Every one of these protests is a complete waste of time and energy. Want to protest....travel 5000 miles to where its happening and make your point there. No one here gives a fiddlers duck about your complaints, and not one of you has a suggestion of what an appropriate Israeli response would have been. So, since you're devoid of solutions, shut the hell up and go home. Maybe do something useful with your time. Now, I'm off to yell at the nearest cloud.
The joke is, to me at least, that the protesters took other’s land for their own, exclusive use. They enforce that use with guards, or some such gatekeepers, and see no irony in their actions while touting the dismantling of others’ property rights. Their view being to ‘share the land’ and not own it, while excluding others. Quite laughable, I find. I wonder if they know how silly they are and how much damage they do to their cause.
I think all of those protestors need to take an economics course and understand that property rights are a cornerstone to a functioning economy. Why would a store owner have a store and stock it if they didn’t have ownership of the goods until they were sold? Why would a landlord maintain a property if it didn’t actually have property rights? Why would a farmer grow a crop if it didn’t own the crop being grown and have the ability to sell? In fact, the poorest countries in the world tend to have low foreign investment due to poor property rights. Even China has established property rights now in some areas.
If a court was to ever rule against property rights it would be devastating to the economy. There would undoubtedly be an outflow of foreign investment. And lawlessness would be a real possibility.
Thanks again for your commentary. And it’s good news they voluntarily dismantled and went home.
Therefore, economics is a concept best explained - they feel - by a reading of Marx and the Manifesto. Or the similar screeds that are centered on "From the Land to the Sea" stupidity.
Yes. You are absolutely right. And that is the point.
Because the law not only has to be declared, (as the judge did here), it also has to be enforced;; and, it has to be backed up by penalties that are sufficiently consequential that they provide an effective deterrent.
But that is not necessarily the case, today, and protesters know it.
On the contrary, they have come to learn that the property and civil rights of other citizens can be disregarded and the police will do nothing.
Not even, it seems, reliably enforcing an injunction issued by a judge.
How is it that a Toronto dinner for the visiting Italian PM ended up getting cancelled, because protesters barred entry and they were not removed?
How do a couple of dozen protesters get to bring an early end the Pride parade, as they did this weekend?
How was a railway blockade allowed to go on for weeks, at great cost to the railway and its customers. A blockage, by the way, that was about some dispute about the status of unelected aboriginal chiefs, hundreds of miles away, and in which, if memory serves, the railway had no direct involvement?
How was Caledonia allowed to be inundated with trespassers who barred citizens from access to their own homes?
What about those blocking an overpass in a Jewish neighbourhood – until Trudeau whispered in the ear of the Toronto Police Chief?
And so on.
There is not a “rights problem”, as such. There is a Rule of Law problem.
You need to write to the Solicitor General of Ontario (the politician) and also to the Toronto Police Chief (the functionary). I was a lawyer for decades, and I can only say that it didn't use to be like this. Moreover, unless there is a change of attitude, this kind of occurrence is going to become even more common, as identity, grievance and protest groups, being to appreciate how easy it is and how cost-free.
The occupiers at U of T were wrongheaded in their approach to airing their views to the public. Most of us are firmly on board with the notion of property rights (which are set out in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms). To gripe about a court ruling that underscores the importance of protecting those rights is bad form, to say the least.
Which is not to say that some of them did not their hearts in the right place.
Calling out Israel's armed forces for killing of so many civilians during the course of their offensive in Gaza is justified, despite the equally just aim ( the elimination of a ruthless and heartless group of racists and extremists).
Even so, I'm glad that the court ruled in favour of the University. I only wish that the university had had the courage to expel the occupiers before the court ruled.
Indeed, you are correct. The protections afforded to Canadians in respect of property rights derive from other elements of federal law, including case law and the 1960 Bill of Rights. However, these are not binding on provincial legislatures or the federal parliament.
An unfortunate lapse of recollection on my part. Mea culpa.
Having said that, Canada has signed up to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is binding under international law (again, I acknowledge that Canadian governments are not obliged to act on this under domestic laws as currently written).
