And just who might the "slashdot crowd" be? IT industry decision-makers? Stop it, you're killing me.
Some of us actually work in the industry, set up and manage servers, deploy desktops, write code, make recommendations, etc. - its' not ALL about downloading as much pr0n as possible...
Therefore, an interview with this dude makes a lot of sense for all involved, with the regrettable exception of the zealots and the posers.
Last I looked, it was Microsoft that was the poser, with bullshit announcements like their their "we're taking security seriously" campaign - for a whole month. Big. Fucking. Deal.
Or "all the wonderful new features in LongBlow" - that have been subsequently gutted.
- or the eye candy we've had for years under Linux/KDE, that Windows users are finally getting...
Zealot? No, just someone who's abandoned Windows as not being either efficient or cost-competitive. Since when does wanting to save money and time equate with being a zealot?
It can be hard to distinquish between agenda and fact.
... as opposed to, say, Microsofts' "Get The Facts" campaign, which is soooo much better.
Puh-lease.
I'd be more interested in an interview with a pr0n king (at least they make no bones that a lot of the stuff you're looking at is fake, thanks to Dr. Schulnick and DuPont).
do you have to defraud our vending machines by purchasing 50 cent cans of soda for 40 cents?
From the latest reports, Canadians are starting to get the "American disease" - supersizing and obesity - so maybe you can make it up in volume?:-)
It's all a plot to undermine our economy, I just know it.
Shit, I can see it now
Terrorists spread out across America filling vending machines with Canadian quarters, crippling the junk-food industry;
The junk-food industry lobbies for massive subsidies, a countervailing ban on Canadian comedians, and the extradition of Celine Dion to stand trial for plain bad taste;
Canada quickly agrees to the Celine Dion thing (we know a good deal when we see it); everything else gets bogged down in "negociations";
Americans retaliate against the junk food industry by junking their microwaves; hot-air popcorn popper sales surge, as does sales of cook-books;
The average American eats better; Financial crisis hits the Fat Farm industry and the diet industry; sales of Viagra drop as men no longer need little blue pills to get it on - their fat whale of a spouse is now thin, trim, and s-e-x-y. Crisis in the stock market as pharmaceutical stocks drop across the board in anticipation of a less-medicated America;
George Bush pledges to step up the war on terrorism by - get this - eating junk food. Quickly hits 300 pounds, chokes to death on Pringle during State of the Union address;
Dick Cheney tries to accede to the presidency, but is unable to when its discovered that he's actually a Susquach; Cheney resigns, goes on talk-show circuit, makes even more millions;
Hey, if they're only estimating the cost at $10 billion, the study was probably funded by Microsoft. An independent study would have factored in the other costs of the M$ monoculture (like the viruses, spambot nets, etc,) and come out with at LEAST 10 x as much.
Just one potential example - the Office add-on for automating collection letters they tried to develop a few years ago - with a "phone-home" back door. The beta testers were really enthused about having their receivables being logged by the mother ship. How much did it cost the participants to train people to use it, then UN-train them and re-enter everything back in their old systems?
Who knows? Only time will tell what the true cost is.
They're preventing their customers from accessing ther site.
Some of those customers are also Telus employees.
So Telus is preventing employees from accessing their union site on their own (not company) time.
We have pretty decent labour legislation in Canada (including anti-scab laws, etc) - no company has the right to interfere with employees communicating with their union on their own time.
Gotta agree with you on the faces on the money - I don't think there's a coin or bill wide enough for Dumbos' ears.
But why bother putting politicians on the currency? We've already got interesting pix on the back (there's a couple dozen different 25-cent backs, with snowy owls, inuit carvings, fishing settlements, the bluenose, roche perce, etc). The $1 coin has either a loon, or a cenotaph, or some other design, and the $2 coin has a polar bear, or a polar bear and cub, etc. We've got kids playing hockey on our paper currency, etc.
Here's a thought - put a fucking MAP on the front of the paper money so people can learn a bit of geography.
The section you are refering to was enabling legislation that required the feds and the provinces to bring their laws into line with the charter. The deadline was about 5 years ago.
