That’s what I was thinking, too, with regard to being required to have a jury with indigenous people in it. Isn’t it kind of racist to assume that white jurors won’t make a decision based on the facts of the case as presented? Isn’t it disregarding the point of a jury trial to assume that a jury with indigenous people on it would have found a different verdict? If there had been one or two (or more) indigenous people on the jury, would we have had a hung jury, with the indigenous people refusing to find anything but guilty regardless of what had been argued in court? (Which would be a prejudiced action - they would be deciding that he was guilty because he was white.) If the principle of a jury trial is to be tried by a jury of your peers, is this not what Stanley had?
Here it is: MALCOLM: Half of prospective Boushie jurors were Aboriginal, says member of jury pool | Toronto Sun
Not at all saying that if there were Indigenous People on the jury that the verdict would have gone the other way - it may have had the exact same results, but the perception would have been that it was “more fair” or “more balanced”.
I realize that juries are not chosen based on optics or good PR (but I can’t help it, it’s what I do!), but when you have a group that feel oppressed and discriminated against, this quickly becomes one more example of us against them, sadly.
March’s “Macleans” magazine - there are two covers, with two different prices - one for women, and one for men. Fascinating! The two covers.
I knew I should have kept up my subscription to Maclean’s. Now, I’ll have to pay $8.81 to read the story.
Cat, could you buy me a copy, so I could save a dollar or so? 
Why the different prices?
Sure. 
I realize (think?) you’re joking, but that was one of my first thoughts - how are men going to react to this? Will they buy the woman’s version to save two bucks? Or why not?
To reflect the gender gap in wages.
I miss Maclean’s being a weekly magazine. I subscribe, but don’t want to pay extra. I have always believed in equal pay for equal work, don’t blame the gender gap on me.
I hope jury composition in Aboriginal cases improves. Will be interesting to see how more self government works out, if Trudeau backs his words with actions. Must be a better reason than I know why it wasn’t manslaughter.
Patrick Brown is also back in the news.
Yes, one of his accusers has apparently watered down her story. Brown is threatening to sue CTV for defamation.
Well, doesn’t this make the story even more interesting.
I’m already hearing scuttlebutt that the PC caucus might have known the stories were overblown - or just didn’t care - but were willing to use any excuse to dump Brown.
That was the subtext of that Sun article that came out shortly after Brown quit. Some of their sources referred to it as a 24 hour coup. They noted that several of Brown’s close staffers quit shortly after the news broke, but once Brown and the party president (a Brown supporter) quit, the staffers were back at their jobs.
Overall, left the impression of back-room operatives who jumped at a chance to get rid of him.
There’s a backstory there…
This was me on the night of the 2011 federal elections, where in the face of Jack Layton’s “Orange wave,” the Bloc dropped from 47 seats to a minute 4. Little did anyone know, Jack was on his way out and the Bloc would hobble through the last election with a cozy 10 seats. That is until today…
Bloc Québécois decimated as 7 of 10 MPs quit
The Bloc implodes, under internal disputes with their leader, as 7 MPs quit (including a founding MP -and Dean of the House!- Louis Plamondon). The rebel MPs cite the authoritative nature of Martine Ouellet -and resulting bickering- as a distraction from their true goal of representing the rights of Quebeckers in Ottawa.
IMHO MPs don’t mind strong leaders when their parties are successful and their jobs are safe; for the past 7 years the Bloc has survived but clearly have an unsteady future in Quebec. Their political relevance is dwindling and the general population are growing more comfortable in expressing their ideological fragmentation in federal matters. A provincial Bloc simply cannot truly represent the ideological bent of all of their members who [ul]
[li]hold the same right-left sensitivities to political matters as people in the ROC[/li][li]are exposed to the same right-left hot-topic/wedge issues of the day[/li][/ul]
So, is this infighting the end for the Bloc?
