Fixing What Harper Broke: A to-do list

[Smallc]

I would agree with this. At the end of the day, there's nothing particularly remarkable about a new government coming and altering or undoing some initiatives of its predecessors. New governments also have to decide which court battles their predecessor was fighting it will continue to pursue and which it will drop.

I think the biggest positive with Trudeau is the change in tone. Everything is different apparently in terms of mood. Hopefully, that continues.

[TimG]

If one half of a transaction is illegal, the entire transaction is effectively illegal. If it's illegal to buy it, it is effectively illegal to sell it, but the law just means you don't prosecute the vendor.

Well, it was not illegal to buy it prior to the SCC ruling. I guess you could call the 2014 law the first of many unintended negative consequences of the SCC ruling. Edited October 30, 2015 by TimG

[ToadBrother]

I think the biggest positive with Trudeau is the change in tone. Everything is different apparently in terms of mood. Hopefully, that continues.

I think the biggest positive is that it appears Trudeau actually intends to appoint a Cabinet where Ministers will be effectively responsible for their departments, and not just nominally, and where departments will be responsible for carrying out the government's goals, as opposed to the Prime Minister essentially running most of the executive levels of government from his office.

It will doubtless fail on occasion; ministers and deputy ministers will screw up, but it's not as if centralized government run by a bunch of unelected political appointees in the PMO actually delivered us better government. All it did was alienate most of the country.

[ToadBrother]

Well, it was not illegal to buy it prior to the SCC ruling. I guess you could call the 2014 law to first of many unintended negative consequences of the SCC ruling.

Buying sex has been illegal for many years. You're just being pedantic to the point of silliness.

[Smallc]

Well, it was not illegal to buy it prior to the SCC ruling. I guess you could call the 2014 law the first of many unintended negative consequences of the SCC ruling.

Yeah, I'm anxiously waiting for the day said law is thrown out.

[Smallc]

I think the biggest positive is that it appears Trudeau actually intends to appoint a Cabinet where Ministers will be effectively responsible for their departments, and not just nominally, and where departments will be responsible for carrying out the government's goals, as opposed to the Prime Minister essentially running most of the executive levels of government from his office.

I think that's part of what I meant by tone - Harper had a bunch of dogs and did all of his own barking. Trudeau is going to let them bark at least a little.

[TimG]

Buying sex has been illegal for many years.

Wrong:

While the act of exchanging sex for money has been legal for most of Canada's history, the prohibition of the activities surrounding the sex trade has made it difficult to practice prostitution without breaking any law.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Canada

I had forgotten about the 2014 law which I thought was a step backwards.

[ReeferMadness]

That's all very well and good but do you want one living next door? With a parade of johns coming to the door at all hours?

That's why no government is going to legalize it in their own homes. That leaves brothels. Nevada does it that way but they have big empty areas in the desert away from the cities. Us, not so much. The suburbs spread out pretty far.

Do you want a cement plant next door to you? If the answer is no, can I safely assume that you want cement plants and cement plant workers made illegal and run out of the country?

[drummindiver]

Elizabeth May has come out with a list of damages that Harper has done. Some will be easy to fix, but some will not. (Not on the internet - yet - Only in email)

Here is a list of the To-Do list:

1) Fixing security law:

• Repeal Bill C-51. As a compromise, the Liberals could amend part 2 (No Fly lists) while repealing Parts 1 (info sharing), 3 (terrorism in general propaganda), 4 (the most dangerous, unleashing CSIS as covert disruptors) and 5 (allowing evidence obtained by torture).
• Repeal C-44 – allowing CSIS agents to operate over-seas.
• Repeal C-38 – with a section eliminating the Inspector General for CSIS.
• Repeal C-3 (2007 legislation that introduced unconstitutional security certificates).
• Instead – build security law drawn from advice from the Arar and Air India Commissions of Inquiry.

2) Rebuilding our criminal law system:

• Reinstate the Law Reform Commission and Court Challenges programme.
• Repeal C-10 and other mandatory minimum provisions.
• Repeal C-2 (Insite).
• Repeal C-14 (NCR).
• Repeal C-25 (Truth in Sentencing Act).
• Repeal C-309 (Preventing Persons from Concealing Their Identity during Riots and Unlawful Assemblies Act).

3) Reverse trend to slippery citizenship:

• Return Canada’s embassies to aggressively act for Canadians abroad in trouble – including on death row.
• Repeal C-24 (only one citizenship exists – unless obtained by fraud, citizenship is citizenship).
• Repeal FATCA (found in omnibus C-31).
• Restore citizenship for Lost Canadians.

