Canada's Conference Board Found Plagiarizing Copyright Report 232
An anonymous reader writes "There is a storm
brewing in Canada as the prestigious Conference Board of Canada has
been caught
plagiarizing US copyright lobby group documents in a report on copyright
reform. The report was funded by the Canadian copyright lobby as
well as by the Ontario government. The Conference Board has acknowledged
some errors, but stands by the report, while the Ontario government admits
spending thousands of dollars and it now wants some answers."
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Funny (Score:4, Informative)
That's redundant. Canadian's ARE American's. They just aren't US American's
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That's redundant. Canadian's ARE American's. They just aren't US American's
...yet. But at the rate at which they're adopting our IP law over the muffled murmurs of the citizenry, how long will it take? First you control information...
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Acutally, so far Canada has resisted adopting American IP laws. This is just the American lobby groups trying harder than ever to get Canada to adopt them.
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Dude, we were just placed on your "anti-piracy watchlist." There was even a story or two about it on /. So I hardly think we've "adopted your IP laws." We just happen to be part of the two over-arcing international copyright agreements.
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You want to refer to somebody from the Americas? Call them a North or a South American. And besides, no Canadian wants to be called an American.
Re:Funny (Score:5, Funny)
It's usually at this point that I like to remind Americans that Canada is the only country to succesfully attack the White House, and there are still scorch marks on the walls of that hallowed building to commemorate it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_Washington [wikipedia.org]
So keep it up skippy. We're a feisty lot. Don't fall for that "Canada is a peace loving country" crap either. Hockey is our national sport.
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I still find it strange that Canada considers itself an independent country and not a territory like Puerto Rico or Guam. What with letting our moronic politicians and corporations run your government for you. We're fighting too many fights right now, it's your chance to tell us to piss off.
-Lifyre
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There's nothing strange about it. You can have my country as a "territory" when you pry it from my cold dead hands, because I will always be a Canadian.
I find it strange that any citizen with a choice chooses to live in a country that has a death penalty, a history of drafts in offensive war time, and a gun lobby that's so powerful it scares politicians.
If it were me, I'd have gotten the hell out as soon as Reagan was elected. (If Harper ever gets a majority up here I may well try to flee as well...)
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See? That's what happens when one day you suddenly wak [youtube.com]
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I live in (and was born in) Canada and I agree. I'd adapt the US constitution in heartbeat if was an option here.
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> 1. No, you can't deduct the mortgage interest
> on your home.
That wouldn't have anything to do with the massive housing crisis would it? Perhaps people overextending themselves on mortgages, drunk on cheap credit and tax deductible interest.
No...no...I suppose it wouldn't.
> No, you don't have the right to free speech
This is patently untrue. It's explicitly enshrined in the charter of rights and freedoms. Section 2b.
> bare arms
You have the right to bare arms, it's just not recommended in Decembe
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"Socialist pablum?" Dude, put the Fox News down before you hurt yourself.
Also, "bare arms" = short sleeves. I am exercising my right to bare arms at this very moment. You probably meant "bear arms", aka "carry arms". While it's not in the Canadian constitution, there are plenty of guns in Canada and you know it.
While we're at it, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms most certainly includes freedom of speech and religion. And I personally criticize the shit out of my municipal, provincial and federal
Re:Funny (Score:5, Informative)
Hockey is our national sport.
Actually, it's Lacrosse.
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Both lacrosse and hockey are Canada's national sports. We have a split personality.
Re:Funny (Score:4, Insightful)
Hockey is our national sport.
Actually, it's Lacrosse.
Frankly, the point still stands. Perhaps even better.
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Yeah. Anyone watched a lacrosse game? Friggin' brutal. Moreso than hockey, nowadays, due to all the NHL anti-fighting rules.
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...due to all the NHL anti-fighting rules.
Which were only put in place to increase the appeal of the sport in the US. We like our fighting in hockey
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I know this, and you know this. Which is why minor league hockey's slowly gaining in popularity. But that doesn't change that on a professional level, NHL's more wussy than lacrosse.
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Lets not forget the Blue Dot.... Apparently if Americans take an interest in a sport they must change the rules and add blue dots in order for it to be accepted.
American: "Man this is much easier to watch with a blue dot on the puck"
Canadian: "WTF is this FU@king blue dot, is this a joke. Saddle up the moose we are paying FOX a visit."
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Frankly, the point still stands. Perhaps even better.
Yep. Hockey is just gentleman's lacrosse, on ice.
The ice part allows the sport to be played (virtually) year round, while lacrosse can only be played during the one week of summer.
