Scotty

There was a big conference at the university of Toronto the other day, about the problem of a lack of access to the justice system for all but the rich and the poor. The poor get their legal bills paid for by government. The rich have no problems. The rest of us are shut out. A number of people, including the Chief Justice of Canada's Supreme Court spoke of their concern for this issue and possible repercussions for society. A number of possible solutions were proposed, but I couldn't help note one that never made it into the paper. maybe it was proposed and simply not given much thought or time. Legal fees average $338 an hour. I wonder if lowering those fees might be an option to allow a more universal access to the legal system. For those short on math skills, $338 a DAY would translate into about an $85,000 salary. One can say that lawyers have put a lot of time into education but so has anyone with a masters degree or doctorate, and none I'm aware of can command those kinds of fees. Nor does it seem to take any particularly unique blend of skills and abilities to become a lawyer. Most of our politicians are lawyers and I think most of us are fairly unimpressed with the majority of them. In other professions I'd suggest the government simply build up the law schools and graduate tons more lawyers. The more available, the less they can charge. But that doesn't seem to work with lawyers. The more lawyers there are the more work for lawyers there is. The US, which is said to have 2/3rds of all the layers in the world, has far more lawyers per capita than Europe, and yet they all seem to find work to do. There is 1 lawyer for every 265 Americans. By contrast, there is one lawyer for every 593 Germans, and 1 lawyer for every 1500 Germans. So increasing the number of lawyers won't work. Increasing government funding won't work either. That will either jack up the fees of the existing lawyers higher, or create a demand for still more lawyers to e trained. i think what is needed is either a government set limit on fees, or some way to disentangle most everyday legal problems from lawyers and judges and put them in front of arbitrators, perhaps with some sort of legal aid type person who isn't a lawyer providing help. As Justice McLachlin says, by shutting out hte middle class from the legal system disrespect for the system, and vigilantism are encouraged. The Globe and Mail

I think people are a bit confused. The Military took over decades ago. Mubarak is a general. His successor will be another general.

Harper's position is basically the one I've had from the start. And mine wasn't arrived at because of "Israeli lobbying".

According to the cites it didn't come from "the conservative government" as such but "upon direction from a joint Senate-House of Commons regulatory committee". Most house committees have opposition majorities,do they not? The reason for the change is a Supreme Court decision finding a similar sounding law unconstitutional.

Pink Floyd was the greatest band ever. End of discussion.

A number of things. It`s all in the cite.

Do other countries not have these huge fixed costs? Is there a reason why cell phone plans cost more in Canada than in Africa? Is there a reason why internet costs per mbp are twice what they are in the US, five times what they are in France, and ten times what they are in Sweden? Or there's Finland Their average connection speed is 22mps, vs 6mps for Canada. Their costs per mbs are 2.77 v 6.50 in Canada.

Depending on the province, between 12% and 23% of Canadian families have a stay-at-home parent looking after the kids. So I'm afraid you're quite mistaken. Such families are not long gone. The problem with some sort of institutional daycare program is it would be extremely expensive, but would completely ignore those families who have decided to make the economic sacrifice necessary to keep one of the parents home with the kids. That hardly seems fair. I know one such family, and they are far from rich. They could make more money by having the father, who stays at home, go out and get work to contribute. But they sacrifice the added income for their kids. I similarly know another family where the father earns over $90k per year but the mother still goes out to work, and because they both work long hours the kids are often at daycare for 12hrs a day. Why should they get the benefit of government funding while the first family don't?

Perhaps there should be a permanent thread on this topic. I have to say that one of my disappointments with the Harper government has been their refusal to get involved in matters of principal such as the state to which human rights tribunals have fallen. One expects little but cowardice from Dalton McGuinty's government but the federal conservatives are supposed to be somewhat more robust in their concern for real Canadian values. Basically, an immigrant was fired after six weeks on the job for a variety of reasons, and took her small employer to the HRT. She was given full legal representation at no cost. The defendant, of course, got nothing. The HRT ordered the (very)small business owner to pay the plaintiff $36,000. And when she couldn't afford it, the complainant's legal team put a lien on her house, then went to the sheriff and ordered it seized to pay their client. In the case below, the tribunal's findings were considered to egregiously unfair that the courts threw the decision out, then ordered the plaintiff to pay $10,000 legal bills (before the court) to the defendant. Not to worry, though, for the complainant won't have to pay a cent. The Ontario government program which provided her with free legal services will also pay the award. But now there'll be another human rights tribunal hearing - which the Ontario government will again provide full legal services to the complainant for, before another adjudicator. I think that when HRTs have the power to issue massive fines of this kind of level, to take people's houses or businesses away, then they become def facto courts, and the defendant before them ought to be supplied with full legal representation. In addition, the biases and incompetence of the adjudicators has to be examined. As I understand it, they are basically drawn from the 'human rights industry' and most have little or no real training. Superor Court rules HR Hearing was unfair

I really have no response to speak of other than reluctant agreement. Unless the Americans interfere a lot the entire middle east is going to become one vast Islamic state with a harsh sixth century cultural code and a sense of aggrieved outrage at the rest of the world for being richer and more scientifically and culturally advanced than them.

The response was that I don't know what you're getting at. I'm not denying anything you said, just not sure how it is a response to what I said before, unless it was a rhetorical response.

