Divorce and equality

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 16, 2012 at 3:30 PM - 0 Comments

Irwin Cotler responds to the Justice Minister’s comments last week about the laws governing same-sex marriage.

While it is true that there exists a Canadian residency requirement of one year before a couple may divorce here, this requirement applies to all marriages — homosexual and heterosexual — and existed long before same-sex marriage was adopted in this country. Indeed, this provision is from the 1985 Divorce Act introduced by the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney. Certainly, if this provision needed fixing so urgently as a result of same-sex marriage, the Conservatives have had ample opportunity to do so since their assent to power in 2006.

While it appears that the couple in this particular court case — comprised of one partner from the UK and the other from Florida — may not meet this requirement, the government could have rested its case here. Instead, the government went a step further and deserves to be called out on its approach — it is one thing to say this couple cannot divorce because the residency requirement has not been met; it is an entirely different contention — and an offensive if not discriminatory one — to assert that the couple was never married in the first place. This is to turn fact and law on its head, while in the process undermining equality for gays and lesbians.

A legislative gap

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 13, 2012 at 1:23 PM - 0 Comments

While blaming the Liberals for whatever might be wrong with the laws concerning same-sex marriage, the Justice Minister assures that everything will be fine.

Speaking at a Toronto luncheon Friday, Mr. Nicholson blamed the Liberal government that preceded his for not filling a “legislative gap” that has left thousands of same-sex couples in an agonizing position of being unable to divorce should they feel a need to. The situation has been “completely unfair to those affected.” Mr. Nicholson said. “I want to make it clear that in our government’s view, these marriages are valid.”

‘Options to clarify the law’

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 3:56 PM - 0 Comments

A statement from Justice Minister Rob Nicholson.

I want to be very clear that the Government has no intention of reopening the debate on the definition of marriage.

This case today involved the fact that, under current law, some marriages performed in Canada could not be dissolved in Canada.

I will be looking at options to clarify the law so that marriages performed in Canada can be undone in Canada.

With statistics

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 18, 2011 at 2:08 PM - 0 Comments

Rob Nicholson, July 2008. “We don’t govern by statistics in our government.”

Rob Nicholson, July 2009. “We don’t govern on the latest statistics.”

Stockwell Day, August 2010. “We’re very concerned . . . about the increase in the amount of unreported crimes that surveys clearly show are happening. People simply aren’t reporting the same way they used to.”

Rob Nicholson, September 2011. “We’re not governing on the basis of the latest statistics.”

Jeff Watson, this morning in the House. “Madam Speaker, with our tackling violent crime act, measures to strengthen parole, pardons and sentences for violent criminals, funds for more frontline police and to prevent at-risk youth from a life of crime, only this Conservative government is making our communities and streets safer. According to StatsCan’s just released 2010 crime severity index, Windsor–Essex is the safest region in Canada. Among the safest Canadian communities over 10,000 people, the town of LaSalle ranks 2nd, Tecumseh 4th, Kingsville 7th, Lakeshore 8th, Essex 12th. Windsor is the 7th safest big city of 32, and topping the list of 238 safest towns and cities is my hometown, Amherstburg. Thanks to our dedicated police, strong community involvement, our government’s investments to prevent crime and tough laws to crack down on criminals, Windsor–Essex is the safest region in Canada.”

Local officials in Windsor and Essex County have cited a number of possible explanations for the recent success there, including shifting demographics, community assistance, police involvement in schools and “luck.”

With feeling

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 17, 2011 at 12:30 PM - 0 Comments

Stephen Harper, June 6, 2008. It’s one thing that they, the criminals do not get it, but if you don’t mind me saying, another part of the problem for the past generation has been those, also a small part of our society, who are not criminals themselves, but who are always making excuses for them, and when they aren’t making excuses, they are denying that crime is even a problem: the ivory tower experts, the tut-tutting commentators, the out-of-touch politicians. “Your personal experiences and impressions are wrong,” they say. “Crime is not really a problem.” I don’t know how you say that. 

Rob Nicholson, Sept. 20, 2011. We’re not governing on the basis of the latest statistics. We’re governing on the basis of what’s right to better protect victims and law-abiding Canadians … Canadians want and deserve to feel safe in their homes and in their communities.

