Quotulatiousness

August 25, 2025

Defending your life against an intruder can get you charged in Canada

Filed under: Cancon, Humour, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Terry Burton‘s satire-that-is-too-close-to-being-true:

A Recent Case in Ontario

An Ontario man recently had the unthinkable happen: he defended his home. Unfortunately for him, this occurred in Canada, where the laws surrounding self-defence have taken a dive off the deep end of “wokeness”. The police, after deep reflection (and a healthy dose of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training), chose to charge the homeowner and not the intruder. Why?

Let’s break down the madness.

How a Home Invasion Might Go in 2025 Canada:

Homeowner (middle-class taxpayer, not currently oppressed):
“Hello, sir. You appear to have broken into my home and possess a 7-inch knife. May I inquire about your intentions?”

Intruder (career criminal with a social media following):
“I’m just here to grab some electronics, steal your monies, and stab someone if they resist my incursion. It depends on my mood. Don’t profile me.”

Homeowner:
“Of course. My apologies. Would you like a latte while you loot my home? Oat milk? Almond? I don’t want to assume.”

Intruder:
“You’re a colonialist bigot for offering me food.”

Homeowner:
“Understood. Legally, I’m only allowed to resist you in proportion to your level of violence — yet to be ascertained, as determined by a tribunal of academics who’ve never been in a fist fight. That means if you punch me, I can … maybe glare at you. Anything more, and I’m the criminal.”

But what if the homeowner fights back?

In this case, the homeowner managed to grab a knife and defend himself. The intruder was injured — tragically — during this altercation. So naturally, the police arrived and did what any reasonable, DEI officer was instructed s/he must do:

They charged the homeowner.

The intruder? Off to the hospital, flowers sent courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer, and full support from victim services (taxpayer funded). (Yes, really.)

Reasons Police and Prosecutors Declined to Charge the Intruder (some say over-the-top satirical conjecture by the author):

  1. Mental illness – A catch-all excuse for immunity.
  2. Homelessness – Makes all actions justifiable, including assault.
  3. Drug addiction – A disease, not a crime, apparently.
  4. Identifies as female – We must respect self-identification, even during felonies.
  5. Arrested 55 times, 20 for B&Es – Systemic failure, so we shouldn’t blame him again.
  6. Member of a marginalized group – Intersectionality shields all.
  7. Single-parent upbringing – Automatically voids criminal responsibility.
  8. Not yet a citizen – A conviction could hinder his application; we, the state machinery that is, must protect him.
  9. Linked to child porn – But not convicted, so hands off.
  10. Terrorist affiliations – Political beliefs are personal.
  11. Anti-Semitic – But it’s culturally complex, they say.
  12. Illegally entered Canada – A paperwork issue, not a crime.
  13. Gun and drug trafficking – He’s an entrepreneur, really.
  14. Anti-Christian – Expressing a valid worldview.
  15. Anti–Rule of Law – Which now appears to be mainstream.

The Verdict?

The homeowner is:

  • Charged with attempted murder.
  • Convicted of using “excessive force”.
  • Sued in civil court by the intruder.
  • Ordered to surrender his house and retirement savings.

The intruder is:

  • Awarded the home he broke into.
  • Given legal permission to rent the house back to the homeowner’s family.
  • Allowed to visit the property at will.
  • Celebrated in local media for “surviving trauma”.

What Happened to Common Sense?

It died somewhere between Bill C-18, Bill C-63, and the idea that your lived experience matters more than actual law. In a country where, in some jurisdictions, whistling at night is outlawed, but breaking into homes is a misunderstood cry for help, we’ve lost the thread entirely.

When defending your family is labelled aggression, and violating someone’s home is rebranded asocial protest, Canada ceases to be a democracy and becomes a farce.

August 24, 2025

The Supreme Court of British Columbia has detonated a legal mine under all of Canada’s established property titles

Filed under: Cancon, History, Law, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Conrad Black discusses just how much the Supreme Court of British Columbia’s decision on First Nations land claims in BC will undermine established property rights across the entire country:

A map shows the Cowichan title lands outlined in black. (B.C. Supreme Court) Photo by B.C. Supreme Court

The decision earlier this month by the Supreme Court of British Columbia that the Cowichan tribes hold title over federal, city, and private land in Richmond B.C. that enjoys a higher legal status than the fee simple ownership of the current proprietors is outrageous but may have some positive consequences. The decades and $7 billion that have been spent or pledged for what is called the “reconciliation” process, has finally hit a stone wall. The almost universal desire to be fair to Indigenous people and where appropriate to compensate them for inequitable treatment, has finally collided with the entrenched economic rights and interests of every owner of real property in Canada, including those of Indigenous ancestry.

Inexplicable latitude has been granted to the thickening population of crusaders for indigenous rights. Even the NDP government of British Columbia, which has been pathologically addicted to prostrating itself at the feet of anyone or anything purporting to champion any definition of the Indigenous interest, was reduced to monosyllabic waffling by the court decision brought down by Justice Barbara Young. Premier David Eby’s office declared an ambition to continue seeking a negotiated resolution of the conflict between Aboriginal rights and common law rights of affected property owners, (including the municipal, provincial, and federal governments-of $100 billion of property in Richmond B.C. that is directly affected by the decision).

