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Although this thread does not function under the same strict guidelines as the USPMT, it is still a general practice on TL to provide a source with an explanation on why it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion. Failure to do so will result in a mod action. |
MPs pass M-103 Thursday even as new poll says most Canadians would vote down anti-Islamophobia motion
OTTAWA – The House of Commons voted Thursday afternoon to condemn “Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination” but the vote for the controversial M-103 was not unanimous.
Liberals, New Democrats, and Green Party MP Elizabeth May were in favour; most Conservative and all Bloc Quebecois MPs were opposed.
The vote was 201 for and 91 against.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Finance Minister Bill Morneau and four other cabinet ministers were absent.
NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair was present — he voted in favour — as was interim Conservative leader MP Rona Ambrose, who was opposed.
It was a free vote, meaning MPs did not have to follow a party line, and two Conservative MPs voted in favour: leadership candidate Michael Chong and Ontario MP Bruce Stanton.
The motion was proposed by Iqra Khalid, a first-time MP representing a Mississauga, Ont. riding. In addition to the resolution condemning Islamophobia, it asks the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to study the issue of “eliminating systemic racism and religious discrimination including Islamophobia;” and calls on the federal government collect data on hate crimes for further study.
“Our country is very diverse,” Khalid said after the vote. “I think that we need to continue to build those bridges amongst Canadians, and this is just one way that we can do this, by really understanding the issue and really listening to what Canadians have to say. I’m really looking forward to the track that the Canadian Heritage Committee takes on this.”
Meanwhile a new poll released Thursday suggests that if the vote on M-103 was up to most Canadians, it would fail.
Pollster Angus Reid Institute asked 1,511 Canadians, “if you were a a Member of Parliament, how would you vote on this motion (M-103)” and found that 42 per cent would vote against it; 29 per cent would vote in favour and 29 per cent were not sure or would have abstained.
In debate earlier this week, Conservative MPs endorsed the sentiment but objected to the wording of the motion in the belief that it could lead to the suppression of speech rights.
“The word ‘Islamophobia’ can be used to mean both discrimination against Muslims and criticism of Islamic doctrine or practice. It is important that we not conflate the two – religious people deserve legal protection, but religions do not,” Conservative MP Garnett Genuis said during a Commons debate Tuesday night. “People should not discriminate against individuals, but should feel quite free to criticize the doctrine, history, or practice of any religion.”
Liberals, including Khalid, maintain that the motion would in no way infringe on speech rights and would instead be a powerful symbol of solidarity with Muslim Canadians.
“Motion No. 103 serves as a catalyst for Canadians to speak out against discrimination and be heard where they may not have been heard before,” Khalid said on Tuesday.
Khalid’s motion changes no existing laws nor does it create any new laws.
And yet, the Angus Reid poll finds that three in 10 of those surveyed believed Khalid’s motion is, in fact, “a threat to Canadians’ freedom of speech.”
Angus Reid found male survey respondents strongly disapproved of M-103 while female survey respondents were split. Among men, 50 per cent would vote down M-103 while 27 per cent would vote in favour. Among women, 34 per cent would vote to reject, 31 per cent would vote in favour and 36 per cent were unsure or would abstain.
The pollster ran the online survey from March 13 to March 17. A margin of error could not be calculated because the survey participants were not drawn from a random sample. That said, a random sample of 1,511 Canadian adults would produce a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Older — 55-plus — survey respondents were most likely to reject M-103 while younger — 18-34 years old — were more likely to vote in favour. A plurality of those with high school or college educations would reject M-103 while a plurality of those with university educations would vote in favour of M-103.
From a regional standpoint, a plurality of survey respondents in every province rejected M-103 though objections to M-103 were softest in Quebec and in Atlantic Canada.
Interestingly — given that M-103 is sponsored by a Liberal MP — support among those who voted Liberal in the 2015 election is rather tepid with just 38 per cent of Liberal voters saying they’d support M-103 versus 33 per cent of Liberal voters who oppose it and 28 per cent with no opinion.
New Democrat voters are the strongest group of supporters with 44 per cent in favour versus 33 per cent opposed.
Those who voted Conservative in 2015 want nothing to do with M-103: 68 per cent of that group would vote down M-103 with just 14 per cent voting in favour.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/mps-certain-to-pass-m-103-thursday-but-new-poll-says-canadians-would-vote-down-anti-islamophobia-motion
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I can think of several dozen legislative issues more pressing to Canada than islamophobia. What a waste of parliamentary time.
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On March 24 2017 16:23 Fprime wrote:
I can think of several dozen legislative issues more pressing to Canada than islamophobia. What a waste of parliamentary time.
Pretty much. It's even dumber when you consider there are already laws against what this motion seems to want to address. It sadly doesn't surprise me that it was brought up by one of Ontario's MP's either.
That being said I don't think this threatens our freedom of speech at all (as mentioned in the article). That sounds like the Conservatives going too far and trying to rile people up for no good reason. Pick your battles and all that. It's just a colossal waste of time that seems to only be done so some people can feel good about themselves and pretend to be making a difference.
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Hazel Mccallion taking dead aim tonight at Kathleen Wynne LOL 
it was a very smart move by the liberals to get Hurricane Hazel to endorse their government. However, the Liberals made some promises to her they are not keeping. The last thing any politician needs is a pissed off 90 year old lady with a 45+ year impeccable track record lobbing artillery shots at them.
Go Hazel Go!
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I take it all back, Canada. I love you.
This is especially nice to see after the US Congress recently took a shit on internet privacy for Americans.
