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Terror 18 leader pleads guilty
Isabel Teotonio writes for the Toronto Star:
Zakaria Amara, 24, confessed to participating in or contributing to the activity of a terrorist group and intending to cause an explosion that was likely to cause serious bodily harm, death or damage to property.
Reconsidering Columbus Day
It’s turkey day in Canada.
But for our American neighbours, it’s Columbus Day, which commemorates the arrival of Columbus to the Americas on October 12, 1492.
Many Americans don’t see this as reason to celebrate.
The Examiner says,
For many in the United States, Columbus Day is just another holiday. It is a time to spend with family and friends, an opportunity to take a short vacation, an extra day of rest from a long work week, or it is the last chance for a barbecue before winter. But for others, it is a sharp and painful reminder that history has betrayed and forgotten the contributions of their people, the lives lost, and a rich culture that pre-dated colonization…
This drastic decrease in the indigenous populations of the Americas, later brought about the trans-Atlantic African slave trade, and was followed by indentured Chinese labor after slavery’s abolition. The thirst of cheap labor and the blood of the indigenous, Africans, and Chinese, still stain the soil that is the foundation of development in the New World.
Maybe it’s time to reconsider Columbus Day.
Oct. 26 is Buy Technology Day in Ontario
On Oct. 26, 2009, Bill 118 will go live in Ontario. The Countering Distracted Driving and Promoting Green Transportation Act prohibits the use of hand-held communication devices while driving,
78.1 (1) No person shall drive a motor vehicle on a highway while holding or using a hand-held wireless communication device or other prescribed device that is capable of receiving or transmitting telephone communications, electronic data, mail or text messages.
Like everything in the law though, there are some exceptions, including the use of hands-free mode, and use by ambulance, fire department or police vehicles.
As of Feb. 1, 2010, a fine up to $500 kicks in. For that much money, residents of Ontario are probably wise to invest in some technology.
The Toronto Star’s Robert Cribb recommends these two products to comply with the new law:
YD-V16 Rearview Mirror Speakerphone + Caller ID
$149.99 at Canadian Tire, US$179.99 at Amazon, US$179.99 at Target, not listed at Future Shop, Best Buy, or Radio Shack
“Ingenious” declared a friend who first cast her gaze upon its streamline design and inconspicuous efficiency.
Think of it as a serious upgrade to your rear view mirror, adding a hands-free Bluetooth device with stereo speakers, visual call display on the mirror surface itself, an internal phone book and 25 hours of talk time on each battery charge.
The device clips on top of your existing mirror. A series of buttons at the bottom allows you to answer or make a call, speed dial, voice dial or retrieve a number from the phone book in your cell (up to 600 entries). And a clever digital readout appears briefly in the centre of the mirror, telling you who is calling and providing a display of volume levels and other details.
Most important, the Yada device solves the most common problem with these hands-free devices: a lack of speaker volume control.
US$99.99 directly from Scosche
US$50.49 from Comp-U-Plus, US$53.99 on eBay, US$55.22 from ANTOnline, US$62.21 at Amazon, $89.99 at Best Buy but out of stock.
Not listed at Canadian Tire, Future Shop, or Radio Shack
Cribb says,
There’s no screen here, so caller ID comes from an automated robot voice that makes it hit-and-miss in terms of pronunciation. But volume is good and voice clarity beyond reproach.
Further evidence of how a legally-imposed social need can focus the minds of technology inventors to the point of precision.
I guess that’s also one way to stimulate the economy and encourage consumer spending.
Withler We Go From Here: The Future of Pension Reform
Western Law hosted a forum on pension reform this past Thursday, featuring community leaders, legal academics, and practitioners.
Pension Plan Basics
Prof. Robert Brown of the University of Waterloo explained some of the basics behind pensions.
There are two kinds of pension plans, defined benefit and defined contribution plans. A defined benefit plan provides flat benefits at a specified amount per year of work. They can present a pretty good idea of what to expect in terms of benefits, but if investments are hit hard it can decrease amount of funds, and they are often open to the vagaries of the market. A defined contribution plan allows you to determine how much goes into the plan, but you don’t know what you will get when you retire.