This is an understandable ambition, but in the circumstances, his government might have pressed the negotiations over the six years that this case has been litigated. Our judiciary has been addicted to truckling to almost any Indigenous claim, on the restricted occasions when the federal and provincial governments have even had the temerity to conduct a defense against them. Now the taxpayers’ negotiating position has been tanked by this ludicrous decision, which is being appealed.

If courts with authority for the whole country were to come to similar judgments, and we cannot doubt that activists will continue to push on an open door and quite rightly take all they can get, then every property title deed in the country is compromised, including the Houses of Parliament. There were only approximately 200,000 native people in all of what is now Canada when the French and British explorers and settlers came here starting at the end of the 15th century. Yet the implication of this ruling is that they legitimately owned all of Canada and that in the patchwork of numbered treaties and other agreements following absorption of the politically organized parts of Canada into the British Empire at the end of the Seven Years War in 1763, ancient and undocumented Aboriginal rights took precedence over any subsequent real estate law allocations of property rights under the common or civil law systems that gradually spread across Canada.

Given the activist preferences of courts across the country, we can expect to see similar cases pop up everywhere, as First Nations sensibly try to strike while the iron is hot and lay claim to as much of the real estate of Canada as the courts will let them … which might well be the entire land mass plus fishing rights.

August 22, 2025

Resolved – This country’s youth will not fight to defend this country

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

On Tuesday, John Robson discussed the results of a recent Angus Reid survey that, among other things, indicated that Canadians are at least as anti-military as they’ve been since the first Trudeau government:

Canadian soldiers set a perimeter position after disembarking a U.S. Navy landing craft during a simulated amphibious landing, 24 April 2009.
U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer Seth Johnson via Wikimedia Commons.

The National Post reports an Angus Reid survey finding that a significant majority of us favour compulsory voluntary service by the youth of today. Which might sound like a bracingly traditional Jordan Peterson clean-your-room, stand-up-straight, shoulders-back attitude until you read the fine print, which would risk making Peterson ill if he weren’t already. Because it turns out we want to conscript them to work in health care so we get stuff we didn’t pay for, not to defend the country because if ye break faith and so on.

According to the survey, 74 per cent of respondents want young people to have to give a year of their lives to bolstering our failing, structurally unsound socialized medical system. Respondents were also in favour of mandatory service in support of the environment (73 per cent), “youth services” (72 per cent), whatever it might be, and “civil protection” (70 per cent). But when it comes to (ugh) national defence, just 43 per cent supported it, with 44 per cent opposed.

Spending on comfort while barbarians undermine the city walls lacks prudence as well as dignity. As I observed in a long-ago graduate-school debate about American national security, it didn’t matter how wonderfully progressive the Dutch social welfare system was in 1940 when the Nazis came calling. And we too seem to have our priorities backward.

If I might confuse the government by discussing principles of political economy, there are good reasons why national defence is considered a binding duty on those able to contribute to it. First is the “free rider” problem that everyone benefits from successful protection of the community, especially, at least in a narrow and hedonistic sense, if you send some other chump to die for your freedom while you recline comfortably at home.

Second is the moral consideration that, as John Stuart Mill famously if uncharacteristically put it, “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse”. Which comes from, yes, his “Principles of Political Economy”.

Mill was no warmonger. As he immediately continued, “When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people”.

But not all wars are like Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, let alone Hamas’s attack on Israel. As the anything-but-bellicose Mill added, “A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice — is often the means of their regeneration”.

August 19, 2025

Bad laws in Canada must be challenged in court

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Government, Law, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

At Rigid Thinking, Damian Penny says — and I wholeheartedly agree — that it’s a good thing for laws to be challenged in the courts, but especially when it’s called an “emergency”:

[Retired Canadian veteran Jeff] Evely, with the help of some conservative/libertarian-ish legal organizations, plans to challenge the woods ban in court as a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is not a popular position here in Nova Scotia (in online discussions, the phrases “Maple MAGA” and the venerable “American-style” come up a lot) and I am not sure he’ll be successful.

But, honestly, I give him credit for trying. In fact, I’d argue his Charter challenge is win-win for everyone in Nova Scotia, whether one supports, opposes or remains indifferent to the policy.

That’s not despite the pressing emergency posed by the forest fire threat, but because of it.

When we’re faced with a crisis, that’s precisely when governments are tempted to seize as much power and authority as possible – and, more importantly, when the public is more inclined to go along with it.

Hence, Trudeau I imposing War Measures Act provisions during the 1970 October crisis, the PATRIOT Act debate after 9/11, COVID-19 restrictions during the pandemic, Trudeau II using the Emergencies Act when the “Freedom Convoy” set up shop in downtown Ottawa, and now Premier Houston (whom I support, despite some misgivings about this issue) using sweeping measures to tramp down the forest fire risk.

And sometimes such powers are justified under the circumstances. Even self-professed libertarians will admit as such when the emergency is something they’re personally worried about, and when a leader from the “good” team is in power.1

But they aren’t always justified. And governments definitely can’t be trusted to handle such power responsibly the longer the “emergency” goes on.