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No kidding! Lacrosse is hardcore[WS]! [donmai.us]
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It's both hockey and lacrosse.
See the National Sports of Canada Act [justice.gc.ca]
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Hockey is our national sport.
Actually, it's Lacrosse.
It's both. Hockey is the official winter sport, Lacrosse is the official summer sport. Check out the National Sports of Canada Act:
http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/ShowFullDoc/cs/N-16.7///en [justice.gc.ca]
You have to wonder how much time the politicians used up drafting this. The curling lobby must be pissed.
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Hockey is our national sport.
Actually, it's Lacrosse.
Don't forget that Canada is the biggest country for Curling... pretty intimidating stuff. It keeps the Americans out knowing many Canadian households are armed with brooms.
Re:Funny (Score:5, Funny)
True, but they felt so bad about it afterwords that they apologized a lot and finally burned down their own Parliament buildings [about.com] about a hundred years later.
That's one of your national sports [pch.gc.ca], and only for the past fifteen years. Before 1994 Canada's only national sport was Lacrosse, a game loosely based on an old First Nations game in which hundreds of participants would run around a field beating each other with long sticks while ignoring a small ball. Modern Ice Hockey is just a pale, polite shadow of Lacrosse.
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Yes. Hockey is the more recent...but as has been pointed out above watching a Lacrosse match makes a hockey game look about as passive as Baseball...America's favourite past time.
(For the record, baseball is my personal favourite "major" sport...if you define "major" as having a professional league in North America."
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You're terribly out of date. American football is the most watched sport in America.
Baseball is America's "national pastime," but that's little beyond a marketing term at this point.
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"Hockey is our national sport."
I could have sworn it was "Curling".
Or "Curling while getting hammered" being the national sport, and regular "Curling" being just "a sport".
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That was the British.
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Re:Funny (Score:5, Informative)
Contrary to popular Canadian belief....no Canadians were ever involved in the attack on Washington. The members of that attack were all from the British Isles. Stop believing this crap, and we'll stop saying you eat whale blubber and live in igloos all year round.
Semantics. Obviously since Canada didn't exist as an independent country until 1867 and the White House burned in 1814, Canada as it is now could not have been involved.
However, if you think there were no people involved that were born on what is now Canadian soil, then you are mistaken. Yes, it was British soldiers simply because Upper and Lower Canada were British colonies, and not all were sent from Britain itself.
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That depends on how you define your terms.
Canada was granted its independence by most definitions in 1867. This was when we became self-governing (when a "responsible government" was installed.")
1982 was when we got our own constitution. Though it's often called the repatriation of the constitution this is not stricly true...you can't "re-" what you didn't have in the first place. It was the patriation.
The United Kindom has no such document, so arguing that we were not "independent" until the achievement of
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Canada was granted its independence by most definitions in 1867. This was when we became self-governing (when a "responsible government" was installed.")
The difference Theory and Practice ...
In Theory, the Monarch of Canada appoints the Governor General. The Governor General convenes Parliament and dissolves Parliament. A bill passed by Parliament becomes law only after the Governor General proclaims it so in the name of the Monarch. The Governor General remains in office until the Monarch of Canada appoints a new Governor General.
In Theory, we do not have "responsible government" in Canada even today.
In Practice, the Governor General is whoever the Prime
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Everywhere in the Americas (and most of the world, I don't know where you are), American == resident of the USA.
When speaking in english. In spanish, saying "americano" instead of "yanqui" or "estadounidense" sounds kinda odd, and we usually refer to the continent when saying "america".
I agree that english-speakers should stop bitching about "american" vs "US american" or whatever.
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Everywhere in the Americas (and most of the world, I don't know where you are), American == resident of the USA.
When speaking in english. In spanish, saying "americano" instead of "yanqui" or "estadounidense" sounds kinda odd, and we usually refer to the continent when saying "america".
Yes, but we are communicating in English here. And in English, unfortunately, in most contexts "American" refers to people or things of the USA only. Words like "americano" or "americain" or even "american", in languages other than English, are not the same word as the English word "American". Yes, they are very similar (or even identical) in spelling and pronunciation, and they have the same origin, and they have related meanings, but they are different words in different languages.
Criticizing the use o
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What is wrong with you people? If someone said "I hate Iranians" and "I hate the French", everyone would be in an uproar.
But you bash Canadians and Americans and it's entirely OK? Eat shit, hypocrite.
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Apparently you have a blatant misunderstanding of what nutrition does vs abundance.