Do I need to point out what they say about "assume"?

I would say they do have qualms which is evidenced by their efforts at moderating those autocrats they support. I point out that you can't have a "people's revolution" in truly totalitarian regimes because those regimes are too oppressive for such a thing to ever get under way, much less continue. All the people demonstrating in Egypt today would be long dead or in prison if they tried this in Iran or China or Syria. No other world powers that I'm aware of have ever tried to institute democratic regimes in areas of the world they control - nor tolerated them, for that matter. You don't see the French bothering with such niceties in the African countries they control. And you certainly don't see the Chinese worrying about it as they begin to exert their own international muscle. The US and other western powers concerns themselves more with ideological movements than specific little national opposition groups. If the Timorese were seen as likely to be a part of the "global communist movement" the US would have tolerated almost any abuse to resist them. Today, the global ideological movement the west fights against most strongly is Islamism, and so they're more likely to support totalitarian regimes in Muslim countries to resist that. I don't think the question arises very often. But personally, I would say a difference would be how intrussive and oppressive a regime is in the daily lives of its people, how repressive and just plain cruel it is to its political opponents, or those they see as in some way transgressing against the regime. In that light, Egypt wasn't that bad compared to Hussein, or for that matter, the Chinese or Iranians or Libyans.

Yes, that would be the one. So?

You need to go back a few decades to massive street protests in South Korea demanding democracy, and the corrupt regime in power then. Tanks did not roll over them, as they did in China, and there was a (not completely smooth), gradual transition to democracy there over a number of years. And South Korea was even more a US client state than Egypt, with tens of thousands of US troops there for decades.

Why pick on the little people? Vladimir Putin is alleged to be the wealthiest man on the planet with his tens of billions in ill-gotten gains. And his fortune grows every year.

You mean like the Chinese did in similar circumstances? The Chinese? Our close allies, friends, customers and clients?

He wasn't exactly emulating the Americans in wanting newcomers to learn to adapt and become more like native citzens in culture and outlook. Gordon Brown said much the same, and the sentiment has been expressed by a number of European leaders now, including Germany's chancellor.

They do not seem to be doing a lot of fighting for his rights at the moment. The US can be painfully naive at times, else they wouldn't have spent so much time and effort on running elections in Iraq or Afghanistan. Or are you under any illusion the Chinese would have bothered? I never suggested any such thing. I merely said your characterization that they "hate" democratic values was way off base. That's not to say they won't and haven't supported autocrats over democratic movements they thought were hostile and dangerous to their interests. But if we accepted your characterization the US should have spent the last fifty years trying to elminate democratic governments throughout the world, including in Europe, in favor of autocrats, and there's no evidence of that. .You misunderstood me. I never said that there was a majority who wanted him to stay. I said that a lot of Egyptians did not, from what the article I cited suggested, want him to be pushed aside immediately. They felt it was fine for him to stay to the election. I think, too, that you are failing to understand what it is probably like to grow up and have him as the absolute authority in your country for your entire life. And remember, unless you were politically active you didn't worry overmuch about things like secret police and prisons. A lot of people are probably feeling quite threatened and uncertain at the prospect of the old order crumbling and a great unknown coming in to take over. I think moderate can mean different things. Moderate, insofar as a dictator is concerned, would clearly mean how repressive his government is. But there could be a sense of 'moderate' in terms of their international behaviour, I suppose. Ie, Egypt is far more moderate than Iran.

The Ayatolah's did not take over right after the Shah left. There was an uhm, interim government which was largely secular and made up of various elements of the opposition.

Perhaps, but I like to think we're somewhat more enlightened than the Germans back then. I don't think you could drop bombs on a herd of deer without causing a huge fuss, so I'm not too worried we'll start killing off the barbarians any time soon - unless they're seen as threatening to us. The Chinese and Indian cultures are often pretty backward, especially in rural areas. On the other hand, I was including in my consideration the polling results showing the broad support for such things as Blasmphemy laws, death for adultery and switching religions or being gay, lopping off hands of thieves, etc. I don't believe those sorts of beliefs are common among the Chinese or Indians. But when it comes to who the rightwingers decide to focus attention on, the enemy of the day is a barbarian, and that makes it easier to kill them, bomb their villages, use illegal methods of torture etc.

My mistake then. Clearly it would be terrorist, unless it was a matter of barbarians running amok, as it were. But I think that unlikely, or rather, less likely than a deliberate intent to terrorize. But we're not dealing with mob bosses, we're dealing with the Western powers, who tend, often enough, at any rate, to have somewhat morally superior goals. Suppose a given nation's government is considered an imminent danger to an entire region? Suppose it is thought it is likely to export revolution, violence, chaos and civil war throughout that region. Could it not then be seen as the lesser evil to support a guerrila group to overthrow that government, even if thousands die in the struggle?

If you want to use that for an analogy you are in a part of the world where virtually ALL parents are child rapists, as are virtually all the foster parents laying in wait, eager to get their hands on some kids.

Why? We ignore opposition parties in democracies all the time. We deal with whomever is in office, not the pretendrs to the thrones. Do we adjust our policies with the US according to what the Republicans want when Obama is in power? Do we consult with the Labour party about our relations with the U.K.? And what about those nations which don't even HAVE opposition parties of any kind, such as China?

No one has, to my knowledge. That was my point.