I guess we can retire Champaign Socialist in favor of Cocaine Socialist.

If I had a million dollars,
I'd buy me some blow.
If I had a million dollars,
And some fangirls to ... (etc)

I am never ever going to vote for John Tory, nor as far as I can tell are any of my conservative neighbors, friends or family. While John Tory is leader we are not going to donate money to your party. If John Tory leads the party during the next election, we are not going to allow you to put Progressive Conservative signs on our front lawns.

And the next time that fool opens his mouth about the LCBO, perhaps it should be discuss privatization rather than plastic bags.

My brother made a lengthy reply (that's the only kind he does, I'm afraid) to my post on Catholic education rights in Ontario. Youcan go read it in it's entirety, I shan't quibble on legal points, that's for sure. However, he misreads my intentionre: protection of Catholic rights.

I'm not overly fearful for Catholic rights in Ontario, Canada, or elsewhere nearby. What I do like is all the weird stuff inour system: funny wigs, QCs, "God" in the constitution, a free pig and two comely lasses of virtue true for the police chiefs, the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, etc.. It's good to givethe Svends, Jacks and Justins frequent reminders -- preferably up the side of the head -- that none-of Mike Pearson, FidelCastro or Tommy Douglas were Fathers of Confederation.

I prefer cities laid out like St.John's to that of Toronto also.

The Canadian Criminal code 718.2:

A court that imposes a sentence shall also take into consideration the following principles:

(a) a sentence should be increased or reduced to account for any relevant aggravating or mitigating circumstances relating to the offence or the offender, and, without limiting the generality of the foregoing,

(i) evidence that the offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or any other similar factor,

If you'd like to read more about the rationale behind hate law provisions in the Criminal Code, here's a lengthy (50 page) PDF. On page 10 of particular interest:

The main distinguishing feature with hate crimes is that such offences include a specific motivating factor not found in other crimes.

Now, some mean spirited citizens have suggested that these provisions are mainly about "sticking it to whitey", but certainly there's few cases more clearly falling in to the definitions and rationales above that Aqsa Parvez's murder -- "honor killing" -- (allegedly) by her father for refusing to wear the strict public symbols of Islam.

If this not a factor in sentencing, then this case should be Exhibit A why this provision needs to be struck from the Criminal Code.

I just read on Gateway Pundit that the media had fallen for another "insurgents slaughter many"-type story, likely fed to them by an AQI propagandist / stringer. I was currious about what CBC had said about this story but when I click on the link .... Curious. Probably just a server error.

Robert on Latimer:

My own view is that the Court arrived at the right decision when it held that Mr. Latimer's conviction and sentence had to be upheld. In Canada we have not even come to a societal consensus on the issue of assisting a person of full mind commit suicide (see the Sue Rodriguez case). The issues around a parental killing of child who is disabled and unable to communicate her wishes on an informed basis are hopelessly more thorny. The fact of the matter is that it is impossible to genuinely appreciate the true significance of the genuinely held belief "I must kill her because I can not bear to watch her suffer any more" -- who is truly being shown mercy when that sentiment is acted upon? Is it mercy for the suffering child or is it mercy for the suffering caregiver? Moreover, there is a strong sense of ownership over a child that is being asserted in such cases -- "This is my child so I can decide whether she lives or dies."

This, however, does not make the Parole Board's decision right. Our society has sent a clear message about Mr. Latimer: he murdered his daughter contrary to the law and was given the full sentence mandated by the law. Now he is going through the process that every criminal in Canada is entitled to go through to ease their re-introduction to society.

Vancouver Kris Krüg photographer / geek / Bryght founder is interviewed by The Aesthetic Poetic.

Scott, Bernie & Will have announced V2 of ConceptShare, along with an excellent partnership agreement:

Wow, it’s an exciting day for us at ConceptShare HQ. Today we’re announcing two product launches. We doubled our team just two months ago to meet existing customer demand, and to prepare for the growth that today would bring.

ConceptShare V2

Today we turned on ConceptShare V2, the  first major upgrade to our online tool for design collaboration since it launched at the beginning of this year. We redesigned the entire application to be smoother, with fewer clicks so everyone can work faster. Designers will enjoy thoughtful touches like more vertical screen area and customizable layouts for their project workspaces. We’ve also taken the “beta” label off our video support, since it’s working quite well.

We’ve reworked the framework underneath so we can improve ConceptShare even faster in the future. To date we’ve made over 100 updates to the product, and we’re just getting started. Some of the best suggestions have come from our community, so please keep them coming.

CorelDRAWConceptShare

CorelDRAWConceptShare is a branded site built for CorelDRAW users. It’s the first project with our fellow Canadians at Corel. This is the start of a 5 year partnership, which speaks to the level of commitment from both sides. It also means you can count on more cool announcements in the future.