A multiple employer pension plan allows you to work for many different people, all of whom contributing to funds in your pension, and are common in the building trades. Single employer pension plans are far more common, and are usually what people think about when they refer to pensions.
A further refinement of types of plans are jointly sponsored pension plans, quite common in the public sector, where there is a shared risk with the government, who matches contributions to the plan. The largest of these Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, which is considered one of the better plans available, with a 12% matching.
There have been four major panels on pension reform across Canada in five different provinces. The Province of Quebec came up with a member funded pension plans which are defined benefit, but the benefit is not a guarantee but a target benefit. The plan sponsor just has to make a defined contribution, with very little risk to them, in a large co-mingled asset pool providing risk-sharing. Indexation of benefits, both before and after retirement is contingent on funding health of plan. They can be multi-employer or single employer, and is intended to stay funded at all times.
The Nova Scotia Pension Review Panel pointed out in their report early this year that existing rules inhibit innovation, and they liked the idea of some multi-employer and jointly sponsored plans in the province that a jointly-governed with share decision-making, but with some contingent benefits. They suggested joint governance and transparency would create a lot less regulation. They also suggested a province-wide plan by an independent agency that would be voluntary but open to everyone, and could take over some orphaned pension plans or fully managed ones, as a target-benefit plan.
Alberta and B.C. had a joint commission, the ABC Report, which also criticized the inflexibility in pension plans, and said there was a need for someone to champion pension reform. Plans should state how they will be governed and their funding policies. Both are starting their own defined contribution provincial plans that will be available to everyone, with co-mingled assets and pooling of risk, and expenses of less than 0.4% basis points. Defined target benefits and indexation would not be available unless the funding was healthy. You have to act to opt-out, but it is not mandatory. An independent board would do the investing, similar to the Canada Pension Plan.
Prof. Brown worked for the Ontario Expert Commission on Pensions and made similar recommendations, stating that the rules under the Pension Benefit Act and Income Tax Act stifle innovation. He said it was a good idea to co-mingle assets because you get lower administration costs, lower investment expenses, can hire in-house expertise, and invest in some new types of plans, and pool some of the risks. The size they are considering are in the magnitude of $10 billion. If there was shared responsibility for the plan, they could have a lot less regulation. He suggested they should have consultation with retirees, which are not normally considered part of the plan, and provide more information more often. It could be used by single employers, but there would be co-mingling of assets, through an Ontario pension agency or one of the large existing plans like Ontario Teachers Pension Plan (OTPP), OMERS, or Hospitals of Ontario Pension (HOOP). Management fees would be kept down.
If none of this works, they would consider expanding the Canada Pension Plan. The similarity in findings between all of these panels suggests that there might be some merit behind the recommendations.
Looking for an Alternative
Mitch Frazer, a Partner at Torys LLP and adjunct faculty at UofT specializing in pensions, continued the discussion, focusing on the creation of a supplemental pension plan. He joked that pension law was a bit like the Maytag repair-person – people sit around and ask you questions without understanding what he does. Then suddenly because of the economy pensions are a big topic with considerable media attention.
He saw two major portions for reform – trying to fix the system in the way described by Prof. Brown, but also looking at alternative solutions. A lot of politicians are interested in this as well, and he noted that Glen Pearson and Doug Ferguson were in attendance.
Frazer provided some background behind pension alternatives. Canada’s aging population is foremost among this. By 2031, over 25% of the population will be older than 65, and only 13% of the population was over this age in 2005, almost a doubling of the aging population. There is also less participation in occupational pension plans, anything not a CPP, by private sector employees. Pension plan participation is just over 20% in Alberta and B.C., 25% in Ontario. As people are getting older and need some form of pension plan, there are less people contributing to them.
A lot of employers are terminating plans, or not offering it at all. His clients do not approach him these days about creating a new pension plan. The decline in the stock market has resulted in diminished retirement funds, so there is a decrease in personal savings rate coupled with record-high debt.
There have been some initiatives to address the problems, including the provincial reviews of legislation mentioned above. The Federal government has also initiated consultations on the federal regulatory framework, and there is increased commentary by professionals and academia. But only Quebec has been successful in considerably revising their pension plan, and they continue to revise it on an annual basis to keep abreast of changes, leaving all the other provinces behind. The one positive thing out of the economic crisis is that everyone is now focusing on pension plans, similar to the mid-90s and the focus on CPP reform.
