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Politically Secure Oil, and Other Swindles and Perversions

Turns out TransCanada Pipelines' Energy East pipeline proposal will not be a long-term job creator. Nor will it lower retail prices for refined oil on Canada's east coast. So what's it good for, exactly? It will deliver "politically secure oil" to our trading partners! Thus do the hacks and flacks paid to pump the prospects of Energy East add to what George Orwell called the "catalogue of swindles and perversions" that mar the English language and democratic politics alike. For more on why the public relations case for Energy East is a swindle and a perversion, read my latest Sustainability Matters column here.

A Conversation about History and Diversity with Michaëlle Jean

How can we expect to move forward and live together justly if we, as Canadians, fail to confront the difficult parts of our shared history? The Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean posed this challenge in the first lecture in the University of Alberta’s Michaëlle Jean Canadian Caribbean, African Diasporic Studies Lecture Series, delivered on Thursday, March 27^th. In a mesmerizing talk, she wove together histories of South Africa, Canada and Haiti to illustrate the importance of  all Canadians understanding the diversity of people, both individuals and groups, who contributed to realizing the values and human rights embraced by Canadian society today. She also noted the important role of academic institutions in filling the gaps in our current understanding.

The histories Jean fearlessly recounted brought into the light some of the dark chapters in Canada’s legal history, including the laws of New France and Upper Canada that permitted Blacks and Aboriginal persons to be property – to be owned as slaves. She reminded the audience that the old Indian Act served as model legislation for Apartheid South Africa. She seemed hopeful, however, that Canada is on its way to retracing its steps and determining a just path forward with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which is holding its final national event here in Edmonton. Fittingly, the TRC was modelled on South Africa’s own Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Although intended primarily as a talk on the importance of history and diversity, Jean’s lecture was also an important reminder of law’s power both to oppress and to liberate, to obscure and to enlighten.

On another recent legal topic, the former Governor General and Commander in Chief was asked in the Q&A her views on the controversial Quebec Charter of Values. In a frank and personal response, Jean described the Charter as creating a problem where none exists in order to divide people for political gains. She could understand, of course, why politicians would want to do this. But she expressed hope that Quebec voters will ultimately side with Canadian values of inclusion and diversity. After all, she argued, by failing to embrace diversity, by excluding some people from realizing their full human potential, we create a “deficit” of energy, knowledge and ideas. And such a deficit is something we cannot afford if we are to overcome the challenges Canada will face in the future.

Indiana Jones's Tenure

Back from another adventure, professor Indiana Jones finds out the fate of his tenure application:

Dr. Jones

As chairman of the Committee on Promotion and Tenure, I regret to inform you that your recent application for tenure has been denied by a vote of 6 to 1. Following past policies and procedures, proceedings from the committee’s deliberations that were pertinent to our decision have been summarized below according to the assessment criteria. 

Read for the full reasons.

Banish these words

from your legal writing, or says Bryan Garner. While I agree with some of them, there are others I am not so sure about. But it is good food for thought. 

The Murders at the Lake

A fascinating long read in the latest Texas Monthly on "one of the most confounding criminal cases in Texas history" - a triple homicide in the city of Waco and its aftermath. Senior editor Michael Hall in the prologue:

Every murder involves a vast web of people, from the witnesses and the detectives who first come to the scene, to the lawyers and the juries who examine the facts, to the families of the victims, who must make sense of the aftermath. The more traumatic the killing, the more intricate the web. In the summer of 1982 the city of Waco was confronted with the most vicious crime it had ever seen: three teenagers were savagely stabbed to death, for no apparent reason, at a park by a lake on the edge of town. Justice was eventually served when four men were found guilty of the crime, and two were sent to death row. In 1991, though, when one of the convicts got a new trial and was then found not guilty, some people wondered, Were these four actually the killers? Several years after that, one of the men was put to death, and the stakes were raised: Had Texas executed an innocent man?

This story examines the case through the viewpoint of five people: a patrol sergeant who investigated the crime; a police detective who became skeptical of the investigation; an appellate lawyer who tried to stop the execution; a journalist whose reporting has raised new doubts about the case; and a convict who pleaded guilty but now vehemently proclaims his innocence.

 

Compelling story.

