I, for one, fully support this initive… I’ve got nothing to hide!

How on earth can anyone be against this? What, are we saying that drinking and driving is now a protected “Charter Right”?

————————

It’s simple: allow this, and the next steps will be random searches of your person, followed by arbitrary searches of your home. And they’ll use the same old, “hey, what have you got to hide?” tactic to justify it.

That’s where we cross the line from free country to police state…

Proroguing Parliament doesn’t necessarily mean that they can’t talk or that business stops altogether. Stephen Harper did meet with the opposition leaders to solicit input, but as I’ve described elsewhere, it’s the prerogative and the right of the sitting government to create and implement a budget that suits their goals and directions. They are the Government. Opposition Parties have an obligation to present reasonable alternatives if they don’t like what the government is proposing, and not just grousing over what they don’t like and call that being responsible opposition. Failing that, their recourse is to defeat the government or form a coalition if they have the numbers to do so and are able to convince the GG that this is the best course of action.

That’s how it all works. Deliberately avoiding defeating the government by playing numbers games is pure theater, and unworthy of our democracy.

But, that’s neither here nor there anymore. I like to complain as much as any other Canadian. ;)

Mind you, the Opposition Parties still have the opportunity to work with the Government on what the Final Budget looks like.

Regarding the contradictions, hopefully satellite access includes all access, telecommunication notwithstanding.

Now, let me agree with the majority of your post. I think dropping many of these foreign ownership restrictions and other barriers to entry into the Canadian market would be great for our economy and our consumers.

Interesting note: while the Throne Speech mentions relaxing foreign ownership rules for the telecommunications and satellite sectors, the Budget only mentions satellites. Given the recent Globalive and Mobilicity issues, this is an interesting contradiction. (H/T Telecom Trends)

Sorry guys, but these MPs have been hard at work, voting and debating since Parliament began. The fact that they intentionally and strategically skipped only this vote does not mean they weren’t ‘back to work’.

Well, I agree that they’ve been working since Parliament resumed, but my complaint was that they wanted to ‘get back to work’ and then skipped out on a vital step. I hate it when anyone does that. Conservative or not.

Regarding whipped votes, on matters of confidence, Members on the Government side have to vote with the Government, or be expelled. Bill Casey is a prime example. I agree that he should have been removed from caucus. I also agree with him standing with his constituency. He stood by his convictions and accepted the consequences of it. I’m proud of him for that! But, just because Members on the Government side must vote with the Party on confidence matters, it doesn’t mean that the Opposition has to whip their members.

I would criticize right along side Greg if the roles were reversed and the budget was something I could support. Let it be a free vote and let the chips fall where they may. The Government has to support it’s own Budget otherwise it wouldn’t be able to present one.

You raise Adscam, and rightly so. The LPC deserves to wear that, if only to ensure that future governments heed the lesson that the arrogant Liberals under the Chretien/Martin years learned so harshly. I always associate it as more criminal behaviour for personal gain, but there was definitely some political gaming and a threat of a Constitutional crisis, so the comparison is perhaps apt after all.

A free vote on the budget is an interesting option, Sean, but it raises the significant possibility that the government could fall on a confidence vote. That outcome would please nobody. I wish we had more free votes in Parliament, but I can understand the reluctance on confidence matters in a minority situation.

I’ll admit to re-writing this post several times as some of your points resonated, Sean. I don’t agree with wiping out the past and focusing only on the present, but I simply can’t ignore the gaming of the democratic system by Harper & co. I’ll re-phrase my earlier point: nothing the LPC under Ignatieff or Dion even compares to the games played by the CPC under Harper. And yes, I am including the coalition attempt under Dion.

As per your comment regarding co-operation on the budget: we have a process in place for exactly that, within the Parliamentary system. Of course, when Harper prorogued Parliament until the budget was ready to be introduced, it completely circumvented that process.

Sorry guys, but these MPs have been hard at work, voting and debating since Parliament began. The fact that they intentionally and strategically skipped only this vote does not mean they weren’t ‘back to work’. If you’re going to fault the LPC for this whipped vote, then logically you have to hold the CPC equally accountable for every whipped vote since they were elected to government.