The objectives of reform would be improving retirement income security and enhancing pension coverage. Pensions are going down, and we need to address that halt and figure out a way to prevent it from going further down. We can take advantage of economies of scale by pooling assets, and benefit from the management and expertise in larger plans top reduce administrative burdens and costs. We need to improve benefit portability and reduce risk and uncertainty.
The details of a supplemental plan are difficult to list, because there is no ideal plan, it is to be custom tailed for everyone. But a lot of the discussion around a supplemental plan is going to be what the features are about. There are some ideas of what it could consist of. There could be automatic enrollment of employers and employees, with an opt-out option. If the employer opts out, an employee could still participate by contributing. There could be an option for self-employed individuals to opt-in, or not. A minimum earnings threshold for eligibility, so the plain does not catch people with no discretionary income. All these features provide flexibility for the type of coverage offered.
Some of the possible features for contribution and participation include allowing employees to transfer the value of their current pension plan to a new plan, to provide some portability. You could allow an employee to continue to contribute to a plan even if the employer discontinues or terminates the pension plan. There could be a minimum contribution rate, with an option for additional voluntary contribution beyond that.
Governance and administration could also take different forms. It could be governed by an expert board with full transparency, so that participants would have confidence in the management of money. Confidence in the plan is essential. The reason why CPP works is transparency and their ability to provide confidence that their managed properly. Alternatively, some cost savings might be realized by a fully governmental body controlled plan with no options for contributions, even though it would compromise flexibility. Reducing administrative burdens by direct payroll contributions might work, but how do you deal with self-employed individuals? Efficiency comes with trade-offs.
The role of government in an alternative plan is also debated. They could the legislative and regulatory framework for operation of the plan, and probably should. They could provide investment at the initial stage to ensure a successful launch, or put out a tender for private bidders so that it doesn’t cost the government anything. But government involvement might also be needed to create confidence in the public.
Some of the criticisms of the alternatives are that since participation would not be mandatory, people would out and choose not to participate at all. Most people don’t have extra money. Even worse, employers could participate and then drop out of it when there is a recession. They could use it as a recruiting tool during good times, and lost it during bad ones. The plan may not require employers to match employee contributions, which reduces one of the key benefits for employees and encourages they to save.
If based on a defined contribution model, there is a big risk during a downturn of not getting the returns would would want. Although RRSPs can be held out as an alternative benefit to those without pension plans, there are enormous benefits that those excluded from pensions are missing out on as well. Some argue that creating a pension is the responsibility of each individual, and people should be able to make their own decisions about retirement.
Perspectives from the Community
The panel also included some comments from community members, to provide some perspectives from people who would be affected by pension reforms.
Janis Mark, a local teacher in London and President of the local chapter of the Congress of Black Women pointed out that with all the living expenses, it’s difficult for the average person to put away money. Many people get older and then realize they haven’t saved as much as they would have liked, and they wonder, “Is it too late for me?”
She also noted that most of what is being considered by the other panelists wouldn’t even affect our generation, it would be for our grand-kids. But this is also why for many citizens this is too much of a headache to figure out, and they don’t want to even worry about it.
Robert Sexsmith, a local retiree, added that workers everywhere feeling pressure. Governments have advocated responsibility in name of economic realism or competitiveness, but the reality is that the “war against pensions” has received less attention than it should.
People complain about taxes, and they complain when it rises. They understand wages. But pensions baffle us, and the implications of pensions is not something we understand.
Even before the recession it was clear that pensions were under the gun. Retirement benefits interfere with the labour market’s flexibility, and the willingness of people to take low-wage jobs. There is even serious discussion about raising retirement age to 75, and many of these people do not want to work.
Tax reforms not enough, and tax concessions don’t work because retirees are not paying taxes. The labour movement has argued for immediate improvements to old age security for this increasingly vulnerable population. He believes that nationalizing all private pensions would be a first step, because they are almost always underfunded, unlike public sector.