So now, you don't have to "make a federal case" out of it - you can sue provincially.
If sec. 32 hadn't been included, there would have been no requirement for the either the feds or the provinces to amend their laws to respect the charter.
to the legislature and government of each province in respect of all matters within the authority of the legislature of each province
What you're pointing out is the enabling legislation that REQUIRES both the feds and the provinces to bring their laws into line with the charter.
In other words, provincial laws were required to be updated so that they respected the freedoms guaranteed in the charter. The deadline was either 2000 or 2001.
So now all provinces are required to have legislation that protects the rights guaranteed by the charter, etc.
This was necessary because, while, for example, the criminal code is federal law, it is the provinces that enforce it.
So, yes, private entities can now be sued at the provincial level for violating charter rights. Its done all the time. Private schools are taken to court in respect to freedom of religion in regards to religious headgear, employers are taken to court for similar reasons, etc - because now the framework is there for people to take legal action at the provincial level.
They're not preventing the web site from being hosted - they're preventing their users from accessing the web site. 2 different kettles of fish.
Some of those same users are Telus employees. That they are being blocked from accessing their union's web site is a serious issue.
The Constitutional/Charter guarantees of freedom of association help guarantee people's right to be in a union and communicate with other union members.
Now some of those same union members can't get to their union's web page even from home, on their own time.
Since they can't get ther, they also can't post - so their freedom of expression has also been curtailed, in respect to communicating with other union members.
Your lawyer relative is out of date. See this post for further commentary, explaining the enabling legislation and the timetable requirements, as well as examples of non-government charter rights guaranteed everyone by the constitution.
Simply put, there is a Charter of Rights, and a Constitution to give them teeth. There was also a timetable in which to enact those rights (agreed to by 9 of the 10 provinces in the "night of the long knives").
When the Constitution was enacted, there was also a timetable in which to apply the various parts, etc.
As for the section you quoted, Section 32.(1), that means that the governments have to amend their laws in relation to the Constitution. Its known as "enabling legislation." Hence the timetable (you can't just wave a wand and have it doen automagically).
Without that section, the Constitution would be toothless, as there would be no legal requirement to actually rewrite the laws.
Since then, all the provinces have had to revise their legislation to reflect the Constitution and Charter. they were given a certain period of time (Quebec, for example, completed its revision, iirc, in 2000-2001).
the different provinces have slightly different obligations, depending on the terms in which they entered Canada, and subsequent rulings.For example, some provinces have to amend their laws in both french and english, others, english only or french only. Again, another reason for the timetable.
Also, seeing as pretty much every civil right is backed by the government, try to find something that ISN'T touched by the Constitution and Charter.
You're gay and want to get married? You have that right, not because the gov't syas so, but because the courts have ruled that the Charter says so.
You're a woman, and you want to go around topless in the street? Same thing.
Bring a kirpan (a sikh religious knife) to grade school? Same thing?
Wear a turban in class? Same thing.
Wear a turban to work? Same thing.
Wear a burka while a cashier at WalMart? Same thing.
Think about it. How a cashier chooses to dress is a constitutionally protected charter right. The ONLY role the government has is protecting that right. Certainly, the government is NOT WalMart.
Your argument is interesting, but it fails on the first premise:
No, it doesn't! It includes it as a fundamental freedom: meaning that it can be set aside whenever he government deems that it should be. The distinction is very, very important!
Telus isn't the government - they have no authority to "set aside" any such freedom.
Also, the notwithstanding clause can only be used for certain types of legislation, and for a maximum of 5 years. Its' been shown that its not possible for Alberta, for example, to invoke the notwithstanding clause to try to ban gay weddings (which is what "Uncle Ralphie" - Ralph Klein, Albertas' premiere, had been threatening to do).
Also:
You can even be jailed for wearing clothing that is unfashionably ugly: or as the state puts it "so clad as to offend against public decency or order".
and your defense would be to refer to the Constitution. This is why women are now allowed to go topless in public in Quebec and Ontario. That part of the law was ruled to be invalid as both a denial of freedom of expression and discrimination based on sex:-) Vivre la difference!
