I’m really starting to get bugged about everytime a new piece of information about the Toronto serial killer, the media plasters the same photo of the guy, him smiling, sitting in front of niagra falls.
At least give us a mugshot or the same thing you give criminals.
THat whole story feels like it's ripped from a bad TV movie.
The latest (discovered) victim, Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam was a refugee from Sri Lanka. His family never reported him missing because they thought he had gone underground after being rejected. I can't imagine their sorrow at the news.
He doesn't fit the profile of other victims so far, which is odd.
Doctors and agents of the legal establishment have the right to "put people at risk" through their decisions and do so all the time.
No one in this thread is more qualified to evaluate the threat to the public more than the people who have already done so.
No offense but I don't want any of you deciding what I'm allowed to do if I end up in a bad spot mentally / legally.
We don't let the general public decide this stuff for a reason.
Again that's different from feeling sketchy about it which is totally normal and fine.
I don't think there's anything here that I disagree with, I just want to point out that:
a) Just because someone is more qualified to make a decision doesn't mean they can't be wrong. Smart, qualified, well-meaning people make bad decisions all the time, sometimes with catastrophic results. I don't like this attitude of "oh we must never question the lord experts, they always know best" - sometimes they don't. I mean, particularly in the field of psychology and medicine! A cursory look at the history of what well-meaning, well-educated psychologists and doctors decided was best for people over just the last century should teach us that a certain amount of skepticism is more than reasonable and justified.
and b), I'm pretty sure no one in this thread has suggested in any way that we should be holding public votes or polling discussion forums to decide how to deal with mental patients - so it seems a bit of a non-sequitur/strawman to bring that up.
A) I agree. While not exactly common it happens that experts turn out wrong. I just don't have that as a default view or concern.
I felt in reading the responses that some did not trust the authorities in this case to make the judgement on public risk and that they themselves would want a different outcome. I feel this crosses into "I know better" than the people appointed to make this decision. I don't think it's a stretch to go from there to public consultation on what we do with "risky" individuals.
This is such a fucked decision.
Why in God's name should it be cheaper to get wine from Australia than BC?
Beer I like from AB or Quebec? Fuck you, buy something else.
Gah!
While disappointing from a financial standpoint, I agree with the decision.
Alcohol has a lot of negative health and social effects. Those cost money for the government to address. Allowing someone to simply drive off to the neighbouring province where alcohol is cheaper, buy a shitload of it, drive back and consume it at home (which is the original case that led to this lawsuit) means the province loses tax revenues and gets stuck with a more expensive cleanup bill, so lose-lose.
This is such a fucked decision.
Why in God's name should it be cheaper to get wine from Australia than BC?
Beer I like from AB or Quebec? Fuck you, buy something else.
Gah!
While disappointing from a financial standpoint, I agree with the decision.
Alcohol has a lot of negative health and social effects. Those cost money for the government to address. Allowing someone to simply drive off to the neighbouring province where alcohol is cheaper, buy a shitload of it, drive back and consume it at home (which is the original case that led to this lawsuit) means the province loses tax revenues and gets stuck with a more expensive cleanup bill, so lose-lose.
How about we skip the pretenses and just say governments don't want to lose the tax revenue.
Making wines and beers shipped from out of country more attractive for purchase vs neighbouring provinces means increased climate impact if we're going down the greater good road.
That's also a real soft way of calling people in "cheap" provinces alcoholics too.
Presumably this extends to cheese, meat and other products so that's great too.
Fighting amongst the provinces while American producers and products gain increasing access to our markets sure is a smart decision /s
Edit: I do want to clarify that I am not advocating for the lowest price alcohol possible.
If the federal govt or all provinces want to agree on tax rates for products such as smokes, beer, etc... Then I am ok with that.
I am just not ok with individual provinces fiddling around.
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
This is such a fucked decision.
Why in God's name should it be cheaper to get wine from Australia than BC?
Beer I like from AB or Quebec? Fuck you, buy something else.
Gah!
While disappointing from a financial standpoint, I agree with the decision.