Actually unhealthy folks (3rd world) tend to be fatter, contrary to the image of the starving skin and bones somalian children. Healthier folks SHOULD be skinnier. However, us americans are fat people who eat too much, thus all the healthy food in the world doesn't help when you have your 4th portion.
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It does have - indirect - nutritional benefits. (Score:3, Informative)
Unlike glucose, fructose is almost entirely metabolized in the liver. "When fructose reaches the liver," says Dr. William J. Whelan, a biochemist at the University of Miami School of Medicine, "the liver goes bananas and stops everything else to metabolize the fructose." Eating fructose as compared to glucose results in lower circulating insulin (pancreatic beta cell insulin release is controlled only by blood glucose levels) and leptin levels, and attenuation in the suppression of ghrelin postprandially.[53] These hormones are implicated in the control of appetite and satiety, and it is suspected that eating large amounts of fructose increases the likelihood of weight gain.[54] Excessive fructose consumption is also believed to contribute to the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.[55]
Also, consider this Newscientist article [newscientist.com], this one [newscientist.com], and if you want more, have a look at an article published in "The Journal of Clinical Investigation" about a link between HFCS and Diabetes in April.
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You sir, are a gigantic flaming asshole. We've lost over 100 soldiers in Afghanistan fighting a war that you started and left for us to clean up. So go fuck yourself sideways with a rake.
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"breeding and operational ground for the 9/11 attacks"
You mean the White House Right?
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Cory and Trevor (Score:5, Funny)
The Americans are going to sue (Score:4, Insightful)
Those quotes were stolen from our hardworking corporate lobbyists without acquiring the relevant content licenses and now it's time to exact a settlement from the Canadians.
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time to exact a settlement from the Canadians.
Um... how about a new White House paint job?
What did you expect? (Score:2)
What did you expect? After all, they're Canadians!
You know, the ones that copy DVDs and music with no penalties and say they're paying for it with a "tax" and then they bring their video cameras into the theaters all the time.
I read it in a report by the Conference Board of Canada!
Irony is alive and well (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Irony is alive and well (Score:5, Insightful)
Lobbying used to be called bribery. It's time the people took control back of their own countries.
Time for world-wide civil disobedience.
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Mod parent up.
Influence buying and peddling are what the pseudo-copyright ecosystem folks are all about. Go ahead, look at how the RIAA, the MPAA, and the other EIA/TIA working groups give campaign contributions to federal and state representatives. Then tell me about free fucking speech.
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Hah! I thought of Resident Evil 5. So there. (There's an "ouroboros" virus in the game.)
What is the Conference Board of Canada? (Score:5, Informative)
As a Canadian, my first reaction to reading this story on /. was "what is the prestigious Conference Board of Canada?" I mean, I know what the "Ontario government" is and the "US copyright lobby" and "Canadian copyright lobby" are self-explanatory terms, but I'm not familiar with the Conference Board of Canada. When I read it here, I thought maybe it was an agency of the federal government.
Anyway, I little digging turns up that the Conference Board of Canada is basically a non-profit think-tank, that is funded on a per-service basis. So private groups and governments will pay it to research a topic and publish a paper on it. It also holds conferences and does research reports on its own. According to their official website, their areas of expertise are "running conferences", "conducting, publishing, and disseminating research", "economic trends", and "public policy issues". It is affiliated, but legally separate from, the U.S./international "The Conference Board, Inc. of New York".
They state: "Objective and non-partisan. We do not lobby for specific interests."
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Apparently their expertise doesn't extend to properly citing their sources while conducting their "research".
Re:What is the Conference Board of Canada? (Score:5, Interesting)
As a Canadian, my first reaction to reading this story on /. was "what is the prestigious Conference Board of Canada?" I mean, I know what the "Ontario government" is and the "US copyright lobby" and "Canadian copyright lobby" are self-explanatory terms, but I'm not familiar with the Conference Board of Canada. When I read it here, I thought maybe it was an agency of the federal government.
Anyway, I little digging turns up that the Conference Board of Canada is basically a non-profit think-tank, that is funded on a per-service basis. So private groups and governments will pay it to research a topic and publish a paper on it. It also holds conferences and does research reports on its own. According to their official website, their areas of expertise are "running conferences", "conducting, publishing, and disseminating research", "economic trends", and "public policy issues". It is affiliated, but legally separate from, the U.S./international "The Conference Board, Inc. of New York".
They state: "Objective and non-partisan. We do not lobby for specific interests."
A "think tank" is just a group of non-experts who organize expert-produced information despite their lack of qualifications and understanding of the topics they discuss. They can dig up sources satisfactorily, but they get into serious trouble when they try to draw conclusions. Friends don't let friends believe a word written in a think tank.
