Harper Speech

[hiti]

The Supreme Court agreed with the position of Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada that any change in the definition had to come from Parliament, not the Courts. The Supremes refused to do Paul Martin's messy work;

Not entirely true. The Supremes recognized that the provincial courts in five provinces and territories had already sanctioned ssm and that parliament intended to pass the bill stating same. And that is why they refused to answer question 4. Again Harper has put his convoluted spin on things.

==========================================

Quote:

July 12, 2002: The Ontario Superior Court says banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional and violates the Charter or Rights and Freedoms.

Dec. 9, 2004: Supreme Court announces that Ottawa has the power to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples, but says religious officials can't be forced to marry them.

In Canada, the opposite sex definition of marriage was found in common law( also sometimes referred to as judge made law). This definition, had only had a marginal expression in the statutes of Bill C-23 and statute 365 of the Quebec Civil Code.

The Canadian common law definition of marriage was changed to include same-sex couples on July 10, 2003 (retroactive to January 14, 2001). Canada's Parliament passed the law on June 28, 2005, followed by the Senate on July 19. Equal marriage recieved royal assent on July 20, 2005.

The Supreme Court Decision:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/samesexr...4scc079.wpd.txt

Read expansively, the word "marriage" in s. 91(26) does not exclude same-sex marriage. The scope accorded to s. 91(26) does not trench on provincial competence. While federal recognition of same-sex marriage would have an impact in the provincial sphere, the effects are incidental and do not relate to the core of the power in respect of "solemnization of marriage" under s. 92(12) of the Constitution Act, 1867 or that in respect of "property and civil rights" under s. 92(13).

In the unique circumstances of this reference, the Court should exercise its discretion not to answer Question 4. First, the federal government has stated its intention to address the issue of same-sex marriage legislatively regardless of the Court's opinion on this question. As a result of decisions by lower courts, the common law definition of marriage in five provinces and one territory no longer imports an opposite-sex requirement and the same is true of s. 5 of the Federal Law-Civil Law Harmonization Act, No. 1. The government has clearly accepted these decisions and adopted this position as its own. Second, the parties in the previous litigation, and other same-sex couples, have relied upon the finality of the decisions and have acquired rights which are entitled to protection. Finally, an answer to Question 4 has the potential to undermine the government's stated goal of achieving uniformity in respect of civil marriage across Canada. While uniformity would be achieved if the answer were "no", a "yes" answer would, by contrast, throw the law into confusion. The lower courts' decisions in the matters giving rise to this reference are binding in their respective provinces. They would be cast into doubt by an advisory opinion which expressed a contrary view, even though it could not overturn them. These circumstances, weighed against the hypothetical benefit Parliament might derive from an answer, indicate that the Court should decline to answer Question 4.

Question not answered by the Supremes was: 4.Is the opposite-sex requirement for marriage for civil purposes, as established by the common law and set out for Quebec in section 5 of the Federal Law-Civil Law Harmonization Act, No. 1, consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms? If not, in what particular or particulars and to what extent?

[Riverwind]

Even if you were a Justice of the Supreme Court it would be awfully presumptuous of you to conclude what their decision would be in advance.

I am paraphrasing words that have already seen from written judgements on SSM (sorry no link at this time). The only rational for creating a distinction between SSM and heterosexual marriage is a desire to discriminate against homosexuals - the supreme court will recognize this. This is not just my opinion but the opinion of the overwhelming majority of constitutional experts in this county.

[BubberMiley]

And you can always take Sparhawk's word for things. Like when Sparhawk said people remain impaired from smoking marijuana for up to a year.

[Biblio Bibuli]

It doesn't really matter what they think. It's what the supreme court thinks the charter says ...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

OK, then, does the supreme court think the charter says that it would be a "human rights violation" not to let gays "marry"?

[Biblio Bibuli]

Whoever pointed out that speech to The Canadian Press did it on condition that he won't be identified. My guess is that it was Stephen Harper himself who pointed them towards it.

And now Stephen can't wait for Martin to start using that speech against him so he can bring out a big arsenal of quotes by the Liberals' star candidate, Michael Ignatieff, that make his 1997 speech look like  child's play.