Alcohol has a lot of negative health and social effects. Those cost money for the government to address. Allowing someone to simply drive off to the neighbouring province where alcohol is cheaper, buy a shitload of it, drive back and consume it at home (which is the original case that led to this lawsuit) means the province loses tax revenues and gets stuck with a more expensive cleanup bill, so lose-lose.
Going by the article, it seems the actual effect is to depress demand of Canadian made products.
As a homebrewer, this is especially ridiculous as I can buy the ingredients to make beer or mead from anywhere I want. There's no limits on yeast or honey or hops or grain.
EDIT: And the equalization program makes this moot, anyway!
This is such a fucked decision.
Why in God's name should it be cheaper to get wine from Australia than BC?
Beer I like from AB or Quebec? Fuck you, buy something else.
Gah!
Because the decision (which can be read here, and I'm still going through the process of reading, since it's fairly substantial in length given the issues involved) has nothing to do with the questions you raise here.
The issues involved that the SCC tackled primarily involved constitutional interpretation (in this case, whether using a historian as an expert witness can substitute for an interpretation which seeks to suggest an evolving social/legislative reality, which the SCC found it could not), statutory interpretation (and the proper way to do so), federalism (provincial autonomy in this case), and the analysis of impact of the perceived injury and what the claimant needed to show (which they didn't).
It's a fairly interesting decision, in the initial summary, all things considered.
I am on my phone so can't give a real full reply so I pulled a snippet.
The way I understand the judgement means that the door is open for a province to create any control board for a product (I. E. cheese or dairy products) and utilize this ruling to enforce the singular control of sale and distribution of those products.
I don't think that provinces should have the ability to create government monopolies or entities with sole control of our access to a product (yes the LCBO and others are Bullshit).
[125] We conclude that the primary purpose of s. 134(b) is to prohibit holding excessive quantities of liquor from supplies not managed by the province. New Brunswick’s ability to exercise oversight over liquor supplies in the province would be undermined if non-Corporation liquor could flow freely across borders and out of the garages of bootleggers and home brewers. The prohibition imposed in s. 134(b) addresses both. While one effect of s. 134(b) is to impede interprovincial trade, this effect is only incidental in light of the objective of the provincial scheme in general. Therefore, while s. 134(b) in essence impedes cross-border trade, this is not its primary purpose.
"liquor could flow freely out of the garages of bootleggers and home brewers" is offensive. Home brewers are the pre-brewmasters of the booming craft beer scene.
Edit: this specifically means that I, as a Brewer only have one customer, the distributor and they pay what they want to pay. I can't sell to my consumer (outside of specific exceptions. I believe tasting rooms and growlers are exempted).
Also, it DOES create a trade barrier but they just don't care because the government having a monopoly on sale and distribution of booze apparently is of paramount importance.
I don't think that provinces should have the ability to create government monopolies or entities with sole control of our access to a product (yes the LCBO and others are Bullshit).
Um, I haven't gone and checked the Canadian Constitution recently, but I'm pretty sure provinces have been reserved that right, a right that has been used extensively on all manner of products, ranging from tobacco to gasoline to pharmaceuticals to auto insurance.
It's the exact reason why cannabis legalization is taking place the way it is. The federal government can only decriminalize it; it's up to each individual province to determine locally how they wish to control people's access to cannabis.
I don't think that provinces should have the ability to create government monopolies or entities with sole control of our access to a product (yes the LCBO and others are Bullshit).
Um, I haven't gone and checked the Canadian Constitution recently, but I'm pretty sure provinces have been reserved that right, a right that has been used extensively on all manner of products, ranging from tobacco to gasoline to pharmaceuticals to auto insurance.
It's the exact reason why cannabis legalization is taking place the way it is. The federal government can only decriminalize it; it's up to each individual province to determine locally how they wish to control people's access to cannabis.
About cannabis Half the provinces seem to have a"well.... we legally have to sell it but please don't buy it. Think of the children!!!!" kind of attitude.
