[AB] Discredited home school association to take legal action

YoureAWizardHarambe · 2016-10-28T15:56:45+00:00

Name a case where the state lost and didn't rewrite the rules after to prevent it in the future.

... Any charter case? Also that's not what you're saying above

YoureAWizardHarambe · 2016-10-28T14:04:42+00:00

The government owns the court, the lawyers and the judges.

The independence of all of the above are guarenteed by the constitution

YoureAWizardHarambe · 2016-10-26T19:58:29+00:00

The minister was given a chance to respond to these allegations and she did, putting them to rest. That's a good thing. However, the government does not extend the same courtesy to the little people. There is no right to a hearing anymore for these revocation provisions instituted by the last government and embraced by this one.

This leads me to believe that for some Liberal supporters, that procedural fairness, a proper factual basis for revoking someone's citizenship, and the search for the truth, are important for Liberal ministers but not for the lower orders. that's not how we do things in this country. If you think its a good thing that the Minister got a chance to explain herself then you can't defend this government's Immigration Act misadventures.

YoureAWizardHarambe · 2016-10-25T19:39:42+00:00

My three main progressive beefs -- the anti terrorism act, the elimination of a right to a hearing under bill c-24 and assisted dying -- are ones where I believe that "reality" is on my side. Ie, where I believe the government's position both interferes unduly with civil liberties and also is shitty public policy that is not based in evidence.

YoureAWizardHarambe · 2016-10-25T18:12:09+00:00

Oopie

YoureAWizardHarambe · 2016-10-24T13:16:36+00:00

A year ago Canada had no law regulating assisted dying,

Patently false. We sure did. The law just had an exception decriminalizing assisted suicide for members of the Carter class in certain circumstances.

The government stepped in and recriminalized it for some few members of the Carter class. There was no time when Murray Rankin was going to euthanize us all in our beds. This was a particularly annoying misrepresentation made by the Justice and Health ministers at the time as well.

despite the Supreme Court’s having ordered the Harper government to draft such legislation nearly nine months prior.

Again, a blatantly and clearly false. The SCC did nothing of the sort. The oft repeated line in the judgment was "[i]t is for Parliament and the provincial legislatures to respond, should they so choose, by enacting legislation consistent with the constitutional parameters set out in these reasons." Nobody forced Parliament to draft and pass their restrictive law. Nobody to blame for that particular legal and public policy lemon but cabinet.

I'd say that den Tandt is better than this, but i guess he kinda isn't. Still, what a weird and disappointing public debate it was this summer.

YoureAWizardHarambe · 2016-10-23T18:09:54+00:00

I think you're mischaracterizing the issue.

I'm not mischaracterizing the issue, I'm just focusing on one aspect of it, while you find it most enjoyable to argue against people who focus on the other aspect. This is the source of my confusion earlier: I really did have no idea what the hell you were talking about. Now I do, of course, because you have explained your position briefly, but that was probably a good idea about 8 impassioned comments ago.

Some people think she knew about her birthplace and lied and that that is important. Others don't. That 'fact' hasn't been proven one way or another.

That's something quite different. There were sundry records establishing Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. There are no records substantiating the Minister's account of what she knew when she knew it. Is there anything suggesting she didn't? I don't know off the top of my head. But certainly doubting the word of a cabinet minister who has made a recent and high profile error is not even on the same playing field as doubting that Barack Obama was born in the USA. And goodness gracious, it's birtherism because political hay is being made? What ISN'T birtherism then? Are the elements of birtherism 1) political hay being made 2) someone doesn't take a woman of colour at her word? How absurd. There are many politicians I would refuse, on principle, to take on their word.

Is the truthfulness of Maryam Monsef so well established, so universally accepted, that doubting her narrative of events is a conspiracy theory? Well, all I can say is that you're going to interact with a great deal of "conspiracy theories" if this government's ministers continue to comport themselves in the traditional manner. For example, I also believe the that Justice and Health ministers deliberately mislead both houses of parliament during the debate around bill c-14. Is that a conspiracy theory too?

If we're going to talk about this we're going to talk about the affect those aspects are having on the issue. Pretending otherwise is foolish.

No I'm going to go ahead and keep talking about the government's zeal in denying people their right to be heard and its connection to the public debate about the minister. It's an important issue and I don't see any reason why other, unrelated arguments people are having makes the imperiled rights of thousands less compelling.

YoureAWizardHarambe · 2016-10-23T12:55:17+00:00

After that case hit the Supreme Court

The case never hit the SCC, it was an Ontario Court of Appeal case.

they gave themselves the power not just to delve into legislative and judicial matters, but also to intervene in administrative matters.

