Leftist governments which we’ve had for a long time before a constrained minority conservative government have appointed leftist judges to the bench (two at one go to get gay marriage whisked through).
In the (in)justice system, the influence of the left is to hem in and even criminalize law-abiding citizens (speech laws, gun registration)while giving real criminal activity the widest leeway under the guise of protecting citizen rights.
Eventually, you get the bizarre situation well advanced in the EU where actually burning cars or other vandalism is tolerated in the sense of rarely if ever prosecuted while individuals who SPEAK of the crimes in detail including the fact that one identifiable racial and religious group is committing them are the ones who get hauled off to face the full extent of the law for fomenting “hate” or “phobias”. Anywhere you see the suffix “phobia” it’s really expressing an allergy to the truth.
The interim result is a building sense by law abiding citizens that their leaders and civil bureaucracy are not only protecting their rights, property or even lives adequately but are targeting them instead of the criminal and ideologic threat they justifiably fear.
The end result is anyone’s guess, but presumably it won’t be a good one as desperate people take desperate measures, even with a citizenry almost fully disarmed in Canada and Europe, one of the first moves of any totalitarian regime.
Vit:
Unchecked police searches should not be allowed. But in all of the above questions I posed – save the metal detector – and the dog sniffing dope cases these were searches where there was observable evidence in the public domain – either visible or sniffable. Thus, in all cases the police would be correct in conducting a search.
I bring up the magnifying glass because, according to some sources (colby cosh et al), one of the arguments some on the SCC were making was that the dog’s nose was better than a human’s nose and was thus an unreasonable way to collect evidence. A magnifying glass provides similar super-human technology and therefore by the above logic, it too should be inadmissable.
In the domain of a school – the school has the duty to protect the students from other students. They thus have the right to examine anything that is brought into the school either on a regular mandatory basis like a doorway metal detector that emits rays into a backpack or via random searches as deemed necessary. If they wish to use the RCMP or some other private investigator to conduct the search, that is their perogative. The students have the choice to not bring contraband/weapons onto school property. Like crossing a borderpoint, going into a school entails the surredner of some of your rights to search and siezure (ever had a teacher take away your chewing gum?).
Gord Tulk, I entirely agree with you. (kivi too)
You wrote, “Like crossing a borderpoint, going into a school entails the surrender of some of your rights to search and seizure.”
Judge LeBel of the SCC has other ideas. I quoted him in my post in Reader Tips @ 8:16 this morning: he says, “Students are entitled to privacy in school . . . entering a school does not amount to crossing the border.” I said he’s an idiot.
I also wrote, “And, yes, even though LeBel J. is too dense to discern this, when a student goes into a school, he or she has, indeed, ‘cross[ed] the border’ between ‘outside’ and a learning environment, where the first requirement is that the teacher be able to establish and maintain authority.”
Many schools are becoming wild and dangerous places. I think that those who don’t spend time in them might be thinking back to the days when schools were civilized and safe. Things have drastically changed and this dunder-headed judgement will only make matters worse—that is, worse for the responsible, law abiding school inhabitants, and better for those who wish to wreak havoc.
Understood, Gord, yet how far do we go? See, sniff, infrared, x-ray, cameras everywhere, identification cards, database mining, report your neighbour, how far do we want to go? What kind of society do we want to live in? One where every transgression of a bazillion self-contradictory regulations is charged upon each citizen by machines?
The key to an effective law and order system is a combination of known rules, yes, but also of professional balance in their application. That balance comes both from the accumulated experience and gained wisdom of professionals in their fields, and from the methodological due process procedures that we as a society have deployed to try to keep our law and order system from going bad.
This is going to sound cheap, Lookout, and I apologize, as I said before I appreciate the problem you are working with, yet I don’t think the solution to the problem is to throw the police at it. The solution to the problem lies elsewhere.
It’s one thing to call an emergency, it’s something else to change the law so that everything is an emergency. Messy as the SCC decision was, I think that the decision tips on the side of good in the long term, even though it implies limitations in the short term.
Vit:
“Professional balance” is the key.
Guiliani’s “broken glass” approach would be seen as extreme in a low-crime place like say, Hanna, but in the fetid criminal swamp that was New York at the time it was the proper thing – the professional thing – to do. Once the atmosphere of peace and security is restored, the general public assumes much of the enforcement duties needed and the amount needed is greatly reduced (same thing is happening in Iraq currently BTW).