For a good analysis of the reasons why Canada is presently an outlier WRT property rights (relative to other constitutional democracies), see the following:
Dwight G Newman and Lorelle Binnion, The Exclusion of Property Rights from the Charter: Correcting the Historical Record, 2015 CanLIIDocs 113, Alberta Law Review Society, 2015, https://canlii.ca/t/6wc
Good Lord. Who in the hell is going to hire these recent University graduates? To suggest that our Native population did not believe in ownership of land belies the fact that the Cree nation went to war with the Iroquois nation over territories (land). There were Native territorial wars throughout North America and South America. There is a serious disconnect in our Universities between factual history and the crap the students are being taught today.
First, if you are protesting for a left wing cause then the law will move slowly, if at all, to thwart your activity. How many of those who burned churches have been arrested/charged/convicted? Block a railway, highway or pipeline for the cause of 'native rights' (even if most of the protestors are non-native) then you get a pass. Drive your truck to Ottawa and park to protest and you get accused of arson, threatening people, destroying businesses and so on (even though the police knew you were coming and did nothing to stop you or even direct you to an area where you could protest) or try to rally to support Israel and the Jewish population and you get shut down. The 'woke' social justice warriors control way too many of our institutions and that needs to change.
Second, one of the comments below is to the effect that these students are communists and, unfortunately, that is correct. They donot believe in private property, being rewarded for hard work, and so on but would prefer that the government own everything and then the 'workers' could support everyone. They have no concept of what a disaster the USSR, North Korea and China actually are. They support Hamas and their ilk without knowing what life is like under those regiems. The youth at our universities seem to see Israel as the agressor for some unfathomable reason and, unfortunately, have no grasp of history at all except the woke drivel that is taught in schools and universities now - white = bad/shameful/etc. and perceived 'victim' = right.
We have a federal government who seems only too happy to support all the 'victims' in the country at the expense of those who work hard, pay their taxes and (up until now) created the jobs for people to earn a living. Now we have our military veterans living in poverty while illegal immigrants get house, fed, doctored and resettled.
This needs to change if there is any hope for a future for Canada and our grandchildren.
All that ... everything that you're reasonably saying ... it works for me.
But ... having said that ... I gotta say ... and this does not reflect "well" on me ... I was so (so) looking-forward to a violent humiliating *crunchy* thwacking painfu/legal end to this goofiness ...
Tristan seems to capture the Zeitgiest of it all ...
I know what you mean, but I’m honestly more furious at having this useless “woke/intersectional/anti-colonial” agenda revealed as what our kids are actually being taught. What a farce.
Not just the indigenous of Newfoundland, all indigenous groups across NA had divvied up the land in informal agreements, the only sharing was within an individual tribe, where each member did a job to benefit the entire tribe, men hunted, women gathered, medicine men did medicine..., Very much similar to how communes work!...AND structured modern society!
Good point. I’m no scholar but I believe historical documents have recorded scores of bloody battles fought over territorial fights between indigenous groups. I remember reading a book about how people would take their lives in their hands if they dared wander onto “Comanche land”.
Unfortunately the Canadian Constitution does not enshrine Property Rights for its citizens. It was specifically left out by Pierre Trudeau to provide ultimate power to the state for all property. So organizations / people can argue with each other over them but if a government is involved you will lose.
This is actually the first piece I have read that actually went into the judgment itself. Thanks for doing this. Very useful to read that. Except I don't think those protesters would ever read it.
Best case scenario - this is appealed to the SCOC, and that there are still enough SC judges that understand private property rights and are not already indoctrinated with this 'occupy' BS, and they uphold this Ontario Court ruling.
The prevailing ethos of these protestors is a strain of revolutionary marxism, they hold it as an article of faith that private property is, in Marx's words, "human self-estrangement" and needs to be abolished. I don't think they will he receptive to well-reasoned arguments about property rights
I wish those who insist that private property for decolonial reasons would take economically interesting ideas like Georgism and land value taxation seriously. Instead, the ideology tends to mostly focus on utopian thinking and also contains a large number of people who actually really do believe in private land ownership, just for their group instead.
This decision suggests that the U of T always had the right to eject the trespassers from campus but lacked the moral clarity and courage to take action. Or perhaps the university leadership is sympathetic to the views of the occupiers.
Every one of these protests is a complete waste of time and energy. Want to protest....travel 5000 miles to where its happening and make your point there. No one here gives a fiddlers duck about your complaints, and not one of you has a suggestion of what an appropriate Israeli response would have been. So, since you're devoid of solutions, shut the hell up and go home. Maybe do something useful with your time. Now, I'm off to yell at the nearest cloud.