Moving from Quebec and it's tightly regulated alcohol market to AB's private I can say it's about 1000% better in every conceivable way even disregarding the fact you can buy beer at couche-tard.
a) The supreme court seems to be correct. Their decisions is entirely in line with canadian laws. Mind you, that doesn't mean that those laws are right. It's the supreme courts job to interprete laws, not craft them.
b) You have some seriously poorly crafted tradelaws. I mean, the entire thing could be solved with a taxation law where alcohol/tobacco/etc is only taxed at the endpoint. So that it's restricted for a private person to bring goods across province lines, but where a grocer/restaurant could order it across the border and then it's taxed at the point of consumption/consumer sale. Sales across province lines shouldn't be penalized more than international imports.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
I am on my phone so can't give a real full reply so I pulled a snippet.
The way I understand the judgement means that the door is open for a province to create any control board for a product (I. E. cheese or dairy products) and utilize this ruling to enforce the singular control of sale and distribution of those products.
I don't think that provinces should have the ability to create government monopolies or entities with sole control of our access to a product (yes the LCBO and others are Bullshit).
[125] We conclude that the primary purpose of s. 134(b) is to prohibit holding excessive quantities of liquor from supplies not managed by the province. New Brunswick’s ability to exercise oversight over liquor supplies in the province would be undermined if non-Corporation liquor could flow freely across borders and out of the garages of bootleggers and home brewers. The prohibition imposed in s. 134(b) addresses both. While one effect of s. 134(b) is to impede interprovincial trade, this effect is only incidental in light of the objective of the provincial scheme in general. Therefore, while s. 134(b) in essence impedes cross-border trade, this is not its primary purpose.
"liquor could flow freely out of the garages of bootleggers and home brewers" is offensive. Home brewers are the pre-brewmasters of the booming craft beer scene.
Edit: this specifically means that I, as a Brewer only have one customer, the distributor and they pay what they want to pay. I can't sell to my consumer (outside of specific exceptions. I believe tasting rooms and growlers are exempted).
Also, it DOES create a trade barrier but they just don't care because the government having a monopoly on sale and distribution of booze apparently is of paramount importance.
The standard being considered here (and earlier when the Court tackles the other issue regarding expert interpretation of the Licquor Control Act), is not whether a trade barrier exists at all as a result of legislation, but rather whether a trade barrier that arises out of legislation is an "incidental effect of a regulatory scheme" (in which case it is constitutional) or the primary purpose of the law (in which case it's not). What was drawn upon here was previous Court precedent, namely the Gold Seal Ltd. v. Attorney-General for the Province of Alberta (1921), 62 S.C.R. 424 decision which held that direct tariffs on the interprovincial movement of goods were not permitted. As the Court goes on to note, this decision (while nearly 100 years old), has never been overruled and continued to be reaffirmed again and again:
[24] The decision of this Court in Gold Seal was expressly affirmed by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Atlantic Smoke Shops Ltd. v. Conlon, [1943] 4 D.L.R. 81, at pp. 91-92, and by a majority of this Court in Murphy v. Canadian Pacific Railway Co., [1958] S.C.R. 626, at p. 634. It has never been overruled, although some Justices of this Court have interpreted it to apply not only to tariffs, but to tariff-like burdens on goods crossing provincial boundaries: Murphy, at p. 642, per Rand J.; Reference re Agricultural Products Marketing Act, [1978] 2 S.C.R. 1198, at p. 1268, per Laskin C.J.; Black v. Law Society of Alberta, [1989] 1 S.C.R. 591, at p. 609, per La Forest J.; Canadian Pacific Air Lines Ltd. v. British Columbia, [1989] 1 S.C.R. 1133, at p. 1153, per La Forest J.; Canadian Egg Marketing Agency v. Richardson, [1998] 3 S.C.R. 157, at paras. 123 and 171, per McLachlin J. (as she then was).
One of the main thrusts of contention the Court had in this case is that the trial judge that decided that Gold Seal was wrongly decided, relied upon highly flawed reasoning to do so, namely the use of a single expert witness to provide a historical analysis in an attempt to use Bedford to assert an evidence-based challenge to existing precedent. They go to great lengths (like, 20 paragraphs of "why the judge did not rule correctly" and then 50-60 more paragraphs on How To Properly Engage in Statutory Interpretation 101: The Use of Textual, Historical, Legislative, & Foundational Context And How They Can Help You) to explain Bedford's evidence-based exception to stare decisis, which might be the most important bit of this ruling in terms of constitutional law perspective given that it informs that Bedford test with a specific example and notes how and why it does not meet the test:
[34] To reiterate: departing from vertical stare decisis on the basis of new evidence is not a question of disagreement or interpretation. For a binding precedent from a higher court to be cast aside on the basis of new evidence, the new evidence must “fundamentally shif[t]” how jurists understand the legal question at issue. It is not enough to find that an alternate perspective on existing evidence might change how jurists would answer the same legal question.
