RSS FeedOPP Officer Murdered, Tragic Irony…
First and foremost, R.I.P.
Unfortunately, as the reports circle around the internet, PC Vu Pham, 37, has succumb from his injuries he received in a shooting this morning. Pham leaves behind a wife and three children and a community, in which he was deeply involved, in mourning for his sudden, tragic, and senseless murder.
The 70 year old suspect’s name has not been released, but he will undoubtedly be charged above all else with first degree murder.
It is reported that PC Pham, a Vietnamese immigrant and veteran officer of 15 years, was attempting to stop a suspect vehicle from a report of domestic violence. If this is the case, it is the worst kind of irony, because today, March 08, is International Women’s Day. A day that in part is aimed at preventing violence against women.
This is the second police officer who has been killed in the line of duty in a week in Ontario. On Monday, March 01, Artem “James” Ochakovsky, a Peel Regional Police officer died in a traffic accident when his police cruiser hit another car and then wrapped around a telephone poll.
Although the deaths of Ochakovsky and Pham are different in nature, they are tragic to the community and especially the policing community.
I will save my personal opinion for my personal website, and if you are at all interested in reading it, follow this link.
UWO Student’s Charges Stayed…
In an interesting twist, the Crown has decided to stay all charges against fourth year UWO student Irnes Zeljkovic.
Zeljkovic’s incident involving UWO Campus and London Police made national headlines late last year when he was arrested in what some described as nothing more than police brutality. I qualified the arrest both here and on CFRB 1010′s Jim Richard’s Show by saying that I thought all aspects minus the baton strikes were acceptable.
Although no details were released about what transpired in court, Zeljkovic’s lawyer, Phillip Millar of Cohen Highley plans on talking with UWO officials first about his client’s reinstatement and then one can only assume about a potential settlement regarding the arrest.
Also last year, UWO officials hired former OPP Commissioner Gwen Boniface to investigate the incident. To date, no information has been release with respect to her independent investigation.
Strikers To Target Students…
Yesterday at 00:01, the London Transit Commission went on strike for the first time in almost 30 years. The local 741 Amalgamated Transit Union and the City of London are, depending on who you talk to, either close or far from a deal.
As I am fortunate enough to own a vehicle and I have offered my spare seats to pick up other law students. As I was driving in to pick up a friend, I was listening to the radio and I was glad to hear that UWO had decided to assist students by renting upward of 50 vans to drive students who live more than a 30 minute walk from campus to and from school.
The conversation quickly changed when in the hosts next breath he reported that Pat Hunniford, president of the local transit union, had declared that if UWO goes ahead with trying to provide transportation to its students, that his union would setup a picket line at UWO!
But, he warned, if the University of Western Ontario goes ahead with volunteer drivers using vans to move students, the union will put up picket lines at the campus.
Western’s unions have agreed not to cross those lines, he said.
“The students may get to classes, but they may not have anybody teaching them.”
The longer the strike goes on, the longer it will take for service to resume once a deal is signed, Hunniford added.
Although I understand the importance of unions, I feel that the potential of UWO’s unions holding a sympathy strike would do nothing more than hurt the students. However, I digress.
Back to the LTC picketing UWO’s attempt to provide an reasonable alternative for its students. I immediately thought of the legality of this. In my two months of law school, we have covered cases like this, where the court held that it was illegal to strike on private property (see: Harrison v. Carswell (1975), [1976] 2 S.C.R. 200).
The next thing I thought, is whether the property flowing through UWO’s “boundaries” is actually considered private. For this we can refer back to Harrison v. Carswell where in that case the picketing was occurring on a shopping mall’s property. UWO much like a shopping mall has a direct invitation for people to come on its property to enjoy its use. The dissent in Harrison v. Carswell argued the mall was a public place and as such could be used as such “revocable only upon misbehaviour (and I need not spell out here what this embraces) or by reason of unlawful activity”
However, public and private property in Ontario are also included in Trespass to Property Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. T.21 defines what property (aka premises) is:
“premises” means land and structures, or either of them, and includes,
(a) water,
(b) ships and vessels,
(c) trailers and portable structures designed or used for residence, business or shelter,
(d) trains, railway cars, vehicles and aircraft, except while in operation. (“lieux”) R.S.O. 1990, c. T.21, s. 1 (1).