Kevin Sorenson, yesterday. At the committee the Minister of Public Safety had to explain to the NDP that there is a difference between feeling safe and actually being safe. It is irresponsible to continue pouring tax dollars into the long gun registry because it feels like the right thing to do or the safe thing to do. The NDP proved again that it is unfit to lead.

Who will advocate for euthanasia?

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Neither the government nor the official opposition seem interested in pursuing the recommendations of yesterday’s Royal Society report.

But despite the ambitious proposals, there are no signs Ottawa wants to have a debate. “We have no plans to propose any reforms to this area of the law,” Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said. And the opposition echoed that reluctance: “We don’t want to go down that road,” NDP MP Jack Harris said.

Of the 57 MPs who supported Francine Lalonde’s motion last year, most, owing to the Bloc’s collapse, were defeated this spring. In all, by my count, 10 members who voted for C-384 at second reading remain in the House: Mauril Belanger, Olivia Chow, Denis Coderre, Jean Crowder, Libby Davies, Megan Leslie, John McCallum, Maria Mourani, Massimo Pacetti and Louis Plamondon.

The Commons: A salute to cognitive dissonance

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 3, 2011 at 5:52 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. Shortly before the start of Question Period this afternoon, Conservative backbencher Patrick Brown rose to repeat his side’s line that the NDP is too “disunited” to govern. A moment later, Conservative backbencher Greg Rickford rose to lament that the NDP, in punishing two MPs who defied the party’s decision to whip a vote on the gun registry, was also too committed to enforcing unity.

Presumably this was Mr. Rickford’s way of protesting his own government’s decision to whip this week’s vote on asbestos exports. Hopefully his caucus leadership won’t too severely punish him for so bravely asserting the independence of individual MPs.

Immediately thereafter, the Speaker then called for oral questions and the official opposition sent up Joe Comartin, Mr. Comartin having apparently discovered an example of irony that he was eager to share with everyone. Continue…

Private members’ business

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 8:45 AM - 2 Comments

Still concerned that the Prime Minister has lost control of his caucus, the NDP is wondering aloud about how the government might be using private member’s bills. Justice Minister Rob Nicholson responded to some such wondering during QP yesterday.

Mr. Speaker, all members are entitled to enter private members’ bills and they will be debated and looked at by all members of the House. If the NDP has a different rule, let us hear what it is.

It would be perfectly reasonable for the Conservatives to claim a difference between bills put forward by individual MPs and official government policy. Even if the Conservatives have been only too happy to conflate the two when doing so makes it easier to beat up another party. And even if the most-discussed private member’s bill of the last five years—Bill C-391, an act to eliminate the long-gun registry—matched official government policy and was happily championed as such.

Fun with math

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 1:55 PM - 14 Comments

With the final intervention of QP yesterday, the Bloc’s Andre Bellevance rose and ventured that the province of Quebec had rejected the government’s approach to crime policy. Justice Minister Rob Nicholson was typically unimpressed.

Mr. Speaker, the bill targets those who are involved with organized crime, the people who traffic in drugs, the people who bring drugs into this country, and the people who sexually exploit children. Canadians have not rejected that, but I know Quebec rejected the Bloc. We know that for sure.

In fairness to Mr. Nicholson, he has repeatedly clarified that he does not operate on the basis of statistics. That said…

Total number of votes received by the Bloc Quebecois in the province of Quebec: 891,425
Total number of votes received by the Conservative party in the province of Quebec: 627,961

Debating justice reform: maybe it’ll have to happen in court

By John Geddes - Friday, September 23, 2011 at 11:29 AM - 12 Comments

Response to the government’s omnibus crime bill has been fascinating to watch. Thoughtful observers, like Dan Gardner over at the Ottawa Citizen, despair over the government’s refusal for some years now to offer anything like a reasoned argument for its approach, especially on limiting the discretion of judges by imposing more mandatory minimum penalties and no longer allowing  ”house arrest” sentences in many cases.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson doesn’t seem to feel any need to explain himself. (His office and department offered only bare statistics, for example, when I asked for some explanation about why he wants to stop judges from handing down conditional sentences for some crimes.) Given the Conservative majority, I suppose he’s right: the government has the numbers in the House to pass the sprawling law without bothering to seriously answer its critics.

