RSS FeedOn grandmothers and stunt driving
Sometimes a court case comes along that I simply love. Usually I love a case because it teaches me something about law, or because it is uniquely Canadian, or because it’s worth blogging about. This week’s stunt driving decision out of the Court of Appeal does all three. In R. v. Raham, Ontario’s highest court taught us how badly some of our laws are drafted and how lucky we are to have Francophone Canadians. There is also a reminder about a shockingly easy way to risk jail for making a left turn. I love this case.
Highway 7 between Ottawa and Toronto and grandmothers—I don’t know if there is something about this mix that leads to major debates in penal law, but on April 29, 2008 a woman passing a truck began an important case that culminated in an Ontario Court of Appeal decision on Thursday. Ms. Raham was driving home to Oakville from the Ottawa area and speeding. Closely in front of her was a tractor trailer, also speeding. They both were speeding at about 90 km/h in an 80 km/h zone. Ms. Raham stepped on it and started passing the truck.
It must have been a long truck because she kept accelerating until a diligent police officer driving behind her clocked Ms. Raham at 131 km/h (51 km over the limit). She did slow down after passing the tractor trailer—to 110 km/h. It was probably then that the officer pulled a surprised Ms. Raham over and charged her with “driv[ing] a motor vehicle on a highway while performing a stunt, to wit: driving at a rate of speed that was 50 kilometres per hour or more over the posted speed limit.” And that’s how a grandma was charged with stunt driving—a provincial offence punishable by a fine between $2000 and $10,000 or by up to six months of jail, or both. I am not even talking about licence suspension.
Ms. Raham’s lawyer, assuming she had one, didn’t like this charge. In Canada, if a penal law allows for jail time, it must contemplate the state of mind of the accused. There are two options: either the prosecutor must prove that the accused knew or should have known he/she was committing the prohibited act (full mens rea offences), or the accused should be able to raise the defence of due diligence (strict liability offences). This defence means you did everything you were supposed to do but the prohibited act still took place. In both cases the state of mind of the accused matters for conviction or acquittal. Our constitution always requires this when you are accused of something that can get you in jail. No jail without fault.
For some offences fault is not required. You can never go to jail for those. Ordinary speeding, parking, talking on your cellphone while driving (unless you kill someone), etc. come to mind. It doesn’t matter if you knew you were parking in the fire lane or if your speedometer was broken when you went 10 km/h over the limit. The law will punish you regardless of your fault. These offences are called absolute liability offences. Because punishments are relatively light, offences are frequent, and the threat to public safety is serious, the law wants quick justice without delving into your moral blameworthiness.
So Ms. Raham or her lawyer thought the stunt driving law allowed jail for an absolute liability offence. On their reading of the law, all you needed to do to commit the offence of stunt driving was to go 50 km/h over the limit. The law didn’t say anything about the mental state of the accused or if the fault was relevant to conviction. But it did threaten jail. Regular speeding offences are absolute liability offences. And the act they prohibit is identical to the stunt driving offence. The cop who pulled Ms. Raham even had a choice between a regular going-50-over-the-limit charge or a stunt driving charge. I guess the cop wasn’t in a forgiving mood that day.
The Justice of the Peace who tried Ms. Raham threw the constitutional argument out of the window and convicted the grandmother. She appealed to the Ontario Court of Justice, which acquitted her and declared the Ontario stunt driving law unconstitutional. It is from that decision that the government appealed to the highest court of Ontario. On Thursday, the Court of Appeal said the stunt driving law was constitutional.
The lower court’s theory that the Court of Appeal rejected was simple. Even, if stunt driving was a strict liability offence, its nature gutted any due diligence defence. The judge couldn’t wrap his head around how anyone could prove they did everything they should have done to avoid going 50 over if they were obviously speeding. He said you can’t prove you didn’t know you were speeding if you were going at least 50 over. And if you certainly knew you were speeding, how could you prove you did everything you were supposed to do to avoid going over 50? So your defence of due diligence would always fail making the offence effectively an absolute liability offence.
The Court of Appeal disagreed. Justice Doherty wrote that “[t]he defendant must show he took reasonable steps to avoid committing the offence charged, not that he or she was acting lawfully in a broader sense.” Even if you are going 49 over, but try really hard not to go 2 km/h faster, you will not be convicted of stunt driving if you do go over despite your reasonable efforts. Well, good luck with that in court, if you are accused of stunt driving. But you get the idea.
Of course, the legislature could have spared the courts so much legal wrangling if they drafted their laws better. We wouldn’t even be talking here if the Ontario Parliament expressly included the due diligence defence in the law. But they went far beyond just forgetting the defence. Here is the wording of the statute: “No person shall drive a motor vehicle on a highway in a race or contest, while performing a stunt or on a bet or wager.”