[35] This high threshold was not met in this case.
[36] The trial judge accepted the expert’s evidence in question on two points — one of history, the other of law. He accepted (1) the expert’s description of the drafters’ motivations for including s. 121 in the Constitution Act, 1867 , and (2) the expert’s opinion that those motivations drive how s. 121 is to be interpreted. Neither class of evidence constitutes evidence, for example, of evolving legislative and social facts; the evidence is simply a description of historical information and one expert’s assessment of that information. This does not evince a profound change in social circumstances from the time Gold Seal was decided. It is evidence of one perspective of events that occurred decades before the Gold Seal company brought its case to the courts and a century before this Court’s discussion of s. 121 in Murphy. Historical evidence can be helpful for interpreting constitutional texts: R. v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd., [1985] 1 S.C.R. 295, at p. 344; R. v. Blais, 2003 SCC 44, [2003] 2 S.C.R 236. However, a re-discovery or re-assessment of historical events is not evidence of social change.
Actually, the more I read it, the more and more time I find they spend on proper statutory interpretation teaching, which I guess makes sense, since a unanimous decision on an issue like this is probably a prime moment to do something like that.
AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
Also more specific passages on Section 121 and the need for the law in question to specifically be erecting trade barriers as opposed to having incidental effects:
[111] If the law does not in essence restrict the trade of goods across a provincial border, the inquiry is over and s. 121 is not engaged. If it does, the claimant must also establish that the primary purpose of the law is to restrict trade. A law may have more than one purpose. But impeding trade must be its primary purpose to engage s. 121 . The inquiry is objective, based on the wording of the law, the legislative context in which it was enacted (i.e. if it is one element of a broader regulatory scheme), and all of the law’s discernable effects (which can include much more than its trade-impeding effect). If the purpose of the law aligns with purposes traditionally served by tariffs, such as exploiting the passage of goods across a border solely as a way to collect funds, protecting local industry or punishing another province, this may, depending on other factors, support the contention that the primary purpose of the law is to restrict trade: see, e.g., Murphy, at pp. 638-39, per Rand J.; Reference re Agricultural Products Marketing Act, at p. 1268, per Laskin C.J.; National Trade and Tariff Service (loose-leaf), at §. 1.3; Black’s Law Dictionary (9th ed. 2009), at pp. 1593-94.
[112] Stand-alone laws that have the effect of restricting trade across provincial boundaries will not violate s. 121 if their primary purpose is not to impede trade, but some other purpose. Thus a law that prohibits liquor crossing a provincial boundary for the primary purpose of protecting the health and welfare of the people in the province would not violate s. 121 . More commonly, however, the primary purpose requirement of s. 121 fails because the law’s restriction on trade is merely an incidental effect of its role in a scheme with a different purpose. The primary purpose of such a law is not to restrict trade across a provincial boundary, but to achieve the goals of the regulatory scheme.
[113] However, a law that in essence and purpose impedes cross-border trade cannot be rendered constitutional under s. 121 solely by inserting it into a broader regulatory scheme. If the primary purpose of the broader scheme is to impede trade, or if the impugned law is not connected in a rational way to the scheme’s objective, the law will violate s. 121 . A rational connection between the impugned measure and the broader objective of the regulatory scheme exists where, as a matter of reason or logic, the former can be said to serve the latter: see, e.g., RJR-MacDonald Inc. v. Canada (Attorney General), [1995] 3 S.C.R. 199, at para. 153, per McLachlin J. (as she then was), and at para. 184, per Iacobucci J. The scheme may be purely provincial, or a mixed federal-provincial scheme: Gold Seal; see also Reference re Agricultural Products Marketing Act.
