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Crazy how only Canada has used emergency powers to curtail opposition. In fact it did that twice in 50 years. And only twenty people getting their rights compl
by mardifoufs 2y ago
Crazy how only Canada has used emergency powers to curtail opposition. In fact it did that twice in 50 years.
And only twenty people getting their rights completely stripped because they bothered the federal government workers in Ottawa is good enough according to you?
Maybe it's just because I'm part of a minority but your entire comment is exactly the issue with Canadian politics. We basically have 0 rights the moment a majority decides that we don't. I guess that's the perks of having an incredibly ineffective constitution.
- c0redump 2y ago[flagged]
- busterarm 2y ago[flagged]
- lp0_on_fire 2y ago“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” - CS Lewis.
- jknoepfler 2y ago[flagged]
- nradov 2y ago[flagged]
- razakel 2y ago>Freedom of movement is more important than safety. Tell that to Typhoid Mary.
- mardifoufs 2y ago[flagged]
- bitwize 2y agoBLM protestors were masking and social distancing. They were doing the right things wrt COVID.
- baggy_trough 2y ago[flagged]
- mardifoufs 2y agoOkay, so if I show you an example of a protest with people that weren't masking or social distancing, you'd be in favor of using emergency powers against protestors that were protesting for racial justice?
- slaw 2y agoDid you miss? /s
- segasaturn 2y agoThe BLM protestors in 2020 were cracked down on by the police, often violently, so I'm not sure what your point is.
- mardifoufs 2y agoYes, I know since I was part of the protests back then. But there's an incredibly big difference between cracking down on a protest and invoking emergency powers.
- busterarm 2y ago[flagged]
- segasaturn 2y ago
- dgfitz 2y ago[flagged]
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago[flagged]
- slackfan 2y agoPer Miriam Webster: 1: of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority 2: of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people It was quite pointedly, exactly neither of these. Words have meanings.
- cmrdporcupine 2y agoWhat glib nonsense. We had authoritarian right wing protesters -- who don't believe in democracy -- trying to topple our elected government. Imposing their will on the people in Ottawa for weeks, threatening violence and disturbing the peace. i.e. Not constitutionally responsible to the people. Words have meaning, as do actions, sir, and you're choose to ignore both because of your partisan blind spots.
- slackfan 2y ago[flagged]
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago[flagged]
- slackfan 2y ago[flagged]
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago[flagged]
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- mathgeek 2y agoIt’s also so very weird that both sides of this issue are likely nodding their head agreeing with you. I couldn’t get a good inference on which side of the comments you meant, personal opinion and assumptions notwithstanding.
- yoavm 2y agoI don't have a horse in this race, but I would have found it useful if you wrote what exactly you find terrifying. It's often in this kind of discussions that someone says "Things said here are X", but there are things said on both sides and I literally cannot tell even which side the speaker is on.
- toasteros 2y agoThe guy likely to take over is going to use non-emergency powers to curtail the rights of trans people. The sanctioned individuals were involved with blocking an international border. They had the stated intention of causing mischief and preventing leaving or entering Canada. They were blockading their own economy; they deserved what they got. You don't disrupt life and economy just because you've been asked to help keep a virus from spreading and get to get away with it. And now we'll curtail the rights of people who absolutely do NOT deserve it. The lurch to the right is deeply inspired by attitudes like this. We even have the Premier of Alberta claiming that unvaccinated people are "the most discriminated against group in history", which, whatever "side" of the vaccination "debate" you fall on, you know is an unbelievably stupid thing to say. Please, help prevent a drastic lurch to the right by at least reading the lede of an article as well as the headline.
