As a fellow Ottawan, I concur!
The CanaDoper Café (2012 edition of The great, ongoing Canadian current events and politics thread.)
Next time I’m in Montreal, I’ll have to get to Schwartz’s. I’ve never been there; a Montreal friend of mine always preferred Ben’s. But now that Ben’s is gone, I’ll have to try Schwartz’s.
While in Toronto recently, I passed by Yitz’s. It’s been years since I was last there, but I recall it as being every bit as good as Ben’s in Montreal. Wonder how it stacks up to Schwartz’s? I’ll have to find out. 
I owe my existence to Ben’s. My parents courted during their lunch breaks over Ben’s smoked meat (regular for my dad and fatty for my mom) while sitting in The Forum (they worked on the nuke project there) watching the Rocket and the Pocket practice.
That being said, Schwartz’s beats Ben’s.
Road trip!!!
Any of all y’all coming out to Calgary for the 100th Anniversary Stampede party this summer? Our offer to take any visitors out for a beer stands. 
If it’s the second half of the Stampede, I’ll come with. (in BC for a wedding for the first part. Stupid brother in law getting married at times inconvienient to me)
That is such a cute story!
Moving on to something political, I think this is interesting - an Ontario judge has refused to imposea mandatory minimum sentence, calling it cruel and unusual punishment. Based on the facts of this particular case that I’ve heard on the TV news and read in variousnewspapers, I wholeheartedly agree. Three years in prison would have been a ridiculous sentence for this “crime.”
I’m not in favour of letting criminals walk, but context matters. Some doofus showing off his cousin’s guns (did he even know whether or not they were legally owned?) because he thinks they’re cool isn’t exactly the type of crime I’m worried about.
Good for this judge.
I concur, but then the idea of a mandatory sentence is kinda stupid in my opinion.
By handcuffing a Judge’s ability to let the punishment fit the crime, we end up filling our prison system, which isn’t in the best of shape to start with, with more bodies than should rightfully be there. A totally made up example; Granny is raising her pothead grandson who decides to grow a few nice “shrubs”. Grandma being a diligent gardener helps water and grow them. Police come in and POW!, now Granny has a criminal record due to her dubious knowledge about those nice ferns…
I’m sure there are more examples, especially in 'merica, where mandatory drug sentencing has caused much more aggravation and heartache than results.
Same here. I enjoyed going to Nates on the weekend from time to time, having a super dog, reading the paper and watching the old people.
I’m against mandatory or minimum sentences in most cases (and I could argue the same about maximum sentences as well). They remove from judges the discretion to impose a sentence that fits the unique set of circumstances of the particular crime and offender. Two crimes that fall under the same heading in the Criminal Code can be two very different things, warranting very different sentences. I trust our judges to be able to, well, use their judgment, and I wonder why the government doesn’t seem to share this trust.
I wonder why we seem to trust judges rather than our own elected representatives to make good decisions? For example, my father is a chronic alcoholic and has numerous DUIs including many stints in jail because of it. Yet, somehow he still has a license and is allowed to drive. Is it because judges can’t do something about it, or won’t? Minimum sentencing and consequences (such as removing his license permanently) in his case would help immensely.
Politicians are good at getting elected. Judges are good at judging. Leave the judging to the pros.
Ben’s is gone? !!! Bummer. When I first moved to Montreal, we lived in a hotel around the corner for 4 months while looking for a house. I ate there pretty much every day 
Franchising Schwartz’s should be against the law :-p …if the rumour is true, I’d be kind of disappointed in the owners considering the public support for independent business they’ve received over the last 85 years.
There are already minimum sentences and driving prohibitions / licence suspensions for convictions for impaired and .08 in Canada. see the wiki article on Drunk Driving (Canada)/Sentencing:
In addition to the prohibitions on driving imposed by the court, the provinces all have automatic licence suspensions; see the wiki article, Drunk driving (Canada) / found guilty of an offence for the list of suspensions in each province and territory.
So, have these automatic minimum sentences and prohibitions helped immensely in your father’s case?
And yet, he still drives.
The judge in this case did not rule that ALL minimum sentences are unconstitutional. A judge still does not have the leeway to, say, just give someone three years for first degree murder; that carries a minimum sentence of life with no parole for at least 25 years.
The judge ruled that the minimum sentence was cruel and unusual for this particular offense, and the judge was absolutely correct. If you read the facts of the case the sentence was preposterous.
No statute is ever going to provide a rule that’s appropriate for every case it describes. Since it’s impossible for politicians to spell out every extenuating circumstance where it’s unreasonable to impose their minimum sentence, howsabout we let people experienced in adjudicating these sorts of things make judgement calls about them rather than tying their hands?
Perhaps, if anything, more leeway needs to be given to judges - have a broader range of possible sentences for a given crime, and let the judges sentence the appropriate one in each case.
Ben’s closed down when the unionized workers went on strike - they were locked out and the owners eventually simply sold the property to a development company that is building condos or a hotel or something (the “Ben” the place was named after, the owner, had passed away some time before). Most of the memorabilia ended up with Concordia University Signs Project (which I have got to go see one day!), or the McCord Museum, IIRC.
It’s hard not to agree with this. I can see the point of families impacted by crimes feeling like the justice system has let them down if the convicted assailant is given a slap on the wrist, but in the case in question there was no victim! Three years in jail would have been ludicrous.
But if we left all the discretion up to judges, it seems possible that we’d get into a situation where sentencing becomes too subjective (get the right judge on the right day, get a light sentence; get the wrong judge on the wrong day, get a heavy sentence). I’d like to see some discretion left to the judges (like in the linked story), but not all of it. I’m not entirely sure how we’d get that, though.
On a completely different subject, what do you all think of the Lawful Access bill to monitor online activity? I don’t think I like it much at all, but maybe I don’t understand it well enough.