If the cops were dog-sniffing every handbag at the Red Deer Bay there would be a hue and cry that would send the cops running with their tails between their legs (literally, I suppose). The key to ensuring professional balance is IMO political balance – our political commanders should be politcally accountable to some degree -subject to an electoral process or some periodical public review as exists in the US. Were that in place and were it local enough we would see such big brother “enforcement” read tax-collection technologies as photo-radar and stoplight cameras disappear.
As for the proliferation of technological snooping – it has just replaced the snooping of our idle small-town neighbours from years gone by – it was ever thus. Law-abiding people in public places have nothing to fear.
More worrying to me is how poorly our property rights are protected. Constitutionally-speaking, here in CDA we have none whatsoever. (ID cards and database-mining fall somewhere into this category IMO)
PS – I must say I agree wholeheartedly with Kivi’s post above. He/she makes his points well.
Well Gord, and Lookout, and Kivi, y’all, I don’t have a problem with the items you highlight. I agree with many points you raise. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t come here to argue, I come here to think, and y’all have helped me think about the subtleties of this case. I hope I’ve helped you think about them too.
Because I must note that I think that one of the reasons we are talking about this case is the variances in our consideration of the degree to which we think it will be effective at the margin in practice, v. dangerous as precedent in the future, and that’s at best a tough call in this case (otherwise we wouldn’t be talking about it). Under those circumstances, it is good, I think, to have discussions like this.
Hear, hear Vit.
Do you think the level of conversation was as good in the SCC? The argument put forth by some on the SCC that odour-sniffing was an invasion of privacy makes me wonder as does the qualifying of a dog greater sense of smell being an excessive form of evidence gathering. Arguments like this smack of someone trying to fit their judgement into a pre-ordained ideology.
Yes, don’t they just, all of us.
Wow. Going to sleep sure cost one a lot of context…
Several points in all of the above since I last posted on this.
Lookout: re: public schools/public places. People get confused as to what a “public place” is – its not simply a place owned by the public, its a place in which the public has normally unfettered access. A school is not such a place. A general member of the public cannot wander at will about the interior of a school, and may not even do so on the grounds.
Gord Tulk: “In the domain of a school – the school has the duty to protect the students from other students. They thus have the right to examine anything that is brought into the school either on a regular mandatory basis like a doorway metal detector that emits rays into a backpack or via random searches as deemed necessary. If they wish to use the RCMP or some other private investigator to conduct the search, that is their perogative. The students have the choice to not bring contraband/weapons onto school property. Like crossing a borderpoint, going into a school entails the surredner of some of your rights to search and siezure (ever had a teacher take away your chewing gum?).”
And the courts have increasingly said no, that is not the case. The situation is analogous to stores attempting to demand access to cases and backpacks when you are shopping. Many of these so-called “waivers of right” have not held up. No parent signs a waiver suspending their kid’s rights when they enroll them in school. The courts are holding that, if you are going to assume that children have most of the rights of adults, then you can’t cherry pick most of those rights. For a very long time, children were essentially deemed property of their parents. That is no longer the case, and the SCC decision is a natural outcome of that societal change.
Lookout: I hear your concerns with regard to criminal students loud and clear. While I no longer inhabit a school (Michael, I graduated university before PET was even elected), I do live across from a public school (and have for 30 years), and am on the walking route for a high school. I see daily intolerable behaviour, but for the Youth Criminal Justice Act, would send kids to jail.
The YCJA is where this all breaks down. Canadian society has to decide whether children are to be accorded the ordinary rights of mature citizens or not, and, if so, then they must, with reasonable accommodation for issues of maturity, bear the brunt of responsibility that goes with those rights. In my view, the SCC has appropriately made the right decision, on the general case of student’s rights based on these specific cases. The SCC can’t make policy decisions on behalf of Parliament. That the CYJA puts society at odds with individual rights is Parliaments problem, not the SCC’s.
A warrant would have been likely very easy to obtain in this case. It is possible that a judge would not have granted one for a broad search of all, but very likely would have for a more clearly defined search of some.
Otherwise, the search becomes a fishing expedition search for undefined but presumed criminality in specific group of a general population. In the adult world, it is no different than the manager of Canadian Tire calling the police on the suspicion that perhaps someone in the store may have pilfered goods, and the store being sealed while everyone’s belonging, pockets, purses were being searched for possible stolen or illegal goods. You wouldn’t stand for it, neither should your kids.