Continue…

More on “house arrests”: stats and stories

By John Geddes - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 9:53 AM - 30 Comments

When Justice Minister Rob Nicholson unveiled the government’s crime legislation earlier this week, I asked his department for information to support one aspect of the complex bill—the move to stop judges from handing down “house arrest” sentences for a raft of crimes.

The background documents released with the legislation highlighted the need to prevent judges from issuing these conditional sentences—which allow convicted criminals to serve time in the community with restrictions, rather than behind bars—for serious offences such as manslaughter, arson and fraud over $5,000.

I had hoped Justice Canada or Nicholson’s political staff would give me some sort of analysis of sentencing patterns to show why he believes courts are coddling dangerous criminals with this particular form of light punishment. Instead, the department merely passed along data from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, showing how often judges hand down house arrest sentences for certain crimes.

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The Commons: The Finance Minister goes rogue

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, September 21, 2011 at 6:36 PM - 80 Comments

The Scene. Bob Rae was making fun—pointedly, but sarcastically, mocking the government’s decision to spend $20 million for advice on how to reduce spending. It was, if nothing else, a decent bit of amusement for a Wednesday afternoon.

“Mr. Speaker, a review of public accounts show that the government spending on professional and special services, including the use of consultants, has gone up from $7.24 billion to well over $10 billion, a cumulative increase of over $7 billion,” the Liberal leader informed the House. “I’d like to ask the minister of finance, what does he think the chances are that the $20-million consultants he’s just hired are going to come back and say, ‘You know what a good way is to save money, cut the use of consultants?’”

Here Mr. Rae returned to his seat and here the Finance Minister stood. And here—after some superfluous mocking of Mr. Rae’s time as premier of Ontario—are the altogether remarkable sentences that Jim Flaherty offered in response.

“Yes, we are having experts from outside look at government spending. Yes, we should. Government should not be the sole judge of the way it’s run. We need advice from the outside.”

Had he mispoken? Had he momentarily lost control of his mouth? Did he realize people could hear him saying these things?

Apparently not, because a a few moments later he was saying such things again. Continue…

Why not trust judges on “house arrest” sentences?

By John Geddes - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 at 6:25 PM - 29 Comments

Back in the fall of 2007, two very drunk men, who had previously been romantically involved, were arguing outside a Winnipeg bar. One shoved the other, who fell and hit his head on the pavement. Lyle Walker, 35, was reportedly able to stand up, but died a few days later from the injury. When the man who had pushed him went to trial, his lawyer and the Crown prosecutor agreed he shouldn’t go to prison. The judge accepted their joint recommendation, and Jeffrey James Bear, then 33, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and received a 15-month conditional sentence.

Continue…

Omnibus toughness

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 at 12:27 PM - 5 Comments

The government has announced details of its omnibus crime bill: The Safe Streets and Communities Act, which will bundle together nine separate bills.

A quick scan of the backgrounder shows no mention of “lawful access,” nor any mention of the two anti-terrorism provisions the Prime Minister has vowed to reinstate.

Essential, but unused

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, September 7, 2011 at 4:46 PM - 22 Comments

Further to the Prime Minister’s comments about the usefulness of the two anti-terrorism provisions that he hopes to reintroduce, I emailed the offices of the ministers of justice and public safety with the following question.

Were the two anti-terror provisions that the government wishes to reinstate ever used before they expired?

Shortly thereafter a response arrived from the office of Justice Minister Rob Nicholson. It reads, in full, as follows. Continue…

Too many cops?

By Ken MacQueen and Patricia Treble - Thursday, August 25, 2011 at 10:10 AM - 104 Comments

Ian Lindsay / Vancouver Sun

This spring, Tamara Cartwright dropped off an envelope at her local post office outside Lethbridge, Alta. A friend had sent her a jar of hemp-based ointment, so she replied with a thank you card, wrote her name and return address on the envelope and, in a decision certain to haunt her for years to come, enclosed four grams of her homegrown marijuana, enough for perhaps four cigarettes. On an April morning some days later she returned to the post office to pick up another package. Moments later, police pulled her over, handcuffed her, put her in a cruiser and hauled her off to the police station.