Ron McD on Breakfast

This is really funny! Taco Bell, trying to compete with McDonalds for the breakfast market, decided to find real-life Ronald McDonalds to endorse their new menu. Not Ronald McDonald clowns, as I first thought when I read this story, but people whose names are Ronald McDonald! Har Har. Full story here, and ad below:

  

Phone Crashing

He's back and in Disneyland!

 

New Dean - another interview

Dean Paul Paton explains his vision to the students here at the UofA in their paper, The Gateway:

When University of the Pacific law professor Paul Paton told his American friends he was leaving sunny California for frigid Edmonton, eyebrows — and questions — were raised.
 
“Somebody asked if my car allowance would (cover) a dogsled or reindeer,” he said. “So I have a bit of educating to do.”
 
But Paton will have plenty of time to become acclimatized to the city’s notorious winters. Effective July 1, he will succeed Philip Bryden as the University of Alberta’s dean of the Faculty of Law. 

Read the rest of it.

Dean Paton also did another interview with the CBC Calgary, which you can listen to here.

Proof: Breaking Bad Rocked!

Graph TV is a website  thatallows you to type in the name of any show and watch it graph the user ratings. It is now scientific fact that Breaking Bad was super-amazing and that Dexter's ending was not so hot.  

New Property Rights Paper by Newman

Professor Dwight Newman of the University of Saskatchewan College of Law has a new paper out titled The Exclusion of Property Rights from the Charter: Correcting the Historical Record forthcoming in the Alberta Law Review. Its abstract is as follows:

For its failure to entrench property rights, Canada’s constitution has rightly been called an outlier amongst liberal constitutions. This Article seeks to explain how that came to be the case, reexaming and reinterrogating old theories. The Article argues that the legal intellectual climate at the time of repatriation in 1982 ended up being signficant. It also examines the key role of a number of chance factors and of arguably mistaken assumptions about legal results that could ensue from a property rights clause. An important result is to clear the ground for present-day arguments for the entrenchment of property rights. The Article thus presents a narrative of how property rights came to be excluded from the Canadian constituition and why that contingent and time-bound choice as to their exclusion should not continue to control the debate.

You can access the paper here. I highly recommend it!

Taxman Cometh

The US Supreme Court reconfirmed what I have always told my students, namely that in a fight between the taxman and the taxpayer, the taxman always wins.

Dean (select) Paton Legal Practice

Our new Dean (select) Paul Paton has been making the rounds. Yesterday at the Edmonton Journal and Canadian Lawyer, and today on CBC Edmonton and Calgary's AM 770 with Bruce Kenyon.

The CBC Edmonton story can be heard here, and the title of the clip is "Time to go see the lawyer . . . at Superstore?" The interview is really neat, so listen to it if you get a chance (about 8 minutes).

Update: The link to 770 is here.  Scroll down until you see the Track and play and the date. Click on March 25, pick 7:00am, and press play. Dean Paton's interview will start at 47:05. This audio interview will remain available for the next two weeks.

Penguins and Ropes

Penguins don't get ropes. If humans were like penguins, we would need very little law enforcement - just tiny ropes!

 

Opportunities for Students

The last day to apply for a 2014 IHS Summer Seminar is March 31!

Foundations of Liberty: The Rule of Law, June 12 – 15 

Foundations of Liberty: Historical Perspectives, June 19 – 22 

Liberty & Society, June 26 – 29

The seminars will be held at Bryn Mawr College just outside Philadelphia and all feature enthusiastic faculty and spirited discussions on the ideas of liberty late into the night. 

The best part is, as always, IHS Summer Seminars offer something for folks at all levels of learning – whether they’re skeptical but open-minded or have spent many years reading everything they can. (There’s also our Summer Research Colloquium in southern California for graduate students.) And be sure to mention that participation is free, including housing and meals. 

Details are available at www.TheIHS.org/summer-seminars. The deadline to apply is March 31.

Immigration scams

Sadly, the scamsters are out there preying upon the most vulnerable in society. Immigrants are not immune, especially those whose English skills and just general awareness are not well developed. This bulletin by the Edmonton Police Service gives examples of such scams:

1)      On Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2014 at 6 p.m. a complainant reported a fraud with the front counter at Southeast Division. He was allegedly contacted on Feb. 21, 2014, just after 12:30 p.m. from someone alleging to be from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The fraudsters remained in contact with the complainant for three days. He was told he was being investigated by Immigration Canada for failing to register himself as an immigrant. He was told to pay $11,400 through prepaid Visa cards. He abided by the demands and purchased the total amount in gift cards at a grocery store. He was contacted again on Feb. 27, 2014 claiming his wife was subject to violating the same immigration law. He eventually paid a total of $34,400 to the alleged agency.