A big part of the appellate decision is figuring out if these words mean two offences: a stunt or a bet, both in a race on a highway, or if they mean three offences: a race, a stunt, or a bet, all while driving. In the first case, the stunt offence would include elements of the race offence that contemplates the state of mind (no constitutional issue). In the second case, the stunt offence is stand-alone and figuring out the state of mind component is up to the courts (a constitutional issue).
The Court of Appeal preferred the second interpretation. And one of the decisive factors in its decision was the French version of the law, which was pretty straightforward unlike the English version. There you go: thankfully we have French-speaking Canadians and a constitutional requirement of bilingual laws. If one version of the law looks like it was drafted by a serpent from the tree of knowledge, we always have the other version for backup.
And the final lesson of this case is that you can go to jail for dashing in front of the waiting traffic in the opposing lane to make a left turn when the light switches to green. Seriously, check s. 172 of the Highway Traffic Act and s. 3, item 8-iv of Ontario Regulation 455/07.
(Post sponsored by AdviceScene)
How to avoid committing sexual assault
There are man crimes. Take sexual assault, for example. I don’t have the stats but I will be really surprised if most people convicted of sexual assault weren’t men. For example, the Criminal Code has special rules making it more difficult to challenge complainants during trials for sexual assaults. The purpose of these rules is obviously to protect female victims. The law of sexual assault regulates largely male behaviour, and men should know this law well. The guy who was convicted after sex with his twin brother’s girlfriend should have known better. This story hit the media because he appealed his conviction, and the issues he is raising on appeal show how complicated and fact-specific sexual assault law can be. The lesson for men in Canada is to be extra careful and avoid sex if you’re not sure. Read below for specific suggestions.
Sexual assault is any physical contact without consent “in circumstances of a sexual nature such that the sexual integrity of the victim is violated” (Martin’s Criminal Code). If you are accused of sexual assault, what the physical contact looked like to you is irrelevant. What matters is if the judge thinks it was sexual. He or she will look at many factors such as “[t]he part of the body touched, the nature of the contact, the situation in which it occurred, the words and gestures accompanying the act, and all other circumstances surrounding the conduct, including threats, which may or may not be accompanied by force … and the motive of the accused” (Martin’s Criminal Code). Sometimes your motive will be important and sometimes not.
In the twin brother case, the man had sex with the woman so the nature of physical contact was not an issue. The question on appeal is about the woman’s consent: was the man reckless or wilfully blind when he believed the woman agreed to the sexual contact? I don’t have the trial judge’s decision or the parties’ submissions on appeal, and I don’t want to draw conclusions about this case from the media’s reporting. So let’s say the case is just an inspiration for this essay.
Suppose the prosecution argued that the man had a higher duty to make sure the woman consented because he looked almost exactly like his brother. It’s a reasonable argument for the Crown to make because belief in consent is not a defence if you were “reckless” or “wilfully blind” in having this belief. It means if you knew there was a chance the woman didn’t consent or if you knew you had to do more to find out if she consented but didn’t because you didn’t want to, and the court finds she didn’t consent, you’re a criminal.
If you are the twin brother of a woman’s boyfriend, do you have to take extra steps to ensure her consent before sex even if you think the woman gave it? One theory could be that the exceptional similarity of twins creates a special risk that the woman will confuse one brother for another. If you know of this risk but go ahead, you are reckless even if you believe the woman consented. If you don’t know of this risk but know about the possibility of risk and prefer to ignore it, you are wilfully blind. In both cases, you are guilty of sexual assault if it turns out the woman didn’t consent.
As you can see, the law of sexual assault is complex and fact-specific. One reason why the Parliament and the courts chose to make it that way is to protect women because of many ways in which they could be against having sex and because they would not always be able to make it clear to the man, for example out of fear. The burden is clearly on men (assuming sexual assault is a man crime as I argued in the beginning) to make sure the woman consents before and during any sex. But if lawyers and judges disagree on the complex questions of consent, what should ordinary men in Canada do? (I am not talking about rapists, violent men, and other obviously criminal types.)
Criminal law must give clear guidelines, or it risks becoming unjust. Vague criminal law is unconstitutional in Canada. I am not arguing that the sexual assault law is vague but it’s complicated enough for men to have to follow the highest standard of conduct to really be on the safe side. In your normal sexual relations, the line between lawful and criminal conduct can be very thin. You can cross it easily. Here are some suggestion for all men in Canada:
- before any touching, ask the woman if she consents and do not touch until she says yes
- sexual touching includes hair, neck, hands, face, etc.—not just the obviously sexual areas
- of course, it also includes the sexual act itself
- if the woman says no, do not touch her; do not assume that she is playing; in criminal law, no means no
- if you know you look like someone else she knows, tell the woman exactly who you are before any touching
- during any touching, constantly monitor the woman for signs she stopped consenting
- if you see any signs that she withdrew her consent, stop all touching immediately
- videotape everything (preferably in high definition) in case the facts are disputed in the future
- don’t forget to warn her you’re videotaping because uninformed consent doesn’t count
- having two impartial witnesses during the whole process is even better
- DO NOT DRINK before or during the physical contact with a woman: you risk impairing your judgement and missing the moment when she stops consenting. Self-induced intoxication is not a defence.
