The Ugly Canada Thread

[vid]

What a beautiful building! Let's hide it behind a shoebox!

[O-tacular]

So the Saskatchewan farmer who murdered Colten Boushie was acquitted. We are every bit as racist as the U.S.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nat...death-of-colten-boushie/article37929427/

[osirisboy]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

So the Saskatchewan farmer who murdered Colten Boushie was acquitted. We are every bit as racist as the U.S.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nat...death-of-colten-boushie/article37929427/

Well at least you didn't jump to any sweeping conclusions. Have you ever been to the us?

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by osirisboy

Well at least you didn't jump to any sweeping conclusions. Have you ever been to the us?

The simple fact agreed upon by everyone is that he was holding a gun when he ran up to the car and shot Colton Boushie in the back of the head. There can be debate about degrees of murder but for him to be completely acquitted is insane. It probably would have been a miscarriage of justice if he only got manslaughter but this is O.J. level insane.

Yes I’ve been to the US. What’s your point? Our racism is less overt but Canada’s track record with Indigenous people is undeniable.

[jigglysquishy]

They were drunk, trespassing, attempting vehicle theft, and were armed.

The death is terrible, but the four individuals in the car acted about as poorly as you could have.

[itom 987]

^ Exactly.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by jigglysquishy

They were drunk, trespassing, attempting vehicle theft, and were armed.

The death is terrible, but the four individuals in the car acted about as poorly as you could have.

And that justifies murder? What if they were white frat boys?

[lio45]

When a jury of the accused's peers who has heard and seen all the evidence for both sides unanimously says "A" while an armchair quarterback in another province who has likely only paid superficial attention to the case says "B", are we really going to go with "B" as our automatic assumption for the only possible true justice?!?

Seems obvious that you (O-Tac) had, in advance, decided already what your idea of justice should be, before the trial. Needless to say that's not how justice works in civilized societies.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by lio45

When a jury of the accused's peers who has heard and seen all the evidence for both sides unanimously says "A" while an armchair quarterback in another province who has likely only paid superficial attention to the case says "B", are we really going to go with "B" as our automatic assumption for the only possible true justice?!?

Seems obvious that you (O-Tac) had, in advance, decided already what your idea of justice should be, before the trial. Needless to say that's not how justice works in civilized societies.

The facts are he had a gun and ran up to the car and fired the gun and someone died. The bare minimum sentence should be manslaughter. It’s practically the definition of it assuming he had no pre planned motive. Even by the most lenient of standards he should be held accountable for improperly handling a weapon. And that assumes an act of God caused the gun to misfire.

Furthermore I feel as an outsider that I do not hold the same prejudices and grudges of local farmers in relation to their first nations neighbours. Did you read any of the vitriol posted on social media about this? A councilman had to resign after stating the farmer should have shot them all and left no witnesses.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

The facts are he had a gun and ran up to the car and fired the gun and someone died. The bare minimum sentence should be manslaughter. It’s practically the definition of it assuming he had no pre planned motive. Even by the most lenient of standards he should be held accountable for improperly handling a weapon. And that assumes an act of God caused the gun to misfire.

Furthermore I feel as an outsider that I do not hold the same prejudices and grudges of local farmers in relation to their first nations neighbours. Did you read any of the vitriol posted on social media about this? A councilman had to resign after stating the farmer should have shot them all and left no witnesses.

"Someone fired a gun then someone else died" is obviously a generic situation where justice could go either way, depending on the context. The range of outcomes that the justice system can return for such a basic situation description is very broad (certainly goes at least from unambiguous, complete acquittal, to life in jail or death penalty even).

So obviously details matter very much.

I don't have those (I vaguely heard on CBC news last week there was a farmer on trial somewhere in Skatchin' for having shot someone, so, for some reason it's big enough to make the national news) so all I can do right now is point out that a jury of his peers, after having carefully reviewed all the possible bits of evidence available, has returned an unanimous verdict, and, as always with such things, there's at least someone somewhere who personally isn't completely satisfied.

Had they found him guilty and sent him to prison for the rest of his life, I'd have the exact same reaction. I won't claim I somehow know better than everyone else, including an unanimous jury who's as familiar with the case as humanly possible.

[niwell]

It's neat that you, as a libertarian, have such steadfast trust in our system and the outcomes. You make it sound like having a contrary opinion is close to treasonous (which is pretty ironic as well).

[lio45]

Originally Posted by niwell

It's neat that you, as a libertarian, have such steadfast trust in our system and the outcomes. You make it sound like having a contrary opinion is close to treasonous (which is pretty ironic as well).

I think you're misinterpreting me a bit. I don't mind anyone having their own opinions, but as we've been discussing on this forum for years, there's a social media mob justice phenomenon on the rise that's somewhat worrying, of which the reaction to the jury's decision is yet another manifestation.

But yeah, if I haven't paid much attention to something, you're correct that I will generally be skeptical at first sight of the Guy who claims he's right while all the people who have evaluated the evidence, some of which wasn't even ever available to the Guy in the first place, are wrong.

My view on the justice system is akin to Churchill's on democracy: it's bad, but any other way to run justice in society would likely be even worse.