As with this definition, it would be fully within the power of the UWO administration to prevent LTC picketers from setting up and preventing the transit of students to and from class. Although I am probably missing something under various Ontario labour laws, I am not really prepared to undertake a full research project into the legality of roaming strikes. Should my simple research turn out to be the law regarding this and should the LTC setup picket lines surrounding UWO, I would encourage the administration to take all necessary steps to ensure that students are not only able to have rides to school, but that classes will still occur.
Should the LTC begin to picket UWO and prevent students from obtaining a ride by UWO, any support held by students toward the union will quickly fall.
I applaud the university’s effort in assisting the students, and I, like many Londoners, hope the strike ends soon without holding the students or rest of London hostage in the time being.
If there is more by way of legality that you can add, please do so in the comments section… Thanks.
Hate crime in London, Ontario
A woman had her head covering torn off and was pelted with anti-Arab slurs in an attempted stabbing London police are treating as a hate crime.
The hidden side of the abortion issue
MDs face scrutiny over duty to unborn
Does an obstetrician have a duty of care to an unborn child?
A Guelph hospital, citing a 2008 court decision that found a doctor had no such obligation in the case of a girl born with birth defects because of an acne drug prescribed to her mother, says no.
But the family of another child says yes.
Water Bottle Ban on the Horizon
Bottled water must be the most brilliant marketing ploy ever conceived.
Some marketing reps decided to take regular tap water, run it through a filter, and then package it in attractive bottles designed to somehow set their product apart from basically identical competing brands. Through clever advertising about the dangers of tap water and the pure, delicious, refreshing nature of bottled water, these reps built a multi-billion dollar industry.
Specifically, according to Wikipedia, bottled water products poured 60.9 billion dollars into the coffers of mostly large bottlers like Coca Cola in 2006 alone, and that number is only expected to grow.
All the reps could do now was slap each other on the back, laugh, and watch the money flow — like, well, water from a tap.
That is, of course, until you consider the environmental impact.
Environmental Impact
Earlier this year, Phil Woolas, the UK’s Environment Minister stirred up headlines when he said that consumption of bottled water bordered on immorality.
The carbon footprint involved in producing a bottle of water and then transporting those bulky bottles to the consumer is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. According to The Times, “a Swedish study calculated that the environmental impact of bottled water was 90 to 1,000 times greater than tap water, and could be higher.”
The manufacturing process takes approximately 5 liters of water to produce a 1-liter finished product. In addition, once the water inside them is consumed, most of those plastic water bottles end up in landfills (or in gutters).
Peter Ainsworth, an MP and outspoken environment critic, backed up Woolas:
“Huge amounts are imported from other countries — some now ludicrously from the Far East. This is an ecological nightmare and it doesn’t make economic sense either. It certainly raises questions about the basis on which we have constructed our economic lives. By any rational standard it’s crazy to be importing water from countries far away when there’s perfectly good water in our taps.
“It looks like the epiphany [sic?] of any unsustainable human activity. I think as consumers we should consider the impact we have on the environment. If they think about it they might change their behaviour.”
Towards a Ban
The city council of London, Ontario this week voted overwhelmingly in favour of a ban on bottled water.
The move will make London one of the first major Canadian cities to institute such a ban, which is expected to go into effect on September 1.
The phased-in ban will begin by limiting the sale of bottled water at municipal buildings and city facilities. By the end of next year, the sale of those ubiquitous plastic water bottles will be prohibited at golf courses and city parks as well.
Only three councilors opposed the measure, on the basis that it undermines choice. The London Free Press quotes councilor Paul Van Meerbergen as saying:
“It’s one more brick in the construction of a nanny state.”
Nevertheless, the tide seems to be turning in favour of greater regulation.
According to the Canadian Press, Mayor David Miller of Toronto is now considering following London’s example. I’ve noticed advertisements against bottled water popping up on Toronto bus shelters, and the City of Toronto will be looking at a ban as part of a larger strategy to curb waste.
Other Canadian cities like Vancouver, Ottawa, St. John’s, Kitchener, and Windsor have all been considering municipal bottled water ban measures.
My View
In Southern Ontario, we are blessed with some of the cleanest and safest drinking water courtesy of the Great Lakes. Even though there are water fountains readily available, I see people spending $1.50 for a 591mL bottle of Dasani on my university campus. That’s double the price of gasoline. Personally, I’m not even sure how one can justify spending money on what is essentially free and abundant.
There’s something to be said for our municipal government taking small steps to show the public that it frowns on absurd consumer practices. Drinking a bottle of water might one day carry the same social stigma as smoking a cigarette. If it can help change consumer attitudes, I’m all for the bottled water ban.
