The following is a largely AI-generated transcript for Ep 194. Excuse any errors, we’re trying to catch up on these and need to sort out a workflow. Want to help make our transcripts better? Let us know if you can help our support us on Patreon.
[00:01:48] Ian Bushfield: We had a little bit of feedback after last week’s episode, which I think importantly followed with the previous episode one 92, where we discussed, um, policing and black lives matter issues with Stephanie Allen.
[00:02:14] I think there was some question about whether. Two white guys has the best to discuss policing issue, discuss some of these issues. And. I don’t know what your thoughts on that Scott were, but I mean, the kind of approach we’ve always taken with this podcast has been, it’s kind of our hobby horse of just trying to present issues.
[00:02:35] And as much as we can, we do try to bring guests and outside voices on, but as two people with full time jobs, that’s sometimes difficult.
[00:02:43] Scott de Lange Boom: Yeah. I think we struck the right balance on this by and large. I mean, we did get one email discuss. I wanted to. Raise the issue that, yeah, two white guys talked about this pretty slowly with respect to, um, police in schools might not be representative.
[00:02:56] And I mean, I hope I made it clear when I was talking about it. That that was really my experience and it wouldn’t necessarily be applicable to all people. And that, uh, you know, being a white guy, a very white school in Sydney is definitely not the universal Canadian experience.
[00:03:13] Ian Bushfield: Yeah. There was a nice piece in the Burnaby now by a black, uh, grade 12 woman who spoke about the fear.
[00:03:20] She personally experiences and the day to day racism, she experiences and why that. Kind of drives her to not want to see armed RCMP officers in her classroom, say on a day to day basis. Uh, I think following that as well, there have been motions in Vancouver from the elementary school teachers union. Uh, a number of cities across North America are kind of reflecting on this.
[00:03:44] I’ve seen some cities are pulling police from schools in the interim while they review it. Other places are just starting reviews. I was also thinking we’ll just throw a bunch more links in the show notes here. The book end of policing by Alex Vitelli Alex. Bataille, I’m being awful with surnames today.
[00:04:01] Uh, it’s actually free right now to get the ebook copy. And a lot of people reference that one. When they talk about defunding or abolishing the police, alternatively, there’s a Vox review. That’s a bit more critical of it, but. You know, we’ll put those links in the show notes.
[00:04:15] Scott de Lange Boom: Yeah. That’s how you have answered.
[00:04:16] You kind of did a very good job at looking at it and kind of discussing what the literature says around, uh, police and their effectiveness and how it relates to a bunch of different issues. So definitely recommend that as well. When we’re talking box, uh, the last couple episodes of the weeds there, podcasts of outside, I think quite a good discussion on, uh, policing.
[00:04:39] So we’ll throw link to those episodes too.
[00:04:41] Ian Bushfield: And finally there’ve been a couple more people speaking out Perry Belgrade national chief of the assembly of first nations has called for an overhaul of policing. Canada’s first black police chief, who was Devin Clunis from Winnipeg. Has. Raise that he thinks there’s too much, essentially we need a better approach.
[00:05:01] I think people are being overpoliced, we’re pleased. We’re being asked to respond to things where it’s not appropriate. So the conversation’s continuing, uh, we’re going to move on to other topics today, but, you know, I’m sure we’ll come back to this sooner or later, particularly as the province moves to review the police act, moving into our main segment of the day.
[00:05:23] It’s okay to be racist, but not to call someone racist in the house of commons. There was a bit of a kerfuffle yesterday in the house of commons. As jug meat sing brought forward a motion to review the RCM PS. Daily budget call for them to be accountable to the public release, use of force reports and just do a full review.
[00:05:47] Of the RCMP and I’ll play. Most of the debate that we got into was in French, but we’ll play the audio clip of jug meets saying some motion and him seeking unanimous consent from the house.
[00:06:00] The Speaker: Mr. Singh, or, sorry, I’m used to being in committee
[00:06:07] the honorable, uh, member has a point of order, please call
[00:06:11] Jagmeet Singh: my apologies. It wasn’t a point of order. I also have a unanimous consent motion. Is it the right time to rise on that?
[00:06:17] The Speaker: Okay.
[00:06:20] Jagmeet Singh: They’re having confrontations and I hope if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for the following motion that the house recognized that there is systemic racism in the RCMP.
[00:06:31] As several indigenous people have died at the hands of the RCMP in recent months. And call on government to do the following a review, the nearly $10 million per day RCMP budget, and the RCMP act increased non-police investments in nonviolent intervention, deescalation and mental health and addiction supports be ensure that the RCMP is truly accountable to the public.
[00:07:01] See release all RCMP incidents of use of force reports. And the associated settlement costs and D immediately launch a full review of the use of forest by the RCMP, including reviewing the tactics and the training that is given to RCP officers in dealing with the public. Does
[00:07:24] The Speaker: the honorable member for Burnaby cells have the unanimous consent of the house to move the motion?
[00:07:30] Agreed. I’m sorry. No. Okay. We don’t have a unanimous consent. I’m afraid.