- stretchwithme 2y ago[flagged]
- mardifoufs 2y ago[flagged]
- toasteros 2y agoAs I'm just a lowly computer technician, no I do not get to choose who gets rights. That is typically the domain of judges, lawmakers, and more fundamentally the founders of nations. Preventing goods from crossing an international border is called a blockade. In most jurisdictions, this is regarded as a crime and is generally done to harm an economy. Crimes are often punished. Some aren't (like wage theft, not since 1955), but a lot are. Interfering with a country's ability to trade with another country, as well as publicly threatening to kill law enforcement officers, is quite a serious offence. I am not certain left-leaning government should not punish crimes, as it's generally seen as a good idea to ensure that activity that disrupts life or liberty of others doesn't happen, and judiciary measures are a part of that. I guess we COULD try an idea in which people are trusted not to do harm, that could be an interesting experiment.
- catgary 2y agoAre you talking about the militant separatists who had already committed mailbombings and escalated to assasinating a government official and kidnapping a foreign diplomat on Canadian soil in 1970? It’s also important to note that afterwards Quebec separatism continued to be a legitimate political movement without a terrorist wing, with parties represented in federal and provincial governments.
- mardifoufs 2y ago[flagged]
- GamerUncle 2y ago[flagged]
- idiotsecant 2y agoYou think the US has not been doing exactly the same thing? What do you think the patriot act was? There are a million examples of this.
- mardifoufs 2y agoThe Patriot act doesn't even come close to emergency powers. And the Patriot act would've been insanely worse if the US had the equivalent of our non withstanding clause. So no, it hasn't been doing the same. Bush and his cronies sure would've wanted to go further though, I agree. Also, another difference is that the Patriot act has been very controversial in the years since. Whereas the same hasn't been true in Canada for the usage of emergency power. And no one seems to care that we see more and more laws passed with the non-withstanding clause either.
- wbl 2y agoThere was a literal British army deployment to Northern Ireland for decades.
- hackandthink 2y ago"In 1971, official date of the birth of topos theory, unfortunately the dream team at Dalhousie was dispersed. What happened, that made you go to Denmark ? Some members of the team, including myself, became active against the Vietnam war and later against the War Measures Act proclaimed by Trudeau. That Act,similar in many ways to the Patriot Act 35 years later in the US, suspended civil liberties under the pretext of a terrorist danger. (The alleged danger at the time was a Quebec group later revealed to be infiltrated by the RCMP, the Canadian secret police.) Twelve communist bookstores in Quebec (unrelated to the terrorists) were burned down by police; several political activists from various groups across Canada were incarcerated in mental hospitals, etc. etc. I publicly opposed the consolidation of this fascist law, both in the university senate and in public demonstrations. The administration of the university declared me guilty of “disruption of academic activities”. Rumors began to be circulated, for example, that my categorical arrow diagrams were actually plans for attacking the administration building. My contract was not renewed" https://www.mat.uc.pt/~picado/lawvere/interview.pdf https://www.mat.uc.pt/~picado/lawvere/interview.pdf
- catgary 2y agoI love Bill Lawvere, but he punched the president of his university in the face, he was genuinely lucky to find a position in academia afterwards.
- fidotron 2y agoAmazingly there is someone living very close to the airport where they found the body of the Deputy Premier of Quebec (Pierre Laporte) in 1970 that flies the flags of allegiance to the successors of the terrorists (i.e. the MNLQ following from the FLQ) from a pole in his yard for everyone on the highway to see. For some people all this stuff is very much part of their reason for being, but the FLQ took being obnoxious to make a point to staggering new levels. Just the titles of their books alone are astonishing, and impossible to quote here without causing justified offence.
- throaway89 2y agoyeah what people dont always understand (not saying you dont) is that FLQ supporters see themselves as basically being occupied by Anglo Canadians. Until the 60's there was entrenched discrimination in Montreal against catholics and french-speakers. The city even used to have two hockey teams, one for Anglos and one for Francos.