The joke is, to me at least, that the protesters took other’s land for their own, exclusive use. They enforce that use with guards, or some such gatekeepers, and see no irony in their actions while touting the dismantling of others’ property rights. Their view being to ‘share the land’ and not own it, while excluding others. Quite laughable, I find. I wonder if they know how silly they are and how much damage they do to their cause.
I find that hypocrites seldom self-reflect on such things.
I think all of those protestors need to take an economics course and understand that property rights are a cornerstone to a functioning economy. Why would a store owner have a store and stock it if they didn’t have ownership of the goods until they were sold? Why would a landlord maintain a property if it didn’t actually have property rights? Why would a farmer grow a crop if it didn’t own the crop being grown and have the ability to sell? In fact, the poorest countries in the world tend to have low foreign investment due to poor property rights. Even China has established property rights now in some areas.
If a court was to ever rule against property rights it would be devastating to the economy. There would undoubtedly be an outflow of foreign investment. And lawlessness would be a real possibility.
Thanks again for your commentary. And it’s good news they voluntarily dismantled and went home.
Ah, but IS, they are communalists. Or something.
Therefore, economics is a concept best explained - they feel - by a reading of Marx and the Manifesto. Or the similar screeds that are centered on "From the Land to the Sea" stupidity.
I doubt anyone who goes without consequences is likely to learn much more than what they can get away with.
Yes. You are absolutely right. And that is the point.
Because the law not only has to be declared, (as the judge did here), it also has to be enforced;; and, it has to be backed up by penalties that are sufficiently consequential that they provide an effective deterrent.
But that is not necessarily the case, today, and protesters know it.
On the contrary, they have come to learn that the property and civil rights of other citizens can be disregarded and the police will do nothing.
Not even, it seems, reliably enforcing an injunction issued by a judge.
How is it that a Toronto dinner for the visiting Italian PM ended up getting cancelled, because protesters barred entry and they were not removed?
How do a couple of dozen protesters get to bring an early end the Pride parade, as they did this weekend?
How was a railway blockade allowed to go on for weeks, at great cost to the railway and its customers. A blockage, by the way, that was about some dispute about the status of unelected aboriginal chiefs, hundreds of miles away, and in which, if memory serves, the railway had no direct involvement?
How was Caledonia allowed to be inundated with trespassers who barred citizens from access to their own homes?
What about those blocking an overpass in a Jewish neighbourhood – until Trudeau whispered in the ear of the Toronto Police Chief?
And so on.
There is not a “rights problem”, as such. There is a Rule of Law problem.
Nice post.
You’re saying the quiet part out loud.
We need an awful lot more people to do the same for democracy to get back to working.
You need to write to the Solicitor General of Ontario (the politician) and also to the Toronto Police Chief (the functionary). I was a lawyer for decades, and I can only say that it didn't use to be like this. Moreover, unless there is a change of attitude, this kind of occurrence is going to become even more common, as identity, grievance and protest groups, being to appreciate how easy it is and how cost-free.
The occupiers at U of T were wrongheaded in their approach to airing their views to the public. Most of us are firmly on board with the notion of property rights (which are set out in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms). To gripe about a court ruling that underscores the importance of protecting those rights is bad form, to say the least.
Which is not to say that some of them did not their hearts in the right place.
Calling out Israel's armed forces for killing of so many civilians during the course of their offensive in Gaza is justified, despite the equally just aim ( the elimination of a ruthless and heartless group of racists and extremists).
Even so, I'm glad that the court ruled in favour of the University. I only wish that the university had had the courage to expel the occupiers before the court ruled.
Sorry, you will not find "property rights" protected in the Charter; and in fact, if memory serves, that was intentional.
Indeed, you are correct. The protections afforded to Canadians in respect of property rights derive from other elements of federal law, including case law and the 1960 Bill of Rights. However, these are not binding on provincial legislatures or the federal parliament.
An unfortunate lapse of recollection on my part. Mea culpa.
Having said that, Canada has signed up to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is binding under international law (again, I acknowledge that Canadian governments are not obliged to act on this under domestic laws as currently written).