[00:07:41] Ian Bushfield: So you could hear one, at least one member deny unanimous consent. And from the debate we can tell that was the block. Quebec was house leader, Elaine Terran Tarion and repo. Allegedly. He made some kind of. Dismissal motion to some of the chatter, which you could hear on the, and there towards chug meets, sing somewhere in there.
[00:08:05] I couldn’t hear it. I couldn’t make it out. Sing said he was a racist for doing either that motion, that dismissal motion, or for just voting against a review of the RCMP one, which the conservatives who are in favor of the liberals or the NDP, the greens. Really everyone. No one was really opposed to this except mr.
[00:08:28] Terry Ann, but because mr. Singh used in applied, someone was a racist, another block, MP, Claude. Bella fury, uh, the MP for salivary, Sarah Rose on a point of order to say, he’d insulted a member of her party. She goes on to say he shamelessly called the member a racist it’s unacceptable in the house. There’s an acting speaker in the chair at the time.
[00:08:57] Who said she personally didn’t hear the comment. We’ll have to listen to the recording and then discuss it and ask. Drug meets saying, if you wish to make a comment to which he says, Madam speaker. Yes, I did call him a racist and I do believe he is. So if there was any ambiguity or doubt, you just took the chance to get rid of that.
[00:09:14] Uh, he was asked to apologize and he said, Madam speaker, I will not to which the bloc Quebecois member dumped her feet, got very upset and demanded. He be removed from the chamber, which he was at three 15, 45 minutes later. When the chair, Anthony, when the speaker Anthony roto returned and then Singh had to spend the rest of the day in hanging his head in shame, speaking to a lot of press who were like, why were you kicked out?
[00:09:44] It’s such a thoughts, reaction, Scott,
[00:09:48] Scott de Lange Boom: sorry. Before we get into this too far later, I think it’s important that we say that like, you know, he’s the first, um, person of color to lead a major party. He’s honest coming from this from a, I think a pretty honest and personal place. And that’s how he perceives it.
[00:10:07] And that, you know, there’s, as we’ve been discussing for weeks now, and actually longer than that, uh, there’s very clear problems with race in Canadian society that need to be discussed. So yeah, all of that set up front, but now we have, I think I would have to consider where the house of comments is and what it’s like as an institution and, you know, as an institution that considered fuddled dull to be unparliamentary language.
[00:10:33] So. It does have a very low bar for this sort of thing. And it’s fairly easy for less controversial accusations to raise the ire of the speaker and other members of parliament.
[00:10:49] Ian Bushfield: So I pulled up the actual rules and the standing orders for. The house of common, the rules of order, uh, say under section 18 disrespectful or offensive language, no member shall speak disrespectfully of the sovereign nor have any of the Royal family, nor of the governor general or a person administering government of Canada nor use offensive words against either of the house or against any member there.
[00:11:13] Of, in other words, you can’t insult the queen. Prince Phillip, any of the other monarchs or Royals, the governor general or anyone else in the house? Only the last one who really tends to come up part of this. And you see this in basically every rule set of rules, of order Robert’s rules and other things.
[00:11:33] The idea is the debate in the house should be about the ideas and not the people in there. It’s the same reason. They’re not supposed to name one another. They’re supposed to speak about the member for so-and-so. I disagree with. Their idea, not, I think they’re a callous pig and should be, you know, a joke.
[00:11:54] Nevertheless, people always skirt this line, a standing order. 11 also gives the speaker the ability to name individual members for disregarding the authority of the chair. In this case, this is the order that Anthony Rohde invoked partially because he was ordered, uh, Singh was ordered to. Apologize. And he refused to, so he, in a way publicly and openly attacked the authority of the chair as the member from the block, put it, but like, as you point out sing is.
[00:12:29] The first national party leader, who’s a person of color, uh, his profile. When you go to Twitter notes that it’s pronounced jug meet, despite the fact, everyone in the media or many people in the media keeps saying JAG meat, and I’m trying my best. Uh, so, and he’s, you know, he’s spoken a number of times about the racism he’s experienced both before politics and since, so this is definitely a very personal issue for him and.
[00:12:58] You know, if we don’t know exactly what the block house leader did motion, but there is a long documented history of these kinds of microaggressions where people of color, his opinions are kind of dismissed or with either a slight of hand or other gestures. So. You know, I don’t blame jug for reacting strongly and try and call it out.
[00:13:22] And honestly, when the rules say you can’t call it out, sometimes breaking the rules makes it a better situation for you. Since we’re able to highlight this in a way that if he’d done, as I believe Tom Mulcaire suggested and apologized, most people would have moved on pretty quick. I mean, we’re only a day after.
[00:13:46] By next week, people would probably have moved on, but it went a lot bigger than it would have otherwise if he’d followed the rules to the letter.
[00:13:54] Scott de Lange Boom: Yeah. I did agree with that. Yeah. I’ve seen a lot of people comment somewhat to the effect of, well, this is the, um, you know, parliament considering it worse to call someone a racist than to be racist.
[00:14:09] And let’s start an unfair criticism. Like I. As you mentioned with the, uh, rules around, uh, decorum. And it’s a very common thing, pretty much every legislature and every decision making body, everywhere that there are these limits on attacking other people’s character among the members. And we can discuss whether or not that should be revised, but, you know, within that context, I don’t think the speaker of the house was necessarily wrong.