It is somewhat naive to think that drug dealing in school is a one-way street, that only the students pushing are the criminals here. The pushers are there because the buyers are there. Parents have to get it in their heads that their kids as users are criminals too, not victims. As Lookout has observed, most of theses kids know exactly what they are doing. They also know there are no consequences to them. That has to change, otherwise you have no solution to the problem, and the real lesson kids are learning is the crime does pay.
The SCC has, obliquely, affirmed that you can’t disabuse the rights of individuals for the expedience of authority and under the guise of moral justice. That is a valid decision. Now, society has to deal with the problem face up- how to hold their children accountable for the crimes they commit.
Another point comes to mind in regard to the drug sniffing dog. Presently, in the west, supreme courts are grappling with the issue of state use of technology that heretofore did not exist that will allow state law enforcement to breach the sanctity of personal spaces such as dwelling places surreptitiously and without knowledge or impact on the individual. Advanced FLIR cameras, radio monitors, internet snooping, and a wide range of technologies are replacing the old knock on the door. The wiretap issue of old was the tip of the iceberg in these issues, and it was determined then that a warrant was required in order to provide the appropriate oversight of the intrusion. The sniffing dog (not to be confused with the sniveling Kyoto) is, in the SCC’s view just such a “technological” example. Arguably simplistic, and will soon be replaced with hard technology, but the issue of clandestine inspection remains. These are tough decisions. It is not surprising the court is split. Society will walk a very fine line in the future over these matters, and the rights of individuals (of any age) will come to have even deeper import than they do now.
Well Skip – it sounds like you are o.k. with 9 non-elected/life-appointed judges being the ultimate decision makers/interpreters/makers of law in Canada.
People within a bureaucracy that they know is rotten have three alternatives – accept/justify it, adapt to it and do whatever it takes to get that promotion (rot begets rot), or quit and find a real job. Upwardly mobile people will never do the latter, so on and on it goes. Unfortunately the education system is far to full of administrators who are in the second category – to the point where good teachers have either left, retired early, and worse – don’t even aspire to get into teaching.
I hope the Sarnia principal will do what has been “deemed to be proper” like get a search warrant, blah, blah, blah and the put this issue to the test again with a sniffer dog. Probably the only thing that would really work is to put a proposal before the SCC for approval ahead of the fact, but then this would also be impossible given the system we live under.
Sad. Sad. Sad.
I am not o.k. with the SCC being the sole determiner/interpreter/maker of Canadian law (the latter being something they have granted to themselves), but unfortunately there is no political will to do anything about it. By using the notwithstanding clause, the AB gov’t could probably ignore the SCC court overturning the Greyhound Bus issue, go with the conviction in the provincial court, and have this stand in AB. Preventing this, of course, is a huge lack of will within the AB gov’t.
I agree with Vitruvius’s appreciation for our exchange of ideas. It’s such a pleasure to have a back and forth with people who care about ideas! That said, with respect, I still quite disagree with both Vitruvius and Skip.
Gord Tulk mentions the “broken window” policy in NYC which was a huge success: use the existing law to come down heavily on small crimes—because they’re the start of a progression to larger crimes. A cruel irony here is that the Charter chill in our schools has kept the vast majority of administrators—and teachers, who know admin. and parents will often not support them—paralysed re dealing decisively with unacceptable behaviour. So, we’ve had a serious escalation of the most egregious actions on the part of a critical mass of miscreants.
Skip, schools ARE public spaces: saying that people can’t do just anything they want there is true. But that does not mean they aren’t public spaces. (E.g., It’s against the law to ride a bike on a sidewalk: does that mean sidewalks are not public spaces?) In the schools in my jurisdiction, there are signs on every door which say, in effect, that no one is to enter if their purpose is not in accordance with the Education Act. Of course, even if not, the person is free to enter. If they’re caught not complying is another matter.
And that brings me to the matter of a student bringing drugs, for the purpose of trafficking, onto school property—crossing that border, a fact Gord Tulk and I find easy to understand—and we’re not even Supreme Court judges! That student’s behaviour is neither in compliance with the Education Act, nor is it legal. Therefore, I believe the principal was fully within his rights to call in the police. Vitruvius, illegal behaviour IS a matter for the police—not school administrators. And, when there are HUNDREDS of students, who know full well that having drugs in their backpacks is against the rules, using sniffer dogs is an efficient and, under the circumstances, REASONABLE way to do a search. No one opened backpacks. The assumption was that drugs were on school property and dogs trained to discover drugs—nothing else—were brought in. And drugs were found.