In summary: if an angry mob catches this Sask farmer just as local justice releases him a free man and immediately lynches him, I will deplore it while O-Tacular cheers.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by niwell

It's neat that you, as a libertarian,

FYI, I'm definitely a libertarian by local standards, but I'm still extremely far from seriously thinking a free-for-all society would be good! Humans obviously need rules / a social contract to function.

[niwell]

I was being pretty tongue in cheek, but I do think there are situations where it is fair to vocalize critical opinions of something that seems suspect. The internet is one of those places, for better or worse!

[MonctonRad]

Regardless of how one feels about the verdict in this particular case, is anyone else surprised by the fact that both JT and the justice minister got on Twitter so quickly to express sympathy for the family of the shooting victim and concern that "changes" were necessary for the criminal justice system?

This seems to border on government bias as far as the verdict is concerned, and could even be considered as interference in the judicial process. The Crown hasn't decided yet on whether there will be an appeal, but yet the government is signaling that they think the verdict is wrong. This government meddling in the process could make it difficult to find a second jury unbiased by the government opinion.

JT could have inadvertently made it impossible for an unbiased appeal to proceed........

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by niwell

It's neat that you, as a libertarian, have such steadfast trust in our system and the outcomes. You make it sound like having a contrary opinion is close to treasonous (which is pretty ironic as well).

Yes, very peculiar...

[lio45]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

Yes, very peculiar...

Some trial takes place 3,000 km away from me in a place I've never set foot in my life, and just because politically I tend to dislike enormous-intrusive-wasteful governments, and usually like to express that preference by voting for the leanest options available, I'm now expected to automatically default to the opinion that the jury of the accused's peers must be wrong in whatever they unanimously decided?

Let's push your reasoning a bit further: if that jury had instead decided he was guilty of murder, you would have expected me, as a libertarian, to immediately react the same way you think I should have reacted in this case (i.e. "as a libertarian I distrust the system, therefore I automatically oppose the verdict that just got rendered, whatever it is") ?

[lio45]

Originally Posted by niwell

I was being pretty tongue in cheek, but I do think there are situations where it is fair to vocalize critical opinions of something that seems suspect. The internet is one of those places, for better or worse!

Yes, you're absolutely right. I don't intend to try to deny anyone's right to an opinion, and I hope I didn't come across that way. But just as it's fair for him to vocalize critical opinions, it's also fair for me to vocalize critical opinions of his critical opinions.

Note that even before I first posted, there were two Prairie SSPers that had both chimed in to disagree with O-tac's skepticism; I merely joined their side, I didn't invent anything here. When some trial somewhere results in a given outcome, it's way more likely than not that it's the correct one from the point of view of rendering justice. We can discuss it further of course, but I have found his arguments so far (essentially along the lines of "someone fired a gun then someone else died, a situation which should always result in a charge of manslaughter at the very least regardless of context, otherwise it's a miscarriage of justice!") to be unconvincing.

[bulliver]

Originally Posted by lio45

I'm now expected to automatically default to the opinion that the jury of the accused's peers must be wrong in whatever they unanimously decided??

Yes, the jury was literally wrong. They ignored the law, they ignored the evidence, and they returned a non-guilty verdict because they felt the defendant was justified in summarily executing an unarmed man, who was fleeing at the time. The defendant lied about his gun misfiring. That was his defence. Even taking him at his word the proper lawful verdict should have been manslaughter.

Say what you will about jury nullification but it has NEVER been legal to kill someone in this country in defence of property.

His racist Saskatchewan 'peers' gave him a free pass because fuck injuns....

[lio45]

Originally Posted by bulliver

Yes, the jury was literally wrong.

Could be. As I pointed out, I'm over 3,000 km away, and paid no attention to this trial.

It's just that every single time a generic situation like this happens, you already know in advance that some people will be pissed if the accused is acquitted. If those people had their way it wouldn't be justice.

Say there's a bunch of cops, and a black suspect. Something happens. The suspect ends up dead. We don't have any more info. With this data alone, I guarantee some people have already 100% decided what correct justice would be. The truth, of course, is that this information is not sufficient to reliably pass judgment, and the spectrum of what could have happened runs all the way from 0% cops' fault, 100% suspect's fault to 100% cops' fault, 0% suspect's fault.

In this generic scenario ("some cops end up killing a black suspect during a messy arrest in some place 3,000 km away I've never set foot in, I vaguely hear about it in the news, the jury renders an unanimous verdict that the cops acted correctly, some people inevitably are pissed because they had already decided they wanted the cops lynched") my reaction at first sight will always be the same: I would tend to give the benefit of doubt to the jury, by default.

So, my natural reaction is, okay, if you, as an armchair quarterback, think the jury's wrong, then the burden's on you to convince us. I'm open minded.

Your post was actually a good start, you've actually got points in there, at least.

His racist Saskatchewan 'peers' gave him a free pass because fuck injuns....

I wonder what the jury selection process normally looks like in Saskatchewan then... is everyone racist? Statistically, I mean, you pretty much always end up with a representative jury.