- above all, guys, treat women with respect and avoid random sexual relations
(Post sponsored by AdviceScene)
How lawyers think
We as a society know too little about lawyers. We believe some myths about lawyers (for example, that they are rich), but we know little truth about them. It’s pretty strange given the two critical things lawyers do in our society: ensure access to justice and help regulate behaviour. The good news is it’s easy to learn the basics of how lawyers think, which empowers you in dealing with your lawyer and as a citizen.
The basic premise of legal reasoning is that it’s all about the courts. Everything lawyers do is about predicting the outcome of litigation that may or may not happen (at least in common law countries like Canada). That is ultimately the only thing lawyers do even though it may look like your average lawyer is busy with a million other roles. It’s clear that litigators think about litigation, but the other kind of lawyers—those who draft or vet contracts, wills, letters and applications—also always have the courts in mind. The difference is that the litigators already have a dispute on their hands, and non-litigators go out of their way to prevent a dispute.
Courts have the power to review any private or government action and decide if it’s legal. Our courts’ rulings are binding on all parties to the dispute, even the government. Because our courts are independent and have constitutional powers, anyone can sue anyone else including the Prime Minister and have a fighting chance. This is called the rule of law, and that’s why we have so many lawyers.
Good lawyers try to think the way judges would think because lawyers have only two purposes: to prevent litigation and to win in litigation. It’s all about the courts in our legal system. In my previous essay, I asked a question about inalienable rights in Canada. It was a legal question. Its purpose was to figure out if there was any way for Canadian courts to uphold taking away of all Charter rights. I concluded that courts could technically do that, and that’s why my answer was that there were no inalienable rights in Canada.
My reasoning wasn’t political: I didn’t look at the balance of power among political parties or their inclination to attack Charter rights. It wasn’t economic: I didn’t crunch numbers to see when Canadians could no longer afford Charter rights. It wasn’t social: I didn’t look at what groups in our society would take what position on the issue. My reasoning was legal: I tried to predict what arguments could convince judges to allow the elimination of Charter rights.
The legal argument doesn’t take politics or economics into account but it’s still powerful because the courts have huge power in Canada. Court will listen to economic and political arguments (they are called policy arguments), especially in constitutional cases. But I assumed in my previous essay that the country must be in an emergency politically and economically for the extreme legal argument against Charter rights to succeed.
So lawyers always try to predict what the courts will say, even when the police or a government ministry will most likely resolve the issue. In some areas, such as immigration, government officials have enormous discretion, and the courts often trust their judgement. In those cases, the lawyers certainly try to predict what the government official will decide, but even in those cases, lawyers know that every official is subject to judicial review. The government understands this too, and it certainly limits how far agents of the state go in their discretion. So the courts are still in the picture, at least because they leave the government alone. But they can pull the leash quickly if the government oversteps its bounds or if the courts change their interpretation of how much they should trust the government’s judgement in the given area.
Lawyers (at least when they earn their keep) think like judges. A good legal argument resembles a judicial decision that a judge could almost copy in potential litigation. And even lawyers who draft contracts and wills think about the courts, because they try to describe their clients’ rights in words that no judge will question. That’s why Mr. Burns’s lawyer said “this should hold up in any court” handing his boss yet another evil contract in one of The Simpsons episodes.
Knowing that lawyers think in terms of disputes in courts can empower an ordinary citizen. First, when you go to court without a lawyer, you will know that you really should get one, even if it’s a law student. The courts are the be–all and end–all, and you need someone who knows what judges want to hear. Second, if you have a lawyer, it will be easier to see if he is doing a good job. Try to think of future disputes over your contract or will, and see if your lawyer is taking care of that in the text. Finally, you should know about the power of lawyers and judges because the courts are the only unelected branch of power in Canada, and you as a citizen should know why and how the system works and how to make sure it continues to work in the future.
Further reading: Frederick Schauer, Thinking like a Lawyer: A New Introduction to Legal Reasoning, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009).
(Post sponsored by AdviceScene)
Are there inalienable rights in Canada?
We in Canada like to think of ourselves as free. We also like to think we have rights. The police can’t throw us in jail for our political views. And if they do throw us in jail for any reason, the police must let us call a lawyer. A part of Canada’s constitution, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees our rights and freedoms. But the constitutional rights and freedoms such as freedom of expression, a right against arbitrary detention or imprisonment, and even our right to life, liberty and security, are not absolute. The Charter leaves loopholes for the federal Parliament, provincial legislatures, or even judges to limit or take away any rights or freedoms. There are no inalienable rights in Canada.