And, the Canadian Tire analogy doesn’t float—not by a long shot. Sorry, Skip. Canadian Tire is a store, a private enterprise. A school is a public institution. Administrators and teachers have a custodial relationship, outlined in the Education Act, with the minors in their charge. The adults are expected to establish and maintain AUTHORITY. This is in no way analogous to the relationship between shoppers and the staff in a store. This SCC decision has just put another nail in the coffin of adult authority in our schools: another layer of Charter chill. As I said, the kids smell it like sharks smell blood.
I predict that nothing good will come of the unravelling of adult authority in our schools.
A last point here: let’s look at who made this—to me—ludicrous decision: a majority of the mainly Liberal appointed overlords/ladies who comprise our lefty, activist, Gnostic—see Chief Justice, Beverley MacLachlin’s description, in New Zealand, of their lord and ladyships’ extra sensory perception outside the actual statutes they’re expected to adhere to—SCC. This court is full of ideologues who have, IMO, abused their powers over and over in order to promote a laissez faire society, where, as kivi has pointed out, not following the rules—or even the LAW!—is rewarded. I do not trust these people.
I haven’t changed my mind at all: by this decision, the court has brought itself into disrepute—again—and has proven that “the law is an ass”.
Maybe I’m talking to no one, but: an important function of the SCC is a teaching one. Many people–mistakenly–believe that if the SCC makes a decision it automatically has moral validity. (In the “old days”, when the rule of law, v PC relativism, held sway, this was often the case.)
So, it would greatly benefit society as a whole, and the individuals within it, if the SCC would make some attempt to emphasize and reward RESPONSIBILITY, rather than rights. Our kids deserve it and so do the rest of us.
Believe me, modern day minors need no more reminders of their rights: their world is saturated with this one-sided, and now dangerous, dogma.
How about some emphasis on responsibility? How about it, SCC?
Leftist governments which we’ve had for a long time before a constrained minority conservative government have appointed leftist judges to the bench (two at one go to get gay marriage whisked through).
In the (in)justice system, the influence of the left is to hem in and even criminalize law-abiding citizens (speech laws, gun registration)while giving real criminal activity the widest leeway under the guise of protecting citizen rights.
Eventually, you get the bizarre situation well advanced in the EU where actually burning cars or other vandalism is tolerated in the sense of rarely if ever prosecuted while individuals who SPEAK of the crimes in detail including the fact that one identifiable racial and religious group is committing them are the ones who get hauled off to face the full extent of the law for fomenting “hate” or “phobias”. Anywhere you see the suffix “phobia” it’s really expressing an allergy to the truth.
The interim result is a building sense by law abiding citizens that their leaders and civil bureaucracy are not only protecting their rights, property or even lives adequately but are targeting them instead of the criminal and ideologic threat they justifiably fear.
The end result is anyone’s guess, but presumably it won’t be a good one as desperate people take desperate measures, even with a citizenry almost fully disarmed in Canada and Europe, one of the first moves of any totalitarian regime.
Vit:
Unchecked police searches should not be allowed. But in all of the above questions I posed – save the metal detector – and the dog sniffing dope cases these were searches where there was observable evidence in the public domain – either visible or sniffable. Thus, in all cases the police would be correct in conducting a search.
I bring up the magnifying glass because, according to some sources (colby cosh et al), one of the arguments some on the SCC were making was that the dog’s nose was better than a human’s nose and was thus an unreasonable way to collect evidence. A magnifying glass provides similar super-human technology and therefore by the above logic, it too should be inadmissable.
In the domain of a school – the school has the duty to protect the students from other students. They thus have the right to examine anything that is brought into the school either on a regular mandatory basis like a doorway metal detector that emits rays into a backpack or via random searches as deemed necessary. If they wish to use the RCMP or some other private investigator to conduct the search, that is their perogative. The students have the choice to not bring contraband/weapons onto school property. Like crossing a borderpoint, going into a school entails the surredner of some of your rights to search and siezure (ever had a teacher take away your chewing gum?).
