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Canadian Town Outlaws Online Insults To Police and Officials

Posted by Soulskill on from the because-canadians-are-so-rude dept.

Pig Hogger writes: The Canadian town of Granby, Québec, just strengthened its municipal bylaw that prohibits insulting police officers and town officials by extending its "jurisdiction" to online postings. Fines range from $100 to $1,000. The town's mayor said, "In my opinion, if I threaten you via my keyboard, it's as though I am making that threat right in front of you. For me, it's the same thing." Critics worry about the implications for freedom of speech, and wonder why police and officials should get protection an average citizen does not.

30 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. Not the same thing by Hognoxious · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Threats and insults aren't the same thing. What a bunch of idiots, someone should nuke them.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  2. Here we go again by Dunbal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I hope they made it pretty darned clear what exactly constitutes an "insult". Or is it just "posts I don't like"?

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    1. Re:Here we go again by Alain+Williams · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Mod parent up

      One right that should be absolute is to criticise a politician for their public actions. We elect them and if we don't like what they do we must be able to say so in clear terms. This includes saying that if think they are being stupid or duplicitous.

      As regards personal insults: they should have the same protections and rights of redress for ad hominem attacks as the rest of us have - no more, no less.

    2. Re:Here we go again by msauve · · Score: 3, Informative

      I hope they made it pretty darned clear what exactly constitutes an "insult". Or is it just "posts I don't like"?

      Pretty much. There's a long history of Lèse-majesté laws. It's good to be the King, at least until the peasants revolt.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    3. Re:Here we go again by mrbester · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you think you're a Good Cop but don't do anything about the Bad Cops then you're a Bad Cop.

      --
      "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
  3. Suck it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Let me be the first to say, the officials in Granby, Québec, suck.

    1. Re:Suck it by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 5, Funny

      he did insult them; he used english!

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      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    2. Re:Suck it by Trikshot · · Score: 2

      In that case, I shall use my outrageous [French] accent when I say to Robert Riel, deputy mayor* of Granby, Québec, "You empty-headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"

      * Incorrectly attributed as mayor of Granby by the submitter.

      --
      I reject your reality and substitute my own!
    3. Re:Suck it by KiloByte · · Score: 3, Funny

      What a bunch of ciboired osties de tabernacs!

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  4. Why? Because police and officials are royalty. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They see their existing privileges and understandably conclude that they are above the plebs.

  5. That's nice for you by simplypeachy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "For me, it's the same thing". For the rest of us, it's obviously very different. Now shut up and go run your little moon.

  6. Are politicians actually incapable of thinking? by Livius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    *Threats* are already crimes. Opinions are protected by freedom of speech.

    Let me be the first to say that the mayor of Granby is an idiot.

    1. Re:Are politicians actually incapable of thinking? by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 2

      "if you don't start following the law, I'm going to report you"

      there, I just made a threat and its actually quite legal.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
  7. Insults? HA! by moehoward · · Score: 2

    Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries, eh!!!

    Now go away or I shall insult you a second time... next to the picture of my cat swatting at the mail slot.

    --
    "If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
  8. WTF by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is muslim-like mentality - ban saying something we don't like because our feelings are more important than free speech. I wonder if this Canadian town will take this to Muslim extremes where pointing out any moral issues with the officials, or that they are ineffective in their jobs will be seen as a reason to arrest someone.

    1. Re:WTF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      This is muslim-like mentality - ban saying something we don't like because our feelings are more important than free speech. I wonder if this Canadian town will take this to Muslim extremes where pointing out any moral issues with the officials, or that they are ineffective in their jobs will be seen as a reason to arrest someone.

      Whatever you do don't draw a cartoon of the mayor.

    2. Re:WTF by wisnoskij · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Its not Muslim-like, it is French-like. I was really worried, as a Canadian, until I noticed this is in Québec. Their entire legal system is filled with laws that could never pass our constitution, for the rest of the country. We don't tend to have legal precedent bleed into the the rest of the country; Quebec is more like a separate country to Canada than America is.

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    3. Re:WTF by gstoddart · · Score: 2

      Honestly, it's stupidity, and trying very hard to "protect" their culture and language.