A legal right is a claim to a benefit. The law sets legal rights, and the courts will enforce them if no one else will. When you sign a contract to lease an apartment in exchange for rent, your tenant has a right to use the apartment, and you have a right to some of the tenant’s money. Your right is always someone else’s duty, which is either to give up the benefit you claim or to let you claim the benefit freely. You can also have rights against the government. For example, habeas corpus is a right to see a judge if the police arrest you. Freedoms are like rights but they are more about enjoying benefits you already have, such as speech or movement. Still, the flip side of every freedom is someone’s duty to respect it. For example, if you have a freedom of religion, the government may not ban your faith.
But rights and freedoms in our relations with the government are tricky because the government is a sovereign. It means that within its geographic borders the government writes the law. What good is a right if the government can scrap it? That’s where a constitution comes into play. It’s a superlaw that tells the government what laws it can and cannot write. And it’s very difficult for the government to change the constitution. The Canadian Charter is the part of our constitution that orders the government to respect certain human rights. If a provincial or the federal legislature passes a law infringing on our Charter right, the courts can strike that law from the books. It will have no force and effect. That way the Charter protects us from the government.
Even democracies need this protection to stop majorities from oppressing minorities. For example, our legal tradition has very good reasons for protecting some rights of the criminally accused. Only a minority of the total population will ever need these rights. Whether justified or baseless, a fear of crime can bring a party that wants to do away with these rights to power. In theory, our Charter will always stop the Parliament from touching the rights of the criminally accused. Before the Charter, the Parliament could throw out the presumption of innocence or the law against self-incrimination. A constitution can also protect racial, gender, or other minorities from discrimination. We can be sure of our human rights only when they are safe from the majority and the government it elects.
The Charter promises us this safety, but it doesn’t really deliver. There are several loopholes in the Charter that let the federal parliament, provincial legislatures, or the courts take away rights. First, the notwithstanding clause in s. 33 empowers legislatures to suspend fundamental freedoms (s. 2) and legal (ss. 7-14) and equality (s. 15) rights. Perhaps for fear of the ballot box, legislatures tried it for real only very few times. But if the government can suspend the rights, they are not inalienable.
Second, the most obvious limitation on all rights and freedoms in the Charter is in s. 1. It basically says that sometimes the Charter will not protect our rights. Suppose the Parliament passes a law that bans newspapers in a certain language. If the government can justify this law as reasonable “in a free and democratic society,” it can get away with it under s. 1. Who decides what’s reasonable and what’s free and democratic? Ultimately, it’s the nine people on the Supreme Court of Canada. Sometimes a s. 1 justification is a very hard task, but a right or freedom is guaranteed only if it’s legally certain, not if it’s probable or very likely. So the government can strip anyone of any Charter right with the consent of the Supreme Court.
Third, the courts decide what each right and freedom in Canada actually means. For example, s. 7 allows the government to deprive anyone of “the right to life, liberty, and security of the person” only in accordance with “the principles of fundamental justice.” The Supreme Court decides what these principles are. Next, the Charter often defines rights using the principle of “reasonableness,” which is really a code word for letting the courts fill in the details. See, for example, the right against “unreasonable search” (s. 8), the right to be tried within a “reasonable time” (s. 11(b)), etc. When the police breach our Charter rights to obtain evidence against us in a criminal investigation, we have a right to have it excluded from our trial—but only if “the admission of it in the proceedings would bring the administration of justice into disrepute” (s. 24(2)). Again, the courts decide what that means by applying factors laid down by the Supreme Court.
Finally, if the government breaches your Charter rights, the courts decide what compensation you get if any. It is little comfort to you and little deterrent to the government if the courts merely declare government action unconstitutional. Denied or insufficient remedies gut Charter rights and freedoms. As the recent case of Omar Khadr has shown, the Supreme Court can deny a meaningful remedy even for breaches of the most basic rights such as a right to fundamental justice in s. 7. Most Canadians don’t seem to like Omar Khadr or his family, so the majority is clearly not on his side. The Supreme Court didn’t say that it let the government off the legal hook because of the views of the majority of Canadians. But these views possibly encouraged the government when it violated Khadr’s Charter rights or denied him the requested remedy. What is the value of rights that depend on politics?
One can argue that these cases are extreme and that limits on our Charter rights are fine because we trust our government. After all we elect it. But consider this. First, majorities elect the government, and how certain are you what the majority will be like 20 years from now? Are you going to be in that majority? Do you want to entrust your most basic human rights to a majority? Second, even election rights in the Charter are not inalienable. Mix a national emergency with the right people on the Supreme Court (appointed by the Prime Minister; no Parliament’s consent required), and the words “reasonable,” “free,” and “democratic” in section 1 of the Canadian Charter can have a very different meaning.
