president Harper?

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Much has been made about the new style of Stephen Harper as Prime Minister. He is different from several immediate predecessors in how he conducts himself and how he relates to his cabinet and Parliament. The clue to his behaviour may be that Harper really wishes that he were president of Canada. Harper seems to take the U.S. presidency as his model, where the president is both head of government and head of state, and has a power and deference unknown and inappropriate to parliamentary governments.

Bush is the executive, he is not a legislator. He picks his cabinet and they are responsible only to him. Harper is also the executive, but he gets that position by being the leader of the party with the most seats in the House of Commons, our legislative body. He picks his cabinet and they are responsible to both him and to Parliament. The Prime Minister is really just another parliamentarian, responsible to the Senate and the Commons.

I wonder whether Harper gets it.

We didn't elect him, the voters of his riding did. He is the leader of his party and the Prime Minister, but we don't want or need a president. The greatest danger to our constitutional development is if the style that Harper has displayed in the past several months actually becomes accepted practice for him and future prime ministers. Then we will lose something of our political identity, as both the cabinet and Parliament get much weaker and much less important than anyone should want them to be.

— Arthur Haberman, Toronto Star (2006/04/19)

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the wait is over!

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The Federal Court of Appeal and the Federal Court engage 42 law clerks each year to conduct research on files to be heard by the judges of the Courts. Each judge of the Courts has a law clerk -- one of whom will be yours truly in 2007-2008.

The work performed by the law clerks includes preparing legal memoranda on court files prior to the hearing of the case, researching specific legal issues, editing judgments and assisting in the preparation of speeches and papers for presentation by a judge. The areas of law to which the law clerks are exposed include administrative law, constitutional law, intellectual property, immigration, tax, human rights, aboriginal and environment law.

I could almost not care about my exam tomorrow...

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losing patience with patients

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Health care is meant to be open to everyone equally. But some doctors question, even deny, treatment to those with certain vices. At issue: health care for patients with self-destructive vices -- overeating, smoking, drinking or drugs. More and more doctors are turning them away or knocking them down their waiting lists -- whether patients know that's the reason or not. Frightening stories abound. GPs who won't take smokers as patients. Surgeons who demand obese patients lose weight before they'll operate, or tell them to find another doctor. Transplant teams who turn drinkers down flat. Doctors say their decisions make sense: why spend thousands of dollars on futile procedures? Or the decision is the product of frustration: why not make patients accountable for their vices? Others call it simple discrimination. But in a health system with more patients than doctors can treat, where doctors have discretion over whom they'll take on, some say it's inevitable that problem patients will get shunted aside in favour of healthier, less labour-intensive cases. So here's the question: if people won't stop hurting themselves, can they really expect the same medical treatment as everyone else?

While I appreciate the logic behind some of the arguments, especially with respect to smoking, drinking, and the use of illicit drugs, it may be a different story for obesity. There is, of course, the research out there that suggests there may be genetic links that increase the likelihood of becoming obese. But the situation is different for plainer reasons of equity: poor eating habits and obesity have also been linked to lower-income households (some may say the same holds true for drug use, etc.). If the essential effect of this screening is that we end up refusing health care for the more disadvantaged members of society, then we need another solution to the resource and doctor-availability problem.

Of course, people need to be accountable for their choices and actions. The "right" to health care comes with the responsibility of co-operating with one's physician when s/he makes recommendations for one's well-being. Dr. Bill Pope, registrar of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba, argues that "by refusing to accept advice related to major issues with the patient's health, the patient is saying to the doctor, I don't believe you, I can't trust you, I can't accept you -- and is basically saying I can't work with you." It comes as no surprise then, that in a "culture of indifference and lack of accountability" -- the "me and my rights" mentality -- many doctors are simply losing patience with their patients.

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happy b-day to the Queen!

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The Queen will turn 80 on 21 April 2006 and will celebrate her official birthday on 17 June 2006. This web site celebrates Her Majesty's life and times and provides information about events taking place to celebrate her birthdays.

