Posts Tagged ‘Canada’

The war on deadbeat dads, a quarter century later

Following the 1985 publication of Lenore Weitzman’s The Divorce Revolution, an alliance of conservatives and feminists in Canada, as in the US, helped pass punitive “deadbeat dad” laws aimed at bolstering the legal position of mothers and sparing costs of welfare to the public fisc. A generation later, writes Christie Blatchford in the National Post, it has become evident that these laws

…disproportionately punish poor men from the margins. What’s more, they’ve resulted in new “debtors’ prisons.”

As [Nipissing Prof. Paul] Millar wrote in The Prosecution of Child-Support debt in Alberta, “child and spousal support … are private debts for which incarceration is a consequence of non-payment.”

…[Besides pursuing incarceration, provincial child-support] agencies can also suspend driver’s licences, impose fines, seize passports, and the debtors have little procedural protections. As Millar concluded, “… the standard of proof is lower than for civil process, yet the penalties are more severe than those for some criminal offences.

“I call this regime inverted justice, since the protections are all for the advantage and convenience of the state, rather than of the individual.”

Food roundup

  • Sugar, fat, and the state’s role in nutritional misinformation: Cato Unbound with Gary Taubes and commenters;
  • Montreal authorities ban new restaurants in some neighborhoods, which seems to be just fine with owners of some incumbent eateries [Baylen Linnekin]
  • Among other ominous trends for the hip-restaurant sector, including customer burnout and advance of food delivery apps, health insurance and wage mandates sure don’t help [Kevin Alexander, Thrillist]
  • Latest slack-fill class action alleges there’s too much air in box of Nestle Raisinets [TMZ] Behind wave of class actions over food/beverage labeling, packaging [Jessica Karmasek, Legal NewsLine]
  • What could go wrong? Scotland considers joining Ukraine in enacting a legal right to food [Mental Floss]
  • Restaurant in Turin, Italy, asks diners to sign waiver before consuming hot-pepper-laden dish [La Stampa, in Italian]

Canada lawsuit: cheese-rolling competition injured child spectator

“According to cheese-rolling historians, humans may have been chasing wheels of cheese down steep slopes since pagan times. Written accounts of cheese-rolling date back nearly 200 years.” But now lawyers are catching up with the hazardous pastime. The original Gloucester cheese-rolling festival in England was officially canceled in 2010 — an unofficial version continues — and now in British Columbia, Canada, a suit claims compensation for a child spectator said to have been knocked to the ground by the impact of a rolling cheese on the other side of a safety net. [CBC]

September 28 roundup

  • Today at Cato, Josh Blackman discusses his new book Unraveled: Obamacare, Religious Liberty, and Executive Power with comments from Washington Post Supreme Court reporter Robert Barnes and Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner, Ilya Shapiro moderating [watch live 12 noon Eastern]
  • Breed-specific laws fuel mass euthanasia: “Montreal Gearing Up To Sentence Huge Numbers Of Innocent Dogs To Death” [Huffington Post]
  • Feds prepare to mandate mechanical speed governors capping road speed of tractor-trailers; truckers warn of crashes and traffic jams [AP/San Luis Obispo Tribune]
  • “You have to go back to the Red Scare to find something similar,” said Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) of advocacy-group subpoenas by Hill committee in “Exxon Knew” probe. Or just five months to the CEI subpoena [Washington Post hearing coverage which oddly omits mention of CEI episode]
  • “I’m not here to take away your guns.” Why Hillary Clinton’s assurances ring hollow [Jacob Sullum] Trump’s comments defending stop-and-frisk and no-fly no-buy further undercut his never-impressive claims as defender of gun liberty [AllahPundit, Leon Wolf, Ilya Somin]
  • Why my Cato colleagues believe the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership (TPP) is worth supporting as a trade liberalization measure despite some suboptimal aspects [Daniel J. Ikenson, Simon Lester, Scott Lincicome, Daniel R. Pearson, K. William Watson, Cato Trade]

