A Bit More Detail

The Nova Scotia Supreme Court has struck down a decision by the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society to deny graduates of British Columbia's Trinity Western University the right to practise law in the Maritime province.

The Christian university had asked the court to review the society's decision to deny accreditation to its graduates. It argued the law society overstepped its jurisdiction and failed to comply with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

A Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge heard the case in December and rendered a 139-page decision in less than two months.

"What one person sees as having the strength of moral convictions is just sanctimonious intolerance to another," Justice Jamie Campbell wrote.

"As with a lot of things, it depends on perspective."

Campbell said the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society exceeded its authority in trying to exclude Trinity Western students.

"The extent to which NSBS members or members of the community are outraged or suffer minority stress because of the law school's policies does not amount to a grant of jurisdiction over the university," Campbell wrote.

The arrests of 21 undocumented workers during a vehicle safety blitz Thursday is causing controversy for the Canada Border Services Agency and Ontario Provincial Police.

On Aug. 14 the OPP, along with officials from the ministries of transportation and environment, and the CBSA, took part in a vehicle spot checks in northwest Toronto, around Wilson Avenue between Jane Street and Highway 400.

CBSA told CBC News on Friday it arrested 21 people who were "in violation of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act."

But, because the arrests were made during vehicle safety check, some question the methods and motivations of the CBSA and OPP.

Immigration lawyer Guidy Mamann said this is “not routine” and is, in fact, “a huge breach of public trust.”

While some said people were stopped by unmarked SUVs for what seemed to be routine vehicle inspections and failed to provide immigration papers, others claimed they were arrested at the parking lots of Tim Hortons, Coffee Time and Country Style while gathering for their morning pickups to job sites. Most arrested were men from Latin America.

The CBSA would only confirm that the officials conducted a joint “commercial vehicle safety blitz” in the area of Wilson Ave. between Jane St. and Highway 400. Twenty-one people were arrested for immigration violations, said spokesperson Vanessa Barrasa.

Within hours of the arrests, calls began pouring in to Toronto’s popular Spanish radio station, Boces Latinas, and alerts were broadcast to warn the community about the sweep. People in the Spanish community spread the message through social media, cautioning their loved ones.

“One of my friends just walked into the Coffee Time and opened the door. Two undercover officers moved in from the parking lot and asked for his ID. He was taken to two blue vans at a parking lot behind a bingo hall. There were other Spanish guys being detained there,” said Oscar, a failed refugee claimant from Costa Rica who has lived underground in Toronto for nine years. He spoke on condition that only his first name be used.

Suzanne Narain of Jane Finch Action Against Poverty said her group is demanding that Ontario become a “sanctuary province” where the undocumented can work without fear of arrest and detention. “We will not let undocumented people be deported,” Narain said. Toronto city council reaffirmed its “access without fear” policy in 2013 and pledged that undocumented people would receive equal access to City services. In 2008, Toronto Police contemplated but ultimately rejected a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy intended to prohibit officers from sharing immigration information with federal authorities.

Jaqueline Dwight, who works at a local community farm, said she was caught in stalled traffic on the day the raids were taking place.”The buses were moving very slowly—I wondered what was going on,” Dwight said. She added that she is “disgusted” by the federal government’s immigration policy. “There’s enough money in citizenship and immigration to allow people to work and develop themselves while they go through a legitimate immigration process. It doesn’t have to be like this.”

Mestanza told us he is dismayed that people without immigration status are being placed in maximum security prisons like Maplehurst Correctional Complex in Milton. “We are not criminals, we are working in this country very hard to raise our families.” Mestanza added that the federal government has knowingly benefited from the labour of undocumented migrant workers. “For many years, Canada immigration knew that in this country, there are so many undocumented people. Now, all of a sudden, they’ve decided time’s up, they have to go back.”

I'm sympathetic to the people arrested, concerned about the possibility that the Canadian state might have acted illegitimately, and hope that their statuses can be regularized.

I also think that it's very important that there be clear rules and regulations regarding immigration and enforcement of these, so as to avoid anti-immigrant populisms. So far Canada has been fortunate enough to avoid these. Giving people who knowingly violated established rules and regulations regarding immigration a pass could end up jeopardizing far more people than them.

• Discover's Collideascape notes that, even as agricultural land is falling worldwide, the productivity of this land is increasing even more sharply.