[114] In summary, two things are required for s. 121 to be violated. The law must impact the interprovincial movement of goods like a tariff, which, in the extreme, could be an outright prohibition. And, restriction of cross-border trade must be the primary purpose of the law, thereby excluding laws enacted for other purposes, such as laws that form rational parts of broader legislative schemes with purposes unrelated to impeding interprovincial trade.
[115] The decided cases, while not numerous, illustrate how the essence and purpose test works. In Gold Seal, a federal law aimed at assisting dry provinces in keeping liquor out of their territories was held not to infringe s. 121 . The law did not impede the flow of goods across provincial boundaries as its primary purpose; rather, it was part of a larger federal-provincial scheme to facilitate provinces’ decisions, as informed by local referendums, to impose temperance to avoid harms associated with alcohol consumption. Therefore, it did not violate s. 121 . Similarly, in Murphy, a federal law prohibiting farmers from shipping grain across provincial boundaries was held not to violate s. 121 because it was part of a larger marketing scheme to enable the distribution of grain. The impugned tax in Atlantic Smoke Shops failed because it did not distinguish between local and extra-provincial tobacco. In other words, it was not in essence tariff-like.
The rational connection note in 113 is fairly standard (ie- you can't just say your law doesn't primarily as its purpose do X by putting it into a larger regulation that does other things, if the essence of the law does just that).
I don't think that provinces should have the ability to create government monopolies or entities with sole control of our access to a product (yes the LCBO and others are Bullshit).
Um, I haven't gone and checked the Canadian Constitution recently, but I'm pretty sure provinces have been reserved that right, a right that has been used extensively on all manner of products, ranging from tobacco to gasoline to pharmaceuticals to auto insurance.
It's the exact reason why cannabis legalization is taking place the way it is. The federal government can only decriminalize it; it's up to each individual province to determine locally how they wish to control people's access to cannabis.
Yes I know it exists. I think it sucks and would vote to change it should that ever become possible.
But it's inevitable that someone will. If not the provinces, then the federal government. Which would, admittedly, eliminate the inter-provincial border issue, but would presumably prompt a variety of others.
This is such a fucked decision.
Why in God's name should it be cheaper to get wine from Australia than BC?
Beer I like from AB or Quebec? Fuck you, buy something else.
Gah!
It seems like a perfectly fine decision. Like, the outcome is annoying as fuck but that outcome is based on local provincial law that seems to be entirely constitutional, which is what the ruling seems to be about from my reading.
It's sorta like the laws that make pot illegal. Stupid but not unconstitutional.
I can't find much energy to really give a shit one way or the other, especially since Canada has some of the best run governmental liquor stores around.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
I can't find much energy to really give a shit one way or the other, especially since Canada has some of the best run governmental liquor stores around.
Producers, especially small producers, would vehemently disagree that the LCBO or BC LDB is a good thing.
Consumer's love giving the govt. 50%+ of the purchase price to the govt. in taxes too.
I can't find much energy to really give a shit one way or the other, especially since Canada has some of the best run governmental liquor stores around.
Producers, especially small producers, would vehemently disagree that the LCBO or BC LDB is a good thing.
Consumer's love giving the govt. 50%+ of the purchase price to the govt. in taxes too.
Yes? I'm 100% on board with it.
I love me some drinks but lets not kid ourselves about the huge societal negative that alcohol consumption represents. It's a crazy but enjoyable vice we let slide. I don't mind pumping money straight into my government while doing that.
Vice taxes are also an easy way to supplement tax revenue. I mean it's all voluntary right. You don't have to have that smoke or drink, or buy that lottery ticket.
One could argue that consumption taxes are far more fair than income taxes in general. Everyone has to buy things eventually, and those things cost the same to all comers.
Edit: And having lived in B.C. during the dark years of the BCLDB, and heard many stories about the LCBO, I rather like Alberta's system.
In my opinion the LCBO is a fantastic store. Clean, bright, well organized, usually knowledgeable staff, wide selection of product (ymmv), and whatever they don't have they will go out and get for you (as long as it's a shippable quantity).
