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Giving the finger is a ‘God-given right’, Canadian judge rules

citoyens.soquij.qc.ca

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Re: Giving the finger is a ‘God-given right’, Canadian judge rules

#221

Post by cleanchit »

hackernewds wrote: post #174
freetime2 wrote: post #75

Here’s the specific “God-given right” passage from the ruling. So satisfying: [168] To be abundantly clear, it is not a crime to give someone the finger. Flipping the proverbial bird is a God-given, Charter enshrined right that belongs to every red-blooded Canadian. It may not be civil, it may not be polite, it may not be gentlemanly. [169] Nevertheless, it does not trigger criminal liability. Offending someone is no…

> Offending someone is not a crime except when in Canada, you do not acquiesce to calling someone by their chosen gender pronoun https://www.them.us/story/canadian-court-rules-misgendering-...

Not using proper pronouns is putting mental strain on a mentally ill person. Imagine blowing smoke in the face of an asthma patient.

Re: Giving the finger is a ‘God-given right’, Canadian judge rules

#222

Post by procavia »

hn_throwaway_69 wrote: post #212

Australian here. I find the excessive emotive flair throughout the judgment as pressing the boundaries on occasion. A court is supposed to act impartially and emotions kept in check. This kind of language could be appealable in Australia, see for instance, this news report from yesterday: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-10/dismissal-of-assault-... Maybe it's just more common in Canada for judges to be more forthr…

This is in a very different vein than the language in that story and not equivalent

Re: Giving the finger is a ‘God-given right’, Canadian judge rules

#223

Post by klyrs »

jakeogh wrote: post #208
klyrs wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a human rights tribunal, which is basically a lawsuit in a fancy hat. Not a crime.

Incrementalism. Its exceptionally effective. Before we know it, a comedian will train his dog to show us.

Lol you yanks have an actual fascist movement underway passing laws against books and education and free expression and here you are repeating their talking points concern-trolling like free speech is under attack in Canada. Get your own house in order.

Re: Giving the finger is a ‘God-given right’, Canadian judge rules

#224

Post by defrost »

refurb wrote: post #209
defrost wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Followed by: Such action, she said, would only be taken on donations made after Feb. 15’s emergency declaration and isn’t retroactive — adding such a case would be “very unlikely,” but definitely possible. The main solid takeaway from that article is that 206 accounts were definitely frozen .. accounts that very probably donations were flowing into. The rest of the article is weasel phrased, there are allegations of…

Who cares if it was "only after the emergency declaration"? Who cares if it wasn't "retroactive"? Who care if the government is sending updates on who they freeze? Those sound like a lot of attempts to say "oh, seizing people's assets without trial for the crime of a small donation only happened to a few people, so no big deal". Some blue collar guy trying to make ends meets hears about the protest after the emergenc…

> Some blue collar guy trying to make ends meets hears about the protest ..

> Now his bank account is frozen and he can't pay the rent.

Where does your linked article say that happened though?

The article does not say that the frozen accounts were donor accounts ( ie accounts of blue collar workers ).

The part you highlighted was in response to a question about whether that might happen .. and the response was it's technically possible .. but pretty unlikely.

Re: Giving the finger is a ‘God-given right’, Canadian judge rules

#225

Post by gameman144 »

cleanchit wrote: post #221
hackernewds wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Offending someone is not a crime except when in Canada, you do not acquiesce to calling someone by their chosen gender pronoun https://www.them.us/story/canadian-court-rules-misgendering-...

Not using proper pronouns is putting mental strain on a mentally ill person. Imagine blowing smoke in the face of an asthma patient.

Just to be clear, is this your actual position? In other words, it should be illegal to cause mental strain on a mentally ill person?