[00:14:42] Even if. Quite a few people, I think fairly point out the outcome. Isn’t entirely great on that. And I’m not sure how really to resolve that because we could, you know, as a country decide that the. For rules of the house should be different, but that does phrase the potential issue of having a debate that is a lot more personal than politics already is.
[00:15:08] And that might not necessarily be a great outcome. So it’s a tough one. And maybe, maybe the way it should be handled is that these things get discussed outside of the house. Cause. Nothing’s stopping, uh, anyone who’s a member from going to the media posting on their own social media to accuse other members of the house of being racist, just not on the floor.
[00:15:32] Ian Bushfield: Well, libel laws apply outside the house, inside the house. They’re protected by parliamentary privilege so they can say anything and not be sued for it in there.
[00:15:40] Scott de Lange Boom: Although I think it’s pretty unlikely that that would actually be upheld.
[00:15:45] Ian Bushfield: Yeah.
[00:15:45] Scott de Lange Boom: And there wouldn’t be any legal consequences to it.
[00:15:48] Ian Bushfield: Yeah.
[00:15:49] Although we have seen various politicians try in this country, frivolously seemingly to Sue one another for defamation outside the house, even in the last couple of years, poor, bad legal strategies aside though, eat Francois Blanchette. The leader of the bloc Quebecois was asked about this. Incident. And, you know, he went to bat for his house leader saying he’s not a racist.
[00:16:13] He likes everyone. Cool backers come from a nation that is open, welcome, and generous. And that likes diversity, which he likes. Everyone is not really. It’s weird. It’s a weird statement. I struggled to understand why they oppose this motion. Why the block, like
[00:16:32] Scott de Lange Boom: it would be in the party, that guy
[00:16:33] Ian Bushfield: or this individual member, because it doesn’t the Quebec.
[00:16:36] Quebec has its own police force. Why should they even care? What. Emotion says about the RCMP.
[00:16:41] Scott de Lange Boom: Yeah. I’m not really clear either. Um, why that position was taken on it. I don’t think it was the full position of the block, more the individual member there. And who knows why?
[00:16:55] Ian Bushfield: Well, it did, I think ultimately worked out fairly well for jug meet Singh.
[00:17:00] I think we’ve seen over the last couple of years, particularly in the election. And now when issues of race come up. He’s one of the strongest voices nationally, like when Trudeau’s blackface incident or public was being discussed during the election, it was Singh who didn’t like actively try to take advantage of it.
[00:17:21] He so much, as much as he said, you know, I want to talk to. All the kids, you know, all the Brown, all the black kids out there and try and any, just tried to have a heart to heart. And I think even his post press conferences after this objection, mirrored, that sincerity, which is refreshing to see in a politician at least.
[00:17:43] Scott de Lange Boom: Yeah. He’s definitely at his best when talking about these issues and I’ve. The NDP under his leadership, struggling to connect in a lot of other ways. But when the conversation shifts towards these acts, Seeing definitely shines.
[00:17:56] Ian Bushfield: Well, I want to turn in this conversation just to close out with some fun examples of other times people have crossed the line of decorum as it were.
[00:18:07] We previously discussed some of this way back in episode 61, titled the minister of silly names. When speaker Daryl plexus was forced to rule about whether the. Insults and fake minister serial names being thrown at each other were parliamentary language or not. And I think he ruled a number of them crossed the line, but Canadian history is littered with some great examples.
[00:18:31] And many of them come from right here in British Columbia. Most notably when former premier, Dave Barrett. Was in 1983 dragged from the legislature. So he’d refused to leave after being found to breach decorum and three officers from including the Sergeant of arms had to. Pull him out of the legislature after a ruling.
[00:18:57] Uh, this was during a particularly contentious era when bill Bennett was trying to really drive the provinces, spending down and drive us into austerity and Dave Barrett as the leader of the NDP. You wanted to just fight that. So, yeah, he was dragged out of the legislature and didn’t just leave peacefully as they usually do.
[00:19:19] Uh, another really good one. That I enjoy is from 1964 when reel Colette, who is the head of the Quebec social credit party. And social credit was a very strange movement. Uh, he previously
[00:19:33] Scott de Lange Boom: should do an episode on that at some point.
[00:19:35] Ian Bushfield: Yeah. Alberta advantage has done a nice pair on the history of the Alberta social credit, which was one of the more racist and.
[00:19:43] Economically cranky ones. BCS was a bit more of just the, you know, the old ND or the old BC liberals. It was just the people who weren’t NDP.
[00:19:53] Scott de Lange Boom: Yeah, I, I, I’ve tried to read the Wikipedia on the underlying social credit theory and like two, three times down, I just ended up walking away, stretch my head, try to, because I can’t make heads or tails what they actually thought.
[00:20:05] Ian Bushfield: Yeah. First the first Elton Nutter underlying theory is antisemitic. So from there it doesn’t get much more coherent, but Cal at in 1964 was debating with the Tory leader, Louis, Joseph pigeon, and. Pigeon had called co at the Canadian Mussolini after he had previously expressed his, the qualities of Mussolini’s leadership and Hitler’s economic reforms, a pigeon was asked to clean up his language and said, I believe you are right mr.