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I thought the problem was that they DIDN'T cite their sources.
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Everything but "objective" certainly sounds correct. On your description it sounds like they'll lobby for whatever you pay them to lobby for.
Yup. That's my interpretation, too.
Dear Mrs Morissette (Score:5, Funny)
Please pay attention. This is ironic.
Thank you.
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It's like a free ride, when you've already paid.
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She was going to be, but it rained on her wedding day.
Now that's what I call... (Score:3, Insightful)
... the definition of irony :)
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... the definition of irony :)
I'd call that the definition of hypocrisy, actually.
Their response is just as bad and very revealing (Score:5, Insightful)
"...some of the cited paragraphs closely approximate the wording of a source document."
Closely approximate???!! Hell, they're word-for-word copies right down to the bullet points. They are not in quotations so they aren't really citations.
This really makes me sad because it shows an external corporate influence in Canada's affairs that would have Americans screaming if the reverse was true.
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Americans would scram if there was Canadian influence in the affairs of external corporations?
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Read it again.
Americans would scream (yes, the 'e' is there) if Canadian corporate interests interfered with US internal matters.
The reality, of course, is that they do as does corporations from all over the world. Suitable screaming thus ensues but nothing is really done.
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"...some of the binary files on my hard drive closely approximate the sound of a copyrighted song."
Hey, after all, MP3 is lossy ...
Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
You didn't expect them to actually work for their money, did you? Here's the way these things work: the government pays a lot of money to an organization for policy "consulting", so they can have a report which recommends doing what the lobbyists wanted them to do in the first place.
The report is a foregone conclusion. The $15,000 is spent to passing the blame, not on any actual work, and for a politician, it's money well spent. You can't really blame the conference board for plagiarizing their report, usually nobody bothers reading those things anyway.
It's great work if you can get it. You get to sit around, getting paid to accept blame for public policy. Except since you're just a private individual, there's no actual responsibility or consequences involved. Meanwhile, the politicians can point at you, defusing any potential scandal by claiming they're just doing as was recommended by the "experts" and if they made a mistake, well it was well intentioned and they did their best.
$15,000 to photo copy? Sounds good to me! (Score:2)
Crisis? What crisis? And they're hiring too!
Soo canada is awesome?! (Score:2, Funny)
Props Canada, you show those stupid american companies what being a pirate is all about!!
Sad but True (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's actually quite frightening when you consider how much "reliable" material is out there that truly has basis neither in fact nor reality.
Is that fact reliable?
Incorrect Summary (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: Correct Summary (Score:5, Informative)
makes me wonder (Score:3, Funny)
And the problem is?? (Score:2)
I am surprised this is even newsworthy. If the Canadians want to borrow phrases from other countries' current laws, then that should be simply a compliment to the originating country.
Re:And the problem is?? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a problem when a government pays for a report from an uninterested third party, and gets a quickie rewrite of a pressure-group's screed. And a dishonest one at that.
--dave
You reap what you sow (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the kind of crap that results from a casual disregard for plagiarism in schools. It's awful here in the states, and I imagine just as bad in Canada. Copying that freshman assignment leads to copying conference reports later on in life. Any form of plagiarism is corrosive to real progress.
Re:You reap what you sow (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, copying that freshman assignment _really_ pisses off the poor schmuck who has to grade it. Not only have you just insulted his (or her) intelligence by turning in something that was obviously cribbed from Wikipedia, but also instead of just spending a few minutes reading your paper, scribbling down a grade and then moving on to the next one he has to look up the original source that you copied from, have a chat with the professor in charge of the class, take time out of his day to have a meeting with you and explain exactly how dumb you just were, and then after wasting all that time dealing with your mess, decide whether or not to inform your department head and have you expelled for it.
By that time the only two things keeping you in school at all are the fact that there's an awful lot of paperwork involved in having you expelled, and that your professor may still feel sorry for you. Your best bet is to admit everything, tell a mildly sad story about how you were running out of time and panicked, and then never do it again.
Saying "No, you're wrong, I just forgot one citation but everything else is fine [conferenceboard.ca]" is not it.
Re:You reap what you sow (Score:4, Interesting)
"By that time the only two things keeping you in school at all are the fact that there's an awful lot of paperwork involved in having you expelled, and that your professor may still feel sorry for you. Your best bet is to admit everything, tell a mildly sad story about how you were running out of time and panicked, and then never do it again. "
Right on, Brother!