  1. The rise of Trump has allowed many “libertarians” to reveal themselves as authoritarians, but that’s for another post.

Dieppe 1942: The Failed Raid That Shaped D-Day

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, France, Germany, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Battle Guide
Published 2 May 2025

On 19th August 1942, as dawn was breaking along the coast of occupied France, a force of just over 6,000 men stormed the beaches around the port town of Dieppe in the first major allied strike against Hitler’s Atlantic Wall. Within a matter of minutes hundreds lay dead or wounded, washed up against seawalls, hung on wire entanglements or incinerated in the burning landing craft. Over 60% of the mainly Canadian assault force were killed, wounded or captured by the end of the day, and the Dieppe Raid has, for the allies, gone down as one of the most infamous days of the Second World War.
(more…)

Operation Jubilee: Canada’s Devastating WWII Loss

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, France, Germany, History, Military, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

WarsofTheWorld
Published 17 Jun 2023

By 1942, the war was no longer another great European conflict. It was now a firmly global affair enveloping all of the world’s great powers as the Allies squared off against the tyranny and aggression of the Axis nations. Against such colossal forces, no one country could stand alone and events that affected one combatant would ultimately have consequences for the other further down the road.

To that end, while the western Allies and the Soviet Union were effectively fighting separate wars against the same enemy, there needed to be cooperation between the two fronts in order to squeeze the life out of Nazi Germany and insure victory against Fascism. However, the relationship was often a strained one as both Allied power blocks were suspicious of the other’s intentions once the war was over.

Thus, we come to the subject of today’s episode and a story of the war that is still the subject of much debate today. It was an operation with no specific military objective other than to experiment with conducting division-sized amphibious landings against a fortified beach and as a gesture to the Soviet Union who were starting to feel abandoned by their Allies. It is an operation that has become seared into the hearts and minds of the Canadian people for the sacrifice they were asked to make for it.

0:00 Introduction
3:26 A Red Request
7:50 Planning and Preparation
13:32 Operation Rutter – A False Start
18:10 Reviving Rutter
24:02 Operation Jubilee
35:52 A Necessary Lesson?
(more…)

August 18, 2025

Canada’s state-subsidized media now seem to see their job as pro-government PR

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

At The Rewrite, Peter Menzies considers the state of Canadian media in how they reported on the Maritime provinces’ draconian policies during the ongoing wildfire season:

Screencaptured image of one of the August 2025 wildfires in the Maritimes from Global News via The Rewrite

There will always be conflicts between collective rights and individual liberties. One is valuable in ensuring there is order in society, which is important. The other is necessary to maintain freedom, which lots of people live without but is nevertheless desirable. When there’s too much freedom, people look for politicians who will restore order. When there is too much order, people rebel and demand freedom (see everything from the French Revolution to the Freedom Convoy).

Traditionally, those inclined to the order side if the ledger have been viewed as conservatives while “liberals” have led the fight for individual freedom manifest in the civil rights movement, the emancipation and advancement of women, freedom of speech, etc. that are now viewed as fundamental to the maintenance of a modern, liberal democracy.

But as Pete Townsend wrote a little more than half a century ago, the parting on the left is now the parting on the right (and the beards have all grown longer overnight). Journalists tend to lean left, which means their traditional opposition to the imposition of order has been replaced by a collectivist tendency to sympathize with those imposing it. It is left to the newsroom minorities on the right to carry the torch for individual liberties.

To wit, this CBC story on Nova Scotia’s wild fire-induced ban — enforced with a $25,000 fine until Oct. 15 — on walking anywhere in the woods was oblivious to the impact on personal freedom. Never crossed their minds. When the issue was raised on social media, Twitter journos took up the cause. Stephen Maher dismissed individual liberty concerns as fringe views and maintained that the restrictions could be justified as “reasonable” limitations of Charter rights. While the Globe and Mail‘s editorial board called the Nova Scotia move “draconian”, Globe columnist Andrew Coyne nevertheless wondered “How the hell did the right to walk in the woods of Nova Scotia during a forest fire emergency get elevated into the right’s latest cultural obsession?”

It was left to commentators such as Marco Navarro-Genie to point out the intellectual flaccidity fueling parts of the collectivist argument when New Brunswick followed Nova Scotia’s lead and NB Premier Susan Holt said this:

    Me going for a walk in the woods is gonna cause a fire. I can understand why people, uh, think that that’s, that’s. That’s ridiculous. But the reality is, it’s not that you might cause a fire, it’s that if you’re out there walking in the woods and you break your leg, we’re not gonna come and get you because we have emergency responders that are out focused on a fire that is, uh, threatening the lives of New Brunswickers.

That, believe it or not, was a good enough explanation for the collectivist thinking in most mainstream newsrooms.

If journalism is to be useful in defending democracy, those involved in it need to be intellectually equipped to understand the stakes. And their first instinct must be to treat the suppression of liberty as a serious issue whenever the powerful indulge in it at the expense of the powerless. That doesn’t mean liberty should always trump order (traffic lights are eminently reasonable). But it does mean that journos should demand that politicians justify their actions rather than simply helping them explain them to the Great Unwashed. To do otherwise is to fail.