4) Immigration and refugee law:

• Repeal the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act from Fall 2011 that puts refugees arriving by boat in jail for a year (C-31).
• Return to principles of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act – create a predictable path to citizenship.
• Prioritize family reunification.
• Create a sponsor-friendly refugee support process. Restore health, housing, language and other supports to refugee claimants.
• Appoint board members to Immigration appeal board to deal with backlog.

5) Restore evidence-based decision making:

• Restore Long Form Census. Rehire Munir Sheik as Chief Statistician of Canada and give him the Order of Canada.
• Repeal C-38 sections that wrecked environmental assessment (EA). Eliminate any EA role for energy regulatory agencies (NEB, offshore petroleum boards, CNSC, etc) and return EA to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. Repeal C-38 destruction of CEAA, and further amend the Act to remove the conflict of interest found in the pre-2011 CEAA. A good model can be found in the Liberal 1993 Red Book (never implemented).
• Repeal C-38 elimination of the National Round Table on Environment and Economy.
• Re-hire scientists.
• Restore funding to the Canadian Climate Forum (formerly the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences).
• Restore funding to Polar Environmental Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL).
• Restore the Marine Mammals Contaminants Programme.
• Restore testing of smokestacks for air quality.
• Restore ozone layer testing.
• Restore freshwater science. Resume funding and DFO work in Experimental Lakes Area.
• Restore research funding and monitoring for ecological integrity to Parks Canada.

6) Repair environmental laws and policy:

• Repeal C-38:

I. Damage to Fisheries Act (restore habitat protection, reverse administrative changes in interpretation of “deleterious to fish” as meaning acute toxicity at LD50, as well as removing the equivalency provisions for provincial down-loading);

II. Section that amended NEB also damaged Species at Risk Act, Navigable Waters Protection At, Fisheries Act exempting these acts – as not applying along route of a pipeline;

III. As above in decision-making section, restore CEAA as sole agency to oversee environmental reviews.

• Repeal C-45:

I. Restore Navigable Waters Protection Act (NWPA), and repeal the 2009 omnibus bill that re-defined “navigable waters” to a matter of ministerial discretion. Return NWPA to its pre-2006 condition. Navigable waters are any and all waters that can be navigated.

• Restore funding to Canadian Environmental Network.

7) Climate action:

• Ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
• Work with other Kyoto parties and support the information sections and the mechanisms, especially the Clean Development Mechanism. No new targets need be established within the KP as our new targets will evolve in the new comprehensive COP21 agreement.
• Restore ecoENERGY Retrofit – Homes program.
• Consider the other actions in place in 2006 that the Harper administration cancelled.

8) Repair Official Development Assistance:

• Restore funding to MATCH, KAIROS, Canadian Council for International Cooperation, etc.
• Consider re-establishing CIDA as its own agency, but at a minimum reverse funding cuts and restore goal of poverty alleviation.

9) Service Canada:

• In what was described as an effort to save money, the Harper administration created a new department to house administrative, IT and finance roles. Call for a full audit by the Auditor General and determine if Service Canada has in fact resulted in savings, or, if, as many suspect, it has been a boondoggle. Consider restoring functionality in the public service.

10) Reverse monumental mistakes:

• Cancel any federal funding to Canadian Memorial to the Victims of Communism and cancel plans for its current location. Allow it to proceed in another location with a more modest and reasonable design as a private charitable project.
• Restore land from French Cove in Cape Breton Highlands National Park to the park, reversing private give-away to private sector interests. Allow the so-called Mother Canada statue to be built on an appropriate site in industrial Cape Breton.

11) Repair national parks:

• Cancel any and all plans to further privatize within national parks.
• Amend the Sable Island National Parks Act to remove the role of the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board as a regulator within the park. Ban seismic testing, drilling and any industrial activity in the park.
• Amend the Rouge Valley National Parks Act to restore ecological integrity.
• Re-affirm the guiding principle of the National Parks Act to protect ecological integrity.

12) Repair legislative damage to First Nations rights and title:

• Amend the NWT devolution act to restore the water boards and other agencies created by treaty.
• Repeal C-27 (First Nations Financial Transparency Act) and S-2 (Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act).
• Restore funding and re-open the National Aboriginal Health Organization and the First Nations Statistical Institute.

13) Women’s rights:

• Restore purpose of Status of Women Canada to include achieving equality for women.
• Restore funding to Canadian Association of Women and the Law, National Action Committee, etc.
• Institute an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women.
• Implement pay equity for women in federal civil service.
• Repeal manipulative laws that contort women’s rights creating increased risks to women:

I. S-7 (Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act)

II. C-36 (Sex trade worker law)

14) Restore funding to CBC-Radio Canada:

• Cancel sale of assets.