I used to grade homework assignments for an Intro to Practical Logic course, and about 1-2x/semester I'd find 2 assignments that were obviously the product of "collaboration" - and no, it was not encouraged. Typically, I'd be grading a stack and would come on a paper that was not only badly wrong, but idiosyncratically wrong - trains of logic that would take contorted paths to prove "A=-A". I'd grade it, pull the next one, and lo and behold there's the exact same train of convoluted logic. I'd grade that and then paperclip them together and give them to the professor with a note to the effect that I believe the students were cheating. And the consequences to the students were...nothing.
Not a thing. Wasn't even mentioned to them. The professor basically didn't want to be bothered. Keep in mind that I only passed through the most flagrant examples - there were plenty I suspected (correct answers but word-for-word identical) but didn't pass through. I mean, Lord knows I wasn't a saint, but at least TRY to cover your tracks, please. Think of the graders!
Re:You reap what you sow (Score:4, Interesting)
Perfectly good explanation for this (Score:4, Funny)
"We just realized we could produce more content by borrowing from and building on the work of others. Ow! C'mon, guys!"
Mmm... Irony... (Score:2)
I'd wager the money and time allocated to the project were spent playing Team Fortress.
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That's ironic on so many levels. Canadians get all bent out of shape when your refer to Canada as "The Maple Leaf State" but this really just proves the point. It would seem the Canadian government is just as much in the pocket of US Corporations as the US government is.
How exactly was the Canadian government involved in this?
Additional Information (Score:4, Informative)
Additional information has come to light since the original posting. Some interesting blog posts from:
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The police won't file charge an assault easily. One of my friends went into diabetic shock, and crashed his car with his daughter in it. One of the locals thought he was drunk and punched him in the nose, and did quite a bit of damage. The local wanted to send a message about drunk driving with kids. The police wouldn't charge him for assault, because "one hit" could be self-defence.
Also, if no witnesses are present, it can be really tough to prosecute an assault case.
Lesson: if you want to cops to c
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I'm talking in general. I'm talking about huge fights breaking out in the street while the police watch and do nothing. I'm talking a massive crime wave going on over the last week, with a massive number of assaults occurring and nothing being done about it. I'm talking about shootings on an almost daily basis in an area that doesn't usually see a lot
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Jane and Finch.
--dave
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I grew up in Government Housing and where my mom still lives. I think the problem with these areas is far less the police but the people that live there. Gotta love getting robbed at gunpoint while Jamaicans call you yellowskin.(Happened 4 times)Who is the racist now?
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Yeah, that's what I'd like to know. I'm in a provincial capital city, and people get booked for assault and other minor crimes on a regular basis. Sounds more like his city just has fucking shitty police. Happens in a lot of metropolitan police departments. Small places with RCMP detachments usually fare better, since the Mounties are cycled occassionally, and so you don't get the complacency. Also, people tend to respect the RCMP a bit more than local cops. Not sure why...
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This has been true, to varying degrees, for a long time. In general it is very hard to get Canadian police to pursue a common assault case unless if there is overwhelming evidence that the assault happened and was unprovoked, or the victim suffered a life-threatening injury. The problem is that most assault accusations come down to one person's word against another's. It is very easy to claim self-defence if you do attack someone, and the legal system is based on a presumption of innocence until proven g
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Laws against common assault are no longer being enforced by the police in my Canadian city. If you can't afford to pay the courts to charge them out of your own pocket, nothing will happen to your assailant. So, basically, the police are there to enforce your economic slavery. They are not there to protect you. Incidentally, they just hired 50 more of them here.
What are you talking about "pay the courts to charge them out of your own pocket"? A person can't fund a criminal prosecution. Or do you mean that someone with enough money could afford to sue someone for assault in civil court?
Re:Canadian Law (Score:4, Interesting)
The requirements to bring charges in Canadian courts do not only rest with the Police and the crown. There is a process by which you can file charges and have them assessed and, potentially prosecuted without police involvement.
This isn't the normal process, and it is heavily discouraged but an incident a few years ago where an individual who was being prosecuted hard a charge of treason brought forward against a judge confirms it. The charge was not pursued as another judge overseas the process and it was without cause; but the point is that police do not have to be involved.
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Why the heck don't I have mod points when I want them?
+5, Truth.
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It's simply Fair Use between assholes.
Kinda like in prison?
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...while the Ontario government admits spending thousands of dollars...
That's some serious cash... I mean, almost twelve US dollars!
From XE.com:
Live rates at 2009.05.26 18:26:38 UTC
15,000.00 CAD = 13,429.53 USD