Tag: Law

Obligations

Jim Elve has a very interesting post on the process of getting citizenship in Canada which includes the following passages from a booklet, A Look at Canada, which is the study guide for the citizenship test. Jim states: “I think that the Citizenship responsibilities defined and the ways of Getting involved in Canada suggested can serve as a partial guide to a set of shared Canadian values.” The responsibilities set out are these:

Citizenship responsibilities

All Canadian citizens have the responsibility to:

  • vote in elections;
  • help others in the community;
  • care for and protect our heritage and environment;
  • obey Canada’s laws;
  • express opinions freely while respecting the rights and freedoms of others; and
  • eliminate discrimination and injustice.

Being a Canadian citizen is more than voting and obeying laws. Being a citizen also means getting involved in your community and your country. Everyone has something to give to make Canada a better place. Here are some ways to participate:

  • join a community group such as an environmental group;
  • volunteer to work on an election campaign for a candidate of your choice;
  • help your neighbours;
  • work with others to solve problems in your community; and
  • become a candidate in an election.

I suppose the oddest thing about this list is how utterly untrue it is – so while I respect the rights and freedoms of employed by Jim in making his quite honourable statment, I would myself express a different opinion freely.

Our democractic process has very little to do with joining the Boy Scouts, whose tenents this list bears some resemblance. I much prefer the list of Charter rights and freedoms as a description of our values. Amongst all the great and good freedoms and rights we enjoy both from and distanced from the state, it also confirms we have the right to be left alone, to argue, to make things uncomfortable for those who would require us to channel discontent into the political structure, to paint your house purple and lay around on the front law with your shirt off as passers-by tisk and the weeds deepen around you. We have ill-defined autonomy and are, honestly, more likely to enjoy beer and hockey on the TV than the company of many of our neighbours. Are not these our values?

Canada’s Spying

The Toronto Star has an unlinkable but
interesting article on the high-tech Echelon surveillance system operated by
five nations known as the UKUSA alliance: the United States, Britain, Canada,
Australia and New Zealand. Apparently Canada spied for Thatcher on two of her
cabinet collegues under part of the agreement that allows effectively for
internal spying by a friendly nation within the circle. So who is spying on
Canadians on the request of our government? And for what?

Not Hot Law

Having a boo at the Jan/Feb issue of Canadian Bar Association’s magazine National it was very interesting to read at page 40 the list of areas of law considered “not hot”, not the “areas where finding work is currently fruitful”. Number one? Technology. The rest of the duds:

  • Securities
  • Mergers and Acquisitions
  • Corporate/Commercial
  • Public Sector

Looks like the 90’s are now truly over. Good thing I finished that LLM in IT back in ’02.

Carnival #10

David’s got the
ninth tenth Carnival of Canucks up this
morning. [Ten…I remember when it was only seven…]

He links to an interesting thread over at Damian’s blog about the Toronto
Star sending an email seeking deletion of pasted text
from the paper. As I quote freely from the Star and have not read such an
email, I am greatly put out. I am becoming more interested in section 29.1 of
our Copyright Act and may have to revisit my thinking on Digital Management
Rights as we Canadians seem to have a little ruled upon exception to the
enforcability of copyright which could arise in any context.

Cool Scots Traditions

In all the yappitry about marriage and “tradition” recently, in the back of my mind I had that the tradition in Scotland was incredibly free until very recent times. I found a good reference to the principles today:

A `regular’ marriage was one for which the banns had been proclaimed and which was then celebrated by a minister in the parish church. An `irregular’ marriage, under Scottish law, could be of three kinds: per verba de praesenti (a mutual agreement to marry at that moment), per verba de futuro subsequente copula (a promise to marry in the future followed by sexual intercourse), and `habit and repute’ (cohabiting in such a way as to imply that mutual consent to a marriage had been given). It was only the forms of constituting it that were irregular. The marriage itself was in every way as binding as a regular marriage, and with the same restrictions: both parties must be free to marry, they could not be within the forbidden degrees of kinship and they had to be over the age limit (twelve for women and fourteen for men). Neither witnesses nor parental consent were necessary.

All very none of yer friggin’ business. The church, professionals and, indeed, the state are quite the johnny-come-latelies to the issue of marriage as well as most community ceremonies such as funerals. So why someone suggests we need to move back to Christian traditions, those are some of mine – I quite like the principle of “a promise to marry in the future followed by sexual intercourse”.

More on Sphere of Autonomy

I found this passage on the sphere of autonomy from a recently reported Ontario Divisional Court appeal ruling from last July called Polewsky v. Home Hardware about court filing fees and poverty:

[50] As noted above, at para. 6, Gillese J. considered s.7 in obiter and found that the protection of s. 7 is limited to a person’s physical and mental integrity and does not protect civil and economic rights. However, where it is established that the fees are a barrier to justice, the issue becomes an access to justice issue, rather than one of economic rights.

[51] The appellants argued that for a poor person, “security of the person” must include the right to access the civil justice system, particularly the Small Claims court. The appellant cites Pleau v Nova Scotia (1998), 186 N.S.R. (2d) 1 (S.C., Prothonotary) [Pleau] for this proposition. Having considered Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence on this issue, we are not convinced that the denial of access to the Small Claims Court is properly characterized as a breach of security of the person.

[52] The right to security of the person covers the right to personal autonomy, involving control over one’s bodily integrity and freedom from state imposed psychological and emotional stress (R v Morgentaler [1988] 1 S.C.R. 30, Rodriguez v. British Columbia (Attorney General) [1993] 3 S.C.R. 519).

[53] Although the right extends beyond the criminal law and can be engaged in other proceedings, such as child protection proceedings ((New Brunswick (Minister of Health and Community Services) v. G.(J.), [1999] 3 S.C.R. 46) [G.(J).]), not all state interference with psychological integrity will engage s.7. Where the psychological integrity of a person is at issue, the right to security of the person is restricted to protection from serious state imposed psychological stress. For a breach of security of the person to be made out, the state action must have a serious and profound effect on the person’s psychological integrity. Not all forms of psychological prejudice will lead to a section 7 violation (G.(J.), Blencoe v. British Columbia (Human Rights Commission), [2000] 2 S.C.R. 307.

[54] We are not persuaded that the type of harm experienced by individuals who cannot pay Small Claims Court fees is appropriately construed as causing sufficiently serious or profound psychological harm to be in violation of s.7 of the Charter.

Interesting if only because it serves as another example of the courts shrinking from the monster it found in section 7 of The Charter which they now appears to want little to do with.

Formula 1 Threats

Here in Canada we have had ann annual game recently of Formula 1 racing threatening to pull out all activities unless we change our anti-tobacco ad legislation. Now I read they are threatening the EU as well:

“The EU is strangled by unnecessary and excessive regulations,” said [F1 head Max] Mosley.

“If you are involved in something that is at the cutting edge you’ve got to question if this is the right place.

We are involved in something cutting edge…umm…cutting out the lies of death merchants. People are free to smoke – away from me if you please. Just don’t teach its virtues to my kids.

Poached

Have a look at this. Someone is taking my RSS feed and those of others I know and aggregating them on another site and sticking up advertising. How odd. I don’t know if I feel good about this or bad. I certainly have not been asked permission or offered a share of the likely tiny revenue stream from the Google ads. Reminds me of all the bother in the mid-90’s about deep linking, focusing on two news web sites on the Shetlands. Whose stuff is this that I do? I understand it to be mine under the Copyright Act. To the credit of the aggregator, there is no doubt that the attributation to me is there. But does someone else get the chump change for my writing that ought to buy me that Friday Guinness?