Changes in serge…

April 20, 2017

CBC News – Alison Crawford
With 10,000 members, union files to represent Mounties

With better than half the current force signed up (just under 18,000 across Canada, the RCMP have submitted an application to unionize under the National Police Federation (NPF) in the hope of better pay, better hours and less stress on the job.  NPF co-chair Braine Sauvé says:  “Human resource levels are continually at sub-par standards putting our members’ safety, their families’ as well as the public at risk. And what is growing more and more apparent is the government’s intention to treat us as public servants and not a police force.” http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/rmcp-union-certification-application-1.4074678   Related article: Ottawa Citizen – Eli El-Chantiry   Here’s how to reform policing in Ontario   http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/el-chantiry-heres-how-to-reform-policing-in-ontario

CBC News – Neil Macdonald
Canada will legalize pot, after arresting a bunch of people for pot offences first – Why? Our ministers can’t really explain

The inconsistencies of the new legislation to legalize medical and recreational marijuana is already baring itself in the ‘low hanging fruit.”  Despite repeatedly disclaiming the arrest of Canadians for small amounts of marijuana, the Liberal government is non-the-less in the interim vowing to continue enforce the law prohibiting marijuana.  Why keep criminalizing Canada’s youth?  No one in government has a viable explanation.  http://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/canada-marijuana-law-1.4074257   Related article: iPolitics – L. Ian MacDonald   Trudeau’s marijuana plans may be deep in the weeds – What happens to the border? How will provinces cope? Your guess is as good as any   http://ipolitics.ca/2017/04/18/trudeaus-marijuana-plans-may-be-deep-in-the-weeds/

Policy Options – Robert Jago
The fatal flaw in the nation-to-nation agenda

“On April 21, in Ottawa, the AFN and the Trudeau government will sign a document called the “Memorandum of Understanding to Support First Nations Jurisdiction and Sovereignty and a Renewed Crown-First Nations Relationship.”  (Also a link to the document.)  The flaw that Jago reports on, despite the steadily improving relationship between the federal government and first nations is the failure to take into consideration the individual bands.  Their only mention is the right to opt out of any agreement by the two ‘parent’ groups.  http://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/march-2017/the-fatal-flaw-in-the-nation-to-nation-agenda/

Criminalization and Punishment Education (CPEP) Project –

Please read and consider signing this petition to Parliament concerning the case of Hassan Diab.

Hassan is the 63-year-old Ottawa academic and father of two young children who still languishes in a French jail, after a Canadian judge ruled to extradite him in spite of what the judge called a “weak case where conviction seems unlikely,” and after the French judge investigating the case found there was “consistent evidence” that “casts serious doubt” on whether Hassan was even in France when the crime was committed, and repeatedly ordered his release on bail, only to have it overturned.  For the petition itself:  https://petitions.parl.gc.ca/en/Petition/Sign/e-833

CBC News – Alison Crawford
Retroactive changes to criminal pardons violate charter rights, B.C. judge rules – Justice Heather MacNaughton ruled retroactive elements violate offenders’ Charter rights

The previous Conservative government doubled the waiting period before applications for record suspension (not pardons) and applied the ruling retroactively to persons convicted under the older law (previous to March 2012).  Five years later, the retroactive application decision is ruled a violation of Charter Rights.  In this case, the delay on the pardon was considered additional punishment beyond the sentence because it made professional certification impossible.  A second and similar case will be shortly heard in Ontario.  The federal government appears ready to change the problem in compliance with the BC ruling.   http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/pardons-criminal-records-record-suspensions-1.4076237   Related article: National Newswatch – Jim Bronskill  $631 pardon fee a ‘significant’ barrier, majority tell feds in consultation   http://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2017/04/20/631-pardon-fee-a-significant-barrier-majority-tell-feds-in-consultation-3/#.WPinsmkrJhF

Globe and Mail – Canadian Press
Canadian Human Rights Commission says children left behind on basic rights

The report to Parliament, release on Wednesday, draws particular attention to the failures in four areas involving children: child welfare on First Nations reserves, rights of transgendered children, rights of children with disabilities, rights of migrant children locked up. In all four areas, promises were made to fix the problems but no significant changes to date.   http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/canadian-human-rights-commission-says-children-left-behind-on-basic-rights/article34749017/   Related article: Times Colonist (BC) – Jordan Press, Canadian Press   Report says Liberals need to make prevention central in anti-poverty plan   http://www.timescolonist.com/report-says-liberals-need-to-make-prevention-central-in-anti-poverty-plan-1.16143523  

Thompson Reuters News Foundation (UK) –  Anna Pujol-Mazzini
Grim choice for abused migrants: silence or deportation

This report is told in the narrative of a Cuban illegal immigrant in Britain but could be any illegal woman in any country.  The Latin American Women’s Rights Services (LAWRS) estimates “a woman is assaulted 35 times on average before her first call to the police. For undocumented women, it takes 60.”  Even in flight from domestic violence, illegal women are often turned away from shelters funded by government.  http://news.trust.org/item/20170420080720-w5mxc/