Canadian Politics Thread

[4petesake]

36 minutes ago, Optimist Prime said:

Every single person imprisoned by the state needs to have the means to not only have a faint hope of eventual freedom, but also some mechanism of review about their time in prison. I can not think of a single case where this should not be true. 

 

As to King Heffy's sentiment that cases like this make an argument for capital punishment: I disagree. Killing as a punishment for killing is about as backwards as you can get. Not only that but what if the state is wrong? If the state murders a single person who was innocent, the entire justice system is not worth having, in my opinion, when we can and do incarcerate the worst offenders well into their feeble years if not for life. The extremely rare case, I can't think of ANY in Canada, where a murderer is let out and they murder again is so absolutely infinitesimally small chance of happening that it isn't worth legislating for. Would be like passing a law that bans rape on the moon. Sure we don't want anyone raped on the moon, but is it worth the hours/money spent to make that an actual law? I get it though, it feels right to want to revenge a death in the most heinous way or many deaths from one psycho by murdering that psycho, but aside from revenge, what does the nation get out of that? I don't think much at all. And the actual person who has to inflict the penalty: are they not now a murderer? 

 

I stand fully completely 100% opposed to the death penalty for these and many more reasons. 

While I agree with your views on capital punishment and the faint hope clause for parole I have strong feelings on the parole  system itself.  It’s probably underfunded and overworked and definitely needs improvements. Here is  one case of a killer let out on early parole and killing again.

 

QUEBEC -- Quebec's justice minister is questioning whether the federal parole board has enough resources to properly evaluate the risk prisoners pose to the public following the slaying of a 22-year-old woman -- allegedly by a man previously convicted of murder and out on parole.

 

Sonia LeBel told reporters Friday she was extremely concerned by the facts surrounding the death of Marylene Levesque, a sex worker allegedly killed by 51-year-old Eustachio Gallese in a Quebec City hotel on Wednesday.

 

In 2006, Gallese was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 15 years, after he killed his 32-year-old partner, Chantale Deschenes, by beating her with a hammer before repeatedly stabbing her. The parole board in 2007 concluded Gallese posed a "high risk" of committing violence against a partner. But the board had since revised its evaluation to "moderate," and by 2016, had allowed him out of prison on supervised outings. The board released him to a halfway house in March.

https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-wants-answers-from-canada-after-convicted-killer-out-on-parole-allegedly-kills-again-1.4783198

 

 

 

[Optimist Prime]

8 minutes ago, 4petesake said:

While I agree with your views on capital punishment and the faint hope clause for parole I have strong feelings on the parole  system itself.  It’s probably underfunded and overworked and definitely needs improvements. Here is  one case of a killer let out on early parole and killing again.

 

QUEBEC -- Quebec's justice minister is questioning whether the federal parole board has enough resources to properly evaluate the risk prisoners pose to the public following the slaying of a 22-year-old woman -- allegedly by a man previously convicted of murder and out on parole.

 

Sonia LeBel told reporters Friday she was extremely concerned by the facts surrounding the death of Marylene Levesque, a sex worker allegedly killed by 51-year-old Eustachio Gallese in a Quebec City hotel on Wednesday.

 

In 2006, Gallese was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 15 years, after he killed his 32-year-old partner, Chantale Deschenes, by beating her with a hammer before repeatedly stabbing her. The parole board in 2007 concluded Gallese posed a "high risk" of committing violence against a partner. But the board had since revised its evaluation to "moderate," and by 2016, had allowed him out of prison on supervised outings. The board released him to a halfway house in March.

https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-wants-answers-from-canada-after-convicted-killer-out-on-parole-allegedly-kills-again-1.4783198

 

 

 

I wonder if he was found guilty, or that from last wednesday? I don't have time to research but I am curious if any canadian convicted murderers have been found guilty of murder? This one sounds like it, but not clear if he is a suspect or a convicted re-murderer. 

[RupertKBD]

13 minutes ago, 4petesake said:

While I agree with your views on capital punishment and the faint hope clause for parole I have strong feelings on the parole  system itself.  It’s probably underfunded and overworked and definitely needs improvements. Here is  one case of a killer let out on early parole and killing again.

 

QUEBEC -- Quebec's justice minister is questioning whether the federal parole board has enough resources to properly evaluate the risk prisoners pose to the public following the slaying of a 22-year-old woman -- allegedly by a man previously convicted of murder and out on parole.

 

Sonia LeBel told reporters Friday she was extremely concerned by the facts surrounding the death of Marylene Levesque, a sex worker allegedly killed by 51-year-old Eustachio Gallese in a Quebec City hotel on Wednesday.