• The Dragon's Gaze links to one paper examining the extent to which saline water might make cooler planets better for live, and to another paper suggesting that planetary magnetic fields are so importance for life (and oxygen levels) that brief reversals in the history of Earth have led to mass extinctions.


• The Dragon's Tales notes a Ukrainian report that the country's military has captured a Russian tank.


• Joe. My. God. notes that vehemently anti-gay Minnesota archbishop John Nienstadt is being investigated for allegedly having sexual relationships with men.


• Marginal Revolution notes that, despite economic collapse, there are some jobs (like low-paying fieldwork) that Portuguese just won't do.


• The New APPS Blog's Gordon Hull notes the gender inequity involved in the recent Hobby Lobby ruling in the United States.


• pollotenchegg maps the slow decline of Ukraine's Jewish population in the post-1945 era.


• Speed River Journal's Van Waffle writes eloquently about his connections to and love of Lake Erie.


• Strange Maps' Frank Jacobs links to a cartographic examination of the time spent by French television news examining different areas of the world.


• Towleroad notes a faux apology made by the Israeli education minister after attacking gay families.


• The Volokh Conspiracy's Jonathan Adler notes the future of contraception coverage under Obamacare.


• Window on Eurasia reports on fears that Crimean Tatar organizations will soon suffer a Russian crackdown, and suggests that the West should reconsider its policies on Belarus to encourage that country to diversify beyond Russia.

• blogTO shares photos of Scarborough's motel-heavy Kingston Road.


• Centauri Dreams features an essay by one Nick Nielsen putting forth a typology of theoretical starships.


• The Dragon's Gaze links to one paper analyzing the albedos of hot superearths and to another paper that measured the diameter of superearth Kepler 93b to within 120 kilometers.


• The Dragon's Tales links to one paper noting that genetic evidence seems to suggest multiple waves of migrants from Africa and another noting that the mission planners for the New Horizons Pluto probe are looking very late for a Kuiper belt object for their probe to study.


• Eastern Approaches follows the Ukrainian elections.


• Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowen suggests that the BJP may have the credibility necessary to strike a deal with Pakistan.


• Progressive Download's John Farrell notes concern for egg donors as cloning technologies which make use of human ova advance.


• The Russian Demographics blog notes that the annexation of Crimea by Russia, combined with the secessions of Donetsk and Luhansk, would see the Ukrainian population shrink.


• Towleroad links to an essay at Out by a man talking about his choice to make use of Truvada to prevent HIV infection.


• The Volokh Conspiracy notes a sad legal dispute between the parents of a deceased man over the division of his ashes.


• Window on Eurasia suggests that eastern Ukrainian separatists are trying to encourage separatism from the top down, and notes Russian tensions with the Crimean Tatar leadership.


• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell notes the ideological and generational divides within UKIP.

The law school, slated to open in 2016, has the support of lawyers in British Columbia and the B.C. government, but the Law Society of Upper Canada believes its sexuality policy is discriminatory. Ontario’s lawyers voted 28-21 against accrediting the school; the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society followed suit, refusing to accredit TWU unless it amends its covenant’s discriminatory requirements or allows students to forgo signing the covenant altogether. New Brunswick’s law society is scheduled to vote on the issue in June. The consequences for future TWU law graduates are great: they will not be able to article or practise law in provinces where their school is not accredited.

TWU’s covenant isn’t new, but its presence at a law school is particularly controversial. “If you’re going to teach the law,” says Douglas Judson, an Osgoode Hall law student in Toronto arguing against the law school’s accreditation, “you have a duty to propagate Charter values.” A duty: not a legal obligation. Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms may forbid government discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, but TWU is a private, religious institution. It doesn’t have to toe the government line. Besides, there are all kinds of gay-friendly law schools out there, jam-packed with gender-neutral bathrooms and “safe spaces” for every letter in that constantly expanding variegated acronym—so why can’t the Christians have an accredited “safe space” of their own?

It’s simple: we shouldn’t accredit TWU’s law school for the same reason we wouldn’t likely accredit a medical school that treated homosexuality as biologically and psychologically disordered. Like medicine, ethics is a science too; and blind absolutism makes for bad science. Consider the following excerpt from the affidavit of Jill Bishop, a lesbian who attended TWU in the mid-2000s and now supports gay activist Trevor Loke’s constitutional challenge of the B.C. government’s decision to approve the law school. “I observed that the lens of evangelical Christianity was omnipresent. The effect of this was that people did not give opinions in class discussions that did not align with those values … I did not feel able to raise other perspectives on homosexuality. I felt a real risk of expulsion.” This is not exactly a good omen for an accredited institution devoted to the vocation of free thought. (Say what you will about loony leftism on the average secular college campus, but keep in mind that no student at York or UBC ever risked expulsion for refusing to uphold secular humanism.)

