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The Next Canadian Government

Ideally the government, being aware of dire consequences, would keep them in mind and not let the situation deteriorate to that extent.
One of the important things the Declaration of Independence did was make a case for what they were doing. They set a fairly high bar. It wasn't merely a beef about taxes or policy; their core argument was about equality before the law ("rights of Englishmen"). If we use that threshold, it should be easy to see that most of our squabbling is over money and policy, and shouldn't legitimize more than ordinary protest and civil disobedience. However, we do have some baked-in things with respect to representation and political jurisdictions and the escape clauses in the constitution which bear watching and correction.
 
This data comparison crosses all political lines.

PM Stephen Harper led his party as the governing party for 9 years between 2006 to 2015.
PM Justin Trudeau has led his party as the governing party for 9 years between 2015 to 2024.

Donations_Post.jpg

In between elections, <1% of Canadians make a contribution to political parties. During the last six elections, the range of all donations, from all sources: 2006 5%, 2008 6%, 2011 5%, 2015 5%, 2019 3%, and 2021 2%.

This is compared to votes cast: 2006 64.7%, 2008 58.8%, 2011 61.1%, 2015 68.3%, 2019 67%, 2021 62.6%.

I included the increase in population as a baseline between 2006 through 2024.
 
It strikes me that there is a tad of misinterpretation there.

The practices relating to English longbows was one of the crowns need to raise armies for defence and foreign gambits as seen by this statement by Edward III in 1363



As to the Scots. You seem to gloss over the fact that they were a conquered people and constantly in a state of rebellion against a "foreign oppressor." It wasn't their own government that they bore arms against - it was foreigners supported by internal lackeys. There is no comparison to their situation and either the modern US one or the 1791 state of affairs.

It's quite easy to spin up one of many historical situation to support a modern theory. The question is, "Do they make sense or bear relevance in today's world."

I'm now taking a ten hour break from social media to get some work done.

🍻

Jimmy the Sixth outlawed the MacGregors before he took the English throne. The Reivers and the Tcheuchters both disregarded the Scots in Edinburgh long before the Stewarts moved to London for a cushy life.

The Stewarts were the enemy for most Scots right through to Culloden.

The Covenanting Whigs were Scots as were the Tory Jacobites.

The Killing Time was the time of the Duke of York, James the 7th and 2nd, with the assistance of Bloody Clavers, known to many Canadian regiments as Bonnie Dundee. Those two were spearing men, women and children at Sunday services and leaving young girls to drown at high tide while tied to stakes.

Screw the government.

As for the English, it was hard for the crown to enforce unpopular acts when, as in Switzerland, every man was competent in the use of the personal weapon in his possession.

Witness the Civil Wars.
 
The whole "all men are created equal" shtick was great . . . if you were white, male and (I believe) owned land.

We will never know what was intended by the framers of 2A, but we can probably be certain that they couldn't envision semi and fully automatic weapons and probably couldn't conceive concealed firearms. They probably never considered the possibility of somebody walking into a school, mall or business and killing a bunch of people on some grounds of perceived cause.

If the courts interpret 2A and the Declaration as legitimizing citizen rebellion against a 'tyrannical government', why does the court legitimize laws that make rebellion and insurrection crimes?

The US is one originalist SCOTUS decision away from a completely liberal interpretation of the word "arms" and legalizing personal possession of machine guns, RPGs, howitzers and who knows what.
 
We will never know what was intended by the framers of 2A, but we can probably be certain that they couldn't envision semi and fully automatic weapons and probably couldn't conceive concealed firearms. They probably never considered the possibility of somebody walking into a school, mall or business and killing a bunch of people on some grounds of perceived cause.
Actually we do, through the words and historical and current jurisprudence.


A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

In the form of the words, many could be excused for thinking this was the constitutional support for each State to ‘raise a militia,’ aka. a National Guard. Practically it extends to individuals, and in particular to ‘Home Castle’ doctrine…CC, etc. less so, as restricted by many States.