 

In 2006, Gallese was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 15 years, after he killed his 32-year-old partner, Chantale Deschenes, by beating her with a hammer before repeatedly stabbing her. The parole board in 2007 concluded Gallese posed a "high risk" of committing violence against a partner. But the board had since revised its evaluation to "moderate," and by 2016, had allowed him out of prison on supervised outings. The board released him to a halfway house in March.

https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-wants-answers-from-canada-after-convicted-killer-out-on-parole-allegedly-kills-again-1.4783198

 

 

This is terrible of course, but it appears to be more of a failure to properly administer the system, than it is a failing of the system itself.

[4petesake]

6 minutes ago, Optimist Prime said:

I wonder if he was found guilty, or that from last wednesday? I don't have time to research but I am curious if any canadian convicted murderers have been found guilty of murder? This one sounds like it, but not clear if he is a suspect or a convicted re-murderer. 

 

Yes he pled guilty to first and was sentenced to 25 years without parole.

 

1 minute ago, RupertKBD said:

 

This is terrible of course, but it appears to be more of a failure to properly administer the system, than it is a failing of the system itself.

 

I agree, as I said the system is underfunded and overworked.

 

My feeling is that one innocent person put to death by capital punishment is too many but one innocent person murdered by a killer on parole is  too many so we best be sure to operate the parole system as strictly and humanely as possible. Public safety needs to considered at least on par or above that of a convicted killer, rapist, etc.

[Duodenum]

1 hour ago, Wiggums said:

 

Lockdowns and certain regulations have played a large role in increased homelessness, drug use, depression, suicide, worldwide.  Supply chain issues and increased prices has caused mass amounts of child deaths in poorer countries.

 

These things will be felt around the world for a long time.  I look at the larger picture

 

I made all of these points already, each one of these points is made with the thoughts of fellow humans in mind.

 

It's an opinion and a viewpoint. 

 

Your explosion and calling in the mods was way over the top.

 

I feel like another issue not talked about is it put a lot of kids 2 years behind in socialization and academics. 

 

I feel like you put too much of the blame on lockdowns and not enough on covid itself. It was a new virus that had starting killing younger, healthy people at the beginning of the pandemic, which rightly caused some panic. Governments were perhaps overly cautious at the tailend of the lockdowns but it's hard to justify opening things up unless you're absolutely sure. People's lives were at risk. 

[RupertKBD]

1 minute ago, Duodenum said:

I feel like another issue not talked about is it put a lot of kids 2 years behind in socialization and academics. 

 

I feel like you put too much of the blame on lockdowns and not enough on covid itself. It was a new virus that had starting killing younger, healthy people at the beginning of the pandemic, which rightly caused some panic. Governments were perhaps overly cautious at the tailend of the lockdowns but it's hard to justify opening things up unless you're absolutely sure. People's lives were at risk. 

 

I think this is something that often gets swept aside....we keep hearing things from the "freedoms" crowd, saying it only kills old and / obese people. The fact is, those folks were the most vulnerable and therefore made up the majority of deaths......but....As you point out, it was a new virus and we didn't know what the effect on younger, healthier people would be. We may have suspected, but but if we had acted on those suspicions and been wrong? How many people could have died because we made a life and death decision without enough information?

 

Besides which, even if there was evidence to support that claim, we were constantly seeing new variants, with varying degrees of severity and contagiousness. What might have affected primarily older people in an early variant could have mutated to become universally harmful. We couldn't know.

 

IMHO, all of this talk about how we "went overboard" on health measures in the Pandemic version of Monday morning quarterbacking.

 

 

[Bob Long]

1 hour ago, Ricky Ravioli said:

If you TRULY believe someone isn't arguing in good faith or trolling, ignore or move on. Insulting people and hurling insults or silly memes isn't how to have proper discussion imo

 

So just leave misleading stuff unanswered. 

[Optimist Prime]

50 minutes ago, 4petesake said:

 

Yes he pled guilty to first and was sentenced to 25 years without parole.

 

 

I agree, as I said the system is underfunded and overworked.

 

My feeling is that one innocent person put to death by capital punishment is too many but one innocent person murdered by a killer on parole is  too many so we best be sure to operate the parole system as strictly and humanely as possible. Public safety needs to considered at least on par or above that of a convicted killer, rapist, etc.

I found some time to research and found John Martin Crawford also murdered again after being paroled from a murder sentence. 

 

Might be the same case, dunno.

 

So from what I can see, there is one, perhaps two cases of this in all of Canadian legal history. While horrible, hardly the evidence to reshape the entire parole system on account of. I don't know or course what is best, but I lean towards the Parole Board people making the decisions are likely the reason for the two anomalies. These two should obviously in hindsight not been allowed out. in a decade there are 7 or 8 thousand murderers in Canada. Over a forty year period perhaps 30 thousand murderers. Two got  out and killed again. I feel for the victims and their families but hardlly compelling stuff to overhaul the system with. Better to spend on preventing those 28,000,998 other murders from happening in the first place. 

