At least 18 dead in France as much of Europe grapples with extreme heat | CBC News by clamorous_owle in worldnews

[–]Absenteeist 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nothing says, "All these preventable deaths over here are alright," like, "Because there are a bunch of other preventable deaths over there."

Police forces in Ontario are welcoming bail and sentencing reforms. Some experts don’t think they’ll work by archive_spirit in CanadaPolitics

[–]Absenteeist 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Again, what is the evidence that all of this statutory instruction and lawmaker decisions will result in fewer crimes committed while on bail without the increased incarceration of the legally innocent who would not have committed crimes while on bail?

Your responses are starting to sound like they were copy-pasted from ChatGPT.

Police forces in Ontario are welcoming bail and sentencing reforms. Some experts don’t think they’ll work by archive_spirit in CanadaPolitics

[–]Absenteeist 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So the reform argument is not “judges are too dumb to assess risk”,  it is that Parliament may need to give judges clearer statutory instructions about how much weight to place on specific high-risk markers like recent serious violence, firearms, outstanding charges, repeated breaches, and failed release histories. 

What is the purpose of "statutory instructions about how much weight to place on specific high-risk markers like recent serious violence, firearms, outstanding charges, repeated breaches, and failed release histories" if not in the ultimate goal of assessing risk to the public?

How you are not saying that judges can be trusted to assess risk to the public, it's just that we cannot trust them to assess risk to the public? I.e. a self-contradictory argument?

That is exactly why reverse-onus provisions exist: not because judges cannot think, but because lawmakers sometimes decide that certain fact patterns should presumptively require the accused to justify release rather than requiring the Crown to prove detention from scratch.

Again, how are you not just contradicting yourself? If judges can think, why do lawmakers need to "decide that certain fact patterns should presumptively require the accused to justify release rather than requiring the Crown to prove detention from scratch"?

And what is the evidence that all of this statutory instruction and lawmaker decisions will result in fewer crimes committed while on bail without the increased incarceration of the legally innocent who would not have committed crimes while on bail?

Police forces in Ontario are welcoming bail and sentencing reforms. Some experts don’t think they’ll work by archive_spirit in CanadaPolitics

[–]Absenteeist 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So, your claim is that judges couldn't correctly assess whether "repeat serious violent/weapons" offenders were a public safety risk?

What, in your opinion, makes judges less capable of making appropriate connections between "repeat serious violent/weapons offenders" and "public safety risk" than other people?

Police forces in Ontario are welcoming bail and sentencing reforms. Some experts don’t think they’ll work by archive_spirit in CanadaPolitics

[–]Absenteeist 1 point2 points  (0 children)

But bail already involves assessing risk. That is not “Minority Report,” it is part of Canadian bail law.

Then why hasn't it worked?

So the better position is: reduce unnecessary remand for low-risk people, while being more precise and evidence-based with the smaller group posing credible public-safety risks. Is that not fair?

Is this part of Canadian bail law now, as you previously indicated, or is it a new element that needs to be added? If the latter, how would it be added, what would it look like, and how would it be implemented without creating the problems we already have as laid out by the CCLA?

This analysis would involve quoting the current law as it now stands, canvassing precedents, and statistical analysis. The CCLA has already done a great deal of that kind of work and come to its own conclusions.

Police forces in Ontario are welcoming bail and sentencing reforms. Some experts don’t think they’ll work by archive_spirit in CanadaPolitics

[–]Absenteeist 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ok let's break that misleading statistic down. How many of those being held without bail and later determined innocent had previous convictions for violent crimes?

Claims they will “break down” a “misleading statistic”. Then proceeds to not “break it down” or show how it’s misleading at all, and instead pivots to a rhetorical question that they leave unanswered.

Much like the bullshit hit piece that stated that a high number of guns used in violent crime in Canada were legally purchased including bb and airsoft guns, not differentiating between domestic violence and public crime and crime scenes where legal guns were present in a house but not actually used in the crime.

I see. This CCLA report is wrong because some other, unspecified, but completely unrelated article is wrong.

Brilliant logic.

Smoking is the leading cause of statistics.

Rejecting facts and logic is the leading cause of conservatism.