      This is a province where they've tried to get companies like "Canadian Tire" and "Home Depot" to rename their companies to French because they've outlawed English signage. It's a place where they keep trying to make it illegal to have your kids educated in English.

      Ironically, French speakers from almost anywhere else in the world typically can't understand WTF Quebec people are saying.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    4. Re:WTF by Minupla · · Score: 3, Informative

      I assume this is an honest question so here's an honest answer.

      The relevant bit is:


      Section 33.

      (1) Parliament or the legislature of a province may expressly declare in an Act of Parliament or of the legislature, as the case may be, that the Act or a provision thereof shall operate notwithstanding a provision included in section 2 or sections 7 to 15.
      (2) An Act or a provision of an Act in respect of which a declaration made under this section is in effect shall have such operation as it would have but for the provision of this Charter referred to in the declaration.
      (3) A declaration made under subsection (1) shall cease to have effect five years after it comes into force or on such earlier date as may be specified in the declaration.
      (4) Parliament or the legislature of a province may re-enact a declaration made under subsection (1).
      (5) Subsection (3) applies in respect of a re-enactment made under subsection (4).

      Contrary to popular belief it's not specific to Quebec, it can be undertaken by either the federal or provincial/territorial level by a simple majority of the applicable governing body. (note that it doesn't apply to municipalities, so is irrelevant in the particulars of this article)

      It allows temporary suspension of some Charter rights for a period of time (again country to popular belief it's not a blank check, and can't be used to suspend, e.g. mobility rights, or democratic rights, and the Supreme Court has ruled its use invalid in the past.).

      It was first used by the Yukon Territory in 1982, but was never brought into force.

      It's also been used in Alberta (in an ill fated attempt to ban same sex marriages), Saskatchewan (to attempt to force through back to work legislation, and avoid a Charter challenge based on freedom of association), and Quebec (in the most famous instance, to allow the provinces french only sign law). There are not currently as far as I know any in-use cases of Section Thirty Three.

      Min

      --
      On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
    5. Re:WTF by wisnoskij · · Score: 2

      Not a legal structure, a cultural one. About 50% of political Quebecians do even want to be part of Canada, so have no respect for its laws. They have enormous political clout, so pro French laws pass regardless of their legality or not.

      Imagine if 50% of voting British citizens were proponents of Sharia law, it would not matter what laws where in place to restrict the governments power. When you have a highly organised majority of a democracy, there are not really any working legal restrictions on their power.

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    6. Re:WTF by Nemyst · · Score: 2

      Quebec never signed the constitution when it was patriated in 1982 (all other province PMs signed it in secret and the law was passed). Nobody's wanted to touch the thing ever since, it'd be like opening Pandora's Box. This does mean that whether Supreme Court decisions are binding in Quebec is rather unclear, as well as whether laws from the province can affect the rest of Canada and vice-versa. By and large, Supreme Court decisions are respected, but on the flip side the court and the federal government avoid touching some laws which could cause a ruckus and have no negative effect on the rest of Canada.

  9. Makes sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    By nature, police officers should have a thicker skin than normal citizens when it comes to insults, and they should be trained to deal with them.

    However, police officers do need extra protection against real threats.They're more likely to be a target, and they're be more vulnerable than others. And it shouldn't matter which medium is used to threaten a police officer.

    1. Re:Makes sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      police injury rates are _much_ higher than most work. According to Governing Magazine they're only surpassed by nursing care, and I can easily believe that.

      That is not what your citation says:

      Occupations recording the highest injury and illness rates include nursing and residential care facilities, police and fire personnel.

      Note the weasel word "including" - there is no inherent ranking there, not even to say that the listed occupations are even at the top. The fact that they don't mention construction, which accounts for 20% of all workplace fatalities, more than any other occupation, suggests that site is being sneaky to promote their own agenda.

      I don't really care about the numbers, but if you do, I recommend putting in the effort to analyze the BLS data yourself. I couldn't find an easy summary with less than 2 minutes of googling so I gave up.

    2. Re:Makes sense by Runaway1956 · · Score: 3, Informative

      "Police can't normally walk away from the scene, and they are compelled to attend in the first place."

      Uhhhhh - no. The police are not obligated to come to your aid. Never have been, never will be. When you call the police, they only come if it is convenient, and when they feel like it.

      http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06...