A Human Rights Perspective of Pension Reform
Michael Lynk, currently Associate Dean (Academic) at UWO, addressed the human rights and equality issues and dimensions of pension issues, which are very much becoming in the forefront in Canada and the world.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has produced reports and documents relating to the pension issue. So has the World Economic Forum (WEF), with a report looking at scenarios to 2030.
All Western societies are facing the same types of demographic and financial challenges, with a greying and shrinking workforce, with less resources. In Canada 2/3 of our workforce will not have a pension plan.
There are three major reasons why pensions are becoming topical in Canada:
- Charter issues and human rights legislation does apply to pension plans
- Age discrimination is becoming more prevalent in litigation
- Pension issues already play a discreet role in advancing human rights, especially in the area of sexual orientation
We already have an extraordinary human rights Canada. According to Lynk, we probably have the most advanced human rights system anywhere in the world, with major breakthroughs in gender issues, race, family status, and sexuality. This is something to revel in. Even Europe laws on human rights is still about 5-15 years behind us.
However, one of our major deficits has been in age discrimination. Most of the case law has focused on mandatory retirement. Virtually every case at the Supreme Court of Canada through the 90′s were unsuccessful, based on the “lump of coal” trade-off. Retirement allows others to progress in society by making room for others, and was an exception in respect to other human rights cases. Most of the cases also assume a declining ability with older age.
Unions did have the resources to fund further litigation, but just weren’t interested in it. They often had seniority clauses that they felt provided adequate protection. Same-sex benefits cases at the tribunal level started to side-step the stance taken by the Supreme Court, and by the late 90′s the Court started to agree with them. This was one example of how litigation was able to advance interests for these types of benefits.
But the court was unwilling to apply these broader tests developed in this period for disabilities to age discrimination cases, despite the 1999 B.C. v. BCGSEU ["Meiorin"] case that said we have to make human rights standards higher. The test in Law v. Canada imposed a higher and more difficult threshold in respect to Charter litigation.
A more recent case in N.B. v. Saskatchewan Potash dealt with the term “bona fide pension plan,” and whether the appropriate test was Meiorin or Law. The decided with the more modest standard, and said the differential standard used in N.B. did not offend the Charter.
Although Lynk was discouraged that the Court has left age discrimination behind, there are a range of questions that need to be asked on how we structure our pension plans. He was pessimistic in the way age discrimination has been treated in the past, but he was optimistic that the Court or legislatures were going to catch up and enforce a more broader, enlightened, and liberal view towards age discrimination. It would be impossible to keep building a higher silo of other human rights, and keep out other forms such as age discrimination out of it.
He reached this conclusion because:
- Average age in Canada is steadily increasing. This cohort of aging population is the most educated in our history, but also most healthy, and some will want to continue to work.
- Pension benefits are rising to the forefront. There is a huge amount of money involved in this, and it will continue to be an important policy and litigation issue. The sheer volume of cases will eventually force the issue.
Lynk pointed to one upcoming case before the SCC, Withler v. Canada, dealing with supplementary death benefits, but with the potential to provide a wider interpretation for pension benefits. Survivors of spouses receiving benefits would decrease by 10%, and the question was whether it is discrimination if the benefits are decreasing as people get old. The trial judge ruled against claimants, and the B.C.C.A. decision upheld the decision. The dissent held that it was a s. 15 violation on equality, and not justified by s. 1, because an improper distinction was made.
The decision is expected some time in March 2010, and will likely be published about a year from now. Even though the case is a small and discreet issue, it could determine the direction of age discrimination for future cases to come.
Anti-Anti-Olympic Bylaw in BC Unconstitutional?
The CBC reports: Anti-Olympic signs could mean jail: rights group (Oct 9):
A proposed B.C. law would allow municipal officials to enter homes to seize unauthorized and possibly anti-Olympic signs on short notice, civil libertarians say.
Violators could be fined up to $10,000 a day and jailed up to six months, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association said Friday.
The BC Civil Liberties Association has launched a court challenge:
Earlier this week, the association helped two anti-Olympics activists launch a legal challenge of Vancouver’s 2010 Olympics bylaw in B.C. Supreme Court, claiming it was an unconstitutional restriction on free speech.
[...]
The association is suspicious of the timing of the provincial bill’s introduction so close to the Olympic games, which have been planned for years.
