This is how you get a Bukele or a Duterte elected. Either you provide law and order via liberal democratic means or people will elect a strongman to provide those with significantly more mess.
Not to go all Zapruder-film on the decision but, here is the impugned language:
"Where a person with a vagina testifies credibly and with certainty that they felt penile‑vaginal penetration, a trial judge must be entitled to conclude that they are unlikely to be mistaken. While the choice of the trial judge to use the words “a woman” may have been unfortunate and engendered confusion"
I believe Jen is 100% correct that the reference to "a woman" in the second sentence is entirely innocent from a culture-war perspective. The SCC is saying it was unfortunate that the trial judge referred to the victim in the "general woman" sense (rather than specifically referring to her, as, say, "the victim") because it potentially made it unclear that he was relying on the actual victim's evidence at the trial.
That said, this: "Where a person with a vagina testifies credibly and with certainty that they felt penile‑vaginal penetration", is very hard to defend. There is simply no reason to not use the word, "woman", here. None. To start, the phrasing is super clunky. Furthermore, the importance/relevance of the vagina in this context is made clear with a specific reference later in the same sentence thereby rendering the earlier use of "vagina" in that way super redundant.
In short, I think "the right wing culture warriors" got it right in their interpretation of the first sentence and then, having been riled up by that sentence, were primed to take whatever came next in the worst possible way - which they understandably did. (They were also primed because, as both G&G note, there is every reason to expect this Court to talk like this.)
Finally, to digress a bit, the terms "people with vaginas", "chest-feeders" and "menstruators" are crass/vulgar and de-humanizing. This disgusting language is exacerbated in the present context by the fact you NEVER hear men referred to as "people with scrotums" or "ejaculators". You will never in a million years confuse me with a feminist but it is interesting/disturbing to me to note that it is only women getting hosed by the "balancing of trans and other rights" exercise when it comes to sports, change rooms, prisons etc. The fact it is also ONLY women who get de-humanized by the language says something about what's going on here.
As The Line’s audience’s resident frothing TERF (self appointed) I might cause Jen some annoyance by saying… I 100% agree with her.
In the context of the decision, which is a meandering discussion on semantics and what judges can accept as common knowledge (e.g. a generalization that doesn’t require a fleet of expert witnesses, see: “water is wet”) the “a person with a vagina” line is not a woke pronouncement and, if the same judgment had appeared 30 years ago, outside of the context of modern-day gender lunacy, it would have passed completely without comment. Matt said it well: sensors are turned up too high & this was a false positive.
But also, as both hosts note, we should not give the Court the benefit of the doubt — here or anywhere. In particular, the named author of the judgment has a bit of a reputation as rather “enlightened”, for a judge at that level.
What many laymen don’t realize is the extent to which judges rely on their clerks — those fresh-faced new law school graduates who, and you can depend on this, would have recited only the currently academically correct views in those few required “paper” courses, in order to maintain the kind of marks that are needed to be eligible for a clerkship position. Depending on the court level and the diligence of the judge, some decisions are basically drafted by their clerks with varying levels of input from the actual judge. Even more diligent judges, who do not skive off their jobs to the clerk, do rely on clerks’ contributions. Given Justice Martin’s past clerks include the puberty-blocker & child medicalization enthusiast, trans activist, trans-identified male Florence Ashley, I have no doubt that she is au fait that world and that the wording of the judgment was a deliberate testing of the waters.
So while I agree that the outrage is largely confused and wrong about what the actual judgment says, I’ve actually come around to support it on the principle of sending loud & clear feedback on the use of this language on other contexts, where it is intended as a gender battle flag.
In essence, this might be Matthew Shephard situation: while the mob reaction turns out to be misplaced, paradoxically, important positive change might come about as a result.
Will be coming from Red Deer to the Calgary podcast event - will bring some Donut Mill doughnuts. Any specific requests? Also, please use your considerable celebrity star powers to convince the venue to allow me to enter with said treasures - if not, I guess a doughnut is one of the better choices for parking lot dining.