USSC’s 2008 Heller ruling supported individual rights for ownership for legitimate purposes of defense of one’s home, particularly in D.C., which previously did not had individual gun ownership
Enshrined as many/most/(all?) the States did.

USSC’s 2022 Bruen finding rescinded New York’s legislation to pre-empitvely refuse CC licenses unless citizens provided explicit cause for issuance of a CCA permit.
 
The difference between the collect rights theory of defence and a run amok individual rights theory of defence:

458380132_497568946471038_3871948513122790109_n.jpg


🍻
 
The whole "all men are created equal" shtick was great . . . if you were white, male and (I believe) owned land.

Knight vs Wedderburn - Scotland 1778 -

The Court of Session, by eight votes to four, sustained the sheriff's decision, which had held "That the state of slavery is not recognised by the laws of this kingdom, and is inconsistent with the principles thereof: and found that the regulations in Jamaica, concerning slaves, do not extend to this kingdom; and repelled the defender's claim to perpetual service". It thus rejected Wedderburn's appeal. Lord Kames stated that "we sit here to enforce right not to enforce wrong". Lord Auchinleck, Boswell's father, said "Although, in the plantations, they have laid hold of the poor blacks, and made slaves of them, yet I do not think that that is agreeable to humanity, not to say to the Christian religion. Is a man a slave because he is black? No. He is our brother; and he is a man, although not our colour; he is in a land of liberty, with his wife and his child: let him remain there." The Court thus held that

the dominion assumed over this Negro, under the law of Jamaica, being unjust, could not be supported in this country to any extent: That, therefore, the defender had no right to the Negro's service for any space of time, nor to send him out of the country against his consent: That the Negro was likewise protected under the act 1701, c.6. from being sent out of the country against his consent.


In effect, slavery was not recognised by Scots law. Fugitive slaves (or 'perpetual servants') could be protected by the courts, if they wished to leave domestic service or were resisting attempts to return them to slavery in the colonies.


Somersett vs Stewart - England 1772 -

According to one reported version of the case, Lord Mansfield decided that:

The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasions, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory. It is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from the decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged.

Slavery had never been authorised by statute ("positive law") within England and Wales, and Lord Mansfield found it also to be unsupported within England by the common law, although he made no comment on the position in the overseas territories of the British Empire. The case was closely followed throughout the Empire, particularly in the thirteen American colonies.



Joseph Strong and Granville Sharpe - England 1765


....

The notion of racial equality was alive and well in the English-speaking world, including Canada and the Thirteen Colonies, well before the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

And for the record - permanent indenture was not restricted to blacks


All sorts of Whiggish notions of liberty were abroad in the 1770s - threatening the livelihoods of owners of salt pans, coal mines and plantation owners.
 
Actually we do, through the words and historical and current jurisprudence.




In the form of the words, many could be excused for thinking this was the constitutional support for each State to ‘raise a militia,’ aka. a National Guard. Practically it extends to individuals, and in particular to ‘Home Castle’ doctrine…CC, etc. less so, as restricted by many States.

USSC’s 2008 Heller ruling supported individual rights for ownership for legitimate purposes of defense of one’s home, particularly in D.C., which previously did not had individual gun ownership
Enshrined as many/most/(all?) the States did.

USSC’s 2022 Bruen finding rescinded New York’s legislation to pre-empitvely refuse CC licenses unless citizens provided explicit cause for issuance of a CCA permit.
We had access to records and rulings arising from 2A, but they don't provide a lot of insight into the crafting of the actual amendment itself. There are the Federalist Papers but I don't know how deep, if at all, they get into this topic. It's hard to know the minds of late 18th century men.

Knight vs Wedderburn - Scotland 1778 -




Somersett vs Stewart - England 1772 -





Joseph Strong and Granville Sharpe - England 1765


....