As far as toeing the “party line”, let me ask you this. Which is more damaging to a party? Toeing the line and maintaining an outward appearance of discipline, or always and consistently breaking with the party and revealing deep rifts that ‘enemies’ can exploit to your disadvantage?

I’ll certainly acknowledge that sometimes striking out on your own shows courage and integrity. Sometimes. Look at what happened to Garth Turner.

I also admit that I would like to see many more free votes on a variety of subjects.

In the end though, I’d rather see a united caucus who has already hashed it out behind closed doors and agreed to go out unified. Maintaining that unity requires that compromise is often made in favor of many different views instead of always only one.

Quoting other Conservative sites may seem like toeing the party line, but it’s also acknowledging source material or inspiration.

The message is simple:

“[insert name of MP] said the budget was bad, but they didn’t show up to vote against it . Why should we take anything else they say seriously?”

This should also be trotted out any time these 29 speak on any subject whatsoever and especially at any public event where they are speaking and you can ask questions. (video and YouTube any response please).

An especially concentrated effort should be made against Trudeau to derail any leadership aspirations and unhinge those in the liberal party who are pinning their hopes on the “young dauphin”

Regrettably, I make it sound like Greg doesn’t acknowledge that Conservatives follow the party line when he obviously indicated “all parties”. I’d have rewritten my text but it’s not an option.

I’d still argue that Conservatives both religiously and pathetically tow the party line.

I’d also say that your attack dog approach to the Liberals sitting out the vote, and repeating articles already posted on other conservative sites smacks of towing the party line.

Do you ever see a conservative function in parliament with any independence from the PMO?

Ummm….Bill Casey springs to mind RD.

And you certainly can slam the guys for demanding to be able to “come back to work” and then just…don’t.

As far as the sponsorship scandal goes, it’s a factual event. Something that the Liberals pulled. It’s a relevant issue in the face of a comment like “Any games played by the LPC pale in comparison to those played by the CPC”. Liberals would LOVE for Canadians to forget that.

If we’re talking about moratoriums on discussing past events, let’s address the Liberal complaints about past Conservative transgressions. Afterall, looking back doesn’t serve any useful purpose right? Sins of the past and all that…

Sure, the Budget isn’t going to bring any prizes home from the fair, but could it work? If Parliament in it’s entirety got behind it and worked towards a successful implementation instead of spending all their energy tearing it down, maybe it COULD BE a fantastic budget.

But perhaps that’s too much to ask of Parties without visions of their own.

Seriously, this is comedy gold. You can’t prorogue parliament for political convenience and then slam the other guys for not showing up to vote for a piece of crap budget.

Say the Liberals bring down the government instead…oh wait, that’s actually what the Conservatives have been stockpiling for… nevermind. Abattoir has made you look foolish on this one.

On a side note, +10 points for bringing up the sponsorship scandal.

Finally “I’m always surprised at the willingness of individual MPs (from all parties) to kowtow to the whims of the leaders and the leaders office – it’s really quite pathetic.”

Do you ever see a conservative function in parliament with any independence from the PMO? By your own words, the conservatives are quite pathetic also.

Do you think that this country will be run by the “conservatives” forever? What if the liberal or (god forbid) the coalition got into power?

How long do you think it would take before they decided on random home inspections for who knows what? Smart thermostats? Gun confiscations?

This is a really bad idea that they are doing just to be seen as supportive of MADD. I would like to know how accurate Madd’s figures are and I also want to see the financials and salaries of those employed by Madd.

I’m always surprised at the willingness of individual MPs (from all parties) to kowtow to the whims of the leaders and the leaders office – it’s really quite pathetic.

Also, Abattoir, feel free to browse the archives, I think you’ll find that most of the writers here are fulling willing to expose Conservative hypocrisy (and bad policy) whenever possible.

I fully support personal responsibility versus nanny-statism and I continue to believe that people must be allowed to make their own choices, but also that they must be fully accountable for those decisions. That requires, as you noted, the protection from abuses of power by those IN power, even if you’re doing nothing wrong.

Those people who fear and reject personal responsibility are more than happy to make someone else, such as the government, responsible for it, because then they themselves can not be held responsible, even if they screw up.