They don’t enough blog buzz yet, but Corel is a major player in the software market. They have over 100 million active users in 75 countries. CorelDRAW does really well in the European and Asian markets, and is growing its user base worldwide.

Plus they got link love from TechCrunch, so they got that going for them.

Jevon, Jonas (and perhaps more J- folk?) from StartupNorth have created a new website for discussing the wireless industry in Canada - Wirelessnorth.ca. The official announcement:

Announcing the launch of a new blog covering the wireless industry in Canada. Our goal is to celebrate and promote everything awesome in Canada’s mobile industry from mobile startups to the latest innovations coming from Canada’s big telcos and device maker(s) . Of course, we’ll be touching on hot topics like net neutrality and the wireless competitive landscape in Canada. And whatever else inspires us along the way

I had the unfortunate experience of having the Toronto Star in my house this morning. Ahem:

First, the Conservatives cancelled the child-care agreements the Liberals had signed with the provinces. Next, they gutted the Kelowna Accord, the $5.1 billion federal-provincial agreement to tackle aboriginal poverty. Now they're scrapping another piece of Liberal handiwork.

Effective March 31, 2008, the Canadian Health Network will cease to exist.

Wow. Two programs that never actually existed in any meaningful sense, and one program that no one has ever heard of. Who do they think they are, the government?

CBC radio just had a story about the Hollywood writer's strike. During the story the announcer mentioned "they've have stopped writing lines and started walking the line". Funnyish, but not bad delivery. Too bad there wasn't a producer's strike though -- then CBC could tell us that the producers are walking the line after, of course, stopping doing lines.

Michelle Mann:

The public funding for Catholic schools issue has been simmering away on Ontario's backburner for a while, with Newfoundland and Quebec already having faced it down in the 1990s (and Manitoba too, but in 1890).

Note that I can't speak to what Quebec did, but Newfoundland didn't have a Catholic school issue, it had a no-non-religious school issue.

And yet, the only party that has it right is the Greens, whose leader, Frank de Jong, supports moving to one publicly-funded school system.

[Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty] defends this position with the Constitution Act, 1867, which in section 93 enshrines Catholic school rights in place before Confederation, a concession made to get the deal.

Nonetheless, the province's exclusive jurisdiction over education means that act can be amended bilaterally through agreement with the federal government as provided for in section 43 of the Constitution Act, 1982, and already executed by Quebec.

"We got what we wanted from the Micks, now it's time screw 'em"

The equality rights argument has some teeth, despite a Supreme Court of Canada ruling in 1996 that Ontario's refusal to fund other denominational schools was not a breach of freedom of religion or equality rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I.e. it equality rights argument has no teeth, as far as the law of the land goes.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee felt differently in both 1999 and again in 2005, censuring Canada for violating equality rights by virtue of religious discrimination in the Ontario school system.

Oh, well there you go -- a functionary appointed by the Chinese dictatorship was told not to agree with Ontarians having a parallel Catholic education system, I guess we'll have to ditch it.

Of course, equality is more than just a legal concept; one might be forgiven for having trouble understanding how in our current society public funding of only Catholic schools is fair and just.

I'll freely grant it's not particularly fair. Neither is a four-way stop, but I don't seethe with the injustice that some guy driving the opposite direction can cruise through the intersection in a few seconds because no one else was driving his direction. More seriously and to the point, no particular harm is being done to non-Catholics, a point which I shall return to in a moment.

Take for example, Catholic school boards across the province debating whether to ban Ontario's new HPV vaccination program on the basis it promotes promiscuity. All Grade 8 girls in the province will have free access to a vaccine that can prevent the HPV types responsible for 70 per cent of cervical cancer cases.

It is one thing to require parental consent, but to refuse girls access to this provincially mandated health program based on religious values in a publicly funded school obviously contravenes a decision made by our secular government. It is also possibly contrary to the equality rights of these young women.

She means "girls", of course. But this gets to the core of the issue: Catholics agreed to an Ontario under the condition that Catholics could educate and raise Catholic children in a manner consistent with Catholicism. The need for the deal then and now is obvious: Catholicism [1] is uniquely despised amongst religions by politically powerful (non-Catholic) organizations. Mann reinforces the point: she believes it a compelling reason for Ontario to strip Catholics of their education rights is that she is disgusted by Catholic values.

That money, along with the elimination of the duplication of resources for Catholic schools, could be directed to funding for autistic students, accessible post-secondary education and revitalizing a flailing public education system.

So could redirecting the money being wasted [2] on HPV vaccinations or CBC writers. This argument might make sense if there were half-filled schools and only one non-Catholic school board; as it stands, it's nonsense.

Of course, such a question is less about resources than about how we view accommodation and the secular state in our multicultural and religiously diverse society; all the more reason for a referendum enabling a government to act with less political fallout.