Canadian grocers are “maple-washing” products to hide their actual origin

Filed under: Business, Cancon, Food — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Sylvain Charlebois on the new phenomenon of grocery stores going to great lengths to pretend that items for sale are Canadian when they’re not — “maple-washing”:

Image by Troy Media via Todayville

Canadian grocery retailers are misleading shoppers about where their food really comes from. Behind the patriotic packaging lies a growing problem: “maple-washing” — using Canadian symbols to suggest products are homegrown when they’re not. It’s eroding consumer trust and must end.

That’s why more Canadians are paying closer attention to what labels actually mean. Awareness around origin labelling has grown as people learn the difference between “Product of Canada”, “Made in Canada”, and “Prepared in Canada”. The Food and Drugs Act requires labels to be truthful and not misleading. A “Product of Canada” must contain at least 98 per cent Canadian ingredients and processing. “Made in Canada” applies when the last substantial transformation happened here, while “Prepared in Canada” covers processing, packaging or handling in Canada regardless of ingredient source.

The differences may seem technical, but they matter. A frozen lasagna labelled “Prepared in Canada”, for example, could be made with imported pasta, sauce and meat — packaged here but not truly Canadian. These rules give consumers the clarity they need to make informed choices.

Armed with this clarity, many Canadians have become more selective about what they buy. That vigilance has emerged alongside a surge in consumer nationalism, spurred partly by geopolitical tensions and anti-American sentiment. Even with U.S. giants like Walmart, Costco and Amazon dominating Canadian retail, many shoppers are deliberately avoiding American food products. The impact has been significant: NielsenIQ reports an 8.5 per cent drop in sales of American food products in Canada over just a few months. In an industry where sales usually shift by fractions of a per cent, such a drop is extraordinary. It shows how quickly Canadians are voting with their wallets.

That kind of shift, rare outside of crises, caught many grocers off guard. The sudden change left supply chains long dependent on U.S. products under pressure, and store-level labelling grew inconsistent. Early missteps — like maple leaves displayed beside imported goods — were excused as logistical oversights. But six months later, those excuses no longer hold. Persisting with misleading displays and false origin claims has crossed the line into misrepresentation. Instances of oranges or almonds labelled as Canadian, with prices quietly adjusted after complaints, show the problem is systemic, not accidental.

August 16, 2025

The First Poison Gas Attack of WW1: 2nd Battle of Ypres 1915

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, France, Germany, History, Military, Weapons, WW1 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The Great War
Published 15 Aug 2025

By April 1915, the Western Front was mired in trench warfare. Germany’s new Chief of Staff, General Erich von Falkenhayn, didn’t think his army could break the deadlock, and Germany needed to help struggling Austro-Hungarian forces in the East. Before the Germans turned against Russia though, they decided to attack in the West to keep the Allies off balance. They chose to strike at the vulnerable Ypres Salient – and they would support the coming offensive with a weapon their enemies had never seen.
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August 15, 2025

The Royal Canadian Navy should go for the GLAAM

Filed under: Cancon, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

At True North Strategic Review, Noah returns to a familiar topic when discussing the Royal Canadian Navy’s current and future needs, in this case he recommends that the RCN goes for the GLAAM:

Photo from True North Strategic Review

One thing I neglected to fully discuss during that piece, and one that always comes back to me time and time again, is the Global Logistics, Aviation, Amphibious, Medical Support Platform from Davies, aka GLAAM.

This is quite funny, as I have had somewhat of a monopoly on the GLAAM subject, which is probably why it keeps coming back to me. I think I’m one of the few who ever brings it up, and probably the one who does most frequently.

Maybe that’s why it always surprises people when I don’t throw my support behind it. In fact, historically, like most larger vessel proposals, I have been fairly unsupportive of talks of acquisition. As I stated in my Support Ship post, I believe priorities are needed elsewhere, on getting more important things done, and given the River-class, subs, and CDC are a decade out, there is little pressing need for anything beyond the two JSS in the immediate term.

At least not to the point of urgency. I would rather see CPSP fully funded along with CDC before any talks of new vessels like GLAAM. I have always made that clear. That remains my overall position now.

However, in the last few months, I’ve been surprised to see just how much universal support the proposal has, both from the average online reader and those in the navy. There is a fairly broad love for GLAAM, even among those who would rather have JSS — there is always some love to be thrown its way, even as an “if only x and x allowed it” conversation piece.

And let it be known, I don’t dislike GLAAM at all. I think it’s cool. I think it’s unique and has capabilities I like. Even if it didn’t make it into my initial assessment, I focused on vessels a lot smaller like the Vard 7 313, that doesn’t mean we can’t acknowledge GLAAM and its potential.

So. What is GLAAM?

First, what is GLAAM? For those unaware, GLAAM is a proposal from Davies Shipyard for, essentially, a Multi-Functional Support Ship. One could even call it a Joint Support Ship! In fact, looking at GLAAM you can see a lot of what was originally demanded from the Joint Support Ship in its first proposals with the Afloat Logistics Support Capability (ALSC).