[00:20:34] Chairman, I did make a mistake when I said the honorable member for Villa nuke is a Canadian Mussolini. I should have said a Canadian Hitler. It’s just nice. When you can call your opponent’s Hitler and not be totally off base. Uh, you mentioned the fuddle double one. That one was more true. Pierre Trudeau, silently Mel thing, what he later said was fuddled dull, but most people believe it to be the obvious fuck off during a debate, a fun federal.
[00:21:02] Incident was in 1985 when BC new Democrat James Fulton was in a debate over fisheries. And he apparently did cross the floor and placed a salmon on the prime minister’s desk, trying to. Protests, some of the Sockeye fishing restrictions on the big bean river. You’re also not allowed props in parliament or to cross the floor like that.
[00:21:26] So, uh, he got kicked out for all kinds of reasons. And then, you know, we’ll throw a link in the show notes to both, uh, this, these stories that are from Tristin hopper, his 2016 piece as well as a piece from I politics about all the words you can’t use in parliament, which are Legion. I think you can say Legion, but you can’t.
[00:21:47] Swear. I’ll do a lot of swearing. So yeah, don’t call anyone a racist in parliament and ideally don’t be a racist in parliament, but that’s not as likely to change anytime soon.
[00:22:01] Scott de Lange Boom: Moving on to quicktakes. Uh, the Trudeau government finally announced when we were actually going to start to see some of the.
[00:22:07] Financial numbers after everything that’s happened. So mr. Herman, don’t announce that there’s going to be a fiscal snapshot, which is not a term that’s been used before. As far as I know, that’s going to be released on July 8th, rather than the fiscal update, which typically includes one year, three year and five year projections.
[00:22:29] This is the likely. Maybe just a year’s projections, if that,
[00:22:34] Ian Bushfield: I mean more nose defense here. And claim is that providing a fuller update would be unrealistic right now because of that requirement to project ahead so far, which he says, we simply couldn’t make any responsible predictions about, you know what, he’s not totally wrong.
[00:22:54] Scott de Lange Boom: It’s not entirely unreasonable, but yeah. There, there may be something that’s beyond just like a one year gap, but just has very big error bars on it. Yeah. I presume there’s a decent graphics person somewhere in Ottawa who could convey that decently on charter too. And the, uh, fiscal snapshot.
[00:23:13] Ian Bushfield: Yeah, both the conservatives and block have criticized this for both being insufficient and for being dropped in the middle of summer.
[00:23:21] Yeah. You know,
[00:23:23] Scott de Lange Boom: both points seem reasonable.
[00:23:24] Ian Bushfield: It’s not like the liberals have a better option. Should they delay it till the fall? Like if they release it, they’re not gonna be able to pump something out in the next week. So, or at least not something. As robust and early July, isn’t that far away. So, well, at least we’ll get some update about the fiscal health of this country.
[00:23:45] The other challenge for Trudeau this past week has been that his efforts to get Canada back on the UN security council or back on the world stage failed quite. Spectacularly this last week.
[00:23:59] Scott de Lange Boom: It turns out Canada is not back.
[00:24:01] Ian Bushfield: Yeah. There were two seats up for grabs and three contenders. Norway, Ireland in us, Norway got the most votes with 130 Ireland pulled one 28 and Canada got a measly, 108.
[00:24:13] Scott de Lange Boom: She’s actually down from the last time we tried to, uh, Get a security council seat, uh, when we got 114, but lost out to Germany and Portugal,
[00:24:23] Ian Bushfield: I saw a lot of people re tweeting the, uh, liberal party of Canada, his official tweet from the time when they were pointing out that Stephen Harper was the only prime minister to ever not win a security council seat and Canadian history.
[00:24:34] Scott de Lange Boom: That was not true anymore. Now we have two
[00:24:36] Ian Bushfield: prime ministers that did not age well. No, it really didn’t. The government ultimately spent more than two point $3 million on this campaign. There were a number of trips to Africa where I think we were really hoping to sweep up some votes
[00:24:50] Scott de Lange Boom: and that a large part of the campaign I said are cut short Trudeau, had to cancel a bunch of overseas trips.
[00:24:55] He was planning because of
[00:24:56] Ian Bushfield: COVID it’s unclear how much of a difference that would have make.
[00:25:01] Scott de Lange Boom: I don’t think it really would have saved it.
[00:25:03] Ian Bushfield: Most people can’t name the non permanent security council members. I think a lot of people would struggle to name the permanent ones. If they can’t remember their high schools, uh, social studies courses,
[00:25:14] Scott de Lange Boom: it’s the U S Britain, France, China, and Russia.
[00:25:17] And. The five permanent members get vetoes. Nobody else does,
[00:25:21] Ian Bushfield: you know, it’s kind of a black eye for our international efforts, but not a knockout. And I think there were some questions raised about, uh, Canada’s climate record on this. A number of countries have a number of reasons they may or may not have voted for us.