My favourite judicial decisions are the ouevre of David Watt of the Ontario Court of Appeal, who is exceptionally intelligent, comes to reasonable decisions, and writes like Raymond Chandler:
"Handguns and drug deals are frequent companions, but not good friends. Rip-offs happen. Shootings do too. Caveat emptor. Caveat venditor. People get hurt. People get killed. Sometimes, the buyer. Other times, the seller. That happened here." - R. v. Simon, 2010 ONCA 754
In the "fed up and at their limit" category, you can't do better than the thorough dismantling of sovereign citizens by Rooke ACJ in Meads v. Meads, 2012 ABQB 571, which goes on like this for about 50 pages:
"Another branch of the immunity category flows from an argument that a person has some status or has undertaken certain steps that renders the OPCA litigant immune to court action. I have given this category the name ‘magic hats’ to capture the manner in which OPCA gurus and litigants approach these arguments. They freely wear, remove, and switch ‘magic hats’ as need be."
2035 : A blindfolded Matt Gurney kneeling in front of a shallow pit that a cadre of de-colonialist jacobins forced him to dig at gunpoint - "Sorry, but I don't engage in culture wars"
My favourite gems from this podcast (watching the video is a must).
Matt @ 22:52 'Most [culture war] issues are bullshit'
Jen (grinning) 'Except for the issues YOU care about'
BOOM!
Note: I agree with Matt completely about this issue; it is yet another example that civil society is collapsing - slowly, then faster. Very glad he wrote his column, and then tweeted about it.
Jen @ 58:55 [clearly enjoying quoting Nenshi from news article where he goes on and on that D. Smith and the UCP are terrified of him winning the leadership because he is all-knowing about her]
Matt: deadpan, utter non-reaction face for several seconds (he blinks once or twice) while Jen waits for him to react; finally he shrugs while Jen releases the tension by laughing.
This may be the longest pause of banter between you two in Line history to date!
Comedy gold, Jerry!
Looking forward to the live dispatch (if I can make it there in time; hosting a workshop that day) and definitely the meet & greet afterward.
How much of the blame for the issues with our legal/ policing systems lie at the hands of the assorted governments that appoint judges? It seems there are vacancies everywhere, at all levels, so justice is not meted out in a timely manner. Because of that, so many cases are simply thrown out over "justice delayed" that the police have lost faith in the system they work to support? When you destroy the morale of a workforce through incompetent senior management, the product at the end deteriorates. The business example would be Boeing.
I rolled my eyes a lot through this one; that this level of absurdity is our reality makes that mandatory. The stupidity of politics with "war rooms" being just another pathetic example of how winning is more important than actually governing. Wish I could come for the donuts.
Jen hinted that she may discuss Nenshi running for the federal Liberals but didn't get around to the topic. I'm interested in her take as I think that could be his game plan. Nenshi's ego is well known so provincial NDP leadership is beneath him. So far he seems to be playing to a national audience:
-his pre-launch speech in dt Calgary a few weeks ago went all in on trans issues
-so far he has focused on portraying Danielle Smith as immoral etc. Demonizijg the CPC leader failed the NDP in two consecutive campaigns, so why would it work now?
-his launch video claim that Daniel Smith only knows how to waste money and pick fights is laughable to Calgarians who know Spendshi never backs down from an argument that will get him sued
Most of all, I don't see how Nenshi expects to break into the UCP fortresses of rural Alberta and South of Glenmore (southern 40% or so of Calgary). So maybe he is seeking a national spotlight knowing that the AB NDP likley won't elect an outsider as leader
Everything was great with this dispatch until we got to the part where Matt made his outrageous admission that he “doesn’t like Doughnuts” and JG just let him off the hook. Literally the most fucking insane thing I’ve ever heard, and she just lets it slide. I could not recover. It makes me question both Matt’s judgement (obviously), and JG’s critical assessment ability and backbone. Like you literally just accepted that statement unchallenged and at face value Jen. Gross. If we can’t accept and agree on the most basic of facts anymore, we’re way further gone than I ever realized. I’m in a tailspin over this.
It's amazing how much when it comes down to it, Canada is a "farmer/peasant" society that expects security to be taken care of by "the authorities." I'm amazed at the lack of self accountability even now in Canada around security. Where are the gated communities, the secured stores, the armed guards, etc? Or even the robust cybersecurity? Everyone in IT knows that Canadian companies are notoriously lax and cheap when it comes to security.