That's strictly a guess, though

Strictly a guess my foot!

http://writer.electionblog.ctv.ca/default.asp?item=116615

[scribblet]

Anonymous 'non-partisan' tip on old Harper speech leads back to Liberals

By BRUCE CHEADLE

Canoe.ca (Ottawa Sun)

December 18, 2005

OTTAWA (CP) - An eight-year-old Stephen Harper speech dug up by Liberal researchers cracks a rare window into campaign war-room strategy, media manipulation and the ethical quicksand that sometimes underlies an election leak.

This is a tale that reflects well on no one.

In its simplest terms, the Liberals used a third party to put a buffer between them and a story that was unflattering to the Conservative leader.

It began the day before the first televised leaders' debates in Vancouver, with the Liberals scrambling to change the channel following the already infamous "beer and popcorn" gaffe by communications director Scott Reid and an unusual mid-campaign broadside from the U.S. ambassador to Canada.

Alex Munter, a former Ottawa city councillor and well-known gay rights activist, helped set the ball in play.

Munter contacted a Canadian Press reporter travelling with the Conservative campaign offering up an old Harper speech that an acquaintance of his, as Munter put it, stumbled upon while browsing the Net.

The speech, delivered by Harper when he was a private citizen working for the National Citizens' Coalition, praised American conservative values, disparaged Canada as a "welfare state" and said the jobless aren't worried because they have generous benefits.

It went unreported in 1997 and sat unnoticed for almost nine years on the web site of the Council for National Policy, a little-known right-wing American think tank.

The reporter passed Munter's tip along to the CP election desk in Ottawa for consideration.

That's where the story gets murky.

News organizations receive tips or leaks from partisan sources all the time. It does not disqualify the newsworthiness of the leak. But everyone in politics has an agenda, and recognizing the agenda is part of the critical appraisal any news organization brings to its assessment of a story - even if a news tip's provenance is not always conveyed to the public.

Munter asked to remain anonymous as the source of the tip. Contacted by CP's election desk, he also vigorously denied acting with any partisan direction.

After some deliberation, CP ran a story outlining the main speech points, citing the source of the tip simply as a political opponent of Harper. The story was immediately leapt upon by the Liberal war room as evidence the Conservative leader is outside mainstream Canadian opinion.

By the following day, the Liberals were sending out backgrounders under the following Editor's Note:

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/Canad...1359000-cp.html

Think we'll see this in any other MSM ?

[normanchateau]

And you can always take Sparhawk's word for things. Like when Sparhawk said people remain impaired from smoking marijuana for up to a year.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Low blow BM. Sparhawk did not say it can take up to a year. Sparhawk said it can take YEARS to recover from the effects of marijuana.

[Guest eureka]

You can see it in the Toronto Star and probably every other respectable media element.

[Riverwind]

And you can always take Sparhawk's word for things. Like when Sparhawk said people remain impaired from smoking marijuana for up to a year.

Low blow BM. Sparhawk did not say it can take up to a year. Sparhawk said it can take YEARS to recover from the effects of marijuana.

What I said was the THC gets trapped the receptors of neurons in the brain. Even though the presence of the THC in these tissues does not cause someone to be high it does impair the functioning of the brain and cause memory loss, slow speech and other cognitive problems that can persist for years after stopping smoking.

[kimmy]

Anonymous 'non-partisan' tip on old Harper speech leads back to Liberals

By BRUCE CHEADLE

Canoe.ca (Ottawa Sun)

December 18, 2005

OTTAWA (CP) - An eight-year-old Stephen Harper speech dug up by Liberal researchers cracks a rare window into campaign war-room strategy, media manipulation and the ethical quicksand that sometimes underlies an election leak.

This is a tale that reflects well on no one.

In its simplest terms, the Liberals used a third party to put a buffer between them and a story that was unflattering to the Conservative leader.

(...)

Was the speech itself newsworthy? The CP made that decision on their own and I'm sure they used proper professional standards in coming to that decision and I don't see any problem with the decision to run the story.

But, as the article says, finding out the back-story of how the media got the article makes for an interesting look at how the campaign "war-rooms" work.

Why did the "war room" use a middle-man to get this story to the press?

If a Liberal spokesman gives this to the media directly, does it still become a news story, or does CP view it through a more jaundiced eye?

For what it's worth, I'm sure that the Conservative and NDP campaigns try to do the same... and if they aren't doing it, they should have somebody doing it.

-k