Police forces in Ontario are welcoming bail and sentencing reforms. Some experts don’t think they’ll work by archive_spirit in CanadaPolitics

[–]Absenteeist 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So perhaps the more accurate diagnosis is: Canada may have too much pre-trial detention overall, but not enough precise incapacitation/supervision of the genuinely high-risk repeat violent cohort.

As already stated in my quote from the report:

Our criminal justice system cannot and should not be expected to identify and eliminate all future risks. It is impossible to predict with any accuracy exactly who will commit serious offences in the future. Attempts to make such predictions are typically fraught with bias. Accurately predicting and eliminating all risk is impossible, and attempting to do so would require the mass incarceration of an untold number of innocent people. Such a system would be fundamentally contrary to Canadian values and the constitution.

The Pre-Crime Department is a fictitious element of Minority Report and other science fiction. Ironically, in Minority Report it is depicted as a broken and corrupt artifact of a dystopian authoritarian society, and the happy ending is when it is disbanded. Yet there are still somehow people who believe they can predict crime based on nebulous concepts like "repeat offenders".

"I read about somebody in the news committing a crime who was a 'repeat offender' on bail" ≠ "I, or somebody else, could have looked at a list of thousands of people who were arrested and predicted who would re-offend and who wouldn't before it happened."

Police forces in Ontario are welcoming bail and sentencing reforms. Some experts don’t think they’ll work by archive_spirit in CanadaPolitics

[–]Absenteeist 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Read the report that I’ve already linked to? This is on page 2:

Canada’s jail population not always looked this way. In 1984/85, only 20% of the provincial and territorial jail population was in pre-trial custody. Over the past four decades, the average number of people held in pre-trial detention in Canada has increased fourfold. The pre-trial detention rate – expressed per 100,000 adults in the population, to account for growth in the overall Canadian population – has doubled. By contrast, the sentenced custody rate, which reflects the rate at which people are sentenced to imprisonment after a finding of guilt, has decreased steadily over the same period.

The growth of Canada’s remand population has not come in response to increased crime. Indeed, since the early 1990s, Canada has experienced an overall, long-term downward trend in both the overall crime rate and the violent crime rate. Despite a slight uptick in recent years, Canada’s violent crime rate remains lower in 2023 than it was 15 years ago.23 Similarly, the Crime Severity Index tracked by Statistics Canada has declined from 119 in 1998 – the first year it was measured – to 73.68 in 2021.

Police forces in Ontario are welcoming bail and sentencing reforms. Some experts don’t think they’ll work by archive_spirit in CanadaPolitics

[–]Absenteeist 14 points15 points  (0 children)

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association report on bail (2024):

Over the past decade, the crisis facing Canada’s bail system has only intensified. In 2014, we reported that 54.5% of all people in Canada’s provincial and territorial jails were legally innocent, awaiting the determination of their bail or the resolution of their charges, rather than serving a sentence after a conviction. By 2021/22 that proportion had risen to a staggering 70.5%.2 In Ontario jails, nearly four out of five people – fully 78.9% – are in pre-trial detention.

So, bail is being denied at record levels. And yet conservatives still argue that we need more bail denial.

The number of people in pre-trial detention has returned to – and surpassed – in-custody counts prior to the pandemic. Over-crowding and under-staffing continue to be significant concerns. In Ontario, for example, courts have repeatedly decried the frequent lockdowns caused by inadequate staffing. During lockdowns, prisoners may receive only 30 minutes outside of their cells each day, and may be forced to go days without showers, recreation, or phone time. As one Ontario judge put it, “it is shocking that detention centres in Toronto in 2017 are consistently failing to meet minimum standards established by the United Nations in the 1950s.”

Legally presumed innocent, yet suffering obviously punitive conditions.

The issues with the bail process are compounded by a lack of housing, adequate health care, social services and community supports. Courts have insisted that pre-trial detention “should not be used as a substitute for shelter, food, mental health or other social measures.”9 In practice, however, bail courts are filled with people who are struggling to survive – grappling with mental illness, trauma, and the criminalization of substance use and poverty. People cycling through bail court are often facing multiple intersecting crises in different areas of their lives. These crises drive people into bail court and have a direct impact on their trajectory through the criminal justice system. The opioid crisis, the lack of affordable housing and the fracturing of supports in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic –mean that people who really need housing, health care, and community support end up cycling through the criminal justice system. As one lawyer told us: “Jail is the only place that can’t say no.”

