss, and so appeal just for the halibut even though they know they'll lose again.

And when the judge rules in the defendant's favour not on some constitutional technicality but because the evidence actually shows that the person really truly was just as the wrong place at the wrong time, why would we then appeal the decision when we already know that the ruling will be the same as before... ok, unless new evidence comes up, maybe. But especially when the evidence shows the person to be innocent, why the hell appeal the decision?

Another stupid piece of taxpayer wastage that I know of. The person was accused of working in Canada without a visa. She won the ruling. The CBSA appealed, meaning that she had to return to Canada to attend a hearing to decide whether to exclude her from Canada for a year. However, the because of backlogs, the appeal hearing itself was rescheduled for over a year later. This meant, ironically enough, that had she lost the first ruling, she could already come back to Canada! Worse yet, like the example above, the CBSA did not have the slightest evidence against her to th point that at the first hearing the judge did not even bother to listen to any witness in her defence or her lawyer's final statement. He jumped to his conclusion after the Minister's counsel's final statement and that was that. In that particular case, after the judge had decided in her favour, the CBSA refused to return her passport until her lawyer had threatened legal consequences to the officer who witholds her passport the next day. She got the passport back, and as you can guess, the CBSA's illegal move can only help in the appeal. Total incompetence.

Let's start at the bottom first. The police must learn to collect and corroborate evidence. You don't arrest someone and then after the person gest a lawyer you scramble to collect evidence and then think, oops, maybe the person's innocent. I had read a police report investigating human trafficking. Yes, that's right, Human trafficking. They did not collect one witness statement even though they'd acknowledged that witnesses were on the scene, no audio or video recording, nothing, nada, zilch. Now the evidence at the hearing showed that the person was innocent of all charges. Okay, fine, fair enough. But she should never have been charged in the first place. Had the police done their job and sent an undercover agent with hidden audio and video to the house first to record who was doing what, had they then collected witness statements from every witness present, and all the evidence led them to believe that the person is probably guilty, they charge the person, and then it turns out some new evidence comes out showing the person to be innocent, I can forgive that sinse at least the police did their job and there was at least reason to believe that the person was guilty. However, when the police collect no evidence prior to making a charge, then scramble afterwards to find the least bit of credible evidence of a person's guilt and fail to do so, then that kind of case is a waste of a judge's time. It creates backlog, wastes human resources, makes the judge do some basic work that the cop could have done himself. Those are cases where the cop could have discovered the suspect's innocence bu just collecting the most basic of evidence. It's not the judge's job to find the person innocent in such simple cases. The cop should do that job before it goes to court. The only ones that should go to court are when the person is clearly guilty or at least after evidence is collected, we can reasonably conclude that he's probably guilty.

An extradition treaty to Hong Kong I can see; but to the Chinese mainland? I won't say no, but we'd better have a very good vetting process in place before we do that.

You are aware aren't you that some indigenous people actually do not know either English or French well? Statistically, about 15% of Nunavut knows neither English nor French. Some Ojibwa likewise believe it or not. This presents a moral dilemma. Do we translate all Federal laws in their languages? Do we simply exempt them from federal laws and let them write their own laws? Do we not translate federal laws but when they break the law we punish them anyway? Do we just impose English on them even more to make sure they do learn English well? Just questions to ponder.

How so? You criticize the English so I mention Hector Langevin. Your response? Oh, but look at the English, how much worse than we are. Who cares who's worse? If someone commits murder and I shoplift a chocolate bar, and I'm standing before the judge, could you imagine me saying: "Oh, but your honour, you should let me go and ignore what I did because what that murderer did is far worse than what I did." You know that the judge would laugh at me and still punish me for shoplifting, right? Who is worse or who committed the worse attrocity is not the standard we should go by and certainly not the standard I expect of Quebec.

Now you're sounding like an Anglo: "Oh, but they're worse than we are, so you have to ignore our wrongs."

What do you mean by in their communities? Just on their reserves? If we give Salish an official status in Vancouver, should French continue to have an official status there too? How many official lanuages can we maintain in any one given area? That's why English should have no status in French Canada and French in English Canada, so as to give more breathing room to the local indigenous language. A good balance might be four official languages in any given municipality: The local indigenous written and oral language, the local indigenous sign language, Esperanto and International Sign. One official language could be the primary official language of government, but the government could give hiring preferecne, all other qualifications being equal, to the one who knows one of the secondary official languages mentioned above. To protect English and French, any official status should be limited to the government so as to allow English and French to continue to dominate in the private sector. Perhaps English and French could also have an official status but only in a municipality where their speakers are a majority. Unfortunately, a polity of localized official unilingualism will impose personal bilingualism on everyone, but I think that is reasonable especially if an easy language like Esperanto is an option.

Maybe the Ojibwa in Ottawa are different. Some do know Ojibwa and the rest make the effort to learn it. However, the nation and the person are not separate. Bill 101 was also about not just national identity, but the practicalities of accesing employment, no? Don't deny it. Why do we hold indigenous peoples to a higher standard. Even Perry Bellegarde supports an official status for all of Canada's indigenous languages even off-reserve indipendently of total sovereignty. And like I said, few indigenous peoples if any truly want total sovereignty anyway. They want moderate sovereignty within a confederation. They know they don't have the numbers to become totally independent due to the history of genocide.