Of course, ALSC would evolve into the JSS project and over time drop the amphibious, RO/RO, and vast majority of HADR capabilities. Of course, that’s another conversation for another day, but a lot of GLAAM, at least to me, reminds me of that concept—and then some.

Visually and capability-wise, she is very similar to the HNLMS Karel Doorman. In fact, you could almost call them sisters. They share many design features and capabilities that take a step above the traditional Landing Platform Dock we see in other navies.

“HNLMS Karel Doorman, which GLAAM shares a striking resemblance to.”
Photo and caption from True North Strategic Review

August 13, 2025

“[A]ll those land acknowledgments weren’t just symbolic: they [were] advance notice”

Filed under: Cancon, Government, History, Law, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In The Free Press, Rupa Subramanya discusses the — in my opinion, insane — court ruling in British Columbia that invalidated existing land titles in part of the Vancouver area, handing the titles to the properties over to the Cowichan First Nation:

A B.C. Supreme Court judge has granted several First Nations a portion of a 1,846-acre land claim on Lulu Island. B.C. Supreme Court

It turns out that all those land acknowledgments weren’t just symbolic. They may have been advance notice.

When Canada adopted its constitution in 1982, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau slipped in a ticking time bomb: an explicit recognition of indigenous land rights without constitutional protection for property rights for other Canadians. That constitutional clause has fueled decades of lawsuits from First Nations — Canada’s indigenous people — asserting claims to huge portions of their ancestral territories.

Last Thursday, the British Columbia Supreme Court ruled that the Cowichan Nation holds “Aboriginal title” to about 1,846 acres of land on the south shore of Lulu Island in Richmond, and constitutionally protected rights to fish in the south arm of the Fraser River.

This 275,000-word judgment doesn’t just affect government-owned lands. It also includes private property now owned by third parties. So if you’re a Canadian who is a property owner in British Columbia and not indigenous, your claim on what you think you own has just been superseded by indigenous claims, called a “senior” claim in legalese. Down the road, your land or house could be expropriated by the federal government and turned over to an indigenous group that claims ownership.

That has already happened in Ontario, where three northern Ontario First Nations claimed in a lawsuit last month that a 14-acre public park in Kenora called Anicinabe Park is actually unceded territory and should be returned.

“In constitutional terms, aboriginal rights trump private property rights,” Bruce Pardy, a professor of constitutional law at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, told me. He pointed to last November’s ruling by a New Brunswick judge that the court might be in position to order the government to seize private property and turn it over to an indigenous group making a claim on it.

As Prime Minister Mark Carney tries to fast-track major infrastructure projects — roads, bridges, pipelines, power plants, and more — all part of his plan to boost Canada’s global competitiveness and reduce reliance on the U.S., some of those ambitions might be snarled by indigenous land claims that take years to resolve. The British Columbia case began in 2019 and is considered to be the longest trial in Canadian history.

The day before the Cowichan Nation ruling in British Columbia, a Yukon First Nation announced that it would oppose all new mining claims on its traditional territory while a regional land-use plan is developed. Yukon First Nations leaders said that new claims are “unwelcome” and “unlawful”, and that they plan to challenge the mining industry to protect the land from further industrial activity.

Stefan Labbé in BIV last week:

A B.C. court has handed the Cowichan Tribes and other First Nations title over a chunk of federal and city land in Richmond that for centuries was used as a winter fishing village, before colonial administrators evicted the people who lived there.

The landmark Aug. 7 ruling was handed down after more than 500 days of litigation before the B.C. Supreme Court.

It gives the Cowichan Tribes, the Stz’uminus First Nation, Penelakut Tribe, Halalt First Nation — as well as the Lyackson First Nation in a supporting role — Aboriginal title over the Tribes’ historic Tl’uqtinus village on the southeast side of Lulu Island.

The ruling also gives the First Nations fishing rights at the mouth of the Fraser River.

In a joint statement, the First Nation plaintiffs said: “We raise our hands to the generations of leaders” who fought for the return of the Tl’uqtinus village lands and their fishing rights in the Fraser River.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Barbara Young suspended her decision for 18 months “to allow for an orderly transition of the lands” in keeping with the principle of reconciliation.

“Now that this multi-year journey has concluded, it is my sincere hope that the parties have the answers they need to return to negotiations and reconcile the outstanding issues,” she wrote.

Jamie Sarkonak in the National Post wrote on Monday:

This case of “land back” in action (Cowichan Tribes v. Canada) casts a shadow over the country’s property system. It jeopardizes the default means of owning land in Canada — the estate in fee simple, where owners have exclusive rights to sell land — wherever Aboriginal title is found to exist.

Aboriginal title is the right of an Indigenous group to use, control and reap benefits from the land. It’s granted to claimant groups that can prove they are descended from the sole occupants of an area at the time the British asserted sovereignty. Unlike regular fee simple ownership, it’s enshrined in Section 35 of the 1982 Constitution and impossible to sell to anyone but the Crown.

The Cowichan claim covered the site of their summer village near the mouth of the Fraser River, where they had established continuous, exclusive seasonal occupancy dating back to European contact in the 1790s.