15) Reverse cessation of home delivery by Canada Post

16) Investor State agreements that cannot be undone:

• Canada-China Investment Treaty was signed and ratified without any hearings in Parliament, without a ratification vote in the House or Senate.
• The earliest Canada can be out from under this treaty is 2045. To protect Canadian interests and sovereignty, we need a law requiring immediate public disclosure of any and all complaints by the People’s Republic of China against Canadian legislation, regulation or policy changes, pending or concluded, at all levels of government. This notification includes any diplomatic pressure from the PRC in the six month window for conflict resolution prior to the lodging of an actual arbitration claim. Canada must be prepared to pay damages to the People’s Republic of China if our environment, labour or safety laws require it. The Canada-China Investment Treaty is the worst of the changes wrought in the Harper era. It could operate to stop the needed repairs. All we can do now is ask to re-negotiate while ensuring our domestic legislation guarantees transparency.

Clear why May is a less than fringe player.

[drummindiver]

Unfortunately this time around a lot of time will have to be spent fixing things. Too bad but bad laws need to come off the books now, or be thrown out by the SCC later. Sooner is definitely better than later in such cases.

Should we do a list of what the last two Liberal regimes did to Canada?

The list would be much longer and would entail a lot more damage.

So please, give it a break for once.

[drummindiver]

I would only be doing your own research to prove this and I'm simply tired of that.

Clearly, you have no evidence and are spewing unsubstantiated rhetoric. Again. Still.

[ReeferMadness]

Well, it was not illegal to buy it prior to the SCC ruling. I guess you could call the 2014 law the first of many unintended negative consequences of the SCC ruling.

No. The 2014 law was the result of a moralistic government with a religious authoritarian attitude. The SCC didn't make Harper impose Victorian sexual values on the country.

[Smallc]

Should we do a list of what the last two Liberal regimes did to Canada?

The list would be much longer and would entail a lot more damage.

That would be just as subjective and baseless.

[TimG]

No. The 2014 law was the result of a moralistic government with a religious authoritarian attitude.

The 2014 law is based on the "swedish model" which is hailed at the proper "evidence based" appoach to the problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Sweden

Generally anything the scandinavian countries do is considered good and proper by all card carrying leftists so you can't really claim this law is "socially conservative".

[On Guard for Thee]

Should we do a list of what the last two Liberal regimes did to Canada?

The list would be much longer and would entail a lot more damage.

So please, give it a break for once.

Go ahead and give us your list. This should be fun.

[ReeferMadness]

The 2014 law is based on the "swedish model" which is hailed at the proper "evidence based" appoach to the problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Sweden

Do you even read your own links? Here's a few excerpts:

In 2008 Kajsa Wahlberg,[102] of the human trafficking unit at Sweden's national police board, conceded that accurate statistics are hard to obtain, but estimated that the number of prostitutes in Sweden dropped 40% from 2,500 in 1998 to 1,500 in 2003.[103] However, by 2010 she had conceded that the policy had failed, and that issues around prostitution were increasing [104] as noted in the media which carried out surveys on the street.[105][106][107] In Stockholm, police sources reported increased activity on Malmskillnadsgatan in the city centre (which with Artillerigatan in the Östermalm district was a traditional site for street prostitution in Stockholm).[108][109] Judges[110] and senior police officials have been caught purchasing sex,[111] [112] while most recently the Minister of Labour, Sven Otto Littorin, was also accused of purchasing sex (Littoringate).

In 2011, a research paper on the consequences of the Swedish legislation to sex workers concluded that the realisation of the desired outcomes of the legislation is hard to measure, whereas the law has stigmatised the already vulnerable sex workers.[183][184] In April 2012 the Program on Human Trafficking and Forced Labor issued a report on the effects of the law, concluding that it had failed in its purpose.[185] In July 2012, a report by the UN-backed Global Commission on HIV and the Law recommended all countries to decriminalise private and consensual adult sexual behaviours,

The results of this law are at best mixed and at worst actually hostile to the women it is supposed to help. Further, Sweden has one of the strongest social safety nets in the world, so vulnerable women might actually get the help they need. How does that apply in Canada where we have much less support for addicts and people with limited marketable skills?

Generally anything the scandinavian countries do is considered good and proper by all card carrying leftists so you can't really claim this law is "socially conservative".

I don't consider myself a "card carrying leftist" (or card carrying anything for that matter) so I guess your statement isn't relevant to me.

