[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[crazy canuck]

Please elaborate

[crazy canuck]

Just read the head note.  The media really got that one wrong.  Exemption is within Federal jurisdiction but s.7 Charter rights are engaged and the Court ordered the Feds to issue an exemption in order to comply with the Charter.

[Barrister]

Please elaborate

[Neil]

The Supreme Court of Canada is utterly worthless, and the lot should probably be executed.

[Neil]

Just read the head note.  The media really got that one wrong.  Exemption is within Federal jurisdiction but s.7 Charter rights are engaged and the Court ordered the Feds to issue an exemption in order to comply with the Charter.

Wait, so there's a charter right to take drugs now?

[Grey Fox]

Can someone explain to me where does John Baird gets his hard-on for anything British Royal?

[Barrister]

Decisions like this just piss me off.

There are merits to the safe injection model, and drawbacks as well.  It is for elected politicians to make these decisions one way or another, not the courts.

[Neil]

Decisions like this just piss me off.

There are merits to the safe injection model, and drawbacks as well.  It is for elected politicians to make these decisions one way or another, not the courts.

Not since the Charter.  If you give someone absolute, unchallengeable power, they're going to use it.

[viper37]

There are merits to the safe injection model, and drawbacks as well.  It is for elected politicians to make these decisions one way or another, not the courts.

The way I see it, the elected politicians of British Columbia want this.  It is the elected politicians of the Federal government who do not want it.
It's a clear case of a province's rights trampled by the Feds.  Wrong or not, it's what the people want, so the Feds should just respect the provinces and let them do what they want.  Heck, that entire criminal code should be provincial jurisdiction, just like the US.

[Barrister]

There are merits to the safe injection model, and drawbacks as well.  It is for elected politicians to make these decisions one way or another, not the courts.

The way I see it, the elected politicians of British Columbia want this.  It is the elected politicians of the Federal government who do not want it.
It's a clear case of a province's rights trampled by the Feds.  Wrong or not, it's what the people want, so the Feds should just respect the provinces and let them do what they want.  Heck, that entire criminal code should be provincial jurisdiction, just like the US.

That would still be silly, but not as silly as finding that drug addicts have a Charter right to a safe injection sight.

[ulmont]

Heck, that entire criminal code should be provincial jurisdiction, just like the US.

While I love you, viper, this statement is just mind-bogglingly wrong.  The US has approximately 4500 federal crimes (including most notably a host of drug crimes), which are prosecuted by the US federal government.  This is in addition to each state's individual criminal code.

[Neil]

There are merits to the safe injection model, and drawbacks as well.  It is for elected politicians to make these decisions one way or another, not the courts.

The way I see it, the elected politicians of British Columbia want this.  It is the elected politicians of the Federal government who do not want it.
It's a clear case of a province's rights trampled by the Feds.  Wrong or not, it's what the people want, so the Feds should just respect the provinces and let them do what they want.  Heck, that entire criminal code should be provincial jurisdiction, just like the US.

Well, pretty much everything you said here was wrong.  It's actually a clear case of the rights of the federal government trampled by a province.

[Grey Fox]

I think it's more then Conservative Federal gov trampled by the Liberal Supreme Court.


Maybe now the Cons can get back to the real issues, like the display of Canada on business cards.

[Barrister]

The decision itself:

http://scc.lexum.org/en/2011/2011scc44/2011scc44.html

I'm slowly working my way through it.  Like CC, I've just skimmed the headnote so far.

As to GF's point - it was a unanimous decision, so the two Harper appointments concurred in the result.

[Malthus]

There are merits to the safe injection model, and drawbacks as well.  It is for elected politicians to make these decisions one way or another, not the courts.

The way I see it, the elected politicians of British Columbia want this.  It is the elected politicians of the Federal government who do not want it.
It's a clear case of a province's rights trampled by the Feds.  Wrong or not, it's what the people want, so the Feds should just respect the provinces and let them do what they want.  Heck, that entire criminal code should be provincial jurisdiction, just like the US.

Well, pretty much everything you said here was wrong.  It's actually a clear case of the rights of the federal government trampled by a province.

You are both wrong. The case was not decided on division of power grounds - that is, the argument was made, but defeated: drug regulation remains exclusively federal.

The federal Minister was ordered to grant a further exemption (which had been previously granted some years ago).

From the headnotes:

The Minister's failure to grant a s. 56 exemption to Insite engaged the claimants' s. 7 rights and contravened the principles of fundamental justice.  The Minister of Health must be regarded as having made a decision whether to grant an exemption, since he considered the application before him and decided not to grant it.  The Minister's decision, but for the trial judge's interim order, would have prevented injection drug users from accessing the health services offered by Insite, threatening their health and indeed their lives.  It thus engages the claimants' s. 7 interests and constitutes a limit on their s. 7 rights.  Based on the information available to the Minister, this limit is not in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.  It is arbitrary regardless of which test for arbitrariness is used because it undermines the very purposes of the CDSA — the protection of health and public safety.  It is also grossly disproportionate: during its eight years of operation, Insite has been proven to save lives with no discernable negative impact on the public safety and health objectives of Canada.  The effect of denying the services of Insite to the population it serves and the correlative increase in the risk of death and disease to injection drug users is grossly disproportionate to any benefit that Canada might derive from presenting a uniform stance on the possession of narcotics.