In 1846, the British Crown asserted sovereignty over that land and the rest of what would become B.C. The following years would see property being surveyed and auctioned off to public and private buyers — but not the Cowichan summer village. Instead, it was set aside in 1860 and continued to be used as a settlement for the group. Colonial officials considered the possibility of making it into a reserve, and took initial steps to do so. After B.C. joined Canada in 1871, however, the summer village was carved into parcels and sold over the years until 1914. Purchasers included private parties (including “well-placed men” in the colony) and even the municipality itself; some of the land purchased privately would eventually be sold back to the Crown. Today, about half of these lots are held by public bodies, with the other half falling under private ownership.

A map shows the Cowichan title lands outlined in black. (B.C. Supreme Court) Photo by B.C. Supreme Court

The question before the B.C. Supreme Court was whether the taking of those village lands was legal to begin with. Justice Barbara Young (a Harper appointee, by the way) concluded it was not.

August 11, 2025

Smug Canadian boomer autohagiography rightly antagonizes the under-35s

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Education, Government, History, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Fortissax had an argument with one of his readers over a smug, self-congratulating meme about how wonderful Canada was in the 1990s and early 2000s:

What we lived through long before Trudeau was the Shattering, the breakdown of Canada’s social cohesion, driven by left-liberalism with communist characteristics applied to race, ethnicity, sex, and gender, and punitive almost exclusively toward visibly White men. My generation, those millennials born on the cusp of Gen Z, saw post-national Canada take shape not in the comfortable suburban rings of the GTA or the posh boroughs of Outremont and Westmount, but in self-segregated, ghettoised enclaves of immigrants whose parents never integrated and were never required to.

Memes like that are dishonest because they feed a false memory. The 2000s were not normal. Wages were stagnant, housing was already an asset bubble, and immigration was still flooding in under a policy that explicitly forbade assimilation. Brian Mulroney had enshrined multiculturalism into law in 1988. Quebec alone resisted, carving out the right to limit immigration under the 1992 Quebec–Canada Accord. After Chrétien, Stephen Harper brought in three million immigrants, primarily from China, India, and the Philippines in that order.

The Don Cherry conservatives of that era were Bush lite. They were rootless, cut off from their history, their identities manufactured from the top down since the days of Lester B. Pearson. They conserved nothing. For Canadian youth, it was the dawn of a civic religion of wokeness, totalitarian self-policing by striver peers, and the quiet coercion of every institution. My memories of that decade are of constant assault — mental, physical, spiritual — from leftists in power, from encroaching foreigners, and from the cowardice of conservatives.

Your 2000s might have been great. For us, they were communist struggle sessions. In 2009 we were pulled from class to watch the inauguration of Barack Obama, a foreign president, as a historic moment for civil rights. Our schools excluded us while granting space to every group under the sun: LGBT safe spaces and cultural clubs for Italians, Jamaicans, Jews, Indians, Indigenous, Balkaners, Greeks, Slavs, Portuguese, Quebecois, Iroquois, Pakistanis — every culture celebrated except our own. Anglo-Quebecers and Anglo-Canadians got nothing but an Irish club, closely monitored for “white supremacy” and “racism” by the HR grandmas of the gyno-gerontocracy of English Montreal. Students self-segregated, sitting at different cafeteria tables and smoking at different bus shelters. At Vanier, Dawson, and John Abbott College, these divisions were institutionalised. I remember walking into the atrium of Dawson, my first post-secondary experience, greeted by a wigger rolling a joint while a Jamaican beatboxed to Soulja Boy.

We became amateur anthropologists out of necessity, forced to navigate a nationwide cosmopolitan experiment from birth. We learned the distinctions between squabbling southeastern Europeans of the former Yugoslavia, and we did not care if Kosovo was Serbia or whether Romanians and Albanians were Slavic, they all acted the same way. We learned the divides within South Asia, the rivalries between Hindutva and Khalistani, the differences between a Punjabi, a Gujarati, a Telugu, a Pakistani, a Hong Konger, a mainlander, and a Taiwanese. We know the shades of Caribbean identity, the factions of the Middle East, and the intricacies of North African identity. We should never have needed to know these things, but we do.

For us, childhood in this cesspit was the seedbed of radicalism. We never knew an era when contact with foreigners was limited to sampling food at Loblaws. All we know is being surrounded by those who hate us, governed by a state that wants to erase us, with no healthcare, no homes, no jobs that are not contested by foreigners, and no money to start families.

August 10, 2025

“Believe all women” especially when they imagine (or hallucinate) offense

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

An excerpt from a work-in-progress by James Pew, from an incident during the heydey of #MeToo hysteria in the Toronto media community:

Steve Paikin is a Canadian journalist and author, and the host of TVOntario’s acclaimed flagship program, The Agenda With Steve Paikin. In his brush with #MeToo infamy, Paikin was accused of asking for, or possibly suggesting sex with a woman (who had previously appeared on his show), while at a business lunch with her at Grano restaurant in Toronto. The woman, a former Toronto Mayoral candidate who has a record of previous unsubstantiated claims against former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, claims to have “politely” declined Paikin’s request, but said she was not invited back on his show because of her refusal to have sex with him.