This article from L’actualité tries to explain the current crisis within the Bloc. The gist of it : Martine Ouellet has alienated most of her caucus since becoming leader last year. To start with, she’s been keeping her seat in the Quebec National Assembly and only leading the Bloc part-time, which has attracted a lot of criticism both inside and outside the party. She’s also an authoritarian and sometimes belligerent leader, and not very receptive to other ideas. And she’s been wanting the Bloc to be a vehicle to promote the independence of Quebec, which isn’t what it was in the past and isn’t what most of her caucus want it to be. It’s obvious to most Quebecers that the political status of Quebec is something to be decided in Quebec, not in Ottawa, so the Bloc’s role is to defend Quebec’s interests in the federal parliament, which is something it did well during its heyday.
So is this the end of the Bloc? Well, for some reason the federal Liberals are still very high in the polls in Quebec, but who knows what will happen in the next 20 months. What I do know is that someone like me has no party left to support at the federal level. If I were still living in Quebec, I would probably vote Bloc somewhat by default (I assume that whatever happens, they will be able to field candidates in all ridings in Quebec). I don’t think the party has been very effective in recent years, but there’s no real other option. But as things stand, if I’m still living here next year, I don’t know if I’ll be able to bring myself to vote for any of the parties present on my ballot.
I’d just like to know why the Ontario Conservatives have to dominate our TV and print news every single day. I’m in Alberta; I don’t give a hang about Patrick Brown, his party, what is he alleged to have done, or what he did today.
Just stop already, and move on to real national news.
Due to how our system is set up, voting in Canada must (at times) be a spiteful act. If you have no one to vote for then perhaps you have a hated politician/party/ideology that you are willing to vote against. Don’t like Andrew Scheer? Vote for the Tory’s strongest competitor to weaken his party. Hate Singh? Do the same, etc. Spitefulness works well to encourage voting, even for the most disillusioned Canadian, unless you are totally indifferent to the politics/issues of the day.
The Bloc is/was? a very competent party with a charismatic and intelligent leadership (I’d like to think that Gilles Duceppe held a lot of respect in the ROC due to his straight forward nature and political distance). However despite high praise, high hopes, and record high polling, the Bloc failed to stay relevant in the minds of Quebeckers during the 2011 elections (but rebounded somewhat in 2015). A divided Bloc with bad leadership will only return worse results.
Unless they can gain relevancy, the Bloc’s numbers will dwindle in time to just the most earnest of sovereigntists.
The BQ got **fewer votes **in 2015 than it did in 2011; they won a few more seats due to the distribution of votes being more favourable, but their percentage of the popular vote dropped quite a bit.
You just never know what might happen, but obviously the party falling apart isn’t going to do them any favors in the eyes of potential voters. No matter how one feels about the issues, it’s not super appealing to cast one’s vote for a party that can’t even stay a party.
I cannot imagine voting for the federal Liberals, ever; I’m also not interested in voting for the NDP with Off-Brand Trudeau as leader. I’m fairly indifferent to Andrew Scheer, mostly because he’s an almost total unknown, but then again I’ve heard noises that he’s close to the social/religious conservative wing of his party, which would be a minus. We’ll see if my opinion changes as we hear more of him, but yes, I guess that for the moment the Conservative party is my least worst bet.
As for the Bloc, this article in today’s Devoir does suggest that the Bloc’s problems stem from its decline in popularity, which meant that many active members left to be replaced with more hardcore sovereigntists, among which the former leader Mario Beaulieu and current leader Martine Ouellet. The article suggests that this dispute is also at play in the current race to choose the Parti québécois candidate in Pointe-aux-Trembles for the October provincial general election. The party leadership favours Jean-Martin Aussant, a left-wing economist who was a PQ member of the National Assembly until 2011 when he left the party, but who recently came back. Aussant is relatively well-known, has a fine reputation and is known as a good debater, so he’s a good catch for the PQ. But Mario Beaulieu and his group favour Beaulieu’s replacement as president of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal, Maxime Laporte.
Seriously, Ontario? WTF?
Wow! I didn’t see that coming.