[00:25:38] So
[00:25:39] Scott de Lange Boom: everyone basically took their standard ideological frame and just applied it to this question. So there wasn’t much. Useful about that because you can’t really know why the other credit priests didn’t vote for us.
[00:25:53] Ian Bushfield: I mean, honestly, I might’ve voted for Norway and Ireland. They’re both pretty cool countries, so glad to have them there.
[00:25:59] Yeah.
[00:25:59] Scott de Lange Boom: Congrats. But yeah, I think this does kind of raise a bigger question, which is just kind of what is Canada’s foreign policy and why did we even. Bother trying to win the seat. Like we’re five years into the Trudeau government. Like they’ve never really articulated coherent foreign policy or what Canada’s major interests are and what are the necessary steps to accomplish them.
[00:26:24] And they just kind of seem to bounce around from while trying to keep the NAFTA trade dealing tat and then. But can probably be best described as trying to retrain like the Pearson Eric Laurie’s, but without actually. Doing the hard work and just kind of put in on the aesthetic of them.
[00:26:43] Ian Bushfield: Indeed.
[00:26:44] Scott de Lange Boom: Canada is a country that just does not discuss foreign policy well, and governments rarely feel the need to articulate that.
[00:26:52] Well, well, following up from our discussion, Over the last couple of weeks about, uh, policing in Canada. Uh, there’s a new report out by the RCMP around a use of force. This was reported on today. I haven’t actually been able to track down the actual report itself. It doesn’t seem to be published online anywhere as of recording.
[00:27:12] Uh, if we do find it, we’ll throw it in the show notes. So it looks over. The last decade in particularly the period 2017 to 2019. And the takeaway headline on this is that, um, the primary means of inter what they call intervention tactics or use of force involves a brandishing of a firearm and pointed at a person.
[00:27:36] Ian Bushfield: And it’s notable that RCMP have multiple other options than pulling out their gun. Uh, Whether that’s a taser doing a number of other soft control, for example, physical interventions, many carry pepper spray. As we’ve seen in use of force in BC, uh, Baton, sometimes police service dogs, and other cases, the default doesn’t necessarily need to be.
[00:28:03] Pull out the gun.
[00:28:05] Scott de Lange Boom: Yeah. So on average has about 2.8 million calls. The RCMP response, two of those about 2,215 on average choir, or involve some use of force, shouldn’t say required. So that is naturally specified in here. And yeah, other period looked at there were 5,441 instances of point of firearm, 3062 brandishing of firearms, deterrent, and 33 officer involved shootings.
[00:28:35] During that period,
[00:28:37] Ian Bushfield: I think we saw in data, we discuss the last week or possibly the week before the number of, uh, CBC had done enough. Uh, Analysis, looking at the number of people killed by police across Canada and BC had among the highest per capita rates and almost total numbers. Overall, none of this should be that surprising.
[00:29:00] I am hopeful. This starts to prompt some level of reform or review at least like we’ve been discussing. There are a lot of places or a lot of instances when police are being called when that’s probably not the best. Response.
[00:29:17] Scott de Lange Boom: Yeah. So I believe there are CPS some version of a use of force continuum, but looking at this, the pointing of a firearm as someone is second only to the use of lethal force, I firing the firearm and it does kind of make you wonder why that one has the highest.
[00:29:38] Great of use rather than a bunch of the other options. In theory, one would suppose that the distribution of incidents is not necessarily clustered at the almost need to use lethal force and of the continuum.
[00:29:55] Ian Bushfield: I mean, the simple answer is that there’s a culture where pulling a gun is viewed as the smart, safest thing to do because that escalation immediately.
[00:30:06] Makes it clear who is the dominant power in an interaction versus other approaches that are involved more deescalation or trying to calm things down aren’t necessarily being preferred by individual officers when they get on the site. So not a case of a few bad apples, a case of, I think, a systemic issue where the, you know, majority approach or the major approach is.
[00:30:31] Escalation not deescalation. And that’s a really difficult thing to change over with just, you know, some reforms to training and things like that. You know, I think we need to. Take guns out of a lot of hands of officers and stop calling them for, or have other people respond in many cases, that’s kind of the first steps it will take.
[00:30:54] Scott de Lange Boom: I lean a little more towards, for more training as a solution rather than immediately disarming, but. There’s definitely reforms needed and, uh, spent most of the episode last time on that. So in the interest of time, I think we’ll probably move on to that one.
[00:31:09] Ian Bushfield: Yeah. So we have kind of a pair of Supreme court rulings that have come down from different levels that could possibly help a number of them.
[00:31:18] Places where people’s rights can be better protected. Uh, first coming from the BC Supreme court, the civil forfeiture act has been struck down. I think we’ve talked about this in the past. This is a,
[00:31:31] Scott de Lange Boom: we had an interview from the BC, uh, person from the BC civil liberties association several episodes ago.
[00:31:37] We’ll throw LinkedIn in the show notes to that.
[00:31:39] Ian Bushfield: Yeah. If I can find it. The civil forfeiture act essentially allows the government to BC to seize property that has been believed to be used in crime or connected to criminal activity. Uh, it’s been largely criticized as a way to take people’s stuff without having to prove that they’ve done anything wrong.
