A Canadian on Politics

jakke:

PARDON ME

BUT WOULD YOU MIND

IF I TOLD YOU

HOW WE DO IT IN CANADA

Seriously I’m increasingly eager to get the fuck out of this country because we are spiralling in a really pathetic direction.

ugh.  because nothing backs up condemnation of homophobia in Uganda like giving money to homophobic religious groups.

yep.  Things are going awesome.

Senator Patrick Brazeau could stay in police custody overnight, CBC News has learned, after he was arrested following an alleged domestic assault and removed from the Conservative Party’s caucus.

Brazeau, who has weathered several controversies since his appointment in 2009, will continue to sit in the Senate as an Independent.

Police said Thursday charges have not yet been laid against a man arrested at Brazeau’s home in Gatineau, Que., across the river from Ottawa, and the investigation is ongoing.

CBC News learned Brazeau was arrested at 9:10 a.m. ET Thursday at his residence after a call to 911.

If police choose to press charges, Brazeau would appear in court at 9 a.m. ET Friday, Const. Pierre Lanthier said. In Quebec, the Crown is responsible for laying charges.

“But for sure we, like I said, will object to his release and we will speak with the Crown attorney to see whether we have enough evidence to lay any charge,” he said.

Lanthier did not use Brazeau’s name, but sources confirmed to CBC News earlier in the day that it was Brazeau who had been arrested.

TORONTO - Canada’s ban on marijuana was effectively upheld Friday when Ontario’s top court struck down an earlier court decision that said Canada’s laws related to medicinal pot were unconstitutional.

In overturning the lower court ruling, the Court of Appeal ruled the trial judge had made numerous errors in striking down the country’s medical pot laws.

Among other things, the Appeal Court found the judge was wrong to interpret an earlier ruling as creating a constitutional right to use medical marijuana.

“Given that marijuana can medically benefit some individuals, a blanket criminal prohibition on its use is unconstitutional,” the Appeal Court said.

“(However), this court did not hold that serious illness gives rise to an automatic right to use marijuana.”

Currently, doctors are allowed to exempt patients from the ban on marijuana, but many physicians have refused to prescribe the drug on the grounds its benefits are not scientifically proven.

The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network called the decision a disappointing missed opportunity.

Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence says she will join a “working meeting” between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a delegation of First Nations chiefs, but is not ready to give up her hunger strike.

Spence made the announcement from Victoria Island just north of Ottawa, where she has been conducting a hunger strike that is now in its 25th day.

“To all the supporters and the helpers, I’m really grateful today. I’m just really overjoyed …. to hear that the Crown and the prime minister and the governments, that they’re going to meet with us Jan. 11th, but I’ll still be here on my hunger strike until that meeting takes place,” Spence said.

Spence said she would attend the meeting, but when asked whether it would be enough to end her hunger strike, she said she would wait to see the outcome.

“We’ll see what the results are, if there’s really a positive result, because there are a lot of issues that we need to discuss,” Spence said.

Spence’s spokesman, Danny Metatawabin, said Spence and her supporters want Gov. Gen. David Johnston and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty at the meeting as well, and said the hunger strike could continue after Jan. 11.

ayiman:

I’ve seen income disparity figures being reblogged a lot, but they’re limited to the US and despite structures in Canada and the USA being fairly different, they’re not so different that these figures have found their way into my discourse.

I was linked by a fellow I follow on…

This is something rarely discussed.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard people talk more about our “Canadian culture” than when they are talking about the threat of the niqab.  It’s very convenient, though no one can quite clarify how the Canadian culture prohibits the niqab. 

(Except perhaps that the oppression of women is against Canadian culture, to which I say, forcing a woman to remove clothing is a form of oppression.  Also, look at the violence against women statistics in Canada, look at those statistics for Aboriginal women, look at the gender wage gap, and try again.)