University of Alberta Faculty of Law Blog

Ballsy Move, Mr. Balls

UK Children's Secretary, Mr. Ed Balls, has unveiled plans to spend £400million of taxpayers money putting "the worst families in England" in "sin bins" (which is now the technical term for 24-hour CCTV surveillance and supervision). Interestingly, Mr. Balls is not even innovating here - turns out from this news story that this is already standard practice in the UK - he simply wants to increase funding to the program.

UPDATE: So I did some research on this fascinating story. Turns out the Home Office has a website where you can read all about the sin bin program, which is dubbed the "Family Intervention Project." Here's an excerpt from the website:

"A contract (also known as a behaviour support agreement) is drawn up between the family and key worker which sets out the changes that are expected, the support that will be provided in order to facilitate that change and the consequences if changes are not made, or tasks are not undertaken.

The use of sanctions is an important lever for motivating families to change. Demoting tenancies or gaining possession orders suspended on the basis of compliance with the projects or, for some, the very real prospect of children being taken into care, can provide the wake up call to take the help on offer. Too often these families have been told that action will be taken but is then not followed through, creating a sense among family members that they are untouchable."

Nice.

Is floating the last, best hope for liberty?

Thanks, Moin! 

Freedom-loving individuals dream of escaping an ever-encroaching government and often these dreams consist of utopian schemes that are destined for failure.

 

In the July issue of Reason magazine, Brian Doherty pens a lengthy profile of the interesting Seasteading project, which is another attempt to create a free society - 20,000 Nations Above the Sea: Is floating the last, best hope for liberty?

At the fore of the Seasteading Institute is the grandson of Milton Friedman and son of David Friedman, Patri Friedman.  The Institute's mission is: To further the establishment and growth of permanent, autonomous ocean communities, enabling innovation with new political and social systems.

Doherty on Friedman and what makes this effort unique:

Patri Friedman, who has been sailing around some of the very reefs on which earlier utopias capsized, is well aware of these past failures and says he has learned from them. The Seasteading Institute’s website is as thorough and thoughtful a guide as you’ll find to the foibles and follies of previous attempts to create new and/or floating nations. And there are some important points of departure that Friedman says will make the difference this time around.

First, seasteading does not require anyone to take over existing terrain. That was hopeless; the land’s all claimed by some government or another, even the parts barely above water. And an open rebellion against an existing regime is unlikely to succeed. Seasteaders therefore will make their own “land.”

Second, seasteading is modular. Unlike various floating nations that never got off the drawing board—the “Freedom Ship,” the “Aquarius Project,” and other pipe dreams—the institute’s plan doesn’t require an upfront multimillion-dollar buy-in. Seasteading can start small, and in fact Friedman is sure it will start small, with tiny family-sized platforms called “coaststeads” near the mainland serving both as proof of concept and a laboratory for working out the kinks before community-sized seasteads are ready to sprout in international waters. Friedman figures the cost of such starter sea homes won’t be too out of line with housing costs on land, especially if people are buying in a communal or time-share fashion. In fact, most recent cost estimates for a particular hotel/resort seasteading design came out to roughly $258 per square foot (without factoring in some assembly and deployment costs), which is quite a bit cheaper than the current price of many single family homes in the San Francisco Bay area.

Third, seasteading isn’t just based in libertarian theorizing and hopes. Friedman knows that seasteads will need to have some business hook, and he’s busy working those angles. There’s SurgiCruise, a nascent floating medical tourism company that is seeking venture funding. If Americans will fly to Mexico, India, or Thailand for cheaper medical care free of U.S. regulatory costs, the idea goes, why wouldn’t they sail 12 miles for it? Among the other first-tier business ideas being bruited about with varying levels of intensity are vacation resorts, sin industries, aquaculture, deep-sea marina services, and universal data libraries free of national copyright laws.