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2-week countdown to the last exam

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pro·cras·ti·nate (pr-krst-nt, pr-) v. pro·cras·ti·nat·ed, pro·cras·ti·nat·ing, pro·cras·ti·nates v. intr. To put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness. v. tr. To postpone or delay needlessly. [Latin prcrstinre, prcrstint- : pr-, forward; see pro-1 + crstinus, of tomorrow (from crs, tomorrow).] pro·crasti·nator n.

pro·crasti·nation n.



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the hard work of being "good"

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Greenhouse-gas emissions are clogging up the atmosphere. Children are forced to work in mines using dangerous machinery. Tomatoes are being modified to look more tomatoey. One night you get fed up. You can't just watch everything go down the tubes. It's time to take a stand; every choice you make tomorrow will be environmentally friendly and socially responsible.

But will it make any impact? You're just one person.

That's true, of course, but your decisions can be like a ripple in a pond. If you buy an energy-efficient car, you're not only saving fuel, says John Bennett, the Sierra Club of Canada's senior policy advisor on energy; you're also encouraging manufacturers to make more energy-efficient vehicles, and you're showing friends that a fuel-saving automobile is a viable option. Plus, you're pressuring politicians to put more environmentally friendly regulations in place: Legislators are more likely to take on manufacturers if they feel there's public support.

So individuals can make a difference — every minute of every single day...

quite apropos for Easter, the Toronto Star provides an hour-by-hour guide to being a model citizen... then again, not even Jesus may have had it this difficult...

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accountability in politics

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"Transparency makes politics a running argument
about decision-making, not about decisions."
— William J. Stuntz

Accountability implies that people take responsibility and are held liable for their actions. Ethics refers to standards of conduct and one's moral judgment. Legislation may address the former but it takes character and integrity to satisfy the latter. No law will change human nature. We now have ethics commissioners, conflict-of-interest guidelines, access-to-information laws, and more intrusive auditors in the public service than ever. In addition, we have an aggressively suspicious media and a better-educated public. Despite increased transparency and more sanitary procedures in public administration, we are despondent about the quality of government and the integrity of its practitioners.

Politicians and bureaucrats have become convenient scapegoats for whatever we are unhappy about. Our expectations of them have risen but human nature has not changed. We expect government to operate like an infallible machine but neglect to appreciate that people in it get their work done by "networking" and building "strategic alliances," just as they do in the private sector. And these people, no less than their counterparts in the business world, are no less flawed.

Cleaning up Ottawa requires rules, but rules are only as good as those who live by them. The findings of the Gomery report revealed that the failings in the sordid sponsorship scandal were not in the system's rules but in the people administering them. The Conservative proposals to add more auditors and officers in the public sector — over and above the hundreds added by Paul Martin to the current audit system — may do more harm than good for the efficiency of public administration. No one, however, ought to believe that mismanagement, corruption, influence-peddling and waste will be a thing of the past.

— Nelson Wiseman, Toronto Star (2006/04/13)

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a sorry lack of judgement

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i'd do to him what they do to judges in South Dakota...

Supreme Court justices need not be hermits. No one expects them to dwell in a bubble, never venturing out in public or speaking their minds on legal topics before bar groups. But justices do have a duty to avoid off-the-bench behavior hurtful to the court's reputation and mission, which Justice Antonin Scalia, sad to say, keeps ignoring.

In January, Justice Scalia skipped the swearing-in of Chief Justice John Roberts for a trip sponsored by the Federalist Society to a luxury resort in Colorado. In February, he suggested that those who adhere to a vision of an evolving Constitution, rather than his originalist philosophy of judging, are "idiots." This past week found the conservative justice insisting that a hand gesture he used while answering a question about church-state jurisprudence was not vulgar.