Michelle Mann is a Toronto-based consultant and freelance writer, specializing in social justice, human rights and Aboriginal issues.

Can you imagine the veins exploding in Mann's eyeballs if it was suggested we strip aboriginal title via "political will" or a referendum.

[1] note that I said Catholicism, not Catholics.
[2] there, I said it. I am speaking from purely a cost-benefit and risk management point of view -- it doesn't make sense to doing this yet.

(Snowy Owl Habitat, repurposed for amusement purposes only, courtesy of Trinity-Anne)

Jean Chretien is ordering out his RCMP hit squad as I write. Guite is getting ready to rat:

In his response to the $30-million suit, Guite alleges that even when he questioned or recommended that certain contracts not be awarded, he was told "it is the prime minister's budget and we decide on the events, how much to allocate in funds and what agency will manage the event.

"In many cases," the statement says, "sponsorships were refused at the bureaucratic level but reversed at the political level."

Guite lays the blame for the scandal directly on his higher-ups -- former minister of public works Alfonso Gagliano and former prime minister Jean Chretien. He says the suit against him should be dropped and those in power at the time should be sued instead.

Of course Mr Guite could join Chretien and Gagliano to the suit if he feels so strongly and he must certainly regret his decision not to cut a deal and roll on his political masters back in the time of Gomery.

While the law & order junkies are screaming blue murder about the deal that Peter Whitmore received for his violent sexual offences...essentailly he was not tagged a dangerous offender pursuant to Part XXIV of The Criminal Code.... the reality of the situation is that the Dangerous Offender tag does not change Whitmore's parole eligibility at all.

The Dangerous Offender tag,the arguement goes, is a red flag for the parole board, however, Whitmore's record is pretty much a red flag as is his life sentence without anyone being killed.

The arguement that he will be forgotten and will slip through the system without the police, the family or the press being any the wiser is, sorry to say, nonsense. When this dude comes up for parole we are all going to know about it and there will be plenty of people to remind the board why he should stay in prison.

The deal is worth it to save the victims the displeasure of testifying. His guilty plea and agreed life imprisonment are worth the sacrifice of the dangerous offender label. The plea bargain system actually worked in this case and, frankly, those who cannot see it are blinded by outrage that they are projecting onto the system.

Update: The commentators at Small Dead Animals are none too pleased. Also this post on bail gone wrong... I note that there are never any stories on bail that goes right, which is almost all bail cases... however, the real story is about a guy fighting back and I'm pleased that it worked ou for him. If we need some outrage it should be about the removal of property rights and the ability of property owners to protect their property. That too would cut down on repeat crime.

Last week in Kitchener a mother killed one of her children and drugged the other. The dead child was a mere three months of age. Instead of the normal cry of monster, the reaction has been one of saddness, that this woman did not get the help she needed when suffering from a clear a mental disorder of the post-partum psychosis kind. At least one talk radio show had a public heath nurse on to talk about recognizing post-partum depression. Note that the depressed rarely if ever hurt their children. It is the psychosis that causes the action and is a complete break from reality:

Post-partum psychosis or PPP, (also called Post-natal Psychosis or PNP and puerperal psychosis (PP) in the UK) is a mental illness, which involves a complete break with reality. Although correctly termed as a postnatal stress disorder or postpartum depressive reaction, Post-partum psychosis is different from Post-partum depression. The majority of PPP occurs within the first two weeks after childbirth with a classic 10-14 day meltdown, likely caused by the radical hormonal changes combined with neurotransmitter overactivity. When correctly diagnosed at the earliest signs and immediately treated with anti-psychotic medication, the illness is recoverable within a few weeks. If undiagnosed, even for just a few days, it can take the woman months to recover. In cases of PPP, the sufferer is often unaware that she is unwell.

Psychosis can also take place in combination with an underlying psychiatric disorder, such as bipolar affective disorder, schizophrenia, or undiagnosed depression. In some women, a part-partum psychosis is the only psychotic episode they will ever experience, but, for others, it is just the first indication of a psychiatric disorder. Only 1 to 2 women per 1,000 births develop post-partum psychosis. It is a rare condition, and often treatable. However, much media coverage of post-partum depression has focused on psychosis, especially following the Andrea Yates case. Whilst postpartum/puerperal psychosis is a serious psychiatric illness, the risks of a mother suffering this illness harming her baby are low: infanticide rates are estimated at 4%, and suicide rates in postpartum/puerperal psychosis are estimated at 5%. )

The mother has been charged with first degree murder and is currently residing in prison while the matter gets investigated and works its way through the court system. The Criminal Code Of Canada recognizes post-partum psychosis and/or other mental disorder related to birth Section 233, the infanticide provision, which reads:

A female person commits infanticide when by a wilful act or omission she causes the death of her newly-born child, if at the time of the act or omission she is not fully recovered from the effects of giving birth to the child and by reason thereof or of the effect of lactation consequent on the birth of the child her mind is then disturbed.