- throw0101d 2y ago> Crazy how only Canada has used emergency powers to curtail opposition. As opposed to using it to curtail support? It was used against occupiers and there is no Charter right to that (2011 ONSC 6862; 2024 ONSC 3755). > We basically have 0 rights rights the moment a majority decides that we don't. I guess that's the perks of having an incredibly ineffective constitution. Wat? * https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/ https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/ * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and... There are multiple cases where governments (with majorities) have passed legislation that was successfully challenged under the Charter. Further, the Emergencies Act was written post-Charter, with it in mind: > AND WHEREAS the Governor in Council, in taking such special temporary measures, would be subject to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Bill of Rights and must have regard to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, particularly with respect to those fundamental rights that are not to be limited or abridged even in a national emergency; * https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/e-4.5/page-1.html https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/e-4.5/page-1.html * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergencies_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergencies_Act
- mardifoufs 2y ago[flagged]
- throw0101d 2y ago> * But I hope you realize that it doesn't show anything. A federal or even provincial government can absolutely pass any law, with a simple majority, that doesn't respect the charter simply by invoking the non withstanding clause.* And the use of the withstanding clause has to be re-up every five years, as that is the maximum time before a new election is held so that The People™ can decide if they want to continue with it: > (3) A declaration made under subsection (1) shall cease to have effect five years after it comes into force or on such earlier date as may be specified in the declaration. * https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/check/art33.html https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/chec... > Can you show me a single piece of legislation that used that clause and that was still overturned? The point of the clause was so that The People™, through their duly elected representatives, would have the final say in matters of government and not judges (who are potentially answerable to no one). Whether it should be judges that have the final say (like in the US) or legislators (like in the UK) is up for debate: in Canada it was decided to split the difference.
- staplers 2y agoWe basically have 0 rights the moment a majority decides that we don't. That's literally what a democracy is and has been.. It will always seem great until you are the minority. America had human slaves built into its democracy until the majority said otherwise. Unsure why this is so shocking.
- _DeadFred_ 2y agoAmerica is specifically designed not to be this and to prevent a tyranny of the majority because original immigrants to the USA were from minority religions where they lived in Europe and had been terrorized plenty.
- krapp 2y agoThe Puritans were a minority group among the original settlers to the US, among the Dutch, French, Spanish, other British settlers and others. The founders and architects of the Constitution and US government were not Puritans.
- scheme271 2y agoAnd that designed failed spectacularly from the beginning. As the post you're replying to points out, slavery is essentially the majority deciding that a minority and their descendants have no rights whatsoever. This state of affairs lasted until the 1860s and even then those rights for the minority were severely curtailed until at least the 1960s.
- IncreasePosts 2y agoI wouldn't say it failed spectacularly. The trade-off was well known amongst many even at the founding of america. There would simply be no America if slavery was disallowed from the beginning. A hospital could still be a net positive for society, even if sometimes people go there and die who otherwise would have lived if they did not go to the hospital.
- _DeadFred_ 2y agoWas there a majority that was pro-slavery? My understanding was the agreement was that it was a minority that wanted slavery, and that slavery would be kept to that minorities states?
- deanCommie 2y ago[flagged]
- mardifoufs 2y ago[flagged]
- BrandoElFollito 2y agoMaybe it's because other countries are too soft (talking from the perspective of a French who saw suburbs in fire because some people did not want to stop when the police told them so).
- akdev1l 2y ago> No, the point is that that's two times more than any other western nation. Citation needed.
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago[flagged]
- mardifoufs 2y ago[flagged]
- dang 2y agoWould you please stop perpetuating this flamewar? I asked you upthread not to go in that direction, and instead you've gone full bore in that direction. Not cool. (I don't care what side of the argument people are on—I care who is breaking the site guidelines and making HN a more hellish place.) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dangraper 2y ago[dead]
- mardifoufs 2y agoSorry about that, I didn't read your earlier comment. I'll tone it down.
- dang 2y agoYour account has been breaking the site guidelines badly in this thread. Would you please stop? Regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are, It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. We've had to ask you this before not long ago, so it would be good if you would review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and please fix this.
- dangraper 2y ago[dead]
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago
- dang 2y agoPlease don't cross into the flamewar style on HN. This comment is only dipping a toe in that direction, but still—it's the opposite direction to what we're trying for here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42616298 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42616298.