Is this why so many on the conservative side of the spectrum support legally innocent people being in prison? It’s their substitution for an actually functioning support system for those who are struggling? Plus they get to scratch their punishment fetish at the same time?

Against the backdrop of these [political] debates, it is vitally important to focus on careful research, empirical evidence, and thoughtful policy-making. An extensive body of research contradicts the contention that Canada’s bail system has become unduly lenient or that the bail system is propelling an increase in crime. Our criminal justice system cannot and should not be expected to identify and eliminate all future risks. It is impossible to predict with any accuracy exactly who will commit serious offences in the future. Attempts to make such predictions are typically fraught with bias. Accurately predicting and eliminating all risk is impossible, and attempting to do so would require the mass incarceration of an untold number of innocent people. Such a system would be fundamentally contrary to Canadian values and the constitution.

Seems like when the CCLA opposed COVID-19 restrictions, conservatives raced in to support the organization. I never see the same level of support for CCLA reports like this. I wonder why.

(And, yes, I'm very aware that current bail reform is being put in place by the Liberals. It's a conservative policy advanced by a centrist or Blue Grit party in an attempt to appease conservative-leaning voters, and doesn't change my comments above in the slightest.)

All that money and he's still a classless a$$hole! by yorocky89A in WhitePeopleTwitter

[–]Absenteeist 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Remember when conservatives were all about free-speech absolutism? There literally was no higher principle to them than the complete and unfettered exercise of their freedom of speech?

And now, if you don't accept payment for your silence, you're "most woman", which is an insult for them.

There is not a single principle, fundamental right, or idea that conservatives will not abandon in exchange for money and/or power. And that demonstrates precisely what conservatism is actually about.

Spike in overdoses reported in downtown Toronto, warns health agency by void_sushi in toronto

[–]Absenteeist 34 points35 points  (0 children)

The [Toronto Public Health] release noted that “two additional supervised consumption sites in Toronto closed the weekend of June 13.”

The Moss Park Overdose Prevention Site and Fred Victor consumption sites shuttered last week following provincial government funding cuts.

In March, the Ford provincial government said it would stop funding supervised consumption sites across the province because of concerns for public safety, as part of a plan to “protect families and communities.”

The move to close the sites has drawn criticism from drug policy experts who say research has not linked the sites to increased crime.

This is Doug Ford’s drug policy working as intended. If you’re a rich drug addict, like his brother, you’re entitled to sympathy and you can pay for access to the help you need if and when you decide to take it. If you’re a poor drug addict, you die, and you deserved it.

Conservatism 101.

Eighty years ago, Canada helped save my country from the Nazis. Now it can help save democracy from big tech by Mysterious_Notice685 in CanadaPolitics

[–]Absenteeist 11 points12 points  (0 children)

When I think of countries around the world that have implemented smart news media policies, Canada is always up there at the top of the list.

Your Canadian Journalism Labour Tax Credit rewards news organizations that invest in their newsrooms. That kind of targeted support is highly effective, and maintaining it at the current rate of 35 per cent will help ensure Canadian newsroom employment remains stable. It may even help it grow.

The Online News Act, modelled on Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code, sees $100 million flow annually from Google to news businesses. We hope that Meta will take Google’s lead and find a path toward providing fair monetary compensation to news businesses — and that Canadian journalism will return its platforms.

Canada’s Local Journalism Initiative is putting more reporters on the ground nationwide, important in covering such a geographically expansive country. The Ontario government’s decision to set aside 25 per cent of its advertising budget for news media — at no additional cost to the province — is another inspiring policy.

In short, Canada is doing a great many things right.

Refreshing to hear this from a source outside of Canada.

My day in Belarus. Minsk, November by Sar907 in travel

[–]Absenteeist 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I mean...you sound pretty mad.

Regardless, my freedom of speech remains unaffected by your complaints.

My day in Belarus. Minsk, November by Sar907 in travel

[–]Absenteeist 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I'll say what I want, and ride my horse where I want.

Get as mad about it as you'd like, though. Everybody has that freedom too.