Fourth, because the open ocean plus “dynamic geography” allows for experimentation with governance in any form, seasteading shouldn’t appeal only to libertarians. Sure, any seastead that Friedman would want to live in would get as close to anarchism as can be managed. But he thinks a variety of ideologues should be willing to leap on board, from sustainability-oriented environmentalists to members of various intentional communities, religious or philosophical or whatever, that want to shape their own lives in peace without government interference. Such communities might not be individualist in their internal policies, but they fit within the libertarian framework of seasteading itself, which allows for a wide variety of freely chosen social structures.

Below is the "Swimming City" that took the grand prize in a recent seasteading design contest of designers' visions for cities at sea.

 

Mugabe: "Zimbabwe is Mine"

Watch.

Controversial Art

This monument to the War of 1812 was unveiled yesterday in downtown Toronto. Its creator, Vancouver artist Douglas Coupland,  intends it to clear up who won that war.

According to the National Post, the figures are made of styrofoam and steel then blanketed with resin hardcoat. They were made in Calgary and transported to Toronto at an estimated cost of about $500,000.

I'll let the historians debate the War of 1812. And I will leave it up to you, gentle reader, to judge the artistic merits of the monument. Instead, I'd like to focus on how this public art was procured.

The monument was commissioned by the developer of the condominium as a "public art contribution". You may be scratching your head: why would a developer pay $500,000 for public art? Well, because it had to. There are two ways to exact this type of contribution from a developer. The first is to require it as a condition of development approval. In this way the developer is required to return to the community some of its profit. The second is for the community to give the developer a "bonus" for being a good citizen: "our land use regulations permit only 25 floors on this site, but if you decide to contribute, we'll reciprocate by giving you 30 floors. It's up to you."

From a public finance perspective, the case for public art contributions is not strong. The developer should properly bear the burden for goods that specifically benefit its buyers, and for goods that the city must provide because of the development. But public art benefits everybody, and the need for it is not attributable to any specific project. In other words, public art is better funded from public funds.

Which brings up another troubling aspect of this "contribution". Suppose the developer was required instead to make a cash contribution of $500,000. Would the city itself commission the monument? Is this how it would spend the money? Probably not. Consider the recent decision of Edmonton city council to reject a $750,000 proposal for this new entrance sign to the city:

The councillor for the ward in which the sign was to be located argued that the local residents have gone without dinner for years, and didn't need dessert.

On the Nature of Excess

Here is a fascinating account of regulatory excess as told by Arthur Allen in his fantastic book on the controversial history of vaccination (Arthur Allen, “Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver” New York: Norton, 2007). The regulator in question is Martin Friedrich, chief public health officer in 1901 Cleveland. Concluding that vaccination (as he saw it) had become counterproductive:

“he sent a crew of 40 medical students out to disinfect entire districts where smallpox had been reported, using a gas driven fumigator that rendered a house uninhabitable for several days. They sprayed all the houses in the neighborhoods where smallpox had been - “every room, nook and corner of a house, paying special attention to the winter clothing which had been stored away, presumably full of germs.” He put barbed wire and two guards around the smallpox hospital, to make sure people stayed put until they were cured. He shot dogs and cats living in neighborhoods with smallpox cases. On one poignant occasion, he snatched away a dog that a sick child was hiding under the covers. “Almost six months have elapsed since the source [of smallpox] has been exterminated from our midst,” Friedrich told the doctors. “The death blow was dealt by formaldehyde.” (p. 84)

And a good measure of unnecessary violence, I might add. I wouldn’t want this guy around when the avian flu hits.

Human Rights Commissions and Freedom of Expression: Rob Wells v. Ezra Levant

As a follow-up to way too many previous posts to link to ... U of A law grad Ezra Levant has been hit with another human rights complaint, this time from Rob Wells, for Mr. Levant's republication of the Stephen Boisson column (the Boisson case is discussed here).

Hard to know what to say that hasn't been said already.  Like any other right, freedom of expression is not absolute, but I would rather see any limits considered by courts of law and not by puritanical functionaries.