"Newly born child" is defined in section 2 of the Criminal Code as "a person under the age of one year".

Why the First Degree Murder Charge? I suspect it's because of the ongoing investigation to ensure that the elemnets of the offence are met. A Section 233 charge calls for the proof of certain  elements including:

1. the mother is not fully recovered from the effects of the child birth; and
2. the mother's mind is disturbed as a result thereof.

Thus, the mental defect must rise from the child birth (or the effect of lactation consquent on the birth) and cannot have another cause, though pre-existng conditions do not take away from the element and may be indicators in a diagnosis.

An investigation and some medical opinion will be necessary before the infanticide charge may be brought. There is a significance to this charge as opposed to a murder charge in that Infanticide, unlike murder or manslaughter, does not have a minimum sentence.

I think Black got a bad deal from a court system that is in serious need of revisiting its roots (my arguments are here).  I don't think it's the greatest miscarriage of justice in the history of the universe, or anything like that, but I'm a little bit sad for him and most suspicions I've had about the reporting profession have been confirmed.

Anyhoo, Steve at ESR, Zolf and others saying the Canada should give Black back his citizenship. Sorry and respectfully dudes, I disagree. I've long been a proponent that citizenship should "mean something", and that being true, dropping that citizenship likewise should mean something. No matter how vindictively that sorry little prick Chretien acted, Black made his own bed.

Some lawyer guy with a suspicious last name:

I was immensely cheered yesterday to see that the Conservatives have made no meaningful headway in the polls.

This is a remarkable feat of political incompetence. The Conservatives face a fractured opposition led by a leader whose English is shaky and is still gaining his feet as a national leader. While Monsieur Dion may in time prove himself as a competent (or who knows, even imspirational) leader that time has not yet arrived. Moreover, Stephen Harper has a hotel sized buffet of issues from which to chose around which he could rally the troops, mobilize his core and shift the necessary number of votes in the margin. On top of that, the Liberals are trebly burdened with a sizable debt (both at the party and individual leader levels), a non-functional fundraising apparatus and new fund raising limitations imposed as a farewell legacy gift from Jean Chretin. Why has Harper therefore failed to build a steamroller of support that will carrry him to the next election?

I for think that the answer has to lie in his failure to communicate and then stand behind any vision. While Paul Martin was wilting under the heat of Gomery and Harper was rolling toward victory, I for one was living in dread of the victory of the Conservatives. I expected a range of actions on matters near and dear to my heart -- be it social issues like same sex marriage or constitutional issues like limiting federal power in favour of the provinces or creating a triple-E senate -- that would fundamentally alter the political, legal or social structure of Canada creating a meaner, more conservative, less functional and less cohesive nation.

I'm fairly certain I won't be voting for the CPC in the next election, though my reasons will be different from Robert's, his "remarkable feat..." bit pretty well sums it up.

As a parting shot though, I'll have to note the triviality of the items which fills him (and his peers, no doubt) with dread, which could roughly be summed up as "rolling the clock back to the nightmare years of 1998".

In light of this..

Canada tokes at 4 times world average: UN

... isn't it about time that we looked at pot as having a broad acceptance in society and take the necessary steps to decriminalize its usage? 16.8% of Canadians admit to using... so if were to throw in another 5% who simply do not admit ( and i expect that this is low) we have as many people smoking pot as tobacco. If the cops were to charge them all we would have some 6 million tied up in the court system. That would cause quite the backlog.

Free Speech to criticize our federal politicians was removed by the Canadian Liberal Party and the Supreme Court of Canada upheld it ... not so much in the good old USA:

Justice Scalia began his concurrence by writing:

"A Moroccan cartoonist once defended his criticism of the Moroccan monarch (lese majesteé being a serious crime in Morocco) as follows: ‘I'm not a revolutionary, I'm just defending freedom of speech . . . I never said we had to change the king -- no, no, no, no! But I said that some things the king is doing, I do not like. Is that a crime?'

"Well, in the United States (making due allowance for the fact that we have elected representatives instead of a king) it is a crime, at least if the speaker is a union or a corporation (including not-for-profit public-interest corporations) and if the representative is identified by name within a certain period before a primary or congressional election in which he is running."

Ouch.

I agree ... Ouch.

Of course the  Supreme Court of the United States need not look so far a Moroco, Canada is right next door. We made speech by individuals illegal for the full run of a Federal election campaign. Worse, the Supreme Court of Canada said that the law was a necessary infringement to our freedom of expression, thus turning our freedom of expression into a privilege and not a right. However, as with McCain Feingold in the USA, the Canadian Election Spending Legislation probably will not hold up to judicial scrutiny once someone is actually charged under the act.

(Via Instapundit ... cross-posted at The London Fog)