Re: Giving the finger is a ‘God-given right’, Canadian judge rules

#226

Post by peeters »

ttul wrote: post #115

It is indeed shocking that this poor man was arrested, charged, and taken through a full prosecution despite the obviously flawed evidence. The crown prosecutor erred so greatly in taking this case on that it strains belief. In Canada, the crown turns down all sorts of cases if they aren’t highly confident they can win. This one? Prosecutors are appointed, not elected. They have nothing to gain from such legal touris…

I don't know who exactly made the decision to let the case get this far, but it's worth noting the judge explicitly credits crown counsel with suggesting an acquittal:

> [7] After Mr. Epstein testified in chief, in a tremendous display of professionalism and objectivity, Crown counsel declined to cross-examine him since, in her view, it was not in the public interest to do so. Instead, she humbly invited the Court to enter an acquittal. Having heard the evidence, I can unreservedly confirm that she made the right call. Counsel’s integrity was commendable.

One thing that I found in reading the judgement was that French/English tensions came into play (the accused was Anglophone, the complainant had taken exception to him speaking English) which is a political hot topic in Quebec right now. It's possible there were some political motivations in play.

Re: Giving the finger is a ‘God-given right’, Canadian judge rules

#227

Post by SECProto »

frenchy wrote: post #102
version_five wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada's charter of rights and freedoms isn't worth the paper it's printed on, especially in Quebec where the government actively pre-empts it (it has a clause that allows this, explaining why it's worthless) when it doesn't line up with their ideology.

> Canada's charter of rights and freedoms isn't worth the paper it's printed on While this is certainly technically true, the charter is something of a representation of the social contract that already existed between Canadians and their government, and given that we are a country of common law, that does mean something.

> and given that we are a country of common law,

technically, Quebec has civil law [1] for a portion of their legal system. If we're being pedantic :)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_law

Re: Giving the finger is a ‘God-given right’, Canadian judge rules

#228

Post by politician »

iosystem wrote: post #167
rossdavidh wrote: post #49

I admit, it's long. But the ending was brilliant. "In the modern-day vernacular, people often refer to a criminal case “being thrown out”. Obviously, this is little more than a figurative expression. Cases aren’t actually thrown out, in the literal or physical sense. Nevertheless, in the specific circumstances of this case, the Court is inclined to actually take the file and throw it out the window, which is the only…

Montreal police are some of the worst police in Canada and the Montreal prosecutors always take any arrests by police before a Judge even if there are glaring mistakes at play. I know of a cancer patient that wanted medical assistance in dying. The hospital didn't want to provide it to her and lied to the police about her threatening to take a life of a doctor. She in fact was explaining to the doctor she would be ab…

Too bad she wasn't a veteran.

(Context: Canadian VA was caught pushing MAID on its veterans.)

Re: Giving the finger is a ‘God-given right’, Canadian judge rules

#229

Post by aprilnya »

hackernewds wrote: post #174
freetime2 wrote: post #75

Here’s the specific “God-given right” passage from the ruling. So satisfying: [168] To be abundantly clear, it is not a crime to give someone the finger. Flipping the proverbial bird is a God-given, Charter enshrined right that belongs to every red-blooded Canadian. It may not be civil, it may not be polite, it may not be gentlemanly. [169] Nevertheless, it does not trigger criminal liability. Offending someone is no…

> Offending someone is not a crime except when in Canada, you do not acquiesce to calling someone by their chosen gender pronoun https://www.them.us/story/canadian-court-rules-misgendering-...

notice how this case (OP) is not in a workplace, and happened once, meanwhile the pronoun case is in a workplace, and a repeated pattern of behavior

there’s a difference between telling your neighbor to fuck off and your manager intentionally constantly harassing you at work then firing you for it

Re: Giving the finger is a ‘God-given right’, Canadian judge rules

#230

Post by unmole »

labster wrote: post #183
refurb wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about donating to a cause? So-called “Freedom Convoy” protesters were ultimately responsible if banks froze their accounts under the Emergencies Act last winter, but the government was not trying to “punish” those who took part, senior bureaucrats said Thursday. The government set a precedent that donating to causes deemed "threatening" is worthy of an emergency freeze on your bank account. Well done. Canada.

I know, what about our Charter rights to fund terrorists? Seriously, there is a line between civil disobedience and uncivil disobedience, and they crossed it.

> terrorists

Right, honking horns and blocking roads is pretty much the same as setting off bombs and murdering people for political ends.

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