First, no. There aren’t only 2 options. There’s a third. Micheal Ignatieff can allow his Party a Free Vote in the HoC to vote their conscience or to represent their constituencies and let the chips fall where they may.

The fact is, they wanted back into Parliament to conduct “business” and then almost half don’t show for a vital vote. That’s dishonest and goes against everything they were just screaming out so very recently. Lying, Hypocrisy, Deception, it all amounts to the same thing.

And you really think that the Conservatives have played any games that could possibly compare to Adscam? Or how about the theft from EI? Anything that pales in comparison there?

I, for one, fully support this initive… I’ve got nothing to hide!

How incredibly short-sighted,

Wired published a great article recently, The Eternal Value of Privacy and the author summed the argument up like this:

Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we’re doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance

Your willingness to submit to a higher authority in an attempt to solve an unsolvable problem is encouraging to those people and organizations who are willing to take all of your rights away to solve all of societies problems.

So, by your logic, there are only 2 options: support the bill fully, or provoke an election. There is absolutely no middle ground for you. How very black-and-white. To those of us in the real world, it’s quite obvious that the Liberals couldn’t support this bill, and yet also couldn’t trigger an election. Throwing the vote is the best alternative out of a list of bad options.

Having a number of members being strategically absent from a particular vote in the HoC is not even kind of comparable to proroguing Parliament to delay complying with a Parliamentary order. They’re not even remotely on the same level, and I’m sure that you’re aware of that logic at some level.

How on earth can anyone be against this? What, are we saying that drinking and driving is now a protected “Charter Right”?

While I may be inconvienced on occasion, I have nothing whatsoever to worry about, so I willingly surrender my “right to privacy” on this one… because I don’t drink and drive. Nor do I transport illegal drugs or weapons on my passenger seat, so there’s no worry of getting arrested for those during my random stop.

Seriously, what’s the downside? You can’t just say “Privacy”, because I don’t think our rights to “Privacy” exend to criminal activity that puts the lives of others in immediate danger. If there weren’t so many morons who haven’t gotten the point yet, I could perhaps stand with you in opposition to this one… but since we still have hundreds of drunk driving charges every year, we need to step things up a notch.

75,000 people are injured by drunk drivers and 1,200 people die EVERY YEAR.

What about their rights?

If random stops aren’t the answer then how about installing alchohol monitors in ALL vehicles or lifetime driving bans to get those idiots off the road.

It seems like a general consult with Canada to me, where your complaint (valid imho) can certainly be addressed.

I don’t think you need a public discussion on the merits of random searches/testing. The idea is so toxic to our human rights/privacy that it should have NEVER made it this far.

I was nearly killed by a drunk driver was I was four – he hit me as I was riding on a carrier on the back of my mother’s bike. I spent 6 weeks in traction with a broken femur.

Believe me, I understand the consequences of drunk driving.

However, even with my past, I can NOT advocate the fascist policy of random searches or testing of otherwise innocent individuals.

It seems like a general consult with Canada to me, where your complaint (valid imho) can certainly be addressed.

Let me be perfectly honest. I both disagree and agree with this idea. I disagree because of privacy rights, but I also agree insofar that many drunk drivers do not exhibit outward signs of intoxication before and while driving until it’s too late. There are convincing pros and cons whether we like it or not.

I also have to say that I’m thrilled that the Government is soliciting public input on potential policy/bills. It’s imperative that we take advantage of the initiative and mobilize people to participate.

People who advocate limiting immigration are just ignorant. But it’s not entirely their fault! Interestingly, xenophobia is a vestige of humanity’s past when, ultimately anyway, excluding outsiders gave our genes a better chance of success. Like our instinctual fear of certain animals (snakes is a great example), noises and motions, fearing immigration made some kind of sense way back. But we don’t need to be afraid anymore! There’s some great academic literature on this. Check it out! Please don’t look to the quasi science like those Intelligent Design people do.

Immigrants are going to turn into great Canadians. Just like my Ukrainian forebears did who were discriminated against for a generation on the prairies. Keep ‘em coming!

I should add that rich people don’t make babies. Let’s stop stressing out about it. Not much can be done to encourage them to.

I do have a higher opinion of law enforcement today than when I grew up though. I grew up watching “Bonjour la police” on a French show called “Rock et Belles Oreilles” so I always had the impression that police were both incompetent and abusive.

