Opinion

Our taxes are paying all the costs of the province suing the feds, the feds to defend and the courts to hear it. Does it really matter?

Published

6 years ago

2 minute read

Have you ever thought that so much of our tax dollars would be spent defining and protecting the jurisdictions of our politicians.
Take for instance the court battles over the carbon tax. Our taxes are paying for the provinces to protect their right to control polluting of our air, our taxes are paying for the federal government to protect their right to control polluting of our air and our taxes are also paying the judicial costs for the court to hear all the arguments.
As individual taxpayers we pay “all” these bills. Does it matter if our money goes to the province or the nation? To the politicians, it does matter, because they like to be seen as the decision makers, but to the taxpayers it does not matter.
We, being at the very bottom of the food chain, have so many levels of governments forcing decisions on us, yet we pay all their bills.
Our Premier is up and arms blustering on about the federal government intruding on his turf, while he is intruding on or planning on intruding on other provincial turfs, municipal turfs, educational turfs, health turfs, individual rights’ turfs, women’s right to choose turf, students right to choose’ turfs, GSA turfs and the list goes on.
General thinking has it, that our Premier wants to be Prime Minister, and if he is successful would he then ride rough shod over every other level of government and individuals’ rights?
Are all politicians such power hungry control freaks?
If we did not have all these fights over jurisdictions, maybe our taxes would go down? Perhaps we could balance some budgets?
To me it makes little difference who gets credit for something as long as it gets done. I know politicians tend to need to take credit for every good thing while blaming everyone else for the bad. It just means more taxes. It also means more red tape and bureaucracy buts that another story.
Where’s my chequebook?

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UN General Assembly Adopts Controversial Cybercrime Treaty Amid Criticism Over Censorship and Surveillance Risks

espionage / 6 hours ago

Textbook Case of FBI Grooming a Troubled Young Man to Commit Violent Crime

Bruce Dowbiggin / 10 hours ago

Trudeau Parting Gift: Conceding Indigenous Land Claims For All Time

Censorship Industrial Complex

UN General Assembly Adopts Controversial Cybercrime Treaty Amid Criticism Over Censorship and Surveillance Risks

Published on December 26, 2024

Todayville

By Didi Rankovic

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Global cybercrime treaty faces scrutiny over human rights safeguards and potential misuse of cross-border powers.

As we expected, even though opponents have been warning that the United Nations Convention Against Cybercrime needed to have a narrower scope, strong human rights safeguard and be more clearly defined in order to avoid abuse – the UN General Assembly has just adopted the documents, after five years of wrangling between various stakeholders.

It is now up to UN-member states to first sign, and then ratify the treaty that will come into force three months after the 40th country does that.

The UN bureaucracy is pleased with the development, hailing the convention as a “landmark” and “historic” global treaty that will improve cross-border cooperation against cybercrime and digital threats.

But critics have been saying that speech and human rights might fall victim to the treaty since various UN members treat human rights and privacy in vastly different ways – while the treaty now in a way “standardizes” law enforcement agencies’ investigative powers across borders.

Considerable emphasis has been put by some on how “authoritarian” countries might abuse this new tool meant to tackle online crime – but in reality, this concern applies to any country that ends up ratifying the treaty.

Another point of criticism has been that UN members individually already have laws that address the same issues, rendering the convention superfluous – unless it is to extend some of those authoritarian powers to the countries that don’t formally have them, and can’t outright pass them at home for political reasons.

Since the UN General Assembly adopted the resolution without a vote – after the text was previously agreed on by negotiators – it is not immediately clear how many countries might sign it next year, and ratify what would then become a legally binding document.

In the meanwhile, a spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres referred to the treaty as “a demonstration of multilateralism.”

Where opponents see potential for undemocratic law enforcement practices spilling over sovereign borders, UN representatives speak about “an unprecedented platform for cooperation” that will allow agencies to exchange evidence, create a safe cyberspace, and protect victims of crimes such as child sexual abuse, scams and money laundering.

And they claim all this will be achieved “while safeguarding human rights online.”

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Bruce Dowbiggin

Trudeau Parting Gift: Conceding Indigenous Land Claims For All Time

Published on December 26, 2024

Bruce Dowbiggin

Idea for a hit Canadian show. Law & Order: Indigenous Victims Unit. The shows begin with a horrific crime reported by the Canadian media. Children murdered by priests and then buried in the dark of night with no markers. PMJT tells the world we are a genocidal culture. Media goes Code red. Statues of Canadian PMs past are toppled.