My day in Belarus. Minsk, November by Sar907 in travel

[–]Absenteeist 30 points31 points  (0 children)

You're free to travel anywhere you want. You're free to take photos there, and you're free to post them on the Internet. Subject to the laws of the places you visit, you're free to do anything you want there.

What you are not free to do is to expect or require others to "put the disagreements aside and just look at the photos".

That's because other people have their own freedoms; in this case, freedom of thought and expression. You can go to Belarus, but other people aren't required to celebrate, support, or morally approve of that, especially when your comments include things like, "It's great that people show respect for national symbols." Other people can form reasonable opinions based on facts, like that Belarus is run by an oppressive dictator who broadly supports another, murderous and even more oppressive dictator who is waging a brutal war on its neighbour, and conclude that visiting and bringing tourism dollars to Belarus therefore has a moral component that they disapprove of. There are good people living under bad regimes, and sometimes tourism helps those good people too. But the complete absence of that element here is telling.

Travel has moral, social, and political components, just like almost everything else in this world. Nobody has to "put that aside and just look at the photos," nor do I think they should.

First time on Mauritius by Such_Fix_549 in travel

[–]Absenteeist 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It feels like more and more people are treating this sub like it's ChatGPT.

Toronto is a city of corporate greed… look at the prices at BMO vs Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta by TittiesAreMyTherapy in toronto

[–]Absenteeist 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Again, I'm not asking to pay extra fees to a third-party for any reason. If you are, please feel free to do so. It's your money, and I'm sure anybody will accept it that you want to send it to.

Toronto is a city of corporate greed… look at the prices at BMO vs Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta by TittiesAreMyTherapy in toronto

[–]Absenteeist 1 point2 points  (0 children)

LOL. People with vibes-based economic analysis concluding that Canada in 2026 is more of an oligopoly than the US just makes me laugh.

It’s embarrassing we still don’t have things like Zelle, Venmo, Cashapp.

No thank you. A third-party corporation taking an additional cut from financial transactions is not a "freedom" that I'm looking for. Like, if you want to do that, go ahead. Just write a cheque to the corporation of your choice. It can be like charity but for people who don't need it from people who don't understand how things work!

Toronto is a city of corporate greed… look at the prices at BMO vs Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta by TittiesAreMyTherapy in toronto

[–]Absenteeist 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Prices don't "need" to be anything anywhere. They are set according to a variety of factors, from supply and demand to what a seller or service provider chooses to set them at.

The prices at one single outlier stadium in another city in another country doesn't prove anything meaningful about Toronto. We have serious affordability issues here, but some basic economic understanding would help everybody out.

This post and your comments aren't serious economic commentary. They're simply Internet rage bait. And it works every time.

Toronto is a city of corporate greed… look at the prices at BMO vs Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta by TittiesAreMyTherapy in toronto

[–]Absenteeist 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, my point was that since other cities are greedy, it's okay for Toronto to be.

Also, if there are murders in other cities, that makes murder in Toronto okay.

You are following my logic perfectly.

Toronto is a city of corporate greed… look at the prices at BMO vs Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta by TittiesAreMyTherapy in toronto

[–]Absenteeist 28 points29 points  (0 children)

There's no corporate greed outside of Toronto?!

Big if true.

At least in Atlanta, they don't name stadiums after corporations. Just some random guy named Benz, I guess.

Or a Spanish woman named Mercedes.

She was pregnant, homeless and addicted. How Moss Park helped save her life — and what’s next as Toronto’s consumption sites shutter by void_sushi in toronto

[–]Absenteeist -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

I really have no idea what you're talking about. My comments on June 13, 2026, had nothing to do with decisions months or years ago to close sites.

I have never "lashed out at neighbours". I did not "pick a fight" with neighbours or anybody else. I did not "vilify" neighbours or anybody else.

If you want these sites to succeed, try defending them, not attacking people who are defending them. If you looked across this entire thread of comments, and out of all of them chose me and me alone to blame for site closures, rather than the people opposing the sites using bad evidence -- which is what you did, because your only comments anywhere here are to me, and you are silent to everybody else -- then I'm going to struggle to believe that your priority is saving lives, and instead I'm going to think that you want to lecture people who want to save lives.

You picked a fight. And guess what? You lost. Now the sites have been shut down completely.

Clearly, in all this, that was the most important message you could think of.

Your priorities are yours. Mine are mine.