Canadians love to think of the world being as polite and nice as Canada. Yeah, no. The world has figured out that Canadians are naive and they are being taken advantage of. Time to drop the Ned Flanders act, it isn't respected by anyone else.
But we really should discuss as well how our political culture federally is this weird English/French mashup where we talk past each other, don't understand what makes the other tick and seems to have established the worst of both cultures into one. We are in league with dysfunctional nations like Belgium and Bosnia when it comes to bipolar government.
Matt and Jen apart from the comments about Nenshi and the Toronto police the rest was jsut the two of you feeding on the sounds of your own voices in yoru ears - donuts? gay nuclear weapons? com on you two yo are better than this, mostly, drivel.
As to Toronto police. i was born and raised in Toronto and well remember walking to school and not being able to look too far without seeing a police car or an officer walking the street. Granted it was the 60's and 70's and the VW Beetles were a bright colour but ... where are they now??
You need to invite Naheed Nenshi and someone like Derek Fildebrandt onto the same podcast. Just don't tell them the other is coming. That would be worth a year's worth of subscription right there, lol.
A small comment on the “person with a vagina” term used by the Supreme Court of Canada. I really don’t think that it was an effort to avoid using the word “woman”, as both Mr. Gurney and Ms. Gerson noted. I think that it was more along the lines of writing that “someone with a car would know when they have been hit by another vehicle”; that is, using “someone with a car” instead of “driver”. This is supported by the fact that “woman” was used several times in the written ruling.
A very witty podcast! Mr. Gurney got off some particularly witty ripostes/remarks with one of my favourite being his description of the culture warriors having their woke sensors turned too high. Sorry for my butchering of that line. Some very astute observation about how despite police spending being at an all time high, at least in Toronto, that the police seem to be actually doing less and less policing these days and like to do “safety education” instead. Do they actually not know who any of these bad guys are who are part of the organizations stealing our cars? My assumption has been they know who they are but can’t catch them to make an arrest or are working up to something big, but maybe I’m completely offbase.
I would be curious to hear more about what is going on with our ports as clearly these are the exit routes for stolen cars and we seem to be helpless to stop it. Not sure why we wouldn’t have the military take over some port operations (I’m looking at you Montreal) since the current operations seem to be compromised by the criminal organizations.
Edmonton city centre mall absolutely cratered during the pandemic. The mall was 90% non customers and shelter seekers ect and there were security officers who did nothing (no blame to them). They started having an actual police presence during and it’s improved especially during the day but the stores already left en masse
This is how you get a Bukele or a Duterte elected. Either you provide law and order via liberal democratic means or people will elect a strongman to provide those with significantly more mess.
Not to go all Zapruder-film on the decision but, here is the impugned language:
"Where a person with a vagina testifies credibly and with certainty that they felt penile‑vaginal penetration, a trial judge must be entitled to conclude that they are unlikely to be mistaken. While the choice of the trial judge to use the words “a woman” may have been unfortunate and engendered confusion"
I believe Jen is 100% correct that the reference to "a woman" in the second sentence is entirely innocent from a culture-war perspective. The SCC is saying it was unfortunate that the trial judge referred to the victim in the "general woman" sense (rather than specifically referring to her, as, say, "the victim") because it potentially made it unclear that he was relying on the actual victim's evidence at the trial.
That said, this: "Where a person with a vagina testifies credibly and with certainty that they felt penile‑vaginal penetration", is very hard to defend. There is simply no reason to not use the word, "woman", here. None. To start, the phrasing is super clunky. Furthermore, the importance/relevance of the vagina in this context is made clear with a specific reference later in the same sentence thereby rendering the earlier use of "vagina" in that way super redundant.
In short, I think "the right wing culture warriors" got it right in their interpretation of the first sentence and then, having been riled up by that sentence, were primed to take whatever came next in the worst possible way - which they understandably did. (They were also primed because, as both G&G note, there is every reason to expect this Court to talk like this.)
Finally, to digress a bit, the terms "people with vaginas", "chest-feeders" and "menstruators" are crass/vulgar and de-humanizing. This disgusting language is exacerbated in the present context by the fact you NEVER hear men referred to as "people with scrotums" or "ejaculators". You will never in a million years confuse me with a feminist but it is interesting/disturbing to me to note that it is only women getting hosed by the "balancing of trans and other rights" exercise when it comes to sports, change rooms, prisons etc. The fact it is also ONLY women who get de-humanized by the language says something about what's going on here.