The kicker in the show is that no one actually investigates the allegation. It’s just an hour of media mindlessly repeating the claims while local indigenous leaders say we didn’t use headstones and the dead are accounted for. Every episode ends with PMJT sending a whack of money to indigenous agitators and a promise to repeat the plot next week.

Okay, a bit glib. But amidst all the carnage PMJT has inflicted on his citizens, the Indigenous shell game of accusation = payout has received scant attention from a media salivating for Woke narratives on CBC. If possible, the PM’s tepid performance on this file— firing his indigenous finance minister was the highlight— is worse than almost all the others combined.

His cringing performance theatre in a graveyard was the most visible sign of this ineptitude. But for longer-lasting harm to the nation you probably need to look at the negotiations his government and the NDP BC government are conducting with the Haida Gwaii nation (population about 4,500) of the Queen Charlotte Islands archipelago. While no one was looking PMJT and his scofflaw partner BC premier David Eby have created a scenario where indigenous bands in Canada can achieve the daily double of independence while retaining all the perks of a social welfare state.

So far the tactic is working— for the Haida Gwaii. To be brief, the Haida Gwaii, who never signed a treaty with the Crown, are claiming the Queen Charlotte Islands as an independent nation that simultaneously is a recipient of financial and health benefits from the people they’re taking to court. The Haida Gwaii have reached something called the Rising Tide “agreement” with the BC. The federal Liberals are panting for the chance to do the same.

Geoff Moyse KC explains: “Trudeau succumbed to a provision in the Haida agreement to the effect it is not a ‘treaty’. The sole reason for this clause is to preserve the Haida position that they are not Canadians, rather they are a completely separate nation. As a separate nation they can negotiate “agreements” with other nations, such as Canada. But if they entered into a “treaty” they would be recognizing Canadian sovereignty. Which they are not prepared to do.”

In exchange for this agreement, explains Moyse, PMJT and David Eby received no concessions whatsoever from the Haida Gwaii. There is no release of the huge claim for damages for all the alleged things done to them nor for damages for the benefits BC has extracted from the land over the last 200 years. There is no release claim to being a completely separate nation, not subject to Canadian sovereignty.

Eby, the freshly re-elected premier, claims this is “the greatest thing he has ever done, and he wants to enter into similar agreements throughout BC.” Eby wants to grant indigenous bands throughout his province joint control over Crown lands. The province would then need consent from their new partners to do anything on that land. Say goodbye to forestry and pipelines.

What could go wrong? After all, this is Justin Trudeau we’re talking about. Mr. Sobriety. You guessed it. A bad deal became worse. BC has now instituted this Rising Tide agreement into provincial legislation. The federal Liberals seem intent on doing the same if PMJT can extend his mandate till October of 2025.

Instead of joint control, Eby and Trudeau will grant sole ownership and sovereignty of the Crown lands to the native bands, conceding aboriginal title over most of BC. Ergo, the PMJT/ Eby collapse could render property ownership worthless throughout the province.

What’s infuriating in this abject retreat is that, in the only two cases to have gone to final verdict after a trial, the bands obtained aboriginal title to only a very small part of what they are claiming. In short, the law seems to be demonstrating that a rigourous defence of the federal position would likely result in minor concessions, not complete surrender.

There is a chance to save the province and many other disputed hotspots across the nation if someone will show some spine in Ottawa when the issue is tested in court. That’s why PMJT’s government is in a hurry to pass equivalent federal legislation to BC’s for this to cement Aboriginal title over the entirety of the Haida archipelago for all time.

The bad news is that the spine needed for indigenous claims currently belongs to PMJT. A weaker spine is hard to imagine. The good news is that, if current trends continue, his window to pass the agreement— especially in a prorogued Parliament— is shrinking rapidly. So to the list of things Trudeau wants to wreck given enough runway, you can add this file to the urgency for his departure.

It’s hard to imagine a more tendentious, perverse way to run a country. But Canada has been watching Law & Order: Indigenous Victims Unit, directed by PMJT and his deputy Jagmeet Singh, since 2015. It’s time to cancel the show.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed Hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org. You can see all his books at brucedowbigginbooks.ca.