The notion of racial equality was alive and well in the English-speaking world, including Canada and the Thirteen Colonies, well before the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

And for the record - permanent indenture was not restricted to blacks


All sorts of Whiggish notions of liberty were abroad in the 1770s - threatening the livelihoods of owners of salt pans, coal mines and plantation owners.
Cool - but little to do directly with the US at the time. Slaves weren't considered "all men"; women weren't consider "all men" in terms of most other elements of the Bill of Rights.
 
We had access to records and rulings arising from 2A, but they don't provide a lot of insight into the crafting of the actual amendment itself. There are the Federalist Papers but I don't know how deep, if at all, they get into this topic. It's hard to know the minds of late 18th century men.
Paper 29 seems to touch on it. Here's the Wikipedia Coles Notes.

Note also Paper 46. (Wikipedia)

I glean from these that the provisions with respect to an armed Militia as the collective defence of the several State governments from external hostiles - including the federal government - and internal insurrectionists. The basis of this was the general attitude that state governments more closely resembled and represented the local population as a whole. There were still agencies at play - Indians, residual British and even French - who posed a threat to the various colonial states. On top of that was the very recent history of having fought against the King's redcoats (and his allies). The British army was a standing army. There was a clear recognition that the new US government needed, and in fact was empowered, to raise a federal standing army and much of the debate concerned the limitations that should be placed on it so as not to be a threat to the State governments which saw themselves as sovereign states in their own right.

Regardless of whether you look at the new US federal government and its standing army as a potential threat - and some Americans clearly believed it could be - the Militia itself was each sovereign state government's collective defence and as such does not lead to the conclusion that a constitutional individual right to bear arms separate and apart from a "well regulated militia" exists.

I've read Heller several times now and can't but help agree that the analysis by the dissenting opinions is the correct and logical one while the majority's opinion, which dismisses the importance of the introductory clause, is a cheap ploy to reach a conclusion that they want rather than a persuasive argument.

🍻
 
The US is one originalist SCOTUS decision away from a completely liberal interpretation of the word "arms" and legalizing personal possession of machine guns, RPGs, howitzers and who knows what.
Maybe small nukes? JDAMs? Smart bombs?
 
We had access to records and rulings arising from 2A, but they don't provide a lot of insight into the crafting of the actual amendment itself. There are the Federalist Papers but I don't know how deep, if at all, they get into this topic. It's hard to know the minds of late 18th century men.


Cool - but little to do directly with the US at the time. Slaves weren't considered "all men"; women weren't consider "all men" in terms of most other elements of the Bill of Rights.

That's funny. Here was me thinking that the Colonists were rebelling because Westminster was imposing laws on the Colonies

And its easier to understand the minds of late 18th century men when you think of them as being connected across the Atlantic and to their pasts.
 
That's funny. Here was me thinking that the Colonists were rebelling because Westminster was imposing laws on the Colonies

And its easier to understand the minds of late 18th century men when you think of them as being connected across the Atlantic and to their pasts.

1215 enters the chat ;)

1725855057566.png
 
CKLB Radio, Yellowknife, reports that Pierre Poilievre makes some specific promises on a range of issues (my emphasis added):

-----------

Pierre Poilievre unpacks parcel of promises during Yellowknife stop​

Axe the Tax rally also heard the Conservative's Opposition leader's plans for housing, health-care, addictions and gun control​

BY: JAMES O'CONNOR SEPTEMBER 8, 2024

It was billed as an Axe the Tax rally, and Conservative Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre gleefully chopped away at the ruling Liberal Party’s record on Sunday, just days after the NDP pulled its support for the minority government.

In addition to promising to kill the maligned Carbon Tax — which has increased heating and transportation costs in the NWT — Poilievre told a cheering packed hall of more than 250 people of his plans to “make common sense common again.”

Sporting a blue Axe the Tax T-shirt and jeans, an energetic Poilievre offered a stump speech apparently adapted for the North, with the crowd applauding his promise to undo the Liberals’ gun control policies, which he said target law-abiding firearm owners.