The word “inalienable” expresses the idea of rights that the law can never let anyone take. An inalienable right is yours by the fact of your membership in the human species. No government or person gave you this right, so they can never take it away. It is yours by birth. It recognizes your inherent value as a human being regardless of who you are, what you did, or what you think. Very few rights can be inalienable but those that can are truly fundamental: a right to a fair trial, freedom of speech, habeas corpus. The US Declaration of Independence speaks of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” as inalienable rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes “the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.”
Our Charter does not have the word “inalienable,” neither in letter nor in spirit. It uses other words. But social conditions change, and what’s not “reasonable,” “free,” or “democratic” today can become such in the future. There is a fully legal path to breaches of any rights in Canada. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s possible politically, socially, or economically, but legally our rights are uncertain. A constitution that fails to protect minorities from the majority’s changing moods does not guarantee rights. The loopholes in the Charter show that we have rights and freedoms only as long as the government and the Supreme Court let us. Rights and freedoms in Canada do not inherently belong to us as human beings but are revocable gifts from the government and the courts. And if we can’t change our Charter, we must at least hold our government to account especially strictly when it comes to human rights.
Immigration and foreign credentials
The federal government announced a plan to help immigrants get their foreign credentials recognized. At the heart of this plan is a deal between Ottawa and the provinces to speed up professional licensing applications filed by foreign-trained immigrants. Of course, the new rules will not force private employers to recognize foreign education or work experience, and even provincial licensing bodies will be free to deny any recognition. All the deal seems to promise is reduce wait times for processing of foreign credentials.
Under the Canadian constitution, immigration is mostly Ottawa’s prerogative, and regulation of professions is up to the provinces. So if you want to move to Canada from India, you have to apply to Citizenship and Immigration Canada. But if, on arrival, you want to work as an architect in Toronto, you have to apply for a license to a provincially-appointed body—the Ontario Association of Architects. In Canada, provinces are sovereign and independent from the federal government within their constitutionally set area of control. That’s why Ottawa cannot order provinces to recognize foreign credentials. And provinces cannot order Ottawa what immigrants to accept. A lack of coordination between the federal and provincial governments can leave immigrant doctors, nurses, or engineers driving cabs in Canadian cities. The latest deal is supposed to address this problem.
But this deal has limitations. Apparently, it covers only admission to regulated professions: architecture, nursing, engineering, etc. It does not guarantee admission to foreign-trained workers. Its purpose is to speed up processing of foreign credentials to see if they meet Canadian standards. Another limitation is that foreign doctors will not qualify for this program for up to three more years. And even if their credentials are recognized, foreign-trained doctors will still need to find internships, which are in short supply. The program doesn’t cover foreign-trained lawyers at all, although they can qualify for a separate arduous accreditation mechanism at least in Ontario.
Any news of fewer professional roadblocks is good news for immigrants. And the public interest certainly requires protection of Canadian standards of professional practice. But the announced program is a narrow step aimed at relatively few new arrivals. It will hardly help hundreds of thousands whose resumes end up in the shredder because of no “Canadian experience” or because their names don’t sound right. That kind of help requires not a government decree but a culture shift.
Pain or death: euthanasia again
Usually, the police raids crack houses and gang hideouts in Toronto. Last Thursday, November 26, 2009, officers descended on the Toronto Humane Society, a 118-year-old charity sheltering abandoned cats and dogs. Some of the most noted charges were cruelty to animals, which is a criminal offence in Canada. Apparently, the Society kept very sick animals alive instead of putting them to death. Assuming that’s what happened and that both managers and vets are responsible, this case may very well come down to whether keeping sick animals alive out of opposition to euthanasia is a crime in this country.
Four sections of the Criminal Code of Canada cover the crime of cruelty to animals. There are four possible offences. Three of them, injuring animals in transit or abandoning them, keeping a cockpit, and breaching a prohibition order, are not relevant to this case. The offence that the Society’s managers allegedly committed is causing unnecessary suffering to animals. “Every one commits an offence who … wilfully causes or, being the owner, wilfully permits to be caused unnecessary pain, suffering or injury to an animal or a bird…” (s. 445.1(1)(a) of the Criminal Code).
If the Society’s managers can prove that the pain their policy caused to the animals was necessary, they will be acquitted. Tim Trow is the Society’s President who faces charges of cruelty to animals. According to the Toronto Star, he is “a retired lawyer known for his opposition to euthanasia.” Assuming there is no other relevant information, he isn’t a sadist. He kept animals suffering from incurable diseases alive because he believed it was wrong to kill them. If he can prove that choosing pain over death is necessary, he will be acquitted.