It made quite a spectacle, says the 41-year-old mother of four, who suffers from colitis and is one of more than 10,000 medical marijuana patients registered with Health Canada. “It was embarrassing,” she says. “I was still in my pyjamas.” She emerged four hours later with a trafficking charge for giving away those four grams.

Her charge is part of a recent marked increase in arrests for cannabis offences. Cannabis arrests jumped 13 per cent in 2010 to 75,126. Of those, almost 57,000 were for simple possession, a 14 per cent jump from the year before. (The statistics reflect cases where the arrest was the most serious charge a person faced, not the thousands more where a pot charge was tacked onto a string of more serious crimes.) The cannabis arrest rate is an anomaly at a time when the overall crime rate in 2010 fell to its lowest level since the mid-1970s.

Continue…

A tough-on-crime bill that goes too far

By the editors - Thursday, August 25, 2011 at 9:50 AM - 7 Comments

The Canadian Press/Jacques Boissinot

How tough is tough enough when it comes to crime?

A Maclean’s investigation this week by Ken MacQueen and Patricia Treble (“Too many cops?”) offers a surprising look at the unintended consequences of Canada’s recent tough-on-crime agenda.

The overall crime rate in Canada is at its lowest level since the early 1970s, and serious crime is similarly falling. This is good news, of course. And it may in large part be due to the fact that police staffing levels are at a 30-year high nationwide.

And yet MacQueen and Treble uncover plenty of statistical and anecdotal evidence to suggest it may be possible to have too many cops on the street. Beside the obvious budgetary issues, local constabularies around the country are spending a disproportionate amount of their time on increasingly minor offences in an apparent effort to keep busy. Drug possession and traffic violations appear to be the only significant growth areas in the national criminal portfolio.

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Please call back in four years

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 1:23 PM - 70 Comments

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson responds to the concerns of the Canadian Bar Association.

“From coast to coast one thing is clear, Canadians want to see their communities as safe places to live, raise their families and do business. We have listened to Canadians and with the strong mandate we have received, we’ll continue to act on their behalf,” he said.

In case Conservative voters did not fully understand the significance of their ballot, the government has been very specific in the few months since May’s election, invoking their mandate to explain back to work legislation for Canada Post, job cuts at the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development, reducing the corporate tax rate, cuts to Audit Services Canada, the consolidation of search and rescue resources, a $600 increase in the guaranteed income supplement, the end of the Canadian Wheat Board, the elimination of the long-form census, Senate reform, the Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada’s Immigration System Act, back to work legislation for Air Canada employees, the Fair and Efficient Criminal Trials Act, free trade, tourism, war in Libya, the elimination of the per-vote subsidy, sales tax harmonization with the provinces, cuts to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency as well as meaningful and thoughtful House debate.

The Commons: Two words to say so much

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 6:48 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. John Baird seemed to stumble before catching himself.

“Mr. Speaker, our government is, and has always been,” he said this afternoon in response to a question from the NDP side, “committed to handling Afghan… Taliban prisoners in accordance with our international obligations.”

Taliban prisoners is indeed the preferred honorific. And four years after the treatment of those transferred to Afghan authorities by the Canadian Forces became a matter of public concern—four years after allegations that Canadian-transferred detainees had been punched, choked, whipped and electrocuted by Afghan officials—much of the government’s response to so many questions of human rights, war, torture and parliamentary privilege would seem to involve this two-word phrase.

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The Bull Meter: John Baird on the bills that died because of the election

By Erica Alini - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 6:06 PM - 28 Comments

"The opposition has helped pass a number of bills through the House in the last six weeks. That’s a good deal of progress. An election now would kill that progress. It would kill several important pieces of legislation."