Don't get me wrong, I like perusing the booze aisle at my grocery store a picking up a can of this small producing craft beer and a can of that one. But the major grocery stores are also good retail environments, just like the LCBO is.
Vice taxes are also an easy way to supplement tax revenue. I mean it's all voluntary right. You don't have to have that smoke or drink, or buy that lottery ticket.
One could argue that consumption taxes are far more fair than income taxes in general. Everyone has to buy things eventually, and those things cost the same to all comers.
Edit: And having lived in B.C. during the dark years of the BCLDB, and heard many stories about the LCBO, I rather like Alberta's system.
Not really, the less money you have, the more of it you spend locally, which means the lowest paid people pay the largest percent of their income on taxable goods.
High earners spend a smaller percentage of their income, and are more likely to be able to purchase things from outside the consumption tax jurisdiction, or to spend time and money outside the consumption tax jurisdiction on holiday or at a summer/winter house etc.
Vice taxes are also an easy way to supplement tax revenue. I mean it's all voluntary right. You don't have to have that smoke or drink, or buy that lottery ticket.
One could argue that consumption taxes are far more fair than income taxes in general. Everyone has to buy things eventually, and those things cost the same to all comers.
Edit: And having lived in B.C. during the dark years of the BCLDB, and heard many stories about the LCBO, I rather like Alberta's system.
Not really, the less money you have, the more of it you spend locally, which means the lowest paid people pay the largest percent of their income on taxable goods.
High earners spend a smaller percentage of their income, and are more likely to be able to purchase things from outside the consumption tax jurisdiction, or to spend time and money outside the consumption tax jurisdiction on holiday or at a summer/winter house etc.
I know I pay less in sale taxes, as a portion of my income, now than when I was a poor graduate student.
I think we've had the discussion about alcohol control here in the past, and I remember being pretty surprised by the amount of support in the thread for the puritanical ideology at the heart of how most provinces in Canada deal with it.
Right now I'm living in a place where you can buy beer, wine, scotch, and even a Bailey's Coffee at any 7-11 or equivalent (which are everywhere) at any time of day or night. It's just more civilized. It's great. And society has not collapsed.
Granted, the actual selection of beer and wine at these places is not all that exciting.
When I was travelling in Germany buying beer from the gas station cooler was awesome for about 2 days, then the selection was lame and I went looking for something better anyway.
I have probably 100 liters of beer in my garage right now, social laws aren't saving me, the fact I don't want to be fat is saving me. It's seriously not hard to make alcohol and slagging on homebrewers is a dick move.
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The latest (discovered) victim, Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam was a refugee from Sri Lanka. His family never reported him missing because they thought he had gone underground after being rejected. I can't imagine their sorrow at the news.
He doesn't fit the profile of other victims so far, which is odd.
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A) I agree. While not exactly common it happens that experts turn out wrong. I just don't have that as a default view or concern.
This is such a fucked decision.
Why in God's name should it be cheaper to get wine from Australia than BC?
Beer I like from AB or Quebec? Fuck you, buy something else.
Gah!
While disappointing from a financial standpoint, I agree with the decision.
Alcohol has a lot of negative health and social effects. Those cost money for the government to address. Allowing someone to simply drive off to the neighbouring province where alcohol is cheaper, buy a shitload of it, drive back and consume it at home (which is the original case that led to this lawsuit) means the province loses tax revenues and gets stuck with a more expensive cleanup bill, so lose-lose.
How about we skip the pretenses and just say governments don't want to lose the tax revenue.
Everything else is just fluff.
That's also a real soft way of calling people in "cheap" provinces alcoholics too.
Presumably this extends to cheese, meat and other products so that's great too.
Fighting amongst the provinces while American producers and products gain increasing access to our markets sure is a smart decision /s
Edit: I do want to clarify that I am not advocating for the lowest price alcohol possible.
If the federal govt or all provinces want to agree on tax rates for products such as smokes, beer, etc... Then I am ok with that.
I am just not ok with individual provinces fiddling around.
Going by the article, it seems the actual effect is to depress demand of Canadian made products.
As a homebrewer, this is especially ridiculous as I can buy the ingredients to make beer or mead from anywhere I want. There's no limits on yeast or honey or hops or grain.