As The Line’s audience’s resident frothing TERF (self appointed) I might cause Jen some annoyance by saying… I 100% agree with her.
In the context of the decision, which is a meandering discussion on semantics and what judges can accept as common knowledge (e.g. a generalization that doesn’t require a fleet of expert witnesses, see: “water is wet”) the “a person with a vagina” line is not a woke pronouncement and, if the same judgment had appeared 30 years ago, outside of the context of modern-day gender lunacy, it would have passed completely without comment. Matt said it well: sensors are turned up too high & this was a false positive.
But also, as both hosts note, we should not give the Court the benefit of the doubt — here or anywhere. In particular, the named author of the judgment has a bit of a reputation as rather “enlightened”, for a judge at that level.
What many laymen don’t realize is the extent to which judges rely on their clerks — those fresh-faced new law school graduates who, and you can depend on this, would have recited only the currently academically correct views in those few required “paper” courses, in order to maintain the kind of marks that are needed to be eligible for a clerkship position. Depending on the court level and the diligence of the judge, some decisions are basically drafted by their clerks with varying levels of input from the actual judge. Even more diligent judges, who do not skive off their jobs to the clerk, do rely on clerks’ contributions. Given Justice Martin’s past clerks include the puberty-blocker & child medicalization enthusiast, trans activist, trans-identified male Florence Ashley, I have no doubt that she is au fait that world and that the wording of the judgment was a deliberate testing of the waters.
So while I agree that the outrage is largely confused and wrong about what the actual judgment says, I’ve actually come around to support it on the principle of sending loud & clear feedback on the use of this language on other contexts, where it is intended as a gender battle flag.
In essence, this might be Matthew Shephard situation: while the mob reaction turns out to be misplaced, paradoxically, important positive change might come about as a result.
Will be coming from Red Deer to the Calgary podcast event - will bring some Donut Mill doughnuts. Any specific requests? Also, please use your considerable celebrity star powers to convince the venue to allow me to enter with said treasures - if not, I guess a doughnut is one of the better choices for parking lot dining.
My favourite judicial decisions are the ouevre of David Watt of the Ontario Court of Appeal, who is exceptionally intelligent, comes to reasonable decisions, and writes like Raymond Chandler:
"Handguns and drug deals are frequent companions, but not good friends. Rip-offs happen. Shootings do too. Caveat emptor. Caveat venditor. People get hurt. People get killed. Sometimes, the buyer. Other times, the seller. That happened here." - R. v. Simon, 2010 ONCA 754
In the "fed up and at their limit" category, you can't do better than the thorough dismantling of sovereign citizens by Rooke ACJ in Meads v. Meads, 2012 ABQB 571, which goes on like this for about 50 pages:
"Another branch of the immunity category flows from an argument that a person has some status or has undertaken certain steps that renders the OPCA litigant immune to court action. I have given this category the name ‘magic hats’ to capture the manner in which OPCA gurus and litigants approach these arguments. They freely wear, remove, and switch ‘magic hats’ as need be."
2035 : A blindfolded Matt Gurney kneeling in front of a shallow pit that a cadre of de-colonialist jacobins forced him to dig at gunpoint - "Sorry, but I don't engage in culture wars"
My favourite gems from this podcast (watching the video is a must).
Matt @ 22:52 'Most [culture war] issues are bullshit'
Jen (grinning) 'Except for the issues YOU care about'
BOOM!
Note: I agree with Matt completely about this issue; it is yet another example that civil society is collapsing - slowly, then faster. Very glad he wrote his column, and then tweeted about it.
Jen @ 58:55 [clearly enjoying quoting Nenshi from news article where he goes on and on that D. Smith and the UCP are terrified of him winning the leadership because he is all-knowing about her]
Matt: deadpan, utter non-reaction face for several seconds (he blinks once or twice) while Jen waits for him to react; finally he shrugs while Jen releases the tension by laughing.
This may be the longest pause of banter between you two in Line history to date!
Comedy gold, Jerry!
Looking forward to the live dispatch (if I can make it there in time; hosting a workshop that day) and definitely the meet & greet afterward.
Cheers.