2)      On Thursday, Feb. 27, 2014, at 9:30 a.m. a female complainant reported a similar incident with Southeast Division. She was instructed to purchase $1,500 in prepaid Visa cards and was threatened with imprisonment. She reported the incident immediately to police and did not follow through with the demands. 

Read the whole bulletin, and if you know anyone who gets these calls, tell to contact EPS. Kudos to EPS for alerting us to this. I saw some of these when I lived in the US. Sad to see it happening up here too.

Speeding Issues

David Staples points out that the City of Edmonton has now decided to turn speeding into a cash cow. On one hand, if speeding enforcement was limited to cash fines and no demerits, one could see the user-fee aspect of speeding fines. Those who wish to speed and who use the road can pay for the roads through fines. The law and economics in me sees fines as way of charging speeders for their speed.

Of course, if the fines involve demerits and/or criminal charges, then constitutional issues come into play. For one the attitude that the law is the law and even 1 km/hr over the speed limit warrants a fine, bring into question the whole descretion issue. I suspect that those who are in favor of high fines are probably not in favor of mandatory minimums (or maybe they are the same crowd) that the federal government is proposing. Both invole taking away discretion and strict enforcement of the letter of the law. Also - if enforcement get strict, you could get worse results. Red-light cameras have been shown to cause more accidents, because people jam the brakes at the whiff of a yellow light to avoid the red-light camera's clicks. 

Similarly, if the margin of enforcement is low, expect more legal challenges to the accuracy of the cameras as well as other aspects of enforcement which could clog up the system. In the worst case scenario - one could end up with this nightmare world of DC where appealing traffic tickets can take 3 years, because each traffic examiner has over 11,000 tickets to review. 

In the end, we will have to see how this plays out here. The results could be very positive, but only time will tell. This issue is somewhat similar to the protectonist fuss being made over whether our border police are taxing everybody. Unless we want lines at the world's busiest borders, we are just going to have to give our border agency some discretion in whom they tax and whom they let through. 

Houdini Cat

New Law Dean Talks Future of Law

Our soon-to-be new law dean Paul Paton has a nice feature in the Edmonton Journal:

In the not so distant future, lawyers will be offering their services alongside pharmacists in big box stores, or working next to the travel planners at the local automotive association, says law professor Paul Paton, a vice-provost at California’s University of the Pacific in Sacramento.

The independent law office, the mainstay of ethical legal practice, faces major challenges in the era of Internet services and has to find “non-traditional ways” to serve clients, says Paton, a former Bay Street corporate lawyer turned legal scholar at the university’s McGeorge School of Law.

Read the rest of the piece. Stay tuned for more as Dean Paton will have more to say and do on this in his term.

Bad and Good

In my previous post, I asked half-seriously whether we could do bad by doing good. To which, quite seriously, one of our loyal readers Douglas Mah responded in the comments. I reproduce some of his comments below, as some might not read them in the comments section:

It's possible to do good by doing bad when people see what you've done and are deterred from similar behaviour. In my book The Law of the Written Word (Carswell 2013), I argue against criminal notoriety legislation by saying that true-crime memoir provides a permanent record of harm, in the same way as a holocaust museum, to deter others from similar conduct. I give the example of Canadian bank-robber and author Stephen Reid who describes a life of degradation and dependency in his 2012 memoir A Crowbar in the Buddhist Garden. It is a poignant personal revelation about drugs and crime. He is still serving a life sentence for his last botched robbery in 1999.

And of course, societal denunciation and general deterrence are core principles in sentencing. So it is possible to do good by doing bad. 

The book can be found here, and it sounds really neat. Thanks for sharing.

Update: Here is a link to an interview with Stephen Reid.

Crimea's AG

I don't usually wade into foreign affairs, and I don't propose to here. But this story about how all of sudden, Crimea's new Attorney-General has started an internet craze in Japan, Reddit, and all over the Internet is really perplexing (or maybe not really). She now has her own manga character!

What I found more interesting was that the AG of Crimea wears a uniform with fancy shoulder pads, just like the American Surgeon General. Where's our fancy dressed AG? The Supremes shouldn't be the only ones wearing fancy red robes, after all.