[00:32:03] The. Casing question involved the hell’s angels. And I believe that government has seized three of their clubhouses and ultimately justice Berry Davies of the BC Supreme court. Ruled that the act was unconstitutional because it intruded on the federal jurisdiction of the criminal law.
[00:32:24] Scott de Lange Boom: Yeah. Basically it was making criminal law at the provincial level, which is a big, no, no.
[00:32:29] So yeah, a lot of the discussion the last few weeks has been on policing, but there’s other aspects of the justice system that also need reform and civil asset forfeiture is a big one. And. A huge part of it is that doesn’t actually require a criminal conviction or proof beyond reasonable doubt to affect what are significant from no penalties.
[00:32:52] People, people have had their houses seized, vehicle seats, you know, significant things that, you know, They need for their lives as well. You know, a significant portion of a lot of people’s property and that should also be protected. So all reforms definitely need the provincial level and it’s good to see this get strict struck down.
[00:33:14] Ian Bushfield: Yeah, it remains to be seen if the province appeals this and it could change directions at higher level. But yeah, this is a bill that kind of is cross parties, cross across party lines. In this province, the BC liberals have moved, uh, actions like this. The current act was put in place by the BC NDP. And so sometimes it takes the court to really uphold these kinds of rights.
[00:33:42] The other case that came down was just this morning was the Sora decision from the Supreme court of Canada. This was a similar case, dealing with people who haven’t been convicted, but are facing. Some sort of punishment. So in this case, chasing Zora was accused of possession for the purposes of trafficking and they were on bail and the police were coming by their place every day, almost at different times in the evening to check his compliance with curfew.
[00:34:15] He was required to answer the door within five minutes of them knocking. And there, I guess there were a couple of times in one month when he. Claims, he couldn’t hear the knocking because he had guests and later he installed security cameras to help alert him if someone was at his door. So he could go answer the bail hearing.
[00:34:31] And it basically. Got to the point where it was so onerous on this person that he argued. I’m not trying to breach the bail conditions. So why are you punishing me so much? And the Supreme court of Canada ultimately sided unanimously with that position saying the standard that’s been applied to these bail conditions.
[00:34:50] Shouldn’t be this purposeful one. There should be a more subjective and look at on a case by case basis. You know, you can’t just apply a one size fits all bail solution or bail. Um, provision to every person who is being charged and released. Do you gotta look at the case by case basis and therefore, otherwise you risk disproportionately affecting vulnerable and marginalized people, especially.
[00:35:15] So ultimately, you know, this is one, the BC civil liberties association is celebrating. Good news, I think
[00:35:23] Scott de Lange Boom: seems like a reasonable outcome.
[00:35:24] Ian Bushfield: I mean, it’s one of those, it’s another one of those ones where the civil liberties and rights aspect conflicts with what was a popular conception of being tough on crime, or not really having much sympathy because so, or a may have been a drug dealer and people don’t generally sympathize with people who.
[00:35:44] You know, knowingly break the law, but until, you know, they always have rights, even, you know, before they’re convicted, they’re presumed innocent. You can’t treat someone so cruelly until they’re proven guilty. And even then they still have rights. So, you know, good work courts.
[00:36:01] Scott de Lange Boom: Well, moving on to one final court case in our quick tips today, the Springport cannolis rule that PC violated the French language education.
[00:36:11] Rights of British Columbia, this case specifically involved the funding of feces only French language, school board. And they have almost that they had to pay $6 million in damages and one point $1 million, uh, to cover operations. Uh, this was brought by a parent who sued to do inadequate provision of.
[00:36:35] Bossing to two schools. The more significant aspect of this is that it will likely require the province to significantly expand its French language, education offerings across the province.
[00:36:48] Ian Bushfield: Yeah. The sections of the charter that I almost never pay any attention to are, you know, section 16 through 23, you utter the official languages and minority language education, right.
[00:36:59] Sections because. No. I grew up in Alberta. We’re in BC. Now these are very English dominant provinces, but under our charter, there are protected bilingualism. There are rights for, uh, French minorities and there are rights for English, minorities and the in Quebec, it’s the only French majority province.
[00:37:22] And so these cases can come up where. There is a small French minority population MBC, and they do have a constitutional right to have their own schools and their own education programs. I think in Alberta, it’s largely done through a French immersion programs and stuff like that in, within the main public school system.
[00:37:46] Although I imagine there are a few. French only schools, uh, here in BC, there’s an entire school district. That’s the French school district. Uh, but it covers the entire province. And I imagine there are a few, um, French immersion programs as well, but there’s going to have to be more, as you say. And so interesting ruling and one, I definitely wasn’t following
[00:38:05] Scott de Lange Boom: the article specifically mentions, uh, Burnaby in Western Victoria, as places in need of French schools to be built.
[00:38:14] Ian Bushfield: Maybe my child to go to a French school when she’s older.
[00:38:17] Scott de Lange Boom: Honestly, I kind of regret not learning more French when I was going through school. I mean, I kind of hated the French education we had here, but, uh, honestly it wasn’t very good, but after I graduated and joined the military, it was definitely the case that I would have benefited from having a much better French language knowledge.