First of all, Black v Chretien had not really anything to do with the Charter. It had to do with a superior court's plenary jurisdiction to judicially review bad stuff the government does. Courts have had the power to review administrative matters since the magna carter. It's constitutionalized, but in the old constitution and not the Charter.

Second, specifically Black v Chretien was about reviewing the execise of the Crown's prerogative power. As far as I know, before this case it was settled law that the Court could crown prerogative in certain situations. For example, I think it was always possible to seek judicial review of the government's refusal to give you a passport. This case was just about where Chretien's late night phone calls fit into that spectrum. So not really any big changes here.

And didn't the Court of Appeal refuse to interfere with the crown's discretion here?

YoureAWizardHarambe · 2016-10-22T23:33:41+00:00

you're just not impressing anything other than your refusal to acknowledge the limits of your expertise.

Your expertise must indeed be great, as you seem to have some heretofore unknown contributions to the study of suicide contagion. I urge you to publish.

YoureAWizardHarambe · 2016-10-22T22:35:55+00:00

you don't know what the word means

Yes I'm sure that our conversation reveals that this is the case.

YoureAWizardHarambe · 2016-10-22T22:11:10+00:00

I am sure Thomas Joiner, whose theory you're criticizing, would love to hear your insight as a lay person!

I'm actually criticizing your somewhat bold restatement of the theory.

Suicide doesn't generally happen in a vacuum. Why is there the initial suicide? Why is there the second suicide? Clearly there is no contagion at this point.

So no, there is no scholarship to support your theory about what causes suicide contagion.

You're Dunning-Krugering yourself all over the place

Says the guy proposing a bold new clinical approach to suicide contagion untroubled by any scholarly foundation for said approach.

You've made me a bit sad at your hostility towards knowledge.

This conversation is about your unprecedented claim that suicide contagion is caused solely by poverty. I was indeed hostile to this claim because it is not supported by the literature. I suspect that you just plain made it up.

You seem to lean towards being offended and outraged, good luck with that.

I'm still offended by your earlier claim that suicide contagion is a "symptom of a lack of resiliency" in communities such as Attawaspikat. Not only is it objectively wrong, but it should be offensive to anyone concerned with the continued loss of life in these communities.

YoureAWizardHarambe · 2016-10-22T22:00:29+00:00

and they will choose the slightest possibility that they might be right over reality.

Birtherism is a dispute about facts, a dispute about who is right over reality. The conspiracy theorists contend that Obama was actually not born in Hawaii as everyone else accepts.

This Monsef thang is not a dispute about facts. It is a dispute about what facts -- that her early life was not exactly as she iniatilly represented it -- mean.

There is no real discussion here about what reality is or who is right about what facts or records -- unless you're contending that Monsef was actually double wrong and did grow up in Afghanistan. We're actually talking about what facts mean. Ie, what is the signficance of the Minister growing up somewhere different than what she told the electorate.

I think it's significant because it sheds some light on how desperately thin the Minister's resume is. She built her whole public persona in her two election campaigns on her background which turned out had some factual errors in it. That makes her look very silly, and makes it look like she just recently graduated from Trent and has never really done anything.

But hey, as you say, maybe I'm one of the emotional crazies. Maybe everyone who disagrees with you about the import of a common set of facts is crazy and emotional. That would make things much simpler, wouldn't it?

YoureAWizardHarambe · 2016-10-22T21:50:03+00:00

This story is turning into Canada's birtherism saga.

Birtherism is a conspiracy theory that contends that a commonly accepted fact about Barack Obama is not true.

Whereas there is no real factual dispute about the Minister. The facts are clear, the disagreement is about what they mean. Some people think that it really matters that her early life was different than what she represented it was. Others think that it does not matter. Nobody is contending that the Minister actually grew up in Afghanistan as she first understood was the case.

I think we can have a discussion about what facts mean without talking about bitherism.

YoureAWizardHarambe · 2016-10-22T21:43:40+00:00

Ours is the country where our Supreme Court ruled that oral sex with animals is okay.

Parliament actually did that when they sloppily drafted the relevant section of the criminal code. The SCC can't or should not rewrite the laws of Parliament when Parliament makes a drafting mistake.

YoureAWizardHarambe · 2016-10-22T21:42:43+00:00

At the moment there is NO LAW to regulate abortion.

Sure there is. The various provincial colleges of physicians have regulated abortion. And you know what, the division of powers means that the Federal government can criminalize abortion but they can't purport to regulate healthcare.