“Justin Trudeau told us that if he banned licensed, law abiding, trained and tested farmers, hunters and sport shooters, that it would make us all safe. Well, gun crime is up 125 per cent because it turns out that grandpa Joe’s hunting rifle was never the problem. Grandpa Joe in Yellowknife is not shooting up downtown Toronto.

“But the good news is we’re going to win. We’re going to respect your right to keep your hunting rifle, protect your traditional way of life and go after the real criminals instead and protect your hunting. We need to protect our freedom again, bring home freedom to this country which has come under relentless attack.”

As recently selected NWT candidate Kimberly Fairman watched from the front row, Poilievre also said a Conservative government would:
  • Speed up permits, free up land, and cut development taxes to increase housing supply.
  • Reduce barriers that prevent immigrant doctors and nurses from helping ease health-care woes.
  • Create a “blue seal” for all licensed professions to quickly integrate foreign-trained professionals.
  • Crack down on repeat criminal offenders, especially when it coms to bail and parole.
  • Further criminalize hard drugs and invest in detox, treatment, and recovery programs.
While all of those are hot-button issues in the NWT, it was noted by some in the audience that Poilievre did not utter the term Indigenous, and also he could have offered his insights on outstanding land claims and major infrastructure projects such as the Mackenzie Valley Highway.

Meanwhile, Poilievre vowed to empower the military to protect the North and stake the strongest claim ever on the three Canadian territories. This would follow recent projects and programs to increase the military presence announced by the Liberal government in Yellowknife and Inuvik.

“We consider it unacceptable that Chinese and Russian vessels swim around in our cold Northern waters, slowly but surely, invading our territory, attempting to claim it for themselves. We will never let those aggressive, hostile countries onto our continent.

“We will lock arms with our American neighbours to protect the Arctic and you, the northern people, are at the forefront through your very presence in this place to sending the message to the world that the North belongs to Canada and we will never surrender it to anyone.”

When NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh announced on Wednesday the end of the supply and confidence agreement with the Liberal government, the prospect of a snap election this year is a real possibility.

When Singh was recently in Yellowknife — touring with NWT candidate Kelvin Kotchilea — he told CBC that, if elected, his party is “open to a different approach” to the carbon tax for the Northwest Territories.

After meeting with Premier R.J. Simpson — who has called for a blanket carbon-tax exemption — for the Northwest Territories, CBC reported that Singh said he would like to see different approaches to emissions reduction for different jurisdictions in the country.

Meanwhile, NWT Liberal MP Michael McLeod has announced he will not run again, with no word yet on his successor.

----------

Maybe some flesh is being put on the CPC's policy bones as the prospect of a spring 2025 election looms, based on a Liberal budget that will likely promise the moon and more.
 
That's funny. Here was me thinking that the Colonists were rebelling because Westminster was imposing laws on the Colonies

And its easier to understand the minds of late 18th century men when you think of them as being connected across the Atlantic and to their pasts.
You're probably correct. I often have trouble seeing lines between the many dots you post.
 
Sounds like Singh's plan is "I tore up our agreement with trudeau and I'm going to give you stuff I won't give to others and treat different parts of the nation differently. We'll figure what stuff and what differences after you elect me."

True leadership with a solid plan.
 
This, by Gary Mason in the Globe and Mail, is an issue with which both provincial and the national government must deal in the not too distant future:

----------

We can’t ignore the fact that some mentally ill people do need to be in institutions​



GARY MASON NATIONAL AFFAIRS COLUMNIST
VANCOUVER

Details continue to emerge surrounding the random stabbing attack on the streets of Vancouver last week that left one person dead and another with his hand severed.

The accused, Brendan Colin McBride, 34, has been charged with second-degree murder and aggravated assault. Police say he has a history of mental illness, violent offences and more than 60 interactions with police across Metro Vancouver.