EDIT: And the equalization program makes this moot, anyway!
My concern is that this decision will open the door to similar provincial restrictions on products and interprovincial trade wars / tariffs.
BC and Alberta are already pulling each others hair over the pipeline and I don't think it's a good idea to give them additional tools to fight with.
Cheese!
Western Canada sucks at cheese...
Because the decision (which can be read here, and I'm still going through the process of reading, since it's fairly substantial in length given the issues involved) has nothing to do with the questions you raise here.
The issues involved that the SCC tackled primarily involved constitutional interpretation (in this case, whether using a historian as an expert witness can substitute for an interpretation which seeks to suggest an evolving social/legislative reality, which the SCC found it could not), statutory interpretation (and the proper way to do so), federalism (provincial autonomy in this case), and the analysis of impact of the perceived injury and what the claimant needed to show (which they didn't).
It's a fairly interesting decision, in the initial summary, all things considered.
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The way I understand the judgement means that the door is open for a province to create any control board for a product (I. E. cheese or dairy products) and utilize this ruling to enforce the singular control of sale and distribution of those products.
I don't think that provinces should have the ability to create government monopolies or entities with sole control of our access to a product (yes the LCBO and others are Bullshit).
[125] We conclude that the primary purpose of s. 134(b) is to prohibit holding excessive quantities of liquor from supplies not managed by the province. New Brunswick’s ability to exercise oversight over liquor supplies in the province would be undermined if non-Corporation liquor could flow freely across borders and out of the garages of bootleggers and home brewers. The prohibition imposed in s. 134(b) addresses both. While one effect of s. 134(b) is to impede interprovincial trade, this effect is only incidental in light of the objective of the provincial scheme in general. Therefore, while s. 134(b) in essence impedes cross-border trade, this is not its primary purpose.
"liquor could flow freely out of the garages of bootleggers and home brewers" is offensive. Home brewers are the pre-brewmasters of the booming craft beer scene.
Edit: this specifically means that I, as a Brewer only have one customer, the distributor and they pay what they want to pay. I can't sell to my consumer (outside of specific exceptions. I believe tasting rooms and growlers are exempted).
Also, it DOES create a trade barrier but they just don't care because the government having a monopoly on sale and distribution of booze apparently is of paramount importance.
Um, I haven't gone and checked the Canadian Constitution recently, but I'm pretty sure provinces have been reserved that right, a right that has been used extensively on all manner of products, ranging from tobacco to gasoline to pharmaceuticals to auto insurance.
It's the exact reason why cannabis legalization is taking place the way it is. The federal government can only decriminalize it; it's up to each individual province to determine locally how they wish to control people's access to cannabis.
About cannabis Half the provinces seem to have a"well.... we legally have to sell it but please don't buy it. Think of the children!!!!" kind of attitude.
Moving from Quebec and it's tightly regulated alcohol market to AB's private I can say it's about 1000% better in every conceivable way even disregarding the fact you can buy beer at couche-tard.
a) The supreme court seems to be correct. Their decisions is entirely in line with canadian laws. Mind you, that doesn't mean that those laws are right. It's the supreme courts job to interprete laws, not craft them.
b) You have some seriously poorly crafted tradelaws. I mean, the entire thing could be solved with a taxation law where alcohol/tobacco/etc is only taxed at the endpoint. So that it's restricted for a private person to bring goods across province lines, but where a grocer/restaurant could order it across the border and then it's taxed at the point of consumption/consumer sale. Sales across province lines shouldn't be penalized more than international imports.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
The standard being considered here (and earlier when the Court tackles the other issue regarding expert interpretation of the Licquor Control Act), is not whether a trade barrier exists at all as a result of legislation, but rather whether a trade barrier that arises out of legislation is an "incidental effect of a regulatory scheme" (in which case it is constitutional) or the primary purpose of the law (in which case it's not). What was drawn upon here was previous Court precedent, namely the Gold Seal Ltd. v. Attorney-General for the Province of Alberta (1921), 62 S.C.R. 424 decision which held that direct tariffs on the interprovincial movement of goods were not permitted. As the Court goes on to note, this decision (while nearly 100 years old), has never been overruled and continued to be reaffirmed again and again:
One of the main thrusts of contention the Court had in this case is that the trial judge that decided that Gold Seal was wrongly decided, relied upon highly flawed reasoning to do so, namely the use of a single expert witness to provide a historical analysis in an attempt to use Bedford to assert an evidence-based challenge to existing precedent. They go to great lengths (like, 20 paragraphs of "why the judge did not rule correctly" and then 50-60 more paragraphs on How To Properly Engage in Statutory Interpretation 101: The Use of Textual, Historical, Legislative, & Foundational Context And How They Can Help You) to explain Bedford's evidence-based exception to stare decisis, which might be the most important bit of this ruling in terms of constitutional law perspective given that it informs that Bedford test with a specific example and notes how and why it does not meet the test:
Actually, the more I read it, the more and more time I find they spend on proper statutory interpretation teaching, which I guess makes sense, since a unanimous decision on an issue like this is probably a prime moment to do something like that.