Political interests of diverse groups sometimes intersect. In this case, the interests of moralistic Conservatives who are pretty much opposed to any sex outside of marriage intersect with the interests of a certain line of feminist thinking that regards prostitution as an outgrowth of a patriarchal society. Regardless of the merits of that position, I think that the law is wrong-headed and at very best, it treats the symptoms while completely failing to address the problem.

Moreover, this law makes victims out of all prostitutes. While some prostitutes certainly are victims, some choose it as a way to make a lot of money quickly and some profess to enjoy it.

If we want to help people, we should be shaping an economic system and providing supports so that women (and men) can make better choices, not using the criminal legal system as a bludgeon to impose behavior.

Edited October 30, 2015 by ReeferMadness

[bush_cheney2004]

That would be just as subjective and baseless.

Same as the present "list"....such a list for Liberal governments would be quite interesting in comparison.

Edited October 30, 2015 by bush_cheney2004

[Smallc]

Same as the present "list"

That's exactly why I said...just as.

[On Guard for Thee]

Same as the present "list"....such a list for Liberal governments would be quite interesting in comparison. Maybe start with the Indian Act.

Already done. What else ya got about your favorite country today?

[WestCanMan]

I just read this laugher.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/10/29/liberals-urged-to-repeal-measure-that-traps-women-in-abusive-relationships.html

There is an exemption if abuse is a factor but that's not good enough. This groups pretty much wants marriages of convenience legalized and uses domestic violence as a front.

The argument that women are being forced to stay in a relationship just to stay here is a joke when you consider that the theory behind them marrying a Canadian is because they want to be with that person, rather than just to get across the border.

If their new spouse is beating them then they should be happier to go back to their native country than stay in a place where they have lived for less than 10% of their lives.

[CITIZEN_2015]

Prostitution is not illegal. Get your facts right.

Prostitution was legal before December 2014 but bill C-36 as I mentioned brought in by Harper regime in rush and pushed through parliament in a manipulative manner made paying for sex illegal and criminal and up to 5 years in jail. Sex workers are immune from prosecution because the bill considers them victims as they don't know better (yes women are same level as children or mentally challenged or insane people according to Bill C-36). It paints everyone with same brush even those who have chosen the profession by choice are considered as forced and victims.

Bill C-36 is very likely unconstitutional as it is similar even worse than the laws struck down by Supreme Court in 2013 as unconstitutional. But this past Harper regime NEVER cared about constitution, parliament, human rights and in many occasions proved its contempt for the Supreme Court of Canada which is the vanguard of democracy, human rights and constitution in Canada and Bill C-36 was the regime's response to Supreme Court ruling as well to satisfy their core religious fanatic support. Never mind the safety of citizens in their book (vulnerable sex workers).

Trudeau's father once said that the government has no place in the bedrooms of the nation so lets see if the son believes in father. I am not saying that prostitution should be legalized no. But it should be decriminalized and regulated to protect the citizens, Many aspects of that like pimping, forced prostitution, underage prostitution, exploitation, violence by Johns, unprotected demand for sex, any aspect of the profession that may jeopardize safety must remain or become illegal and severely punishable.

Edited October 30, 2015 by CITIZEN_2015

[cybercoma]

those kinds of women will not be able to comply with the brothel regulations.

You seem to have some sort of inside knowledge about those kinds of women, considering you're contradicting what those kinds of women said during the hearings. But I guess, yet again, we're supposed to ignore their accounts and believe your fanciful assumptions.

[cybercoma]

And there's always the added benefit of taxation. Right now, pimps are making all of the money and society is footing the bill. We have a whole untaped market. With legalized prostitution and marijuana and decriminalized hard drugs with mandatory fines and treatment, e'd be making all kinds of money that could a ) go to good use, or b ) be used to lower other taxes.

"Mandatory" treatment does not work and actually causes more harm than good. When people are forced into treatment when they're not ready, they're not likely to succeed and further still they're a lot less likely to get the help later when they are ready. Mandatory treatment is not the answer.

[cybercoma]

Well, it was not illegal to buy it prior to the SCC ruling. I guess you could call the 2014 law the first of many unintended negative consequences of the SCC ruling.

The SCC decision didn't make it illegal either; the Harper Government did.

[cybercoma]

I don't consider myself a "card carrying leftist" (or card carrying anything for that matter) so I guess your statement isn't relevant to me.

I'm a "card carrying leftist" and I think the Scandinavian model is garbage, so I guess TimG was wrong about all card-carrying leftists. But then, you didn't really think he spoke for the left, did you?