“We’ve seen them timing things so that they don’t put in place laws that are special to the Olympics until the last minute,” Holmes said. “And part of that leads to the suspicion that they’ve done it in a calculated and deliberate way, to remove the ability of the courts, and people who might want to take it to court, to have their rights protected.”
The BCCLA has their statement of claim up on their website:
“Going to Court on a clear-cut free expression issue is a waste of time and money,” said Westergard-Thorpe. “We’ve all got better things to do, but if the City insists on passing bad bylaws, people who value free speech have no choice but to stand up and challenge them.”
Revenge of the Ontario Reports
Remember those Ontario Reports?
They’re baaa-aack.
Should the Governor General be Our Head of State?
Prime Minister Stephen Harper rebuked Governor General Michaëlle today after the Governor General referred to herself as Canada’s head of state at an executive meeting of UNESCO in France. He is correct: Canada’s head of state is Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada. That Canada shares a monarch with the United Kingdom is a vestige of our colonial heritage. As Canada approaches her 150th birthday, perhaps it’s time to seriously consider reforming the Canadian monarchy to bring it in line with modern realities of Canadian society. To wit, I believe the time has come to sever the unity of the Crown and adopt new rules governing succession in Canada.
Although embodied in the same person, the Queen of Canada and the Queen of the United Kingdom have distinct legal personality. This curious relationship is the result of the Statute of Westminster 1931 (U.K.) 22 Geo. V, c. 4, which forms a part of the constitution of Canada in virtue of the Schedule to the Constitution Act, 1982, being Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982 (U.K.), 1982, c. 11. This statute generally establishes Canada’s sovereignty from the United Kingdom. Part of the preamble to the Statute of Westminster reads as follows:
[...] inasmuch as the Crown is the symbol of the free association of the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and as they are united by a common allegiance to the Crown, it would be in accord with the established constitutional position of all the members of the Commonwealth in relation to one another that any alteration in the law touching the Succession to the Throne or the Royal Style and Titles shall hereafter require the assent as well of the Parliaments of all the Dominions as of the Parliament of the United Kingdom [...]
This was interpreted as a sort of treaty between the Commonwealth countries in O’Donohue v. Canada [2003] 109 C.R.R. (2d) 1, [2003] CanLII 41404 (Ont. S.C.), aff’d [2005] CanLII 6369 (Ont. C.A.). That case involved a constitutional challenge to the Act of Settlement 1701, which governs succession to the Throne, insofar as it precludes Roman Catholics from holding the office of monarch. In his reasons for decision, Rouleau J. stated at para. 33:
As a result of the Statute of Westminster it was recognized that any alterations in the rules of succession would no longer be imposed by Great Britain and, if symmetry among commonwealth countries were to be maintained, any changes to the rules of succession would have to be agreed to by all members of the Commonwealth. This arrangement can be compared to a treaty among the Commonwealth countries to share the monarchy under the existing rules and not to change the rules without the agreement of all signatories. While Canada as a sovereign nation is free to withdraw from the arrangement and no longer be united through common allegiance to the Crown, it cannot unilaterally change the rules of succession for all Commonwealth countries. Unilateral changes by Canada to the rules of succession, whether imposed by the court or otherwise, would be contrary to the commitment given in the Statute of Westminster, would break symmetry and breach the principle of union under the British Crown set out in the preamble to the Constitution Act, 1867. Such changes would, for all intents and purposes, bring about a fundamental change in the office of the Queen without securing the authorizations required pursuant to s. 41 of the Constitution Act, 1982.
In other words, the Parliament of Canada could, by a constitutional amendment, change the rules of succession to the Crown. In order to do so, Parliament would have to invoke the Constitution Act, 1982 s. 41(a), which requires the unanimous consent of the provinces (note that the general amendment procedure in s. 38, which requires just two-thirds of the provinces representing half the population of Canada, would not apply in this situation).