Gord Tulk, I entirely agree with you. (kivi too)
You wrote, “Like crossing a borderpoint, going into a school entails the surrender of some of your rights to search and seizure.”
Judge LeBel of the SCC has other ideas. I quoted him in my post in Reader Tips @ 8:16 this morning: he says, “Students are entitled to privacy in school . . . entering a school does not amount to crossing the border.” I said he’s an idiot.
I also wrote, “And, yes, even though LeBel J. is too dense to discern this, when a student goes into a school, he or she has, indeed, ‘cross[ed] the border’ between ‘outside’ and a learning environment, where the first requirement is that the teacher be able to establish and maintain authority.”
Many schools are becoming wild and dangerous places. I think that those who don’t spend time in them might be thinking back to the days when schools were civilized and safe. Things have drastically changed and this dunder-headed judgement will only make matters worse—that is, worse for the responsible, law abiding school inhabitants, and better for those who wish to wreak havoc.
Understood, Gord, yet how far do we go? See, sniff, infrared, x-ray, cameras everywhere, identification cards, database mining, report your neighbour, how far do we want to go? What kind of society do we want to live in? One where every transgression of a bazillion self-contradictory regulations is charged upon each citizen by machines?
The key to an effective law and order system is a combination of known rules, yes, but also of professional balance in their application. That balance comes both from the accumulated experience and gained wisdom of professionals in their fields, and from the methodological due process procedures that we as a society have deployed to try to keep our law and order system from going bad.
This is going to sound cheap, Lookout, and I apologize, as I said before I appreciate the problem you are working with, yet I don’t think the solution to the problem is to throw the police at it. The solution to the problem lies elsewhere.
It’s one thing to call an emergency, it’s something else to change the law so that everything is an emergency. Messy as the SCC decision was, I think that the decision tips on the side of good in the long term, even though it implies limitations in the short term.
Vit:
“Professional balance” is the key.
Guiliani’s “broken glass” approach would be seen as extreme in a low-crime place like say, Hanna, but in the fetid criminal swamp that was New York at the time it was the proper thing – the professional thing – to do. Once the atmosphere of peace and security is restored, the general public assumes much of the enforcement duties needed and the amount needed is greatly reduced (same thing is happening in Iraq currently BTW).
If the cops were dog-sniffing every handbag at the Red Deer Bay there would be a hue and cry that would send the cops running with their tails between their legs (literally, I suppose). The key to ensuring professional balance is IMO political balance – our political commanders should be politcally accountable to some degree -subject to an electoral process or some periodical public review as exists in the US. Were that in place and were it local enough we would see such big brother “enforcement” read tax-collection technologies as photo-radar and stoplight cameras disappear.
As for the proliferation of technological snooping – it has just replaced the snooping of our idle small-town neighbours from years gone by – it was ever thus. Law-abiding people in public places have nothing to fear.
More worrying to me is how poorly our property rights are protected. Constitutionally-speaking, here in CDA we have none whatsoever. (ID cards and database-mining fall somewhere into this category IMO)
PS – I must say I agree wholeheartedly with Kivi’s post above. He/she makes his points well.
Well Gord, and Lookout, and Kivi, y’all, I don’t have a problem with the items you highlight. I agree with many points you raise. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t come here to argue, I come here to think, and y’all have helped me think about the subtleties of this case. I hope I’ve helped you think about them too.
Because I must note that I think that one of the reasons we are talking about this case is the variances in our consideration of the degree to which we think it will be effective at the margin in practice, v. dangerous as precedent in the future, and that’s at best a tough call in this case (otherwise we wouldn’t be talking about it). Under those circumstances, it is good, I think, to have discussions like this.
Hear, hear Vit.
Do you think the level of conversation was as good in the SCC? The argument put forth by some on the SCC that odour-sniffing was an invasion of privacy makes me wonder as does the qualifying of a dog greater sense of smell being an excessive form of evidence gathering. Arguments like this smack of someone trying to fit their judgement into a pre-ordained ideology.
Yes, don’t they just, all of us.
Wow. Going to sleep sure cost one a lot of context…
Several points in all of the above since I last posted on this.
Lookout: re: public schools/public places. People get confused as to what a “public place” is – its not simply a place owned by the public, its a place in which the public has normally unfettered access. A school is not such a place. A general member of the public cannot wander at will about the interior of a school, and may not even do so on the grounds.