State Impositions on Free Expression: Pity the Dutch Cartoonist

Previous posts (here, here and here) have taken issue with the jurisdiction conferred upon human rights tribunals in Canada to regulate expression.  In essence, these posts implicitly oppose the idea that mere offence, insult, injury to one's sensitivities does not legitimize restrictions on free, robust expression.

In the same vein, it turns out that authorities in the Netherlands have for three years been "investigating" one of its citizens.  His supposed offence?  Posting cartoons on his website that offend religious observers (principally, but it seems not exclusively, followers of Islam).

Why the left and the right is wrong

or so I argue in my column over at the Western Standard's blog.

License to Parent

If you want to see what the state will look like if we go down the slippery slope of my last post on the state and children, then look to the UK where the state has become all controlling and pervasive. Word from the UK (via Overlawyered) is that you cannot take your children to school without a state licence. If the state deems that you are unworthy of this task, the burden of proof is on the parent and not the other way around. This was also my objection to the Canadian story, where the comments accused me of siding with the parents without hearing from the state; the burden should be on the state and not on the parent when it comes to interfering with the family.

UK Gone Bonkers!

Ok so I exagerrated in my previous post when I claimed Canada was now the land of Orwell's 1984. But the UK is truly becoming a totalitarian state (at least if these latest proposals are adopted) that would make the Stazi, KGB, and the NSA combined drool with envy.

Canada = 1984

Its official - we live in a police state, where parents can lose their children if they do not conform to the officially madated beliefs of the state. Whether it is the old Maoist China where millions were sent awat for re-education in the name of the common good, Stalinist Soviet Union, or any of the numeorus thirld world dictatorships that seize people under the guise of the failure to conform, Canada has now officially joined the ranks of these totalitarian fascist regimes. It always starts with most extreme viewpoints - but don't think this is the end. What next? Will the state remove your children if you teach them the global warming is a hoax? Will the state remove your children if you teach them verses from the bible that the annoited believe are hateful? Will we now have inquisitions to see if the children are being taught the right dogma? How can we sit in silence while this injustice takes place. And to those Liberals who applaud today's decision, let me ask you this: what happens tomorrow if the dominant viewpoint changes. Once the machinery of the state for sezing children for parental viewpoints is set in place, the state can now seize your children if you do not subscribe to the new vewpoint.

What is needed a viewpoint-neutral rule that says only if there actual physical harm, can the child be removed. Otherwise, we have opened the door for one of the worst slippery slopes.

Banned

Drew Carey's latest on Reason TV.

Human Rights Commissions and Free Expression

Here we go again.  A comedian (who is probably not very funny) is about to be dragged before the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal for allegedly homophobic and sexist comments that were (the complainant says) directed at her and her partner, I assume during his routine.  The report states that the Tribunal has "taken on" the complaint, by which I assume it means that the Tribunal has assumed jurisdiction, which was necessary (the Tribunal is reported as saying) to "figur[ing] out what role booze played in the situation".

The Story of "Jordan": Isn't the State just a Great Parent?

My colleague Moin Yahya posted yesterday on the state's robust self-image as a parent.  And so the Senate thinks that it knows better about how to discipline a child than the parent of the child.  Moreover, Tessier J. of the Quebec Superior Court assumed the power of judicial review (!!!) over parental discipline, overturning a father's decision to punish his 12-year old daughter by withholding permission for her to go on a school trip after she had posted pictures of herself on an online dating site.   Such punishment, said the wise Justice Tessier, "excessive".  It is not the parent's experience with the child that counts, nor (in the case of the 12 year old date-site-cruiser) the parent's concern for a child's safety, that matters.  It is the Senators' experience and Justice Tessier's parental instincts that matter, and their concerns that trump.

While still chilling, this might be less objectionable at some purely instrumental level were the state actually a good parent.  The case of "Jordan", however, shows that the state is, in its divided federal persona, equivalent to a couple of cranky divorced ex-spouses who have "moved on" to new lives and can't agree on who is going to pay for the kid's hockey lessons.  Except, in "Jordan"'s case, the stakes were a little bit higher than PeeWee hockey.