[00:38:38] So, yeah. Good that they’re going to be expanding it in DC.
[00:38:44] Ian Bushfield: Yeah, I agree. My French education was not great. I do still kind of sympathize with the idea that in BC, there might be other secondary languages that are more valuable than French
[00:38:57] Scott de Lange Boom: or that there are definitely more commonly spoken languages.
[00:38:59] There’s only about 65,000 Francophones in PC.
[00:39:04] Ian Bushfield: Well, there you go. Moving on though. There’s what Angus Reed Institute is reporting as a shifting support for. A basic income in Canada, they have a new poll out, which actually does a nice comparison with some numbers they have from 2016, about the support for a basic income at the 10,000, 20,000 or $30,000 a year rate, they don’t delve too much into all of the other nuances of a basic income, which I would encourage listeners to go back and listen to that bonus interview we had with Lindsey Ted’s about how many questions you should be asking when people.
[00:39:40] Bring up the idea of a basic income, whether you support it or oppose it. Uh, but it turns out 60% of Canadians roughly are in supportive of basic income.
[00:39:50] Scott de Lange Boom: Yeah. Although when you ask, if they’re willing to pay more taxes to fund a basic income, that number flips around. Pretty much doing a one 80 where 64% would disagree with that.
[00:40:02] Ian Bushfield: Although 61% are in favor of taxing the wealthy to do it. Uh, the most notable or interesting stat I saw under who should pay for it was that those who make under $25,000 were the most willing to have their own taxes raised. And that support actually just dropped as it got to the wealthier and wealthier people.
[00:40:22] It’s the it’s the wealthiest to both were the only income demographic actually. Split evenly on support for basic income and who did not want to see taxes raised. Uh, regionally, it was only in Alberta where there was a majority who opposed a basic income. It was 42 to 47% there. Uh, by party, the NDP was the most enthusiastic at 84%, the liberals at 78% and only 26% of conservatives supported a basic income.
[00:40:51] And I also saw that men were more likely to oppose a basic income than women. I mean, both had. Strong support, but 35 to 40% of men, depending on the age bracket were opposed as opposed to 20 to 26% of women.
[00:41:05] Scott de Lange Boom: It’s kind of roughly what I would have inspected before we’re looking at this.
[00:41:08] Ian Bushfield: Yeah. Nothing particularly jumps out.
[00:41:10] I think the support is higher than I would have assumed, although in many way, in several categories, it’s actually gone down. Quite a few points since 2016 at the $30,000 level, for example, 67% of people in 2016 supportive of basic income and only 59% do now at that level, it’s worth mentioning 30,000 is only slightly above the poverty line.
[00:41:34] I believe. It’s not a lot of money, especially if you’re in a major city like Vancouver.
[00:41:40] Scott de Lange Boom: Yeah. But at the same time purposes has a very significant outlay, especially if it’s done at a universal level rather than a target program.
[00:41:48] Ian Bushfield: But in any case, these are reassuring numbers for any politicians looking at expanding serve and making it more permanent.
[00:41:56] Scott de Lange Boom: Well, possibly the split between willingness to pay and support for it is very stark and. Once that becomes a real life question, political question that’s being debated. I wouldn’t necessarily, you know, whether there’s a concrete proposal on the table, I wouldn’t necessarily assume that those support numbers for a basic income stay as high as they are.
[00:42:20] I mean, if you poll people, if they ask if they want free money, they generally don’t have very high levels of support for it. It’s interesting, but it doesn’t tell you that much at when it actually comes down to implementation.
[00:42:33] Ian Bushfield: We’ll have to see what comes down when the basic income panel returns its report here in BC later this year,
[00:42:41] Scott de Lange Boom: looking forward to that one place that is getting more money.
[00:42:45] From the government is BC ferries. Uh, so after BC ferries announced several weeks ago that they were going to have to start retailing, uh, 11 minor routes. The BC government has finally stepped up and provide an additional, uh, funding of $180,000 to kind of bridge over until September when things are going to be reassessed and.
[00:43:13] Hopefully BC ferries is in a better financial position. So these are specifically the routes to salt spring Island, Powell, river state Island, Gabriola Denman Hornby quadr Eileen Cortez, it’s Bay and Heidegger. Dugway.
[00:43:28] Ian Bushfield: Yeah, many of the smaller routes that if those aren’t supported, uh, people in those communities are going to be.
[00:43:36] Uh, hooped. Cause they won’t be able to get off, get resources, uh, or service or supplies. And so these are in a central bit of our transit infrastructure and keeping BC ferries afloat is a necessary move. No TransLink is necessary, but yeah,
[00:43:54] Scott de Lange Boom: it’s an 80% drop in ridership and are losing roughly a million dollars a day.
[00:44:00] That’s what’s been estimated.
[00:44:02] Ian Bushfield: Now we just need the full official bailout of translate because all we’ve had is a promise end statement that they won’t go under well, but. Speaking of getting things going again, the BC greens have restarted their leadership race officially. They announced earlier this week that their contest was reopened.