This type of tit-for-tat political game only plays to her advantage because she’s a master class at playing the victim. It seems nobody takes the high road anymore.

Clinton cheats on wife.
Bush has DUI and mug shot.
Obama was (insert political attack here).
Sarah Palin used Canadian healthcare. Who cares??? I’m critical of Canadian healthcare and I use it regularly.

There are enough real reasons to debate Palin. People don’t need to a) attack her for this or b) defend her over this. Who cares if it was private of public at the time. She was a child and not making medical decisions for her family.

Jonathan, I am inclined to agree that a choke hold and shove against a metal box may have been excessive if the man was only shouting, though verbal assault can be considered resisting arrest.

But with a “choke slam” not permissible, I wonder what IS permissible to shut the guy up. Where is the line? Can police put a sock in the guy’s mouth? Tape his pie hole? Shoot him with a sedative dart, as we would with an animal we want to tag? Or are we saying police must simply endure a verbal assault for 10, 15, 20 minutes? Do police have a duty to silence this individual to try and restore a semblance of peace in the neighbourhood?

As my original comment intends, and I believe is the tone of the thread itself, we have to provide recourse to the police. If we proscribe the choke slam as a reasonable response for verbal assault then we need to clearly define what are reasonable options.

And, of course, we aren’t going to solve the world’s problems in a blog comment thread. :)

Thanks again for putting this out for discussion, Jonathan. And all the best as you deal with the tangible repercussions of what you’ve witnessed.

From a corporate perspective the challenge is transferring years — sometimes decades — of intellectual knowledge onto newbies or up-and-comers. To completely offset the massive retirement facing them in the near future, organizations will have to over-hire into apprentice roles and pay a little more to offset the loss of productivity due to future retirements. Some organizations are doing this, while others are content to ride it out when it happens.

Your point about changing the shape of the job market is noted. The one element to watch out for, however, is time. The job market may not adapt as quickly as the Boomers exit the door, which will result in a vacuum.

Anyway, challenging times lie ahead. People with HR skills and a resume to boot will be in the highest demand 10 years from now. Hint, hint. :)

Incidentally, I am not the only one who thinks Martel is acting like a clown:

Voilà pourquoi il faut considérer Yann Martel comme un imposteur et dénoncer l’idéologie qui est au cœur de son entreprise. Car ce qu’il défend, c’est la même chose que ce que défend le gouvernement fédéral, un multiculturalisme auquel on voudrait convertir les Québécois, mais dans lequel ils ne tiendraient aucune place. C’est sans doute pour cette raison que le gros nez rouge de clown de Guy Laliberté a largué Claude Péloquin. Quand on est à la tête d’une multinationale dont la langue d’usage, même au Québec, est l’anglais, qu’est-ce qu’on s’en fiche du français, de la culture qu’il porte, même si elle est l’une des plus créatives au monde !

Bien davantage que Stephen Harper, c’est Yann Martel qui a besoin d’être éduqué.

This isn’t a case of the police pulling a Rodney King, you had a person that was in your own words “the complete embodiment of resisting arrest.”

This did not appear to be a bully trying out a new toy, it was a situation that was not improving and had to be resolved.

I’m sympathetic towards the job law enforcement have to do in these situations. People will easily toss the term ‘abuse’ around but I’m pretty sure the rules change when a person is resisting arrest to the extent you have described.

Perhaps instead of having tasers, the police should have tranquilizer guns? It’s only a joke but your own description of the ‘Gentleman’ resembles that of an animal more than a human being.

I’ll agree that the seizing of a defenseless person’s throat is unlawful (too bad you didn’t film that) but I don’t actually have any qualms with the rest of what took place. I’m guessing the Libertarian in you has problems with this but I do believe in the authority of our Law Enforcement. I also believe in checks and balances to make sure that abuses don’t take place (your filming the incident is a good example), but I think people should respect the commands of a police officer. If you have handcuffs on, you are in a world of trouble and need to physically cooperate. He has the right to remain silent, but he doesn’t have the right to resist arrest.

On Friday afternoon, the Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement affirming the change was abandoned because of strong public reaction.