The Paikin scandal was different from others which had unfolded in the hazardous year of 2018. This was a #MeToo story where the public appeared interested in both sides. Were chinks in the #MeToo armour beginning to appear? As Joe O’Conner wrote in the pages of the National Post, there was “an accusation and a vociferous denial”.1 But similar to other #MeToo narratives, the accuser was reaching deep into the past. According to Sarah Thomson, Paikin’s unwanted proposition for sex occurred in 2010.

Defending himself on Facebook, Paikin called the allegations a “complete fiction”. He wrote: “To be clear, I did not have sex, suggest, request, imply, or joke about having sex with you (Sarah Thomson)”.

Paikin had been a supporter of #MeToo. He wrote that “The #MeToo movement is too important to be undermined by spurious allegations”. Did he not realize that #MeToo means “believe all women”? Aren’t spurious allegations the type we are not supposed to believe? Wouldn’t that mean that women don’t (or can’t) make spurious allegations, but only the type of allegations that must be believed unquestioningly? Didn’t Paikin realize the contradiction in thinking that #MeToo was important, but in his case it was acceptable to cast off its intrinsic blanket credulity concerning the abuse claims of women? Paikin wrote:

    Sadly, in this day and age, too many people are going to believe the lie, especially when it comes to this subject. I am mortified that in many peoples’ eyes, I have lost the presumption of innocence that I’ve previously enjoyed. But I did not do these things. There is simply no truth to these allegations.2

Surprisingly, TVO did not remove Paikin, but launched an investigation instead. In a piece published in the Globe and Mail called “The Humiliation of Steve Paikin”, Margaret Wente wrote, “Mr. Paikin was lucky not to be suspended, people say. Some luck. His name is in the headlines, generally on the same page as all the other #MeToo stories that now dominate the news. I imagine that most people who know him don’t believe a word of it. Others will think, ‘These days you never know’.”3 A fair assessment. Wente later points out “Women (just like men) lie for all kinds of reasons, including the fact that they are unbalanced or unhinged.” However, it should be pointed out that in the #MeToo era and since, women do not get cancelled and humiliated because a man (or men) made unsubstantiated allegations against them.

The most suspicious part of the story is that Thomson’s assistant was present at the lunch meeting when Paikin supposedly propositioned her. Who would do such a thing as Paikin was accused in the presence of other people? Thomson did not provide the name of her assistant, and no investigative journalists were able to find out who she was. A critical detail appeared to go uncorroborated. However, the independent investigator tracked her down and conducted an interview. Her testimony was essential to clearing Paikin, although she chose to remain anonymous.

By April of 2018, the independent investigation into the allegations against Paikin was complete. It was found that while Thomson genuinely believed that Paikin had propositioned her “the evidence brought forward by Thomson and others (did) not support her account of what happened”.4 Rachel Turnpenney, the lawyer who conducted the investigation, referred to Thomson’s former assistant as “Witness J” – whose testimony contradicted Thomson’s account. Witness J told investigators that Paikin did not proposition Thomson or make any inappropriate sexual comments during the lunch.

But even if the allegations were true, was what Paikin alleged to have done really so bad? Aren’t men taught to ask for consent? Isn’t that what “propositioning” Thomson would have been? It could be argued, had the allegations turned out to be true, that Paikin demonstrated inappropriate, perhaps insensitive conduct. Clearly it would have been poor judgement, but should a man like Paikin be fired for a slip in judgement where no crime occurred? In hypothetical defense of a mis-step that never occurred, is it not possible to argue that a man might misread body language or other signs from a woman, and interpret them as mutual sexual interest? Getting this wrong can be embarrassing for both parties involved, but does it meet the severity of a cancellable offense? As Margret Wente wrote, “The truth is that not all men are guilty of what they’ve been accused of, and others aren’t that guilty of very much”.

But the social justice contingent is obsessed with power dynamics. According to them, any man who holds a professional position elevated over a woman he is attracted to, will automatically use his power to coerce the woman for sexual favours. In spite of the high-profile example in figures such as former American movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, it is insane to assume this is the default position of successful men, or men in places of authority or influence, just as it is insane to believe all women unconditionally.

Turnpenney felt that while Paikin’s testimony was consistent and credible, Thomson made “leaps without sufficient evidence to do so and she linked evidence together without factual foundation. Thomson’s evidence also veered toward being exaggerated and untrue.” Even though Paikin was ultimately exonerated, he was humiliated by the experience. In the initial statement he made defending himself, he characterized Thomson’s actions as defamatory. However, lucky for Thomson, Paikin chose not to sue. Thomson paid no penalty for all the trouble she caused, and most people felt Paikin was fortunate to have dodged a #MeToo bullet. As of this writing, Steve Paikin is still the host of The Agenda.

Nova Scotia rediscovers the joys of dictatorial power

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Clearly hankering for those glorious days when Canadians cowered in their homes due to the government’s public health diktats, Nova Scotia has now banned almost all outdoor activities in wooded areas across the province:

Image from Junk Economics

Nova Scotia’s Premier has decided that walking in the woods — yes, walking — is now so dangerous it carries a $25,000 fine.