On this:
Hate speech law limits my freedom of expression to communicate anything that may promote hatred towards an identifyable group.
... the Constitution allows for this as an exception because it allows the limiting of freedom, but ONLY such limitations as can be demonstrated to be reasonable in a free society. We don't want people promoting hatred (we ARE Canadian after all).
On this:
There is a section in the criminal code labeled simply "corrupting morals". You can be jailed for producing or possessing "obscene" objects.
Not any more. You can even legally possess certain types of kiddie pr0n (works produced solely by yourself, such as artwork or literary works), provided you don't make it accessable to anyone else. This case was decided in BC, where a guy was given back his stash of self-composed crap. The courts ruled that, as long as no minors were involved, and nobody else had access, there was no reason for seizing it.
On this:
The criminal code section on solitication forbids public communication for the purposes of prostitution. Prostitution itself is not illegal; (although making a living from it is), but talking about it publicly is. It's a forbidden form of expression.
The courts have ruled that for solicitation to be criminal, it has to be persistent. So, as long as the hooker isn't being persistent, in-your-face, bordering hn harrassment, she CAN offer her services legally.
On this:
For example, copyright law removes my freedom of expression in certain ways; for example, to create works of art which are too similar to other existing works of art.
No, it doesn't. If you *create* the work, rather than plagerizing, you have no problem. That's the difference between creating and copying.
Even copyright doesn't stop you from creating your own version of, say, Monopoly or Risk, without license from Hasbro/Parker Brothers (You can't copyright game rules).
On this:
The criminal code section regarding blasphemous libel (yes, that's still in the criminal law to this day!), limits my ability to make religious statements which the state deems malicious and untrue. It's a forbidden form of speech.
... well, you can't stand up in a church and start haranguing the preacher, but that's more along the lines of mischief or disturbing the peace. You can make the same statements in public without fear of official reprisal. I know, I've done it. Picketed a local church I had issues with for several weeks, with some VERY nasty signage. Then a 10-day hunger strike, with a truck again covered in signs. All the cops did was make sure that
I hear you about Chapters/Indigo. Mind you, the local mall has both a Chapters and a smaller independent book/mag retailer, so its' not like there isn't competition.
heir customer service is so bad that someone drove by and shot at their building about a year ago.
Hope they used a paintball gun instead of a firearm. The penalty for illegal discharge of a firearm is a LOT higher in Canada (plus, you can use paintballs to spell out a message).
Another poerson who doesn't understand Canadian law.
The provincial human rights codes were homologated (maded to conform) with the Canadian Constitution.
The administration is done by the provincial Human Rights commissions (each province also has their own provincial charter of rights, which adds to the rights enumerated in the Canadian Constitution). However, any and all cases may be brought all the way to the SCoC (Supreme Court of Canada) by any individual - and not just cases between individuals and government bodies.
The divisions of law are as follows:
Criminal: Only the feds can pass legislation to criminalize or decriminalize an act. The provinces are mandated to enforce the Canadian Criminal Code, even though they have no say in its' contents.
Civil: The provinces have jurisdiction for both the legislation and the enforcement of civil laws, with the proviso that no civil law can be passed that violates a right granted under Federal law/ the constitution.
This is why Quebec had to use the Constitutions' notwithstanding clause when they passed legislation against English signs, for example.
Its also why gay marriage was ruled by courts in 7 provinces to be legal, as, under the Canadian Constitution, to do otherwise would be discriminatory.
A good example of invoking Constitutional rights is the case of the gay couple in Quebec who were being harrassed by one of their neighbours. The complaint invoked both the Federal (Constitutional) and Provincial laws. the complaint was handled by the Commission des droits de la personne et de la jeunessse (the local human rights org), as they are the ones initially mandated to hear such cases. All parties may go all the way to the Supreme Court if they're not happy with the result and have a valid grounds for appeal.
Now, if the provincial Human Rights code grants similar rights, why use the Federal Constitution? Because you want to preserve the right if invoking it before the SCoC, as the supreme law of the land. Hope this helps.