Gord Tulk: “In the domain of a school – the school has the duty to protect the students from other students. They thus have the right to examine anything that is brought into the school either on a regular mandatory basis like a doorway metal detector that emits rays into a backpack or via random searches as deemed necessary. If they wish to use the RCMP or some other private investigator to conduct the search, that is their perogative. The students have the choice to not bring contraband/weapons onto school property. Like crossing a borderpoint, going into a school entails the surredner of some of your rights to search and siezure (ever had a teacher take away your chewing gum?).”
And the courts have increasingly said no, that is not the case. The situation is analogous to stores attempting to demand access to cases and backpacks when you are shopping. Many of these so-called “waivers of right” have not held up. No parent signs a waiver suspending their kid’s rights when they enroll them in school. The courts are holding that, if you are going to assume that children have most of the rights of adults, then you can’t cherry pick most of those rights. For a very long time, children were essentially deemed property of their parents. That is no longer the case, and the SCC decision is a natural outcome of that societal change.
Lookout: I hear your concerns with regard to criminal students loud and clear. While I no longer inhabit a school (Michael, I graduated university before PET was even elected), I do live across from a public school (and have for 30 years), and am on the walking route for a high school. I see daily intolerable behaviour, but for the Youth Criminal Justice Act, would send kids to jail.
The YCJA is where this all breaks down. Canadian society has to decide whether children are to be accorded the ordinary rights of mature citizens or not, and, if so, then they must, with reasonable accommodation for issues of maturity, bear the brunt of responsibility that goes with those rights. In my view, the SCC has appropriately made the right decision, on the general case of student’s rights based on these specific cases. The SCC can’t make policy decisions on behalf of Parliament. That the CYJA puts society at odds with individual rights is Parliaments problem, not the SCC’s.
A warrant would have been likely very easy to obtain in this case. It is possible that a judge would not have granted one for a broad search of all, but very likely would have for a more clearly defined search of some.
Otherwise, the search becomes a fishing expedition search for undefined but presumed criminality in specific group of a general population. In the adult world, it is no different than the manager of Canadian Tire calling the police on the suspicion that perhaps someone in the store may have pilfered goods, and the store being sealed while everyone’s belonging, pockets, purses were being searched for possible stolen or illegal goods. You wouldn’t stand for it, neither should your kids.
It is somewhat naive to think that drug dealing in school is a one-way street, that only the students pushing are the criminals here. The pushers are there because the buyers are there. Parents have to get it in their heads that their kids as users are criminals too, not victims. As Lookout has observed, most of theses kids know exactly what they are doing. They also know there are no consequences to them. That has to change, otherwise you have no solution to the problem, and the real lesson kids are learning is the crime does pay.
The SCC has, obliquely, affirmed that you can’t disabuse the rights of individuals for the expedience of authority and under the guise of moral justice. That is a valid decision. Now, society has to deal with the problem face up- how to hold their children accountable for the crimes they commit.
Another point comes to mind in regard to the drug sniffing dog. Presently, in the west, supreme courts are grappling with the issue of state use of technology that heretofore did not exist that will allow state law enforcement to breach the sanctity of personal spaces such as dwelling places surreptitiously and without knowledge or impact on the individual. Advanced FLIR cameras, radio monitors, internet snooping, and a wide range of technologies are replacing the old knock on the door. The wiretap issue of old was the tip of the iceberg in these issues, and it was determined then that a warrant was required in order to provide the appropriate oversight of the intrusion. The sniffing dog (not to be confused with the sniveling Kyoto) is, in the SCC’s view just such a “technological” example. Arguably simplistic, and will soon be replaced with hard technology, but the issue of clandestine inspection remains. These are tough decisions. It is not surprising the court is split. Society will walk a very fine line in the future over these matters, and the rights of individuals (of any age) will come to have even deeper import than they do now.
Well Skip – it sounds like you are o.k. with 9 non-elected/life-appointed judges being the ultimate decision makers/interpreters/makers of law in Canada.
People within a bureaucracy that they know is rotten have three alternatives – accept/justify it, adapt to it and do whatever it takes to get that promotion (rot begets rot), or quit and find a real job. Upwardly mobile people will never do the latter, so on and on it goes. Unfortunately the education system is far to full of administrators who are in the second category – to the point where good teachers have either left, retired early, and worse – don’t even aspire to get into teaching.