Only those causing “unnecessary” pain are guilty of the crime. The courts have said that “unnecessary” in this context means something that can be avoided. And you must handle the animal for a legitimate purpose in the first place. For example, it is legitimate to euthanize your terminally sick dog, but you can’t cut its throat to kill it because painless alternatives are available. But what about keeping a terminally sick dog alive? Assuming it’s a legitimate purpose and assuming they don’t prescribe morphine for dogs, there is indeed no alternative to pain. So Tim Trow’s defence will come down to whether keeping a terminally sick animal alive is a legitimate purpose.
And that’s a philosophical question, isn’t it?
War and the Law of Nations—book review
Issue 47:2 of Osgoode Hall Law Journal has just been published. It includes my review [pdf] of Stephen C. Neff’s War and the Law of Nations: A General History.
Uttering threats
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer (I am a law student). The text below contains only my understanding of the applicable law. It has nothing whatsoever to do with your particular situation. Do not assume you can make any decisions based on this text. I do not intend this text to apply to anyone’s situation. This text is not legal advice. I am not qualified to give legal advice anyway. The purpose of this text is to encourage debate and create awareness of certain criminal offences. Please consult a lawyer if you need legal advice or help with your particular situation.
Watch your mouth. Your mom or buddy told you this in high school when you blurted out something stupid or offensive. But it’s also what the law tells you now with all its authority and with all its might. Freedom of speech is not absolute, and for some speech, the law will put you in jail. It is a crime, for example, to make death threats or to promise to injure someone or to burn someone’s house. In 2009, at least two high-profile stories of prosecution for uttering threats hit the papers. The father of baby Kaylee was charged with threatening death and causing damage in September, and the sister of Toronto’s deputy mayor was charged with threatening death in April. The potential punishment is up to five years in prison. And if you are not a Canadian citizen, they can kick you out of the country. The law may come crushing down on you if you “utter threats,” so how does it work, exactly?
Section 264.1 of the Criminal Code defines the crime and the punishment for uttering threats. If you threaten anyone with death or “bodily harm,” you can get up to five years in prison. If you threaten to harm anyone’s property or animal, you can get up to two years in prison. The courts have said that you don’t need to be violent, to slap anybody on the face, to step on a dog’s tail, or to punch anybody’s car to commit this crime. Words are enough. Of course, if you jokingly yell “I’ll kill you!” and chase after your best friend who kicked you during a ball game, the law is not interested. You must intend to intimidate when you make your threats. You must want the other person to take your words seriously. But the victim does not need to understand or even know about the threat. All the Crown must prove when they haul you to court is that you “uttered the threat.” Even if you threatened not a specific person but a member of a race or a religion or some other group of people, you can be convicted.
A special warning to those who are not Canadian citizens. The government can deport you for certain crimes, and the law may ignore how long you lived in this country. They can kick you out even if you are a permanent resident and you lived here for 50 years. Uttering threats is one such crime. Under section 36(2) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the government can tell you to leave Canada, if you are a permanent resident and you were sentenced for any crime to more than six months of imprisonment. Uttering threats fits the bill because you can go to prison for up to five years. If you are not a permanent resident but just a visitor, a foreign student or worker, etc., it’s even easier for the government to expel you. Even if you don’t go to jail for uttering threats, the conviction alone is enough for deportation. Words can cost you dearly.
Most people are not criminals, and you can even say that it’s not that easy to commit most crimes. But some crimes are crimes of mere words with severe punishment in prison. There is no freedom of speech for these words. If you tell someone that you’ll kill them, or that you’ll cut their balls off, or that you’ll burn their house, or that you’ll kill their parrot, or that you’ll stab their tires, you can go to prison. If you are not a Canadian citizen, they can also throw you out of Canada. So know the law and watch your mouth.
The new underclass
Who haven’t heard of immigration queue jumpers? The current federal government used this term when it shut down visa-free travel from the Czech Republic and Mexico. Federal officials blamed queue jumping refugee claimants. But if someone jumps the queue, it’s not refugees as much as it is temporary guest workers. And their biggest aider and abettor is Ottawa itself. Estimated 65,000 refugee claims were pending in 2008, but almost 192,519 foreigners came to Canada as temporary workers last year. A Toronto Star investigation revealed that many of them are vulnerable, abused, and prone to go underground, especially during a recession. The Canadian government wants to be in the labour supply business, but it’s not doing a good job.