What would a reformed Canadian monarchy look like? I think that a moderate proposal would be to simply treat the Governor General as Queen of Canada. In other words, the Governor General would exercise the same powers she does today, but would do so as Queen. In order to safeguard our democratic institutions against unwarranted interference by the Queen, we could re-write the rules of succession. Rather than being hereditary, we could appoint our Queen through a transparent and non-partisan process. My recommendation would be for the House of Commons to appoint the Queen of Canada to a fixed, non-renewable 7-year term, on recommendation from a three-person committee consisting of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, and the Chief Justice of Canada.
Since we are tinkering with the fundamental underpinnings of the Canadian monarchy anyway, we might as well also implement my recommendation to delegate some power from the Governor General to the Chief Justice whenever the former is called upon to render decisions of constitutional importance. For example, when a government loses the confidence of the House of Commons, the Chief Justice could give constitutional advice to the Governor General regarding whether Parliament should be dissolved or whether a coalition of opposition parties should be given the opportunity to form a government.
Are these changes to Canada’s constitution realistically possible? All we need is the unanimous consent of Parliament and the provincial legislatures. Who’s with me?
Bill C-300
A single gold ring leaves in its wake, on average, 20 tons of mine waste.
Bill C-300
Purpose
| 3. The purpose of this Act is to ensure that corporations engaged in mining, oil or gas activities and receiving support from the Government of Canada act in a manner consistent with international environmental best practices and with Canada’s commitments to international human rights standards.
Barrick Gold Corporation, the largest Gold Mining Corporation in the world, and Canada’s largest publicly traded company put a lot of heat on the Canadian Government in the last year when Norway’s Ministry of Finance back in January of this year, sold shares of Barrick Gold from Norway’s pension fund for ethical reasons. Norway is the best place to live. They must be doing something right. Norway’s Council on Ethics conducted a fairly comprehensive investigation spanning four years regarding the use of a natural river system to transport and dispose of mine waste in Papua New Guinea. The council established “the mining operation at Porgera entail[ed] considerable pollution.” The 2008 report went on to condemn the heavy metals contamination, particularly mercury, produced by the tailings. It concluded that severe and long-term environmental damage is likely to continue, and that it represents a serious health hazard for residents of the mining area and for the indigenous peoples living downstream from the mine. As Marie-Claude Poirier of CCODP writes, in 2008 Canada was a base for 75% of the world’s exploration and mining companies. And Canadian mining companies accounted for 43% of all global exploration spending. And at most, the Canadian government promotes mining companies to voluntarily conduct their activities in a socially and environmentally responsible manner that companies have failed to undertake. The Canadian government does nothing more than endorse current CSR standards and create administrative mechanisms, rather than legal ones, within the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and at Canadian offices abroad. This is where Bill C-300 comes in. On April 22, 2009 Bill C-300, sponsored by Hon. John McKay PC, MP, passed second reading in the House of Commons with a vote sending it to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development for further study. C-300 passed by a close margin – Yeas: 137; Nays: 133. http://www.johnmckaymp.on.ca/newsshow.asp?int_id=80507 Marie-Claude Poirier, notes that Bill C-300 doesn’t include provisions for an ombudsperson and independent investigation into complaints from overseas, since private member’s bills cannot require the support of a budget. However, what the Bill does do is directly forward complaints to the Minister of International Trade and Foreign Affairs. Investigation ensues as to the alleged violations of the CSR standards. If any evidence of violations is found, then the stick of bad PR for those that are caught. The companies would be required to submit annual reports, which would fall under scrutiny of the House of Commons and Senate for review. Bill C-300 has baby teeth, but it’s better than no teeth. Even baby teeth are sharp. |
The Disparity Between our Perceptions and our Actions
Chris Hedges is the author of Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, released this summer. He wrote the book before the economic meltdown, but foreshadowed some of the challenges Western society faces in its permanent economic decline and our attachment to materialism.
Hedges has a Masters of Divinity from Harvard, and currently contributes to Truthdig.com. In a recent article there, Celebrating Slaughter: War and Collective Amnesia, he says,
A war memorial that attempted to depict the reality of war would be too subversive. It would condemn us and our capacity for evil. It would show that the line between the victim and the victimizer is razor-thin, that human beings, when the restraints are cut, are intoxicated by mass killing, and that war, rather than being noble, heroic and glorious, obliterates all that is tender, decent and kind. It would tell us that the celebration of national greatness is the celebration of our technological capacity to kill. It would warn us that war is always morally depraved, that even in “good” wars such as World War II all can become war criminals. We dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Nazis ran the death camps.
