[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[Oexmelin]

What are these abuses?

[Barrister]

What are these abuses?

Not sure how you police this, but these kinds of "abuses" came to light a dozen years ago when war flared up in Lebanon.  There were all these media calls for Canada to rescue its citizens living there.  After the fact it turned out the vast majority were Lebanese-Canadians who were originally from Lebanon, and had lived for a number of years in that country - and in fact who quickly returned back to Lebanon after the fighting had stopped again.

Now like I said it's easy to criticize, not so easy to suggest changes...

[Zoupa]

You have a weird definition of abuse. Rescuing citizens from danger?

[Valmy]

Not sure how you police this, but these kinds of "abuses" came to light a dozen years ago when war flared up in Lebanon.  There were all these media calls for Canada to rescue its citizens living there.  After the fact it turned out the vast majority were Lebanese-Canadians who were originally from Lebanon, and had lived for a number of years in that country - and in fact who quickly returned back to Lebanon after the fighting had stopped again.

Now like I said it's easy to criticize, not so easy to suggest changes...

Wow how can Canada's society sustain itself in the face of such outrageous and cynical abuses?

[viper37]

What are these abuses?

I was just teasing Mono

But, one of the minor annoyances is that Canada is expected to treat all its citizens equally.  Doesn't matter if you're on vacation for 2 weeks abroad or if you never set foot in the country after earning your citizenship, you are entitled to the same rights as everyone.

So, when shit hits the fan somewhere, Canada is obliged to deploy extraordinary measures to save these people form whatever bad situation they are in.  At the costs of millions of $$.  For people who mostly never paid any taxes here.  You got to send planes&boat to evacuate them, as it happenned in Lebanon a few years ago.

You could also have a situation where a Canadian citizen who never lived here gets in trouble with the law in his native country and we have to provide legal defense to that person, apply diplomatic pressure as a get out of jail free card.

Also, having non resident use our passport, our facilities, to travel around the world without being flagged as supicious.  Could be legitimate, could be not.

I just think we should exercize more caution before we grant citizenship to someone, and we should not hesitate to revoke it for serious crimes.

[viper37]

You have a weird definition of abuse. Rescuing citizens from danger?

Is a citizen simply someone who holds a passport?

[crazy canuck]

What are these abuses?

Access to healthcare is the biggest problem imo.  But the biggest abusers are old white folks who maintain their residency requirements at the minimum required and then head south again.

[viper37]

Hydro-Quebec won against Newfoundland in the Churchill falls trials.

Supreme Court ruled that a contract is a contract and is sacred. Well, sort of.

HQ won, anyway, that's the important part.  We get cheap electricity until 2041.

[crazy canuck]

Hydro-Quebec won against Newfoundland in the Churchill falls trials.

Supreme Court ruled that a contract is a contract and is sacred. Well, sort of.

HQ won, anyway, that's the important part.  We get cheap electricity until 2041.

I think that is a good summary.  I was happy to see the majority used strong language to reject the notion that an implied term could be found which was contrary to the express terms of the contract.  Some good clear direction for our trial courts.  But that clarity became muddled in the discussion of good faith when the majority found, "The duty of good faith does not negate a party's right to rely on the words of the contract unless insistence on that right constitutes unreasonable conduct in the circumstances."

Now we will be dealing with a large amount of litigation which alleges that a party may not rely on contractual terms because the insistence of doing so was "unreasonable".   so much for certainty in the law.

[Grey Fox]

Will you really? Because all this was based on statues in Quebec Civic code, not necessarily transferable to other jurisdiction.

[crazy canuck]

With the extremes of White Nationalism being spouted daily in the US, this is a story that flew under the radar - if Coyne had not mentioned it in his piece in the NP this week, I would have missed it entirely.  But, according to Coyne, the Conservatives were planning a Trump style attack on the Media for our election cycle.  But also according to Coyne, cooler heads of prevailed but, as he observed there is still concern about the Conservatives copying the Trumpist attack on facts.  Here is what Coyne had to say about that:

The issue isn't whether people trust the press these days, but whether they trust anyone. Healthy skepticism about this or that story or source is too often curdling into a blind rejection of knowledge itself, and of those whose business it is to know stuff: experts, or as they are now dismissed, "elites." What do economists know about free trade? What do climate scientists know about climate? After all, I read something on the internet ...

This is the bitter fruit of today's class politics, where class is defined, not by income, but by education and culture. There's fault on both sides of this divide, but the Conservatives' indulgence of populist egghead-bashing is especially dangerous. It puts the whole institutional apparatus through which knowledge is collected, tested and disseminated — what journalist Jonathan Rauch has called "the constitution of knowledge" — in play: mere experts, to be dismissed not in spite of their expertise but because of it.

When Scheer sneers, for example, that on carbon pricing the Liberals have not only the media on their side, but "the academics and think-tanks" — when he takes a broad consensus of experts as suggestive, not of the weight of the evidence and analysis, but of a near universal partisan bias among the educated classes — he veers close to conspiracy theory.

Expert consensus need not be taken as proof that a position is right, but it should never be offered as proof that it is wrong. That way lies madness.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/andrew-coyne-conservative-war-on-media-fizzles-in-canada-but-war-on-truth-remains

[crazy canuck]

Will you really? Because all this was based on statues in Quebec Civic code, not necessarily transferable to other jurisdiction.

The comments about good faith have general application as does much of the rest of the decision.

[Grey Fox]

Will you really? Because all this was based on statues in Quebec Civic code, not necessarily transferable to other jurisdiction.

The comments about good faith have general application as does much of the rest of the decision.

Weird. No civic code, no lawsuit but the decision still wide ranging 

[crazy canuck]

Will you really? Because all this was based on statues in Quebec Civic code, not necessarily transferable to other jurisdiction.

The comments about good faith have general application as does much of the rest of the decision.

Weird. No civic code, no lawsuit but the decision still wide ranging 

It is unusual for a contractual case from Quebec to have national implications but in this case the civil law provisions are the same or similar enough to the common law that the Court's pronouncements are of general application.

In relation to the good faith obligation the statutory provision under the civil law provided for the duty of a party to act in good faith in exercising rights and performing contractual obligations.  That is very similar to the the law developed in Bhasin by the SCC a few years ago.  This case arguably expands the obligation beyond the Bhasin requirements.

[crazy canuck]

Now we will be dealing with a large amount of litigation which alleges that a party may not rely on contractual terms because the insistence of doing so was "unreasonable".   so much for certainty in the law.

I don't think so.

Newfoundland's legal strategy was to use the provisions in Quebec civil code that a contract must be made in good faith.  Say, I put a gun to your head and you sign over your house for 1$, that is not a contract made in good faith.

Given that it applies to Quebec Civil Code, I don't think other provinces (or people of these provinces) could use this particular legal argument.

Also, btw, a question on majority vs minority.  There was one dissent in there.  I know a ruling can be used in another trial (jurisprudence), but what about dissenting opinions?  Do they have any legal weight?

Your view will certainly be the argument Defendants will make.  But, as stated above, the civil law provision has enough similarity to the developing common law concept of good faith owed in contractual dealings that I think it highly unlikely the arguments will not be made.

As to your question, dissenting decisions have been picked up in future decisions - that is one of the ways the law develops.  But until that time it has no legal effect.