The official statement is that the Harper government has no intention of reopening the abortion debate. I acknowledge this off the bat, as it means that I officially have nothing to be worried, let alone seething about. So why am I feeling particularly proprietary on the subject of my ovum…
Tag: Legal Issues
First Nations and the Supreme Court v. Enbridge and the Harper Government
With the debate over the Northern Gateway pipeline proposal heating up in Ottawa, and the likely scenario of some sort legal battle emerging, it might […]
SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, C11 and all the other letters and numbers they can throw at us be damned! The Net’s Not Gonna Change
To paraphrase Micheal Corleone’s only noteable line in Godfather III: “Just when we thought we were out, they pull us back in!” I had to paraphrase it because I wouldn’t dare embed the YouTube clip these days and am even a little skittish about a direct quote from such a heavily copyrighted film. Yes, we all know that SOPA and PIPA got shelved in the US, thanks in large part to sites like Wikipedia going dark for a day and showing everyone just what a heavily censored and regulated internet might be like. But that doesn’t mean they’re done for good…
The good, the bad and the ugly: The Trials of 2011 in Retrospect
I know that these year in review columns, annoying though they may be, are all the rage around New Years (apologies for the lateness). Also, that they remain a cheap way for hack journalists and bloggers to basically recycle the past years work while, at the same time, attempting to pass it off as new content. So, without further ado, here are my personal top Canadian legal highlights for the year 2011 (in no particular order)…
BC Supreme Court draws line on freedom of religion when it comes to polygamy
The provincial government of British Columbia basically posed the following question to the court: Is section 293 of the criminal code, which prohibits polygamy.
Liberals always seem to squirm a little bit when questions of religious freedom come into conflict with other rights that they cherish (i.e. gender equality), the way they did last week when the British Colombia Supreme Court handed down its epic reference on the legality of polygamy in Canada. I suppose the situation is bound to cause…
Habeas what? Harper government set to renew controversial clauses in Anti-Terrorism Act
If anyone tells you that Stephen Harper’s gang of neo-cons subscribe to some sort of libertarianism, you can spit in their eye for me (to quote the great Barney Gumble)!
The libertarian school, though I strongly disagree with it, basically calls for less government (if not abolishing it entirely!) intervention in our lives. Yet the basic premise of the Federal Anti-Terrorism Act including the sunset clauses that is currently being championed by…
Being Broke
So a creditor has put their hand directly into my bank account without permission or authorization of any kind. True I owe them money, but resorting to illegal acts like that isn’t exactly fair, either. I’m almost surprised they didn’t send thugs to beat me up, break my legs and burn down my apartment building with me and all my neighbours trapped inside or something like that, as they do in the movies. The fact that they stole the money I was saving to pay rent was both bad timing and genuinely evil. At least the telephonic campaign of daily harassment over the payments I’m too strapped to make seems to have stopped for a while…
Supreme disappointment?
An electoral campaign dominated by talk of coalitions, corporate tax cuts and care for seniors has sidelined an issue crucially important to the future of the country: court appointments to Canada’s highest judicial body.
With four of nine Supreme Court Justices approaching the mandatory age of retirement in the next four years, and eight of nine eligible for retirement with full pension by the end of 2011, Canada’s next Prime Minister will likely wield an inordinate influence over the country’s judicial landscape for years to come.
In Canada, the Prime Minister appoints judges to the Supreme Court with no formal checks and balances. While the Supreme Court Act requires that three of the nine judges be from Quebec and that all nominees must have been members of the bar for at least ten years, the appointment process is otherwise uninhibited…
Yaz heard about the Bayer lawsuit?
Do you or a significant other rely on contraceptive pills for your sexy peace of mind? Depending on the type of pill taken, I’d rethink doing that. A popular birth control pill Yasmine and its contraceptive cousin Yaz are the subject of lawsuits between several thousand consumers and the manufacturer, Bayer Pharmaceuticals. The lawsuit against Bayer involves thousands of American plaintiffs and a separate class-action lawsuit
Can you get sued for a Tweet? Courtney Love and the future of the internet
We all knew it would come to this some day. We probably didn’t know it would involve Courtney Love, but that seems somewhat appropriate. You see, Love is being sued. Nothing new there, right? Well, what is new is that could have serious ramifications well beyond a celebrity spat. Courtney love is the first person being sued for a tweet she made on twitter. You see, back in 2009, fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir wanted Love to pay her a few thousand dollars for clothes and the singer wasn’t impressed to say the least. She went on a tirade via Twitter and other social media platforms calling Simorangkir a “drug pushing prostitute” among other things.