As a side note, I've invoked the Constitution twice in beating municipal tickets - there were no similar relevant positions in provincial legislation that would have cut the mustard.
Slashdot Mirror
Money talks. Future Shop tried to avoid carrying the Playboy game, and finally had to start selling it when people bitched too much.
Or "all the wonderful new features in LongBlow" - that have been subsequently gutted.
- or the eye candy we've had for years under Linux/KDE, that Windows users are finally getting ...
Zealot? No, just someone who's abandoned Windows as not being either efficient or cost-competitive. Since when does wanting to save money and time equate with being a zealot?
Puh-lease.
I'd be more interested in an interview with a pr0n king (at least they make no bones that a lot of the stuff you're looking at is fake, thanks to Dr. Schulnick and DuPont).
Also, pr0n expands to exceed all available hard disk space.
I can just see it now - C code with Perl line-noise for comments :-)
They are part of the regulated triopoly - Bell Canada, Telus, and Rogers.
Gee, in that case I KNOW who'll make more money off their image search! AND have the most loyal customers ...
Just one potential example - the Office add-on for automating collection letters they tried to develop a few years ago - with a "phone-home" back door. The beta testers were really enthused about having their receivables being logged by the mother ship. How much did it cost the participants to train people to use it, then UN-train them and re-enter everything back in their old systems?
Who knows? Only time will tell what the true cost is.
Some of those customers are also Telus employees.
So Telus is preventing employees from accessing their union site on their own (not company) time.
We have pretty decent labour legislation in Canada (including anti-scab laws, etc) - no company has the right to interfere with employees communicating with their union on their own time.
But why bother putting politicians on the currency? We've already got interesting pix on the back (there's a couple dozen different 25-cent backs, with snowy owls, inuit carvings, fishing settlements, the bluenose, roche perce, etc). The $1 coin has either a loon, or a cenotaph, or some other design, and the $2 coin has a polar bear, or a polar bear and cub, etc. We've got kids playing hockey on our paper currency, etc.
Here's a thought - put a fucking MAP on the front of the paper money so people can learn a bit of geography.
So now, you don't have to "make a federal case" out of it - you can sue provincially.
If sec. 32 hadn't been included, there would have been no requirement for the either the feds or the provinces to amend their laws to respect the charter.
In other words, provincial laws were required to be updated so that they respected the freedoms guaranteed in the charter. The deadline was either 2000 or 2001.
So now all provinces are required to have legislation that protects the rights guaranteed by the charter, etc.
This was necessary because, while, for example, the criminal code is federal law, it is the provinces that enforce it.
So, yes, private entities can now be sued at the provincial level for violating charter rights. Its done all the time. Private schools are taken to court in respect to freedom of religion in regards to religious headgear, employers are taken to court for similar reasons, etc - because now the framework is there for people to take legal action at the provincial level.
Some of those same users are Telus employees. That they are being blocked from accessing their union's web site is a serious issue.
The Constitutional/Charter guarantees of freedom of association help guarantee people's right to be in a union and communicate with other union members.
Now some of those same union members can't get to their union's web page even from home, on their own time.
Since they can't get ther, they also can't post - so their freedom of expression has also been curtailed, in respect to communicating with other union members.
Simply put, there is a Charter of Rights, and a Constitution to give them teeth. There was also a timetable in which to enact those rights (agreed to by 9 of the 10 provinces in the "night of the long knives").
As for the section you quoted, Section 32.(1), that means that the governments have to amend their laws in relation to the Constitution. Its known as "enabling legislation." Hence the timetable (you can't just wave a wand and have it doen automagically).
Without that section, the Constitution would be toothless, as there would be no legal requirement to actually rewrite the laws.
Since then, all the provinces have had to revise their legislation to reflect the Constitution and Charter. they were given a certain period of time (Quebec, for example, completed its revision, iirc, in 2000-2001).
the different provinces have slightly different obligations, depending on the terms in which they entered Canada, and subsequent rulings.For example, some provinces have to amend their laws in both french and english, others, english only or french only. Again, another reason for the timetable.