TWU president Bob Kuhn has so far framed the case against accreditation as anti-Christian bigotry, the obvious and familiar stance of the religious right. Less obvious and more interesting in this debate, though, is the apparent willingness
of otherwise liberal thinkers to champion the law school, not in solidarity with religionists, but out of sheer annoyance at the triumphalism of gay activists. In the Globe and Mail recently, Konrad Yakabuski, who is in favour of accrediting TWU, argues that gay rights activists in North America “are winning—just not fast enough for some fanatics, who seek to blacklist even those who object to gay marriage based on sincerely held religious or moral grounds.”

According to this philosophy, discriminating against gays is reprehensible if you’re an unthinking brute who is simply grossed out by sodomy: a Tucker Max type or some swashbuckling cast member of Duck Dynasty. But oppose gay marriage, or expel a gay married student from your law school for more refined reasons—because you are a man of God, or you read a compelling sociology study about the inviolability of the heterosexual nuclear family, and you can bask comfortably in your homophobia.

• blogTO covered, with abundant photos, last night's substantial rainstorm. (126 millimetres, I was given to understand by CBC this morning.)


• Crooked Timber celebrates its tenth anniversary.


• Geocurrents' Asya Pereltsvaig maps the origins of servicement in the American military. It turns out that saying that they come from red states is an oversimplification (among other things).


• GNXP notes that the "aquatic ape" theory of human origins is accurate at least inasmuch as human populations, unlike chimpanzee populations, aren't divided into separate subspecies by major rivers. (We can swim.)


• Marginal Revolution starts a comment thread speculating as to how democracy might disappear from the world.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer notes that Argentina isn't going to follow the American precedent and start electing judges.


• Charlie Stross wonders about the future of democracy inasmuch as party politics is declining while a meta Ruling Party takes over.


• Science blogger Supernova Condensate is also going to blog about his experience as a scientist working in Japan.


• Towleroad's coverage of the news that two American cancer patients also infected with HIV were apparently cured of the latter via a bone marrow transplant is correct in noting that this provides clues for a cure.


• Window on Eurasia suggests that terrorist threats against the Sochi Olympics in Russia by Chechens will lead to a tightening of Russian control over the North Caucasus.

Kachkar ran barefoot from the Good Shepherd homeless shelter on Queen St. E. and stole an idling snowplow from in front of a Regent Park Tim Hortons, taking it on a demented joyride and killing the promising officer.

Early Wednesday afternoon, a jury of six men and six women found Kachkar, 46, not criminally responsible by way of mental illness for Russell’s death.

The jury had begun deliberating Monday afternoon.

As the six men and six women filed into the courtroom at around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, Christine Russell bent forward, looking down. She held the same position after the verdict was delivered, and didn’t rise as the jury left.

[. . .]

Outside court, Russell told reporters there is “zero closure” for her family, as they will have to go each year to Kachkar’s ORB hearings, “for the rest of my life.”

“We’re heartbroken. I believe that Ryan deserved a lot better than this. He was killed in the line of duty. Nothing changes that,” she said.

She addressed some remarks to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. “I know you’re listening,” she said, adding she will advocate hard for his government’s Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act, which will create a high risk offender designation, imposing restrictions on people who have committed violent crimes, among other reforms.

Sgt. Russell’s widow, Christine, said she was “heartbroken” by the verdict, which will see Mr. Kachkar detained and treated in a hospital instead of receiving a jail sentence, and she challenged the government to take action.

“I believe Ryan deserved better than this,” she told reporters. “Stephen Harper, I know you’re listening.”

“And there is something out there called Bill C-54 that’s trying to amend some of the not criminally responsible rights. I’m going to advocate for that very hard.”

The bill would allow a judge to designate someone found not criminally responsible for a crime as “high risk” if the judge determines there is a significant threat to the public. The designation would increase the time between reviews of the individual’s detention and prevent the person from being considered for release at all until a judge revokes the “high risk” status. The individual would have very limited opportunities to leave custody on a temporary pass.