[00:44:21] As of June 15th candidates can still join the race, which currently consists of Sonia first, now, and Kim Darwin go back and listen to our Sonia personnel. Interview from a couple months ago, I believe. And we’ll try and get Kim Darwin on the podcast and anyone else who wants to join the race you have until July 27th.
[00:44:41] If you want to vote in the leadership race, and if you want to vote by phone, you should join by August 21st. If you want to join to vote online, you have until September 2nd voting is September 5th to 13th, and we will know who the new leader is on September 14th. And there will be a all candidates debate on September 1st.
[00:45:00] Hopefully we can do something fun for that.
[00:45:02] Scott de Lange Boom: So on your first style really is the front runner on this, and I’d be surprised if it’s going to have a different result, but. Yeah, I’ve lost. These leadership races are interesting to watch.
[00:45:13] Ian Bushfield: People can sign up as just a supporter to vote in the BC green leadership race.
[00:45:17] So you don’t need to be a full member to vote. It could be that first scenario is busier with duties in the house, and Darwin is able to leverage her connections and pull it from behind. But you know, being an elected member does give you quite an advantage in these situations. Uh, compare it to the federal green leadership race, where there are 10 candidates who most people haven’t heard of who are all struggling to kind of get their name out there.
[00:45:49] And none have been elected federally before, but we’ll keep our eye on both of these races and the conservative race. That’s also going on.
[00:45:57] Scott de Lange Boom: And yeah, today was the English language leaders debate. We’re not talking about it too much on this podcast. We’ll probably discuss it next week. I will note for a party that is based in Western Canada.
[00:46:10] They didn’t feel the need to schedule their debate at a time where all Western Canadians were off work, which
[00:46:18] Ian Bushfield: isn’t great. Well, maybe they want to expand beyond Alberta and Saskatchewan and some of BC. And therefore make it a little easier to listen to in Ontario and Quebec, they also wait their votes by constituency.
[00:46:32] So those voters out East matter more than member rich riding Southwest.
[00:46:40] Scott de Lange Boom: True. Although there are some probably fairly member, poor writings out at the very West. I did manage to catch a little bit of it, uh, before we started recording nothing, really all that stand out about it. But, uh, I think we’ll be discussing the leadership race and full of platforms have started to drop.
[00:47:02] Uh, so yeah, we’ll take a look at that probably. And that’s what’s up sewed. And finally the provincial government’s announced that they are going to be letting restaurants buy their liquor at wholesale prices to help ease their financial lows. So up until this was announced, the BC restaurant industry did not have access to wholesale pricing.
[00:47:25] Um, because we have a centralized government distribution center. Everyone has to buy from the. Single provincial distributor. And until now the province has basically used that as a cash cow and charged retail prices. I, what you would buy at a liquor store, just as a normal customer, rather than, uh, giving the restaurants the same pricing that the stores themselves buy it.
[00:47:55] Ian Bushfield: Yeah. This is a really. Common sense, simple change to help an industry that is really struggling right now. It’s bizarre that BC was doing it another way for so long. I mean, the money is the clear answer there in many places, alcohol is like, The cash cow of the restaurant industry and the bar industry.
[00:48:19] But when you have to buy from like the front side of BC liquor, you know, a dollar 50 a can or more for beer, sometimes two, three, uh, and then you sell it for five. You’re not making as much as you could otherwise be. So
[00:48:32] Scott de Lange Boom: yeah, like the restaurant industry is not an industry that has high margins, even when people aren’t being kept away.
[00:48:41] For public health reasons, the margins are thin. There’s a very high rate of failure in that industry. So it never made much sense at a policy level, besides just being away for the government to kind of squeeze as much money as they can out of business owners, shouldn’t have taken this long to adjust it.
[00:49:04] And like just at a basic fairness level, it didn’t make much sense that one category of business owners, I. The private liquor stores could buy the same product for significantly cheaper than another category of businesses. So welcome change. Shouldn’t have taken a pandemic for this to happen, and even then it’s only temporary and it’s going to be reviewed in March.
[00:49:29] Ian Bushfield: I can likely see this sticking around as one of those temporary changes made permanent, but you know, anything could change. You know, I’m also hopeful. Maybe we see a slight decrease in some drinks and you’re not paying $7 for a beer and maybe you can pay six 50.
[00:49:47] Scott de Lange Boom: So there’s no requirements in this that the savings get passed on to customers.
[00:49:52] And the government sits back in this, basically just going to help keep struggling restaurants slightly more solvent during these tough times. But yeah, once things go back to a previous level of business. Yeah. Let’s hope that. Competition and lower costs to help, uh, push the prices down a little bit for consumers
[00:50:15] Ian Bushfield: anyway, make sure to order a nice meal every now and then if you can afford it from your favorite local restaurant, use their online delivery service.
[00:50:24] If you can try to avoid door dash and skip the dishes other than to maybe find a new restaurant, because it’s some of the profits they skim off the top, or, you know, use the new socially distant. Seating arrangements that are being set up at many of these restaurants go out for a nice meal, if you feel safe enough to do so.
[00:50:45] And can afford to obviously keep the businesses running.