I hope the Sarnia principal will do what has been “deemed to be proper” like get a search warrant, blah, blah, blah and the put this issue to the test again with a sniffer dog. Probably the only thing that would really work is to put a proposal before the SCC for approval ahead of the fact, but then this would also be impossible given the system we live under.
Sad. Sad. Sad.
I am not o.k. with the SCC being the sole determiner/interpreter/maker of Canadian law (the latter being something they have granted to themselves), but unfortunately there is no political will to do anything about it. By using the notwithstanding clause, the AB gov’t could probably ignore the SCC court overturning the Greyhound Bus issue, go with the conviction in the provincial court, and have this stand in AB. Preventing this, of course, is a huge lack of will within the AB gov’t.
I agree with Vitruvius’s appreciation for our exchange of ideas. It’s such a pleasure to have a back and forth with people who care about ideas! That said, with respect, I still quite disagree with both Vitruvius and Skip.
Gord Tulk mentions the “broken window” policy in NYC which was a huge success: use the existing law to come down heavily on small crimes—because they’re the start of a progression to larger crimes. A cruel irony here is that the Charter chill in our schools has kept the vast majority of administrators—and teachers, who know admin. and parents will often not support them—paralysed re dealing decisively with unacceptable behaviour. So, we’ve had a serious escalation of the most egregious actions on the part of a critical mass of miscreants.
Skip, schools ARE public spaces: saying that people can’t do just anything they want there is true. But that does not mean they aren’t public spaces. (E.g., It’s against the law to ride a bike on a sidewalk: does that mean sidewalks are not public spaces?) In the schools in my jurisdiction, there are signs on every door which say, in effect, that no one is to enter if their purpose is not in accordance with the Education Act. Of course, even if not, the person is free to enter. If they’re caught not complying is another matter.
And that brings me to the matter of a student bringing drugs, for the purpose of trafficking, onto school property—crossing that border, a fact Gord Tulk and I find easy to understand—and we’re not even Supreme Court judges! That student’s behaviour is neither in compliance with the Education Act, nor is it legal. Therefore, I believe the principal was fully within his rights to call in the police. Vitruvius, illegal behaviour IS a matter for the police—not school administrators. And, when there are HUNDREDS of students, who know full well that having drugs in their backpacks is against the rules, using sniffer dogs is an efficient and, under the circumstances, REASONABLE way to do a search. No one opened backpacks. The assumption was that drugs were on school property and dogs trained to discover drugs—nothing else—were brought in. And drugs were found.
And, the Canadian Tire analogy doesn’t float—not by a long shot. Sorry, Skip. Canadian Tire is a store, a private enterprise. A school is a public institution. Administrators and teachers have a custodial relationship, outlined in the Education Act, with the minors in their charge. The adults are expected to establish and maintain AUTHORITY. This is in no way analogous to the relationship between shoppers and the staff in a store. This SCC decision has just put another nail in the coffin of adult authority in our schools: another layer of Charter chill. As I said, the kids smell it like sharks smell blood.
I predict that nothing good will come of the unravelling of adult authority in our schools.
A last point here: let’s look at who made this—to me—ludicrous decision: a majority of the mainly Liberal appointed overlords/ladies who comprise our lefty, activist, Gnostic—see Chief Justice, Beverley MacLachlin’s description, in New Zealand, of their lord and ladyships’ extra sensory perception outside the actual statutes they’re expected to adhere to—SCC. This court is full of ideologues who have, IMO, abused their powers over and over in order to promote a laissez faire society, where, as kivi has pointed out, not following the rules—or even the LAW!—is rewarded. I do not trust these people.
I haven’t changed my mind at all: by this decision, the court has brought itself into disrepute—again—and has proven that “the law is an ass”.
Maybe I’m talking to no one, but: an important function of the SCC is a teaching one. Many people–mistakenly–believe that if the SCC makes a decision it automatically has moral validity. (In the “old days”, when the rule of law, v PC relativism, held sway, this was often the case.)
So, it would greatly benefit society as a whole, and the individuals within it, if the SCC would make some attempt to emphasize and reward RESPONSIBILITY, rather than rights. Our kids deserve it and so do the rest of us.
Believe me, modern day minors need no more reminders of their rights: their world is saturated with this one-sided, and now dangerous, dogma.
How about some emphasis on responsibility? How about it, SCC?