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Canada8988 Posts
Jesus Maxime Bernier may become prime minister, that's the funniest thing I ever heard, I am just laughing my ass of in front of my computer,
Here his jingle to celebrate the occasion:
+ Show Spoiler +
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I feel like we have quite a few shit choices for Quebec, and that O'Leary was quite a bit worse than Bernier, as were most conservative candidates anyways.
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The higher number of mandatory minimum sentences the previous Conservative government brought in contributed to the problem, he said, as it took away a lot of discretion from both judges and prosecutors to find ways to divert trials.
The problem was bad and the previous government increased the court loads on top of that without increasing resources to match it is how I read it.
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interesting insight.
i woulda voted PC last election if they stayed soft on crime. alas, they did not.
the conclusion of this article reads like it could come straight out of Franz Kafka's "The Trial". Keep in mind The Star is a liberal rag. So everything is slanted to blame any conservative politician any where.
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Canada13379 Posts
Its not really insight, its exactly what happened.
When you have too many people in the court system, and not enough money to handle it, then you force people to go to jail and finish their court proceedings because of a mandatory minimum, you'll just overload the system.
Before, when pleading guilty in a plea for reduced time was an option to spend one afternoon in court, now people will plead not guilty resulting in at least a full day of proceedings. That eats into court time a lot. Thats gonna make the issue of wait times even worse.
Then you have people saying we're too easy on crime because of time spent in remand valued higher than time in prison post-conviction. That just makes it worse if it was 1:1, and overloads not only the courts, but the jails as well.
Its all a mess.
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The bill was passed without comment or amendment. Peterson seemed to be the only person in that room who knew what they were talking about or cared about the consequences of this. Laws should be written more carefully.
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It will be interesting to see what impact this hearing will have. At the very least, it should demonstrate that not enough lawmakers understand the law and the implications it has/will have. I'll be very disappointed if the law isn't changed or repealed.
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Canada13379 Posts
I'm all for putting gender identity and expression into a protected category, but I have to agree that the bill is written really really poorly.
I mean if I call a trans person by the wrong personal pronoun I don't want a legal issue to come out of it. Thats just ridiculous.
At the same time though, Peterson is a bit dramatic about how he puts things though. I mean I don't think its fair to talk about post modernism and its marxist roots as some sort of ideological war and that its some horrendously evil thing.
I mean, post modernism has been a theoretical lense for decades. So at that point he's just over reaching.
Plus he is flatout wrong on his analysis of sexual identity, gender identity and its relation to immutable sexual preferences.
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On April 29 2017 00:28 ZeromuS wrote:
Then you have people saying we're too easy on crime because of time spent in remand valued higher than time in prison post-conviction. That just makes it worse if it was 1:1, and overloads not only the courts, but the jails as well.
Its all a mess.
i strongly prefer staying soft on crime. i think it produces soft criminals. I'm not so familiar with rural canada, but urban Canada has super soft criminals relative to urban USA. I want to keep it that way.
I think the lock-em-up and throw-away the key philosophy manufacturers hardened criminals.
Everyone hates Karla Homolka, but guess what.. she is a mom raising a family and a positive contributor to society. I'd rather have her walking around than locking up some homeless guy for 2 years because he stole a kilogram of bananas from a fruit stand.
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Canada13379 Posts
On May 19 2017 11:31 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2017 00:28 ZeromuS wrote:
Then you have people saying we're too easy on crime because of time spent in remand valued higher than time in prison post-conviction. That just makes it worse if it was 1:1, and overloads not only the courts, but the jails as well.
Its all a mess. i strongly prefer staying soft on crime. i think it produces soft criminals. I'm not so familiar with rural canada, but urban Canada has super soft criminals relative to urban USA. I want to keep it that way. I think the lock-em-up and throw-away the key philosophy manufacturers hardened criminals. Everyone hates Karla Homolka, but guess what.. she is a mom raising a family and a positive contributor to society. I'd rather have her walking around than locking up some homeless guy for 2 years because he stole a kilogram of bananas from a fruit stand.
I don't think Karla Homolka is a good example. She's a terrible example.
She's as far as I know a rare example of someone who seems to have rehabilitated.
But she's also an example of a failure of the criminal justice system in how they handled her case. She was far more involved than she admitted to, and the only reason she got the plea deal she did was because her lawyer hid tapes that showed she was more involved. And the lawyer himself was eventually disbarred and jailed as well.
I agree on the sentiment though. If the choice is letting her out, or having someone in jail forever because of a petty crime - thats a problem.
The real issue in Canadian penal system is that (aside from the fact it doesnt work and I on a personal level advocate abolitionism) the provincial system handles anything two years less a day, and that the provinces can't afford to give people the programs and interventions that would prevent them from reoffending. Once an individual is eligible for the Federal system, it still takes a few years on a wait list for programs, and once they're in the federal level they've already missed out on a lot of their productive adult life. All because we as a society couldn't and didn't provide for them in ways that would be impactful and useful to them.
Also on the same topic as the whole Jordan Peterson and Bill C-16 thing that's seen a rise in the more hyper conservative side of Canadian politics I offer this rebuttal:
http://alexanderofford.com/the-intellectual-fraudulence-of-jordan-peterson-apropos-of-daniel-karasik/
The guy is a bit of a hack and is really just someone who while smart, tends to be extremely biased in his views and presents himself as a "logical progressive". He is a perfect example of the whole "I'm actually a progressive, but progressives have so far I have to align myself with the right of the political spectrum and I reject those radical liberals" phenomenon. Which while less vitriolic in Canada than the states, doesn't make it exist any less.
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EPT