- John Baird
March 23, 2011

When parliament is prorogued or dissolved for an election, discussion on any government bill that hasn’t yet been passed must start from scratch when the chambers reconvene. When speaking with reporters last week, Baird lamented the fate of three particular bills: Bill C-49, a law to crack down on human smuggling; Bill S-10, to fight organized drug crime; and Bill C-60, to give citizen arrest powers to victims of crime. While Bill C-49 and C-60 were introduced in the last session of Parliament, Bill S-10 has been around, in various incarnations, for over three years.

Justice minister Rob Nicholson used the same occasion to reiterate Baird’s point, mentioning two other bills: Bill C-54, which provides for tougher penalties for sexual predators who commit sexual offences against children; and Bill C-16, which would further restrict conditional sentences including house arrest for serious violent crime. Again, while Bill C-54 is new, Bill C-16 used to be called C-42, and has been around since 2009.

The bottom line is this: It’s true the government’s defeat means work on some bills will be cut short. Still, Conservatives have had plenty of time to pass some of the other legislation that will be killed because of the election. So blaming the dissolution of parliament for the death of legislation is mostly truthful, but a bit of an exaggeration.

Heard something that doesn’t sound quite right? Send quotes from the campaign trail to macbullmeter@gmail.com and we’ll tell you just how much bull they contain.

Sources:

Bill C-49

Bill S-10

Bill C-60

Bill C-54

Bill C-16

Unfrozen Caveman Minister of State

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, February 11, 2011 at 9:25 AM - 50 Comments

From Julian Fantino’s remarks at a news conference with Justice Minister Rob Nicholson yesterday.

I  don’t know much about politics—I’m learning a lot—but one thing I have learned is that part of Mr. Ignatieff’s agenda is flip-flopping on critical public safety issues.

This rhetorical trick—call it the “naive insight”—was of course pioneered by Cirroc, the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer.

Who supports the death penalty?

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 11:05 AM - 145 Comments

In his interview with the CBC, Mr. Harper acknowledged that he personally supports the death penalty in certain unspecified circumstances. In his support, the Prime Minister is conceivably joined by the Justice Minister, who voted in favour of the reintroduction of capital punishment in 1987.

When Ekos polled on the issue last March, it found that 40% of Canadians supported such reintroduction.

Data from 2000 suggests that opinions on this issue have remained relatively unchanged in 10 years. In June of 2000, 43 per cent disagreed with capital punishment while 44 per cent agreed with it. Those who support the reintroduction of capital punishment tend to be Conservative supporters (53 per cent), residents of Alberta (48 per cent), men (43 per cent), seniors (45 per cent), high school grads (48 per cent) and college grads (46 per cent).

Jim Prentice’s goodbye bash

By Mitchel Raphael - Tuesday, December 28, 2010 at 3:11 PM - 1 Comment

Former cabinet minister Jim Prentice held a goodbye party before the House rose. Prentice (left) with Justice Minister Rob Nicholson.

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Tory MP Lynne Yelich (left) with Karen Prentice.

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The Commons: These fleeting words

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at 7:20 PM - 75 Comments

The Scene. This space has been used in the past to acknowledge the futility of placing anything more than passing significance on the pronouncements of this government’s ministers and mouthpieces. Their words are like daylilies, blooming only for 24 hours before fading into memory. To quibble, to seek to extend their meaning beyond nightfall, is to argue with the sun.

Perhaps then what follows here is relatively pointless. But then sometimes the rhetoric is so colourful, its aroma so intoxicating, that it is difficult to forget; near impossible, whatever one knows to be true, to admit to oneself that these are merely passing fancy.

So it is that we turn to the blooming words, uttered less than a week ago, of this nation’s Justice Minister and Attorney General.

“Mr. Speaker,” Rob Nicholson declared, under some attack from the other side, “no group of individuals has more respect for human rights in our country than the Conservative Party … There is no group of individuals over the course of Canadian history that has had a better record for standing up for human rights than the Conservative Party of Canada and its predecessors.”

These were strong words strongly delivered. Mr. Nicholson’s reading comprehension has been the subject of some lament, but his ability to stand and fulminate is unquestioned. His is a raring appearance of great conviction.

But here we are, less than a week later, struggling to reconcile that rhetoric. Continue…