[King Heffy]

The bigger concern is sexual offenders.  We need some kind of means to keep those who are highly likely to reoffend locked up.  If not in prison, then in psychiatric care.

[Optimist Prime]

6 minutes ago, King Heffy said:

The bigger concern is sexual offenders.  We need some kind of means to keep those who are highly likely to reoffend locked up.  If not in prison, then in psychiatric care.

from my criminal justice days: sexual offenders who complete their sentences and are then freed have a low recidivism rate (0.14% up to 1979 and 0.07% after 1980) while I can only anecdotally say I think more than 1% of the population at some point in their lives make a sexual offense. Shrug, still bad, can't condone it, but my overall feel is that this is only really an issue by and large in the minds of people who are fearful about the kinds of people who would do such a thing in the first place. Not much of an opinion really. Maybe stiffer original sentences, but again not really a sufficient reason to overhaul the system: outside of 'revenge' feelings. "He did what to my niece? He better die in prison!" is a normal reaction I think, but in reality we are paying a million dollars to house a criminal for 4 years. 40 years is then ten million. Is that scumbag worth ten million to you? Not to me. Lock him up long enough for him to realize what he did is wrong and will not be tolerated, then spare the taxpayer. 

Quote

samples that included 55,944 offenders, a total number of 226 estimations of sexual recidivism rates were pooled. Overall, the mean of the pooled base rate of sexual recidivism was .14 (95% C.I. = .13-.15). Rates were heterogenous across sampling periods (Q = 98.09, p < .001) and steadily decreased from the 1940-1979 period (Mean = .23; 95% C.I. = .18-.28) to the 2010-2019 period (Mean = .07; 95% C.I. = .05-.09), a drop of 69.6%.

 

[King Heffy]

5 minutes ago, Optimist Prime said:

from my criminal justice days: sexual offenders who complete their sentences and are then freed have a low recidivism rate (0.14% up to 1979 and 0.07% after 1980) while I can only anecdotally say I think more than 1% of the population at some point in their lives make a sexual offense. Shrug, still bad, can't condone it, but my overall feel is that this is only really an issue by and large in the minds of people who are fearful about the kinds of people who would do such a thing in the first place. Not much of an opinion really. Maybe stiffer original sentences, but again not really a sufficient reason to overhaul the system: outside of 'revenge' feelings. "He did what to my niece? He better die in prison!" is a normal reaction I think, but in reality we are paying a million dollars to house a criminal for 4 years. 40 years is then ten million. Is that scumbag worth ten million to you? Not to me. Lock him up long enough for him to realize what he did is wrong and will not be tolerated, then spare the taxpayer. 

 

That works with some, but if they're assessed as a high likelihood to reoffend then yeah, I want that 10 million spent.

[NewbieCanuckFan]

 

[King Heffy]

3 minutes ago, NewbieCanuckFan said:

 

I had assumed it would be at least in a secure database.  This is even more ridiculous and I can't wait to see the attack ads.

[The Arrogant Worms]

Liberals and New Democrats reach a deal on pharmacare

Deal sets out pharmacare framework and will cover contraception, diabetes treatment

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberals-ndp-pharmacare-deal-1.7123952

[Satchmo]

1 hour ago, Ricky Ravioli said:

If you TRULY believe someone isn't arguing in good faith or trolling, ignore or move on. Insulting people and hurling insults or silly memes isn't how to have proper discussion imo

Let's say insulting people and hurling insults are wrong.   (Would I insult you if I said that's really one thing and not two? )

 

Let's say  memes are often a somewhat weak reply.

 

Let's say people got out hand yesterday.   It seemed to happen after some became evasive and began to bounce around the ideas they were trying to defend.  (IMHO)

 

I  am of the opinion that since then some have donned a 'decorum cloak' to hide behind.   It's an easy way to shield themselves from having to defend their opinions.

[Ricky Ravioli]

42 minutes ago, Bob Long said:

 

So just leave misleading stuff unanswered. 

So you are incapable of providing facts that someone is providing misleading stuff without resorting to childish insults? That's the stuff toddlers do. I would hope you are better than that

[Ricky Ravioli]

7 minutes ago, Satchmo said:

Let's say insulting people and hurling insults are wrong.   (Would I insult you if I said that's really one thing and not two? )

 

Let's say  memes are often a somewhat weak reply.

 

Let's say people got out hand yesterday.   It seemed to happen after some became evasive and began to bounce around the ideas they were trying to defend.  (IMHO)

 

I  am of the opinion that since then some have donned a 'decorum cloak' to hide behind.   It's an easy way to shield themselves from having to defend their opinions.

Man I'm typing this shit at work. This the type stuff you really gonna resort to?...