      As for walking away from the scene - I'm not aware of anything that binds any individual officer to the scene. He may walk away from a confrontation at any time.

      There are some pretty good discussions going on right now about such things.

      http://www.policemag.com/chann...

      In short, a cop can decide to defuse a situation by just backing off, at any time he chooses to do so. And, in fact, some of the wiser heads in the various police forces say that they should do just that. Not always, but often.

      How many stories have we read of, where some mentally deficient person was shot to death, simply because he wasn't cooperating? And - the cop feels "threatened". One of the most recent stories I remember involved a nut case who was on his own porch, and happened to have a screw driver in his hand. There was no indication that he intended to use that screwdriver as a weapon - the cop just "felt threatened" because of that dumbass 21 foot rule. Yet another dead nutcase - and no one answers for the killing.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    3. Re:Makes sense by Idarubicin · · Score: 4, Interesting

      police injury rates are _much_ higher than most work

      Welp...sort of. The U.S. BLP recently published their 2013 census of fatal occupational injuries. The overall fatality rate for the workforce was 3.3 fatal injuries for every 100,000 full-time-equivalent workers per year. Management employees averaged 2.4; sales 1.6--no surprises there, really.

      For employees in the "protective service occupations" - police, firefighters, correctional services, animal control, security guards, and so forth - the rate was 6.9 fatalities per 100,000 FTE. (I haven't been able to find data broken out by occupation within the category. If someone can find that, that would be great.) So that's what we expect--police, firefighters, and others do have a riskier job than the average, and riskier than the typical office worker. Somewhat surprisingly, the relative risk is only a factor of three or four different when comparing a police officer to, say, an IT manager.

      But...there's the rest of the table. "Intallation, maintenance, and repair" occupations? 7.2 fatalities per 100,000. "Construction and extraction"? 12.2. "Transportation and material moving"? 14.9. "Farming, fishing, and forestry"? 23.9.

      The real manly men, in real danger on the job, are apparently out there working with tools, building stuff, drilling for oil, driving big rigs, and cutting down trees.

      And let's be honest--a lot of the injuries and fatalities sustained by police officers aren't directly attributable to violent suspects. A big chunk of them come from the fact that the typical frontline officer spends a lot of time moving around--in a patrol car, on a motorcycle, on foot, or on a bicycle. Special laws protecting police officers from insults don't actually reduce their likelihood of being in a vehicular accident, or getting clipped by a passing car during a traffic stop, or slipping on an icy sidewalk in the winter. Looking at the last ten years' police fatalities for the United States, the total number of officers killed in motor vehicle incidents (car and motorcycle crashes; hit by car) is 605. The total number of officers fatally shot, strangled, or stabbed is 553. (And I suspect that the proportion who get shot is even lower in Canada.)

      --
      ~Idarubicin
    4. Re:Makes sense by Ravaldy · · Score: 2

      It requires a lot of courage, and an equal amount of stupidity to insult an officer. It's like poking the bear with a stick.

      I didn't need a law to know it's a bad idea to be disrespectful to an officer outside a courtroom. They already have enough power to cause you grief if you do.

  10. Re:That why there are elections by alex67500 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The problem is that you're usually offered another lot of idiots to choose from...

  11. Re: Good News Everybody by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    That's the page for the public pool dumbass.

  12. Re:That why there are elections by mrbester · · Score: 2

    No one counts spoiled ballot papers, which is what altering does. If the choices are Idiot A (no) or Idiot B (also no) then spoiling the ballot paper just wasted your time so you may as well have not bothered to travel to the polling station in the first place.

    This is what those "if you don't vote how can you expect to have a say" retards don't understand. There's no "None of the above" box that you can choose. Being forced to pick from undesirable choices isn't having your say. It's "you have a choice of this dick or this dick and fuck you if you don't like it"

    --
    "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
  13. Re: Good News Everybody by nytes · · Score: 2

    Well then...

    Hey! You Granby public pool managers suck at your jobs! You wouldn't know chlorine from liquid nitrogen if you stuck your hand in it! You can't clean hard water scale worth beans!

    And your cooking probably sucks, too.

    --
    -- I have monkeys in my pants.