The temp worker program lets employers select employees abroad if the federal labour officials certify a worker shortage in the employer’s industry. Today, most foreign workers go to farms, oil fields and into other low-skilled jobs, and many eventually end up in the underground economy. The current government in particular has let an unprecedented number of low-skilled migrants in Canada. Ottawa essentially acts as a giant recruitment agency that sizes up clients’ labour needs and fills them with people from foreign countries on condition that they go back home after two years. Foreign workers can’t switch jobs without the government’s permission. In Ontario and Alberta seasonal agricultural workers can’t join unions. And low-skilled workers can’t easily apply for permanent residence in Canada. After all, the idea is to bring in cyclical labour.
And cyclical labour they bring. Farms needs crop gatherers. Fast food joints need burger flippers. Energy companies need oil-sand workers. There are so many people in the world willing to work for much less than Canadians. Cheap labour, like any other cheap resource, can translate into lower costs across the production chain and lead to lower prices, economic growth, and general happiness. And the conventional wisdom goes that Canadians don’t want to do those jobs anyway. Temporary workers are also not supposed to strain our health care because they don’t grow old here. We have a constant supply of fresh, young, cheap labour thanks to the federal super recruiters in Ottawa. Right?
Wrong. The Toronto Star investigation revealed a widespread abuse of temporary foreign workers. Some employers take advantage of their weak bargaining power. Some employers refuse to pay their wages. Some pay much less than promised. Some fire workers without regard to their labour rights. Foreign workers often come from poor countries after borrowing thousands of dollars for the trip and middlemen’s fees. They feed their families who stayed behind. The law doesn’t let them switch employers easily. It’s not exactly a position of power in negotiating your job conditions. The Toronto Star report shows how many workers end up underground. They are the real queue jumpers, but who dare blame these abused people? Where they jump is not permanent residence in Canada but permanent limbo. They jump to a life of fear of authorities and working underground. Debts, hungry families overseas, and false hopes stop them from leaving.
They form a massive underclass—desperate and without rights—pushing many of them into crime. We have traditionally had two classes of people who lived in Canada: citizens and permanent residents. Their rights are similar but permanent residents lack some important rights that all citizens enjoy. Today we are adding a third class and even a fourth class way down the social ladder: the temporary workers with few rights and the temporary workers gone illegal—with almost no rights. Economic cycles come and go, but marginalized migrants will stay.
The government should get out of the labour supply business. If a job is low-paid, it doesn’t mean that Canadians don’t want to do it. It means the job must be better paid. And the market will take care of it without Ottawa’s bureaucrats crunching numbers in their spreadsheets. By importing massive cheap labour the federal government discourages higher productivity and wages. Unless a job involves killing people, there is hardly a qualified Canadian who wouldn’t take it for a fair wage. And if there are no takers, the job doesn’t belong in Canada.
The immigration policy should target the real issue instead of tampering with the labour market. And the real issue is the population growth. We desperately need more people in Canada, and the only realistic source is immigration. But we need immigrants with full rights, who are proud and secure and who understand and value the Canadian society. About 900,000 of potential permanent residents and future citizens are languishing in the huge backlog. In the meantime, Ottawa tempts hundreds of thousands of the world’s vulnerable to jump the queue and end up as marginalized migrants in Canada’s cities.
See-through body scanners are not as bad as they sound
According to media reports on Friday, the federal privacy commissioner approved the see-through airport body scanners. These machines show your naked body in Casper-the-ghost 3D on the security officer’s screen. Although the officer can easily see if you are a bikini model or a beer belly, the procedure is subject to restrictions and rules that create a good balance between security and privacy. Don’t be afraid of see-through scanners unless we hear some bad news about their health effects down the road.
The scanners are supposed to speed up and improve that irritating extra screening at the airport. So the first rule is they will scan you only if security officers select you for extra screening. The second rule is you still have the option of a physical pat-down. The scanners give travellers a choice between physical touching and having your x-ray nude body on the screen. If this is the case, then scanners don’t make your life more miserable. You are already in humiliating extra screening, where the officers had had the right to strip-search you even before the scanners were proposed.
The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority promised the privacy commissioner that the officer viewing your body on the screen will be in a separate room. That’s another restriction on security to protect your privacy. But it works only if that officer can’t learn your name or store the image of your body. Unless you have a gun on you or some plastic explosive in your shoes, the officers should not connect your personal information to the image or retain the image in their computers.
Airport see-through body scanners can speed up the humiliating extra screening. They give people who don’t like pat-downs a choice. And scanners seems to be an excellent security tool. As long as they are not required in addition to pat-downs and as long as officers can’t keep your personal information and images without probable cause, scanners seem to balance privacy with security well. Hopefully, you won’t need to go through extra screening, but if you do, the scanners may be just the way to breeze through it, especially if you are late for your flight.