The incident has triggered a fresh wave of anxiety in the area over random assaults. It can certainly be said Vancouver has become all too familiar with stranger attacks, ones often carried out by people deemed to have severe mental illnesses. Reaction to these events now follow a well-worn script.

Police decry a criminal-court system that releases serial criminals on bail to commit more crimes. Law enforcement officials then promote the idea of enforced institutionalization of those with a mental illness so severe it poses a danger to others. Politicians then chime in to talk about the need to put more resources into mental-health services and promise to examine the idea of institutionalizing people against their will.

NDP Premier David Eby said much the same thing after the last random attack in Vancouver allegedly involving someone with a mental illness. He said it again after this most recent one, promising to soon unveil a plan to deal with the problem.

The merry-go-round of reaction speaks to the complexity of the issue. It’s easy to demand the return of asylums to house those who are not compos mentis and who pose a threat to themselves and society. If it was as simple to actually do it, however, it would have been done years ago.

But locking people up against their will isn’t easy – nor should it be.

The deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill in Canada began in the 1960s and carried on throughout the 70s and 80s. Health and Welfare Canada estimates that the number of inpatient beds at psychiatric hospitals (also known as insane asylums) decreased from four beds per 1,000 population in 1964 to less than one bed per 1,000 population by 1979. According to a report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, Canada had 50,000 psychiatric beds in 1960. By 2019, the number had fallen to 7,200.

Many of those released from institutions such as Riverview in suburban Vancouver ended up on the streets. In fact, one can plot the shocking degradation of the Downtown Eastside to the release of so many patients from Riverview. Today, the area is populated by people who, once upon a time, might have been getting care in a psychiatric hospital.

There is no question we have a problem – one being faced by cities across North America where deinstitutionalization similarly took place decades ago. Without a place to be cared for, people with severe mental illnesses end up committing crimes, for which they go to jail. Then they get released and commit more crimes. Prisons are not equipped to care for these folks.

Opioids have also had a devastating impact on the brains of many people on the streets, leaving many so damaged they are of no fit mind to take care of themselves. They are effectively being left to die in empty hotel rooms and alleyways.

But here is the reality: we have a mental-illness epidemic in this country. The Canadian Mental Health Association estimates that mental illness affects 6.7 million Canadians. One in two of us in this country have – or have had – a mental illness of some description by the time they reach 40, according to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). Only a small fraction have a disability so severe they can’t function as a responsible adult in society and pose a threat to those around them.

We need a place for them.

We need to establish a sanctuary where people with severe mental illnesses can be treated – maybe in some cases against their will. These hospitals can’t resemble those from yesteryear, the ones that gave us the disturbing images depicted in the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. We have to reimagine – and properly fund – a modern version of Riverview.

It needs to be part of a renewed commitment to improving mental-health services across the country more broadly. While digesting the enormous financial costs this will impose on governments, we need to understand the downstream costs thatmental illness already imposes on taxpayers in the form of visits to emergency rooms, police time, court time, jail time, rinse-and-repeat time.

The total financial impact of mental illness in Canada is more than $51-billion a year, according to CAMH.

We can never go back to a time of forced lobotomies and sterilization. But we can give birth to a new vision for psychiatric hospitals that keep patients safe – and society, too.

----------

This is NOT a law and order issue; it is social policy and health care and it touched, heavily, on civil/human/Charter rights.

Provinces need to rebuild mental hospitals, but the national government needs to come to grips with the thorny issue of treating people against their will.

Over to you, Mr Poilievre.
 
This, by Gary Mason in the Globe and Mail, is an issue with which both provincial and the national government must deal in the not too distant future:

----------

We can’t ignore the fact that some mentally ill people do need to be in institutions​



GARY MASON NATIONAL AFFAIRS COLUMNIST
VANCOUVER

Details continue to emerge surrounding the random stabbing attack on the streets of Vancouver last week that left one person dead and another with his hand severed.