A prolific writer, he provides some interesting commentary on society and culture in an interview with C-Span, and how it affects our approach to international law:
We are the most deeply illusioned society on the planet…
Here we were, a country that not only under international law waging… a doctrine of pre-emptive war, which under post-Nuremberg laws are defined as illegal wars of aggression, we were running offshore penal colonies where we openly tortured people detained without any rights, we had a Banana Republic seizure of the electoral process in 2000, and yet we talked about our virtues. “The greatest country on earth,” “the greatest democracy on earth.”
The disparity between what we were doing, and the perception of who we are.
This is just written large throughout the culture, and it plays to a very pernicious fantasy: we as Americans can have everything we want, if we just dig deep enough within ourselves, if we tap our hidden potential, if we grasp that we are truly exceptional.
Reality will never be an impediment to what we desire.
…new humility is needed for what is coming.
He describes his vision for enlightened leadership,
Half of all discretionary spending since WWII has gone into defence, and much of our deficit, which are the largest recorded deficits in history, are caused because we are maintaining a defense establishment we can no longer afford.
Meanwhile, we are crumbling from the inside. Read the reports about American infrastructure, whether it’s sewage disposal or anything else…
This is how empires usually implode. They expand outwards to such an extent that the very heart of the empire collapses, internally. And that’s the danger we face.
So if we can recognize that this period of our history is over, and I don’t think this is a negative – living with a new kind of simplicity, not producing 25% of the world’s greenhouse gasses, learning to speak to the rest of the world in a language other than the language of force – these actually many not improve our lives in terms of consumption or power, but they would certain improve the quality of life in terms of moral integrity and meaning.
Legal Expenses Insurance in Ontario?
The Toronto Star reports today on quiet negotiations to bring legal expenses insurance (LEI) to Ontario. DAS Canada is a subsidiary of a German firm which has successfully provided LEI to Europeans for a number of years, and they’re hoping that the Law Society of Upper Canada will approve of their plans to expand into the province.
LEI works much like other forms of insurance: an individual pays a yearly premium of $500 which would insure legal expenses up to $100,000. Certain areas like family law would not be included. Family LEI packages would allow a greater maximum; a driver’s LEI package at $100/yr would cover litigation for things such as traffic tickets.
Where LEI is potentially most beneficial is with respect to access to justice. The average civil trial costs $60,000; the average Canadian earns a little over $41,000 per year; and the maximum annual income for an individual to qualify for legal aid in Ontario is $7212. This leaves a broad swath of middle-class citizens who simply cannot afford access to the legal system. In a provincial report last year, UofT Law Prof. Michael Trebilcock stated,
How LEI would affect the average person’s desire to litigate remains to be seen. Increasing litigation does not seem to be an issue in the UK and Germany, where LEI is quickly becoming the norm. And LEI could also ease the burden on our crowded courts, because it is in the interest of insurance companies to settle rather than go to court.
Courts and national security
Court lets Canadian spies snoop on targets overseas
Joanna Smith writes for the Toronto Star:
CSIS can spy on Canadians but could not do so beyond its borders. CSE can collect intelligence in foreign countries but cannot operate in Canada and must leave Canadian citizens alone. Mosley ruled the problem could be solved without violating any laws if the two agencies worked together.
The ruling allows the court to issue warrants for the CSE to monitor Canadians overseas because the technology is “controlled from within Canada.”
Another Khadr
Abdullah Khadr takes stand to fight extradition
The US is trying to have Canada extradite Abdullah Khadr, a member of the Khadr family. His father sent Abdullah to Afghanistan when he was a teenager.
Colin Freeze writes for the Globe and Mail:
Mr. Khadr and his defence team are trying to undermine the U.S. extradition bid that alleges he sold weaponry to al-Qaeda in 2003. While Mr. Khadr made admissions to this end to federal agents, he says they don’t count because everything flowed from a CIA conspiracy to have him interrogated overseas.
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- The ‘Return to Unanimity’ in Insite and Division of Powers Jurisprudence: Chief Justice McLachlin’s ‘Oversight’
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