[. . .]

Forensic psychologists and mental-health experts say the review boards that consider whether to release someone found not criminally responsible for a crime already consider public safety carefully. And they worry the legislation promotes an erroneous view of the risk that a mentally ill individual who commits a crime will re-offend after treatment.

Research suggests there is very limited risk that someone found not criminally responsible will go on to commit another crime.

A lawyer for the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, which was an intervener in the case, was disappointed that the Supreme Court decision did not go further.

"My client's position is that the criminal law is a harsh tool that should be reserved for the most morally blame-worthy cases," said Michael Feder.

"What you're talking about here is a vulnerable, marginalized group of people who are going to be forced to go around volunteering to anyone with whom they're going to have sexual contact, that they belong to that vulnerable, marginalized group," he said.

Richard Elliott, the executive director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, which also intervened in the case, said the decision was not a good one for people living with HIV.

His group's position is that either a low viral load or the use of a condom should be the required test to avoid being prosecuted, but not both, as the top court said in Friday's ruling.

"We know from the science now that if either you use a condom or you have a low viral load, the risk of transmission is extraordinarily small," he said.

Jessica Whitbread, who contracted HIV from a former boyfriend more than a decade ago, said she thought Friday's ruling was a step forward — at first. But upon closer examination, she said this ruling could make her the criminal.

"I can still have a vindictive lover say that I did or didn't use a condom," she told CBC News. "It still becomes 'he said, she said. he said, he said.' …That can still play a very important role in the courts."

• Andrew Barton remarks on the fact that not only are the dominant newspapers of British Columbia part of a commercial monopoly, they're all going up behind paywalls, too.


• Centauri Dreams' Paul Gilster notes that galaxies like our Milky Way, which has two relatively large satellite galaxies (the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds), are actually quite rare in the universe.


• In his ongoing False Steps blog, pauldrye describes a proposed American spacecraft designed in 1946 that could have sent an astronaut into space a decade ahead of time.


• Geocurrents describes the peculiar situation of the booming Somalian city of Galkayo, divided between two state-like entities.


• GNXP's Razib Khan is very critical of the recently-voiced argument that Indo-European languages evolved in Anatolia, not the Pontic steppes.


• Marginal Revolution takes note of Mexico's heavy investment in the United States, one data point illustrating that Mexico is actually something of a global economic power.


• New APPS Blog's Mohan Matthen revisits the question of Gandhi criticism.


• Savage Minds links to an anthropologist's posting describing how, given the terrible economic prospects for students in the field, the only future for anthropology truly is outside of academia. More later.


• Torontoist takes note of the commemoration of the one-year anniversary of Jack Layton's death at Toronto City Hall.


• Towleroad's Andrew Belonsky points out that the ongoing trend in the United States towards acceptance of same-sex marriage is likely to influence eventual Supreme Court decisions.


• At The Way the Future Blogs, Frederik Pohl is right to note that one major element behind the decline of Mexican emigration to the United States is the sharp fall in the Mexican fertility rate. This is not the only factor at play, however, as he implies.

The federal government has asked the Supreme Court of Canada to put the brakes on the decriminalization of a key prostitution law.

A 30-day stay on imposed by the Ontario Court of Appeal last month when it rewrote the pimping provision is due to be lifted later this week.

[. . .]

The expiration of the 30-day delay imparted a sense of urgency to the government’s request for leave to appeal the entire Ontario Court of Appeal ruling.

It stated that an imminent “regulatory void” will permit prostitutes, bodyguards, drivers and booking agents to openly go about their business.

“If the stay is not extended, the public interest, communities and neighbourhoods and the proper administration of justice will suffer irreparable harm,” the Department of Justice application said.

[. . .]

The court imposed a one-year delay before its brothel ruling comes into effect in order for governments and municipalities to prepare for legal brothels.

[. . .]

In application seeking leave to appeal, Mr. Morris said the decision represents “a fundamental shift in criminal law and social policy,” necessitating the Supreme Court making a final decision.

It said that the litigation goes to the heart of Parliament’s ability to create and enforce laws dealing with complex social problems.

It said that the prostitution laws will be applied inconsistently from one province to another – a situation that cannot be allowed to develop.

“It also has a direct impact on both police investigations and prosecutions in Ontario, and an indirect impact upon these outside Ontario, since the judgment may create uncertainty in the validity of these provisions outside Ontario,” the federal brief said.