Privacy and .ca
For years, if you registered a .ca domain, anyone could see your name, address and email in online “whois” databases. In 2008, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) restricted access to this information. Internet law guru Michael Geist hailed early drafts of the CIRA’s new whois policy as “a model for domain name registries around the world”. Still, in a last-minute change, CIRA allowed access to a domain owner’s identity for parties claiming IP infringement by the domain name. In response to Professor Geist’s accusation of a “stunning setback for privacy”, CIRA’s President and CEO Byron Holland called the new policy “thoughtful” and “effective” with the “best privacy protection in the world”.
Does CIRA’s whois policy strike the right balance between registrants’ privacy and IP owners’ rights?
Yes, CIRA cites the need to fight cybersquatting in defense of its disclosure policy. Registering domains for the sole purpose of reselling at a premium is a common problem on the internet. Few short domain names are now openly available for legitimate purposes. A more sinister extension of cybersquatting is phishing – posing as a third party to obtain confidential information such as passwords.
Yes, CIRA’s disclosure policy also protects IP rights. It simplifies contacting alleged infringers and helps resolve IP disputes outside of court. The opportunities for IP infringement in domain names alone are huge due to the nature of the internet. Any alternative dispute resolution can help relieve a potentially large burden on the justice system.
But there are flaws in CIRA’s whois policy.
Disclosure without consent impairs registrants’ privacy. It is also probably unlawful. CIRA’s disclosure policy does not meet the conditions in s. 7(3) of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, which contains the exhaustive list of circumstances when disclosure without consent is allowed in the private sector.
CIRA’s policy also undermines the freedom of speech. Whistleblowers or political activists will lose their anonymity unduly if they register a domain name referring to the organization they criticize. Instead of having to go through court, claimants need only show CIRA reasonable belief of IP infringement to obtain the registrant’s identity.
Registrants’ privacy and freedom of speech suffer irrevocably, while IP owners retain their rights and avenues for pursuing infringers regardless of CIRA’s cooperation. The barrier to obtain personal information is low. CIRA does not specify how or whether it considers merits of infringement claims. Frivolous claims that wouldn’t make it to courtroom can survive under CIRA’s laxer procedures. Citing the need to contact registrants is unreasonable because CIRA already passes electronic messages to registrants via its website. It should also be able to send regular mail on behalf and at the expense of any IP claimants.
CIRA owes a statutory duty to registrants who entrust it with their personal information. Among all the options to facilitate resolution of IP disputes, CIRA chose one that seems unbalanced and not in accord with the privacy legislation.
Citizen’s arrest
It’s one of the cases that gets ordinary people all riled up. A chronic criminal, Anthony Bennett, who some say stole from Chinatown stores for years finally got caught. A hard-working store owner, Mr. Chen, aided by two associates, witnessed a theft, confronted the culprit an hour later and then caught him, tied his hands, put him in a truck and called the police. And what do the cops end up doing? They charge Mr. Chen with assault, kidnapping, unlawful confinement, and carrying concealed weapons. The last charge is for having a box cutter.
But the cops had a lawful reason to arrest Mr. Chen. If citizens see crime in progress on their property, they can catch criminals. But Mr. Chen went after Mr. Bennett an hour after the theft. Mr. Chen and his two associates chased Mr. Bennett. It’s not clear where they caught up with him and locked him in a truck, but some running down the street was involved. Some punching is alleged. Apparently, Mr. Chen exceeded his powers of citizen’s arrest. That’s why his lawyer, Peter Lindsay, wants to challenge Canada’s citizen’s arrest laws.
Mr. Lindsay says the law “should be changed to allow private citizens to arrest people they suspect committed or will commit a crime.” So he wants citizens to have the power to arrest not only for crimes they see but also for crimes they suspect happened or even will happen.
Mr. Lindsay’s idea is unbalanced. Private citizens aren’t trained to recognize crimes or criminals. They aren’t trained safe arrest techniques. They don’t have proper custody space. Untrained people can harm someone. We can end up with even more arrests of innocent people than we have now. Kidnappers may have an easier time imitating citizen’s arrests. And the vigilantism that Mr. Lindsay’s idea can unleash is scary. The risks are just too high. And slow police response and endemic theft do not outweigh them.
The existing citizen’s arrest powers are sufficient. The crimes we are talking about are usually minor, and we don’t want ordinary people to arrest serious criminals anyway. Besides, other means exist to deter minor crime. The Chinatown business improvement area may find it less expensive to hire security guards (as it did before) than deal with civil claims by innocent arrest victims. And if the thief is really persistent, why not stake him out and do a proper citizen’s arrest on your property? All the video cameras will help with evidence if the police question the arrest’s legality.
Although Mr. Chen and other store owners in the area deserve our sympathy, Mr. Lindsay’s idea goes too far. The Crown should exercise its discretion and drop the charges against Mr. Chen. He has already paid a price for whatever indiscretion he committed. This should be a lesson for the police, for the business improvement area, and for the social services. But this story should not be a reason to expand citizen’s arrest powers. The benefits will not justify the risks.
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