 

Cool. Ignore them and move on? If you can't have respectful conversation with people you don't agree with than maybe these discussions aren't for you? This shit is childish man

[The Arrogant Worms]

[Satchmo]

3 minutes ago, Ricky Ravioli said:

Man I'm typing this shit at work. This the type stuff you really gonna resort to?...

 

Cool. Ignore them and move on? If you can't have respectful conversation with people you don't agree with than maybe these discussions aren't for you? This shit is childish man

I left a confused emoji because... well I was confused and was not really sure what you were saying.  I'll wait until you are off work.

[King Heffy]

19 minutes ago, The Arrogant Worms said:

Liberals and New Democrats reach a deal on pharmacare

Deal sets out pharmacare framework and will cover contraception, diabetes treatment

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberals-ndp-pharmacare-deal-1.7123952

A ton to like in this deal.  Unwanted pregnancies cost the taxpayer a lot more, either via abortion or the social costs associated with assisting to raise the child.

[Ricky Ravioli]

2 minutes ago, Satchmo said:

I left a confused emoji because... well I was confused and was not really sure what you were saying.  I'll wait until you are off work.

It's simple. There is obviously a few posters you disagree with. Ignore them and move on. 

[4petesake]

58 minutes ago, Optimist Prime said:

I found some time to research and found John Martin Crawford also murdered again after being paroled from a murder sentence. 

 

Might be the same case, dunno.

 

So from what I can see, there is one, perhaps two cases of this in all of Canadian legal history. While horrible, hardly the evidence to reshape the entire parole system on account of. I don't know or course what is best, but I lean towards the Parole Board people making the decisions are likely the reason for the two anomalies. These two should obviously in hindsight not been allowed out. in a decade there are 7 or 8 thousand murderers in Canada. Over a forty year period perhaps 30 thousand murderers. Two got  out and killed again. I feel for the victims and their families but hardlly compelling stuff to overhaul the system with. Better to spend on preventing those 28,000,998 other murders from happening in the first place. 

 

I would say that the Quebec Justice Minister’s concerns are more than justified and her requests completely reasonable. These are things that the public are entitled to have answers to. I don’t believe I said anything about overhauling the system, rather I want it to be properly funded, trained and staffed and to know on what basis violent offenders are paroled.
 

She called on federal Public Safety Minister Bill Blair to investigate how the parole board came to its decision to release Gallese and asked the minister to "come back to us with answers."

 

46 minutes ago, Optimist Prime said:

from my criminal justice days: sexual offenders who complete their sentences and are then freed have a low recidivism rate (0.14% up to 1979 and 0.07% after 1980) while I can only anecdotally say I think more than 1% of the population at some point in their lives make a sexual offense. Shrug, still bad, can't condone it, but my overall feel is that this is only really an issue by and large in the minds of people who are fearful about the kinds of people who would do such a thing in the first place. Not much of an opinion really. Maybe stiffer original sentences, but again not really a sufficient reason to overhaul the system: outside of 'revenge' feelings. "He did what to my niece? He better die in prison!" is a normal reaction I think, but in reality we are paying a million dollars to house a criminal for 4 years. 40 years is then ten million. Is that scumbag worth ten million to you? Not to me. Lock him up long enough for him to realize what he did is wrong and will not be tolerated, then spare the taxpayer. 

 

 

You posted one page back about the Lake Cowichan couple caught several times stealing heavy equipment and I think we’re all relatively aware that a small number of perps are responsible for a high number of crimes. Do you have any stats  for the number of offences for each sex offender and shouldn’t that be part of the equation when citing low numbers of recidivism? 
 

These are the only numbers I could find so far (US stats) and not surprisingly they are very high.

 

 

[Warhippy]

44 minutes ago, NewbieCanuckFan said:

 

None of those companies are in canada.  they are not beholden to our laws regarding the resale of or distribution of cookies, data or the like.

 

This would be like the conservatives saying they asked facebook twitter instagram and google to not share or sell our data but the tailored ads in our feed prove otherwise

[Satchmo]

1 minute ago, Ricky Ravioli said:

It's simple. There is obviously a few posters you disagree with. Ignore them and move on. 

I have no one on ignore.   I used to have a few but they have all been cancelled by big brother.  In most cases, I want to know what people are saying.  If I disagree I will voice it.

 

It is my hope that all people are treated civilly.   I have been called quite a few things here.  That's what I ignore and move on from.

 

 

[Warhippy]

3 hours ago, Wiggums said:

 

Lockdowns and certain regulations have played a large role in increased homelessness, drug use, depression, suicide, worldwide.  Supply chain issues and increased prices has caused mass amounts of child deaths in poorer countries.

 

These things will be felt around the world for a long time.  I look at the larger picture

 

The larger picture is that these are predominantly, personal; provincially caused and corporate issues or those being made by other nations with very little of that being able to be tied to the federal government.