Gotta regulate ’em all, cont’d: more on the law of Pokémon Go

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has “fired off a letter along with two Democratic colleagues demanding Pokémon Go explain what it does about how much data its users use playing the game.” [Ed Krayewski, Reason] “The Tax Aspects Of Pokémon Go” [Adam Thimmesch via Caron/TaxProf]. “How Pokémon GO Players Could Run Into Real-Life Legal Problems” [Brian Wassom, Hollywood Reporter] The U.S. Border Patrol briefly detained two teenagers from Alberta, Canada, who inadvertently crossed over into Montana in search of the imaginary creatures [AP/CTV]. Earlier on the Pokémon Go craze here; way back when we covered controversies involving Pokemon trading cards (class action lawyers sue claiming the cards constitute “gambling”; language minister of Quebec threatens maker for allowing cards to be sold in the province without French-language packaging and instructions).

Black Lives Matter “shuts down” Toronto’s Pride parade

I’ve posted previously this year about the growing trend toward disrupting and shouting down political opponents’ rallies and events. It’s worth mentioning that much of the disruption, notably from activists claiming to speak in the name of the group Black Lives Matter, is actually more against political allies than against opponents. On Sunday BLM’s local chapter disrupted Toronto’s annual gay pride celebration — which trustingly had invited BLM to lead the celebration — with a list of demands including no longer allowing law enforcement to have floats in the parade. I’ve compiled a new Storify telling what happened next. More: Jamie Kirchick, L.A. Times.

July 6 roundup

  • Lawyers try contortions to fit Sandy Hook gun suit into “negligent entrustment” mold [Daniel Fisher, more, earlier]
  • Judge Gonzalo Curiel, lately in news, tosses class action claiming MillerCoors misrepresented Blue Moon beer as “craft” [Reuters]
  • Orlando murderer’s father: The nightclub’s sort of at fault here too, you know [AllahPundit]
  • “The long, strange saga of Harry Reid and the exercise band” [Amber Phillips, Washington Post/San Luis Obispo Tribune]
  • “Prominent Toronto lawyer ordered to pay $114K for role in pursuing ‘unreasonable’ lawsuits” [National Post]
  • That fabled transparency: U.S. Dept. of Justice doesn’t seem to welcome outside scrutiny of its FCPA enforcement [Mike Koehler, FCPA Professor]

May 18 roundup

  • Do behavioral economists acknowledge policymakers’ own foibles? Not often it seems [Niclas Berggren via Bryan Caplan]
  • China, not unlike our own attorney general-environmentalist alliance, is cracking down on the work of what it deems ideologically harmful nonprofits [ABA Journal]
  • Barking mad: new ABA ethics proposal would deem it professional misconduct for lawyers to discriminate on various grounds, including “socioeconomic status,” in choosing partners, employees and experts [Eugene Volokh, Sara Randazzo/WSJ Law Blog]
  • Virginia still has a law requiring annual safety inspection of your car, and it’s still a bad idea [Alex Tabarrok]
  • Court in Canadian province of New Brunswick rules against honoring will that left estate to racist group [CBC]
  • From the left, Paul Bland sees Monday’s Supreme Court decision in Spokeo v. Robins as a big loss for business defendants [Public Justice, earlier] Contra: Andrew Pincus, plus more from WLF.

Crime and punishment roundup

  • Judges generally aren’t supposed to jail defendants over petty fines and fees they’re unable to pay, but many do anyway. How one Texas judge resists [Ed Spillane, Washington Post]
  • Maryland legislature passes amended version of asset forfeiture bill I spoke favorably of at Annapolis press event in January [Tenth Amendment Center, background]
  • Child services hair-sample forensics: “This Canadian Lab Spent 20 Years Ruining Lives” [Tess Owen, Vice]
  • Cato’s 1995 Handbook for Congress urged repeal of Clinton crime bill, but Congress didn’t listen [Tim Lynch, Newsweek and more]
  • “The main thing going through my head was, ‘I’m never going to get a job again.’” Public shaming as punishment [Suzy Khimm, The New Republic]
  • Judge Alex Kozinski publicly names prosecutors in Washington state he thinks may have violated a defendant’s rights [Matt Ferner, HuffPo]