And speaking on March 8 at a university in Switzerland, he dismissed as "crazy" the notion that military detainees are entitled to a "full jury trial," and the idea that the Geneva Conventions apply to those held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. In the process, Justice Scalia seemed to prejudge key issues in a momentous case involving the rights of Gitmo detainees. That should have caused him to recuse himself when the case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, was argued in the Supreme Court last Tuesday. Unfortunately, he has not done so, in marked contrast to Chief Justice Roberts, who is properly sitting out the case in light of his participation, before becoming a justice, in the three-judge federal appellate panel that issued a ruling on the same matter.

Justice Scalia was an active questioner at last week's hearing. Still, it is not too late for him to reconsider his decision to take part in the case. His colleagues should help persuade him that it is the right thing to do. While they are at it, they might try to convince Justice Scalia of his duty to take greater care before articulating — or gesticulating — his sentiments in public.

— Editorial, New York Times (2006/04/06)

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Jessup Cup 2006

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"When one is immersed in his own law, in his own country, unable to see things from without, he has a psychologically unavoidable tendency to consider as natural, as necessary, as given by God, things which are simply due to historical accident or temporary social situation."

— Pierre Lepaulle

Law students from more than 500 schools across 90 countries were gathered last week in Washington, DC to compete for the Jessup Cup. This year's competition problem dealt with the issues of state and corporate responsibility and the rights and preservation of indigeneous peoples in a world that grows smaller every day. The annual tournament brings together students, practitioners, and academics, creating a fraternity of legal professionals and allowing them to share an invaluable academic exchange and cultural dialogue.


This has been an incredible opportunity to see in action the importance of the rule of law in the peaceful resolution of disputes. As clichéd as that may sound, the experience of meeting law students and professionals from around the world who share the same passion and commitment has indeed been reassuring and quite inspiring. It is all too easy to be cynical about the development of international "law" given the current state of affairs in the world; but though the wheels of justice grind slowly, this experience has demonstrated that there is no shortage of people committed to the enterprise. If there is one experience I can be proud of, it is that I can take part in this community dedicated to the mission of global justice.

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children's books from the 'hood

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finger-lickin' good?

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identity and violence

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The increasing tendency to overlook the many identities that any human being has and to try to classify individuals according to a single allegedly pre-eminent religious identity is an intellectual confusion that can animate dangerous divisiveness. An Islamist instigator of violence against infidels may want Muslims to forget that they have any identity other than being Islamic. What is surprising is that those who would like to quell that violence promote, in effect, the same intellectual disorientation by seeing Muslims primarily as members of an Islamic world. The world is made much more incendiary by the advocacy and popularity of single-dimensional categorization of human beings, which combines haziness of vision with increased scope for the exploitation of that haze by the champions of violence.

In fact, of course, the people of the world can be classified according to many other partitions, each of which has some—often far-reaching—relevance in our lives: nationalities, locations, classes, occupations, social status, languages, politics, and many others. While religious categories have received much airing in recent years, they cannot be presumed to obliterate other distinctions, and even less can they be seen as the only relevant system of classifying people across the globe. In partitioning the population of the world into those belonging to "the Islamic world," "the Western world," "the Hindu world," the divisive power of classificatory priority is implicitly used to place people firmly inside a unique set of rigid boxes. Other divisions (say, between the rich and the poor, between members of different classes and occupations, between people of different politics, between distinct nationalities and residential locations, between language groups, etc.) are all submerged by this allegedly primal way of seeing the differences between people.

The limitations of such civilization-based thinking can prove just as treacherous for programs of "dialogue among civilizations" (much in vogue these days) as they are for theories of a clash of civilizations. The noble and elevating search for amity among people seen as amity between civilizations speedily reduces many-sided human beings to one dimension each and muzzles the variety of involvements that have provided rich and diverse grounds for cross-border interactions over many centuries, including the arts, literature, science, mathematics, games, trade, politics, and other arenas of shared human interest. Well-meaning attempts at pursuing global peace can have very counterproductive consequences when these attempts are founded on a fundamentally illusory understanding of the world of human beings.

— Amartya Sen, Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny

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