"Jordan" was an aboriginal child who lived on an Indian Reserve at Norway House, Manitoba.  His medical condition required that required hospitalization in Winnipeg in 1999.  Two years later, his physicians and family determined that he could be cared for in a specialized setting closer to his home reserve.  But who pays?  "Not us", proclaimed both levels of government (who couldn't even agree on who would pay for a showerhead).  The inter-jurisdictional blether stopped only when Jordan died, another two years later, still separated from his family, in a Winnipeg hospital.

Nice parenting, Messrs Chretien and Doer.  (It's too bad no-one tried to suspend "Jordan"'s TV privileges.  That, at least, might have attracted Justice Tessier's attention.)

Human Rights Commissions: Have We Reached the Tipping Point Yet?

Since the Levant case, it seems that concern about the power given to human rights tribunals to regulate expression (even where it is true or, as a matter of law, fair comment) has become more generalized, going from a sentiment on the fringe to a more widely shared unease. At least, now that Macleans is being targetted for a column by Mark Steyn, I am beginning to dare to hope that this is the case.

One interesting potential hiccup in the Steyn/Macleans case is that the complainant alleges actual evidence linking Steyn's article to actual expressions of hatred by people who read it.  (It is being alleged that his article, entitled "The Future of Islam", prompted calls to Macleans variously calling for the killing, expulsion or forcible expulsion from Canada of Muslims. 

That said, I do not think that such evidence, even if established, justifies the powers on such tribunals to regulate expression. If anyone was concerned that Joe Wingnut Private-Citizen actually intended to act on his (or her) threats as expressed to Macleans' call-centre, then they can and should have phoned the people that we usually phone when we we think someone is going to inflict harm on others:  the police.   Moreover, the overarching concern remains that we really can't or shouldn't trust the staff of these human rights commissions to make decisions about what can and cannot be said in a free society.

As to possible alternatives, my colleague Moin Yahya recently had an interesting piece in Lawyers' Weekly (which I can't locate for a link) arguing that a private right of action for these sorts of grievances should be recognized, thus confining adjudication of these complaints to judges and not untrained functionaries.

Well, Well, Well...

For some of you who have been following, with "considerable concern", the attempts to use EU internet service providers as piracy police, it may come as good news to know that politicians in the Union still remember their Civil Liberties 101. Or maybe they are just fearful that the "internets", that "series of tubes", will move to Canada. Perhaps they can't resist checking out that new Will.i.am song "I Got It From My Mama"  for zero euro.

Now that I have all my tongue stuck in my cheek, it suffices to applaud the EU parliamentarians for going back to first principles. Governments everywhere need to explore more creative ways of dealing with the piracy problem, and not resort to the age-old "seize and bind" tactics.

Should stop writing now - I have to go "check out" some German black metal. 

At least they didn't Taser him.

Here's a story suggesting that the RCMP really needs to prioritize their resource allocation a little more carefully. 

Not Exactly a Banner Day for the RCMP

The House of Commons has just voted to cite Deputy Commissioner Barbara George for contempt of parliament.

While this move seems to be a fairly measured response (particularly since it is not being accompanied with sanctions), it's hard not to feel some sympathy for her.  She is to some degree paying for what the MPs undoubtedly see as the sins of Giuliano Zaccardelli.

Rick Mercer on Ezra Levant's Battle with the AHRC

See it here.  Pithy (for Mercer) and pretty much on the mark.  He makes a point I've made in a previous post about the anti-Semite David Ahenakew.  Specifically:  the market works, so let it work.

Christopher Hitchens comments on the Alberta "Human Rights" (sic) Commission's aversion to free expression

Hooray, we're (in)famous (see here). 

And all thanks to our fellow Albertan, Mr. Soharwardy (who had already, on other fronts, proven himself to be quite the piece of work.)