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[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
The rational connection note in 113 is fairly standard (ie- you can't just say your law doesn't primarily as its purpose do X by putting it into a larger regulation that does other things, if the essence of the law does just that).
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[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
But it's inevitable that someone will. If not the provinces, then the federal government. Which would, admittedly, eliminate the inter-provincial border issue, but would presumably prompt a variety of others.
Moose enters Prince George man's garage to lick pickup
It seems like a perfectly fine decision. Like, the outcome is annoying as fuck but that outcome is based on local provincial law that seems to be entirely constitutional, which is what the ruling seems to be about from my reading.
It's sorta like the laws that make pot illegal. Stupid but not unconstitutional.
Producers, especially small producers, would vehemently disagree that the LCBO or BC LDB is a good thing.
Consumer's love giving the govt. 50%+ of the purchase price to the govt. in taxes too.
Yes? I'm 100% on board with it.
I love me some drinks but lets not kid ourselves about the huge societal negative that alcohol consumption represents. It's a crazy but enjoyable vice we let slide. I don't mind pumping money straight into my government while doing that.
One could argue that consumption taxes are far more fair than income taxes in general. Everyone has to buy things eventually, and those things cost the same to all comers.
Edit: And having lived in B.C. during the dark years of the BCLDB, and heard many stories about the LCBO, I rather like Alberta's system.
I never finish anyth
In my opinion the LCBO is a fantastic store. Clean, bright, well organized, usually knowledgeable staff, wide selection of product (ymmv), and whatever they don't have they will go out and get for you (as long as it's a shippable quantity).
Don't get me wrong, I like perusing the booze aisle at my grocery store a picking up a can of this small producing craft beer and a can of that one. But the major grocery stores are also good retail environments, just like the LCBO is.
Not really, the less money you have, the more of it you spend locally, which means the lowest paid people pay the largest percent of their income on taxable goods.
High earners spend a smaller percentage of their income, and are more likely to be able to purchase things from outside the consumption tax jurisdiction, or to spend time and money outside the consumption tax jurisdiction on holiday or at a summer/winter house etc.
MWO: Adamski
I know I pay less in sale taxes, as a portion of my income, now than when I was a poor graduate student.
I never finish anyth
Right now I'm living in a place where you can buy beer, wine, scotch, and even a Bailey's Coffee at any 7-11 or equivalent (which are everywhere) at any time of day or night. It's just more civilized. It's great. And society has not collapsed.
Granted, the actual selection of beer and wine at these places is not all that exciting.
I have probably 100 liters of beer in my garage right now, social laws aren't saving me, the fact I don't want to be fat is saving me. It's seriously not hard to make alcohol and slagging on homebrewers is a dick move.
Growing up in northwestern Ontario made it really easy to hate alcohol. I wish society treated it more like cigarettes.
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
I purchase alcohol from the liquor store, like, once a year? Maybe less?
Homebrewing has gotten to the point where a monkey can create good beer.
I'll purchase something I haven't tried to see if I want to make it myself.
We're friends, right?
Also homemade grappa, but I'm pretty sure that was pretty illegal on account of the explosion risk. Grandparents can be stubborn.
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Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
PA meet-up? We're basically the Bullet Farm of Alberta.