For a good analysis of the reasons why Canada is presently an outlier WRT property rights (relative to other constitutional democracies), see the following:
Dwight G Newman and Lorelle Binnion, The Exclusion of Property Rights from the Charter: Correcting the Historical Record, 2015 CanLIIDocs 113, Alberta Law Review Society, 2015, https://canlii.ca/t/6wc
Good Lord. Who in the hell is going to hire these recent University graduates? To suggest that our Native population did not believe in ownership of land belies the fact that the Cree nation went to war with the Iroquois nation over territories (land). There were Native territorial wars throughout North America and South America. There is a serious disconnect in our Universities between factual history and the crap the students are being taught today.
Just a couple of thoughts on this whole issue:
First, if you are protesting for a left wing cause then the law will move slowly, if at all, to thwart your activity. How many of those who burned churches have been arrested/charged/convicted? Block a railway, highway or pipeline for the cause of 'native rights' (even if most of the protestors are non-native) then you get a pass. Drive your truck to Ottawa and park to protest and you get accused of arson, threatening people, destroying businesses and so on (even though the police knew you were coming and did nothing to stop you or even direct you to an area where you could protest) or try to rally to support Israel and the Jewish population and you get shut down. The 'woke' social justice warriors control way too many of our institutions and that needs to change.
Second, one of the comments below is to the effect that these students are communists and, unfortunately, that is correct. They donot believe in private property, being rewarded for hard work, and so on but would prefer that the government own everything and then the 'workers' could support everyone. They have no concept of what a disaster the USSR, North Korea and China actually are. They support Hamas and their ilk without knowing what life is like under those regiems. The youth at our universities seem to see Israel as the agressor for some unfathomable reason and, unfortunately, have no grasp of history at all except the woke drivel that is taught in schools and universities now - white = bad/shameful/etc. and perceived 'victim' = right.
We have a federal government who seems only too happy to support all the 'victims' in the country at the expense of those who work hard, pay their taxes and (up until now) created the jobs for people to earn a living. Now we have our military veterans living in poverty while illegal immigrants get house, fed, doctored and resettled.
This needs to change if there is any hope for a future for Canada and our grandchildren.
All that ... everything that you're reasonably saying ... it works for me.
But ... having said that ... I gotta say ... and this does not reflect "well" on me ... I was so (so) looking-forward to a violent humiliating *crunchy* thwacking painfu/legal end to this goofiness ...
Tristan seems to capture the Zeitgiest of it all ...
I know what you mean, but I’m honestly more furious at having this useless “woke/intersectional/anti-colonial” agenda revealed as what our kids are actually being taught. What a farce.
The University of Calgary knows how to manage occupations
Not just the indigenous of Newfoundland, all indigenous groups across NA had divvied up the land in informal agreements, the only sharing was within an individual tribe, where each member did a job to benefit the entire tribe, men hunted, women gathered, medicine men did medicine..., Very much similar to how communes work!...AND structured modern society!
Good point. I’m no scholar but I believe historical documents have recorded scores of bloody battles fought over territorial fights between indigenous groups. I remember reading a book about how people would take their lives in their hands if they dared wander onto “Comanche land”.
Unfortunately the Canadian Constitution does not enshrine Property Rights for its citizens. It was specifically left out by Pierre Trudeau to provide ultimate power to the state for all property. So organizations / people can argue with each other over them but if a government is involved you will lose.
This is actually the first piece I have read that actually went into the judgment itself. Thanks for doing this. Very useful to read that. Except I don't think those protesters would ever read it.
Excellent. Props to that judge.
Best case scenario - this is appealed to the SCOC, and that there are still enough SC judges that understand private property rights and are not already indoctrinated with this 'occupy' BS, and they uphold this Ontario Court ruling.
The prevailing ethos of these protestors is a strain of revolutionary marxism, they hold it as an article of faith that private property is, in Marx's words, "human self-estrangement" and needs to be abolished. I don't think they will he receptive to well-reasoned arguments about property rights
I wish those who insist that private property for decolonial reasons would take economically interesting ideas like Georgism and land value taxation seriously. Instead, the ideology tends to mostly focus on utopian thinking and also contains a large number of people who actually really do believe in private land ownership, just for their group instead.
This decision suggests that the U of T always had the right to eject the trespassers from campus but lacked the moral clarity and courage to take action. Or perhaps the university leadership is sympathetic to the views of the occupiers.