Not for lighting a campfire. Not for running your ATV through dry brush. Not for tossing a cigarette. Just walking. In a province where there are currently four active wildfires … all under control.

This is not about preventing wildfires. This is about the politics of safety — and how governments turn fear into obedience.

I was born in Halifax, and my family’s roots run deep in Nova Scotia — deeper than the roads and towns that stand there now. Generations of my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents — along with uncles, aunts, and cousins — are buried in its soil. My family weathered centuries of storms, wars, and political upheavals there, carving out a life from raw wilderness. This isn’t some detached policy rant from a distance. It’s personal. And it’s infuriating to watch a government use “safety” as a smokescreen for inaction, punishing people for living their lives while leaving the real problem unsolved.

The Problem They Didn’t Solve

In 2023, Nova Scotia suffered its worst wildfire season in history. At the time, the province had four Airbus H125 helicopters to fight fires.

In 2025, after all the smoke cleared and the “lessons learned” speeches were made, Nova Scotia … still has four Airbus H125 helicopters. Newer paint jobs, slightly upgraded safety features, same firefighting capacity. No fixed-wing aircraft. No surge ability. No major investment in manpower or pre-positioned crews.

The province didn’t fix the problem. They just hit refresh on the equipment list.

[…]

The Legal Overreach

The ban covers 89% of provincial land (Crown land) plus private forested land. Even if you own it, you can’t invite your mother over to walk her dog in your woods.

Section 7 of the Charter protects liberty, and the Forests Act was never intended to give cabinet the power to impose a province-wide walking ban. That’s legislative overreach wrapped in administrative convenience.

And the $25,000 fine? Grossly disproportionate — and in practice, quietly plea-bargained down because it’s more for optics than enforcement. A scarecrow penalty to make the Premier look tough on camera.

The Snitch Line and the COVID Flashback

Just like pandemic tip lines, Nova Scotia has invited citizens to report on each other for the crime of going for a picnic.

It’s hard to overstate how corrosive this is: encouraging suspicion, legitimising neighbour-against-neighbour policing, and normalising the idea that the government can criminalise any movement it decides is risky.

Of course, the commentariat is having a wonderful time of it:

And what may be the first issued fine under the provincial ban went to Jeff Evely:

August 9, 2025

Carney hints at backing away from Trudeau’s digital policy catastrophes

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Media, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Michael Geist on the possibility that Prime Minister Mark Carney is starting to recognize just how damaging to Canadian interests the previous government’s various online bills have been:

Digital policies did not play a prominent role in the last election given the intense focus on the Canada-U.S. relationship. Prime Minister Mark Carney started as a bit of a blank slate on the issue, but over the past few months a trend has emerged as he distances himself from the Justin Trudeau approach with important shifts on telecom, taxation, and the regulation of artificial intelligence. Further, recent hints of an openness to re-considering the Online News Act and heightened pressure from the U.S. on the Online Streaming Act suggests that a full overhaul may be a possibility.

This week’s decision to let the CRTC’s decision on wholesale access to fibre broadband networks stand is a case in point. Last November, the Justin Trudeau-led government sent the CRTC’s initial ruling back to the Commission for reconsideration, noting that it “has concerns about future and ongoing investments in broadband infrastructure and services in Ontario and Quebec, including in rural, remote and Indigenous communities, and concerns that those investments could, if they are unprofitable, lead to a decline in quality and consumer choice in the retail Internet services market”. Nine months later, the CRTC came back with the roughly same ruling. That led to yet another request for a cabinet review but this time the government stood by the CRTC despite significant industry opposition. New leader, dramatically new approach.

The CRTC is example was preceded by the decision to eliminate the digital services tax. While the strategic approach seemed misguided – dropping the DST should have garnered more than just an agreement from the U.S. to return to the bargaining table – some noted at the time that perhaps Carney wasn’t a supporter of the DST and had few qualms with rescinding it. The tax had been a foundational part of the government’s campaign to “make web giants pay” but in a matter of 72 hours in late June it was gone.

The government has also shifted its approach on AI regulation. After months of supporting Bill C-27 and the EU-style AI regulatory approach, a new government brought a new minister and a new approach. Evan Solomon, the newly installed AI and Digital Innovation Minister, used his first public speech as minister to pledge that Canada would move away from “over-indexing on warnings and regulation” on AI. That too represents a significant shift in approach, particularly since Trudeau had embraced the EU style regulatory model.

Then there is the Online News Act and Online Streaming Act. When asked about the Online News Act this week, Carney seemed to suggest he was open to change, stating “this government is a big believer in the value of … local news and the importance of ensuring that that is disseminated as widely and as quickly as possible. So, we will look for all avenues to do that.” While that isn’t a clear commitment to change, it is far from an ironclad commitment to legislation is viewed by many to have done more harm than good. Further, reports indicate that the U.S. Congress is escalating pressure to rescind the Online Streaming Act, which may put that law on the chopping block, particularly if a court appeal strikes down elements of the bill or the CRTC’s implementation of the law puts the bill on the Trump radar screen.

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