The accused, Brendan Colin McBride, 34, has been charged with second-degree murder and aggravated assault. Police say he has a history of mental illness, violent offences and more than 60 interactions with police across Metro Vancouver.

The incident has triggered a fresh wave of anxiety in the area over random assaults. It can certainly be said Vancouver has become all too familiar with stranger attacks, ones often carried out by people deemed to have severe mental illnesses. Reaction to these events now follow a well-worn script.

Police decry a criminal-court system that releases serial criminals on bail to commit more crimes. Law enforcement officials then promote the idea of enforced institutionalization of those with a mental illness so severe it poses a danger to others. Politicians then chime in to talk about the need to put more resources into mental-health services and promise to examine the idea of institutionalizing people against their will.

NDP Premier David Eby said much the same thing after the last random attack in Vancouver allegedly involving someone with a mental illness. He said it again after this most recent one, promising to soon unveil a plan to deal with the problem.

The merry-go-round of reaction speaks to the complexity of the issue. It’s easy to demand the return of asylums to house those who are not compos mentis and who pose a threat to themselves and society. If it was as simple to actually do it, however, it would have been done years ago.

But locking people up against their will isn’t easy – nor should it be.

The deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill in Canada began in the 1960s and carried on throughout the 70s and 80s. Health and Welfare Canada estimates that the number of inpatient beds at psychiatric hospitals (also known as insane asylums) decreased from four beds per 1,000 population in 1964 to less than one bed per 1,000 population by 1979. According to a report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, Canada had 50,000 psychiatric beds in 1960. By 2019, the number had fallen to 7,200.

Many of those released from institutions such as Riverview in suburban Vancouver ended up on the streets. In fact, one can plot the shocking degradation of the Downtown Eastside to the release of so many patients from Riverview. Today, the area is populated by people who, once upon a time, might have been getting care in a psychiatric hospital.

There is no question we have a problem – one being faced by cities across North America where deinstitutionalization similarly took place decades ago. Without a place to be cared for, people with severe mental illnesses end up committing crimes, for which they go to jail. Then they get released and commit more crimes. Prisons are not equipped to care for these folks.

Opioids have also had a devastating impact on the brains of many people on the streets, leaving many so damaged they are of no fit mind to take care of themselves. They are effectively being left to die in empty hotel rooms and alleyways.

But here is the reality: we have a mental-illness epidemic in this country. The Canadian Mental Health Association estimates that mental illness affects 6.7 million Canadians. One in two of us in this country have – or have had – a mental illness of some description by the time they reach 40, according to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). Only a small fraction have a disability so severe they can’t function as a responsible adult in society and pose a threat to those around them.

We need a place for them.

We need to establish a sanctuary where people with severe mental illnesses can be treated – maybe in some cases against their will. These hospitals can’t resemble those from yesteryear, the ones that gave us the disturbing images depicted in the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. We have to reimagine – and properly fund – a modern version of Riverview.

It needs to be part of a renewed commitment to improving mental-health services across the country more broadly. While digesting the enormous financial costs this will impose on governments, we need to understand the downstream costs thatmental illness already imposes on taxpayers in the form of visits to emergency rooms, police time, court time, jail time, rinse-and-repeat time.

The total financial impact of mental illness in Canada is more than $51-billion a year, according to CAMH.

We can never go back to a time of forced lobotomies and sterilization. But we can give birth to a new vision for psychiatric hospitals that keep patients safe – and society, too.

----------

This is NOT a law and order issue; it is social policy and health care and it touched, heavily, on civil/human/Charter rights.

Provinces need to rebuild mental hospitals, but the national government needs to come to grips with the thorny issue of treating people against their will.

Over to you, Mr Poilievre.
I have over roughly the past 10 years or so doing security in hospitals A lot of the time patient watches mostly dealing with either the mentally ill and dementia patients.
Yeah something like what's suggested in the article makes real sense to me .
Something really does have to be done and I don't think I'm understating this when I say it should have been done years ago.
 
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