“We offered to hear from Canadians on this issue and they have already spoken loud and clear,” PMO spokesman Dimitri Soudas said in a release.

“They overwhelmingly do not want to open the issue. The Government will not proceed any further to change our national anthem.”

Yep, that’s a dead issue now. Not that I would call it a flip-flop, but acting on an answer given.

Thanks for the thoughtful comments. I completely agree that the police often handle difficult situations, and, perhaps regularly, these situations will sometimes require force. When the man in question was being handcuffed, he was most certainly resisting. The force used by police at this point seemed reasonable, or, at least, not demonstrably unjustifiable.

However, that is not the case with the choke slam. The man was standing, hands cuffed behind his back, not moving. He was doing nothing threatening to the police officer. He was making no gestures. He was perfectly still. All he was doing was yelling. For this, an officer grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against a metal edifice. That is assault. That is brutality.

The rest of it might be open to debate. That is not.

Your initial complaint about the entire article is that Jonathan is referring to this guy as a “gentleman“? I don’t have a problem with that. It’s simply a courtesy one affords anyone when they don’t know the whole situation, as I feel Jonathan indicated when he noted “appeared“.

All of that aside, regarding the brutality: having read the entire article, I don’t see why they felt it necessary to move the man to another vehicle. Had they left him in the first cruiser, none of this would have happened. I agree that officers have the authority to use restraining force and under certain circumstances extra force to protect themselves or others, but the further actions (car door etc) I believe were excessive.

I also have to agree with Mark when he talks about the limits we as a society place on our police officers. At what point do we recognize that in order to perform their duties in protecting the public, they will occasionally have to use force and or violence.

We’ve also lately (past 20 yrs or so) become a society where criminals are securing more rights, protections and privileges than most other citizens. I suspect that this is because their activities place them in the spotlight of public scrutiny and normal law abiding citizens grow a little squeamish when it comes to applying punishment. As a sop to their own civility or conscience while wishing to appear more fair or morally righteous, they seek to treat the criminal better than they deserve. As this behaviour swings further to the left, the more dastardly and barbarian usual and (formerly) normal punishments appear. This naturally pushes reaction further to the left in a misguided attempt to act morally superior.

In the end, we don’t know enough about what happened to this guy, why it happened, or what came after. My instincts lead me to believe that in the mans evident and violent state, medical treatment may have put the EMS attendants at risk. I would hope that once subdued and calmed down, the officers sought medical attention for the man.

These scenarios are complicated, aren’t they? We have a “drunk driver” who may not have been driving at all but who very well may have been the driver. His subsequent arrest turns him into mad man, presumably because he thought the charge was ludicrous. The police use force and questionable tactics to subdue the individual. There’s a lot of stuff we don’t know about the situation and this makes it difficult to pass judgment.

Having said that, I agree that employing the electrical box and slamming someone’s shins between the door and the rocker panel are a tad over the top.

But then I’m caused to ask what might be the recourse for the officers in these situations?

Police have to subdue the individual somehow. And these individuals can be very strong and resilient, sometimes taking multiple officers to completely hold them or get them into a vehicle. The longer they’re violent, the more aggressive they become,and the more likely it is that officers are going to be assaulted.

Yet the public doesn’t want officers to use billy clubs, doesn’t want broken or dislocated shoulders from submission holds, nor bloodied faces and cracked ribs. Now the public seems cool to tasers, which were intended to hasten arrest without the need for traditional physical force.

What means are we going to allow police to use to subdue a violent or resistive individual if we continue to proscribe practically every act of physical force that can be employed? Are we saying they should just wait it out? Take one on the chin for the people? Let a violent man wreck a cruiser, which would cost the taxpayer more money?

I think we have to wise up to the reality of fighting crime. It’s messy, it lacks control at times, it’s never nice and warm and cuddly, and it is often painful. We should not be so unrealistic as to expect force to be clean and painless. And we need to be careful about proscribing force and pain, for we rely on the police to use these things to protect the public. That’s the reality of life and crime fighting.

So while I think the police actions here may be a tad strong, I don’t know if I’m willing to call it outright brutality. I’m willing to accept that a perp or two will experience degrees of pain in order to keep the peace and bring them under arrest.