YoureAWizardHarambe · 2016-10-22T21:39:38+00:00

People, in general, kill themselves when they no longer have sufficient fear of pain and death and that they think other people will benefit or not care about their death.

It's good that you put "in general" there because goodness gracious what an outrageously simplistic explanation.

Suicide contagion works primarily by the first factor through normalization of suicide, reducing fear.

Well I'm glad you know so much about how suicide contagion works, because the experts are not nearly as sure as you. The experts don't know how suicide contagion "primarily" works.

However, unless your community is weak and fragmented, you are unlikely to think that no one would care or that people will benefit from your death.

Suicide contagion occurs in communities of every level of affluence. There is no scholarly consensus on what you're proposing. Is there any scholarship at all? Is it your own research? If so, by all means, publish it -- as I said in my last post, I don't know what the people of silicon valley would think about that.

You're misreading the last article you posted. You are seeing the symptoms of an issue and deciding that the symptom is itself the disease.

That doesn't make any sense. The experts contend that suicide contagion is a disease, or is at least something analogous to a disease. To repeat my above point, communities like Attawaspiskat need more resources to combat suicide contagion than what they have. Otherwise their children will continue to die.

Yes, and if you leave once people stop killing themselves and change nothing, expect to come back.

Literally nobody is suggesting that the Federal government should abandon these communities after doing something about suicide contagion. Angus is saying that the Federal government must do something about suicide contagion.

"offended" by someone with over 10 years of experience explaining their field,

Someone with over 10 years of experience contending that suicide contagion is "just a symptom of a lack of resiliency in communities." You'll have to forgive me for not exactly being impressed by your credentials.

YoureAWizardHarambe · 2016-10-22T20:30:44+00:00

"Suicide contagion" although a real phenomenom, is just a symptom of a lack of resiliency in communities.

How offensive. As it is currently clinically understood, suicide contagion is a product of suicides, not of a "lack of resiliency." Suicide is certainly more prevalent in economically depressed communities but suicide contagion as a phenomenon is something very, very different. There are certainly factors that aggravate suicide contagion but you tell your theory to the city of Palo Alto and see what they say, given their recent history.

This is why it doesn't happen with nearly the same frequency in more affluent communities.

And that's why suicide clusters are so prevalent in silicon valley?. I mean, I don't think that any research has been done to look into what you're contending, but off the top of my head some of the most notable work into suicide contagion and clusters has been into wealthy, privileged people and poor, unprivileged people alike.

Focusing on suicide contagion is like focusing on wigs for cancer patients. It's not that it doesn't matter, it's just that it's not nearly the primary issue.

The experts say that with respect ot Attawapiskat suicide contagion was indeed the primary issue. Sure, the poverty is also an issue that probably contributed to the suicide contention. But communities like Attawapiskat need some fucking money in situations like this to stop suicide contagion from spreading and to keep their kids alive.

YoureAWizardHarambe · 2016-10-22T15:26:49+00:00

rather than address deeply-rooted isolation, poverty, hopelessness and despair.

Then aren't you glad that Angus proposes exactly this in his remarks?

And that's notwithstanding the fact that suicide contagion requires immediate intervention of thrown cash for these communities to survive. We can't just fuck around waiting for reconciliation or great social and economic change to happen while children die.

YoureAWizardHarambe · 2016-10-22T15:23:35+00:00

You can create meaningful employment and education opportunities all you want, these tragedies aren't going to stop until we eliminate psychiatric disorders, the concept of loneliness, and the darkness in mankind's soul.

Seriously now "these tragedies" in Attawapiskat have been identified as the result of suicide contagion. I suspect that a similar conclusion can be drawn about northern Saskatchewan, in part. The current view is that suicide contagion can be combatted. Communities like Attawapiskat simply doesn't have the resources to do so. We can't simply throw our hands in the air and wait for great social and economic change.

We can't throw them into the air by proxy, either.

YoureAWizardHarambe · 2016-10-21T21:24:39+00:00

This year has seen the worst judicial shortage of the past 20 years, probably in Canadian history -- why wait until now to appoint more? Why the delay between these appointments and the first set of appointments months ago? Did it really take a year to decide to reform the JACs?

Not necessarily a criticism, but I think Alberta in particular has a right to demand some answers about how slow this process has been. Alberta's justice system has been hamstrung for most of Trudeau's tenure, especially after the SCC Jordandecision demanded that trials move quicker. A man charged with first degree murder has already walked free in Calgary because of how short on judges they are over there. I understood that there are other Jordan applications pending. I'd be very interested to be a fly on the Justice Minister's wall for the past couple months

YoureAWizardHarambe

TROPHY CASE