Also, seeing as pretty much every civil right is backed by the government, try to find something that ISN'T touched by the Constitution and Charter.
You're gay and want to get married? You have that right, not because the gov't syas so, but because the courts have ruled that the Charter says so.
You're a woman, and you want to go around topless in the street? Same thing. Bring a kirpan (a sikh religious knife) to grade school? Same thing?
Wear a turban in class? Same thing.
Wear a turban to work? Same thing.
Wear a burka while a cashier at WalMart? Same thing.
Think about it. How a cashier chooses to dress is a constitutionally protected charter right. The ONLY role the government has is protecting that right. Certainly, the government is NOT WalMart.
Ralph's a real fighter - he foght many a battle with the bottle, and the bottle always lost.
Telus isn't the government - they have no authority to "set aside" any such freedom.
Also, the notwithstanding clause can only be used for certain types of legislation, and for a maximum of 5 years. Its' been shown that its not possible for Alberta, for example, to invoke the notwithstanding clause to try to ban gay weddings (which is what "Uncle Ralphie" - Ralph Klein, Albertas' premiere, had been threatening to do).
Also:
and your defense would be to refer to the Constitution. This is why women are now allowed to go topless in public in Quebec and Ontario. That part of the law was ruled to be invalid as both a denial of freedom of expression and discrimination based on sex :-) Vivre la difference!
On this:
... the Constitution allows for this as an exception because it allows the limiting of freedom, but ONLY such limitations as can be demonstrated to be reasonable in a free society. We don't want people promoting hatred (we ARE Canadian after all).
On this:
Not any more. You can even legally possess certain types of kiddie pr0n (works produced solely by yourself, such as artwork or literary works), provided you don't make it accessable to anyone else. This case was decided in BC, where a guy was given back his stash of self-composed crap. The courts ruled that, as long as no minors were involved, and nobody else had access, there was no reason for seizing it.
On this:
The courts have ruled that for solicitation to be criminal, it has to be persistent. So, as long as the hooker isn't being persistent, in-your-face, bordering hn harrassment, she CAN offer her services legally.
On this:
No, it doesn't. If you *create* the work, rather than plagerizing, you have no problem. That's the difference between creating and copying.
Even copyright doesn't stop you from creating your own version of, say, Monopoly or Risk, without license from Hasbro/Parker Brothers (You can't copyright game rules).
On this:
... well, you can't stand up in a church and start haranguing the preacher, but that's more along the lines of mischief or disturbing the peace. You can make the same statements in public without fear of official reprisal. I know, I've done it. Picketed a local church I had issues with for several weeks, with some VERY nasty signage. Then a 10-day hunger strike, with a truck again covered in signs. All the cops did was make sure that
The provincial human rights codes were homologated (maded to conform) with the Canadian Constitution.
The administration is done by the provincial Human Rights commissions (each province also has their own provincial charter of rights, which adds to the rights enumerated in the Canadian Constitution). However, any and all cases may be brought all the way to the SCoC (Supreme Court of Canada) by any individual - and not just cases between individuals and government bodies.
The divisions of law are as follows:
This is why Quebec had to use the Constitutions' notwithstanding clause when they passed legislation against English signs, for example.Its also why gay marriage was ruled by courts in 7 provinces to be legal, as, under the Canadian Constitution, to do otherwise would be discriminatory.
A good example of invoking Constitutional rights is the case of the gay couple in Quebec who were being harrassed by one of their neighbours. The complaint invoked both the Federal (Constitutional) and Provincial laws. the complaint was handled by the Commission des droits de la personne et de la jeunessse (the local human rights org), as they are the ones initially mandated to hear such cases. All parties may go all the way to the Supreme Court if they're not happy with the result and have a valid grounds for appeal.
Now, if the provincial Human Rights code grants similar rights, why use the Federal Constitution? Because you want to preserve the right if invoking it before the SCoC, as the supreme law of the land. Hope this helps.
As a side note, I've invoked the Constitution twice in beating municipal tickets - there were no similar relevant positions in provincial legislation that would have cut the mustard.