How much of the blame for the issues with our legal/ policing systems lie at the hands of the assorted governments that appoint judges? It seems there are vacancies everywhere, at all levels, so justice is not meted out in a timely manner. Because of that, so many cases are simply thrown out over "justice delayed" that the police have lost faith in the system they work to support? When you destroy the morale of a workforce through incompetent senior management, the product at the end deteriorates. The business example would be Boeing.
I rolled my eyes a lot through this one; that this level of absurdity is our reality makes that mandatory. The stupidity of politics with "war rooms" being just another pathetic example of how winning is more important than actually governing. Wish I could come for the donuts.
Jen hinted that she may discuss Nenshi running for the federal Liberals but didn't get around to the topic. I'm interested in her take as I think that could be his game plan. Nenshi's ego is well known so provincial NDP leadership is beneath him. So far he seems to be playing to a national audience:
-his pre-launch speech in dt Calgary a few weeks ago went all in on trans issues
-so far he has focused on portraying Danielle Smith as immoral etc. Demonizijg the CPC leader failed the NDP in two consecutive campaigns, so why would it work now?
-his launch video claim that Daniel Smith only knows how to waste money and pick fights is laughable to Calgarians who know Spendshi never backs down from an argument that will get him sued
Most of all, I don't see how Nenshi expects to break into the UCP fortresses of rural Alberta and South of Glenmore (southern 40% or so of Calgary). So maybe he is seeking a national spotlight knowing that the AB NDP likley won't elect an outsider as leader
Everything was great with this dispatch until we got to the part where Matt made his outrageous admission that he “doesn’t like Doughnuts” and JG just let him off the hook. Literally the most fucking insane thing I’ve ever heard, and she just lets it slide. I could not recover. It makes me question both Matt’s judgement (obviously), and JG’s critical assessment ability and backbone. Like you literally just accepted that statement unchallenged and at face value Jen. Gross. If we can’t accept and agree on the most basic of facts anymore, we’re way further gone than I ever realized. I’m in a tailspin over this.
It's amazing how much when it comes down to it, Canada is a "farmer/peasant" society that expects security to be taken care of by "the authorities." I'm amazed at the lack of self accountability even now in Canada around security. Where are the gated communities, the secured stores, the armed guards, etc? Or even the robust cybersecurity? Everyone in IT knows that Canadian companies are notoriously lax and cheap when it comes to security.
Canadians love to think of the world being as polite and nice as Canada. Yeah, no. The world has figured out that Canadians are naive and they are being taken advantage of. Time to drop the Ned Flanders act, it isn't respected by anyone else.
But we really should discuss as well how our political culture federally is this weird English/French mashup where we talk past each other, don't understand what makes the other tick and seems to have established the worst of both cultures into one. We are in league with dysfunctional nations like Belgium and Bosnia when it comes to bipolar government.
Matt and Jen apart from the comments about Nenshi and the Toronto police the rest was jsut the two of you feeding on the sounds of your own voices in yoru ears - donuts? gay nuclear weapons? com on you two yo are better than this, mostly, drivel.
As to Toronto police. i was born and raised in Toronto and well remember walking to school and not being able to look too far without seeing a police car or an officer walking the street. Granted it was the 60's and 70's and the VW Beetles were a bright colour but ... where are they now??
You need to invite Naheed Nenshi and someone like Derek Fildebrandt onto the same podcast. Just don't tell them the other is coming. That would be worth a year's worth of subscription right there, lol.
A small comment on the “person with a vagina” term used by the Supreme Court of Canada. I really don’t think that it was an effort to avoid using the word “woman”, as both Mr. Gurney and Ms. Gerson noted. I think that it was more along the lines of writing that “someone with a car would know when they have been hit by another vehicle”; that is, using “someone with a car” instead of “driver”. This is supported by the fact that “woman” was used several times in the written ruling.
A very witty podcast! Mr. Gurney got off some particularly witty ripostes/remarks with one of my favourite being his description of the culture warriors having their woke sensors turned too high. Sorry for my butchering of that line. Some very astute observation about how despite police spending being at an all time high, at least in Toronto, that the police seem to be actually doing less and less policing these days and like to do “safety education” instead. Do they actually not know who any of these bad guys are who are part of the organizations stealing our cars? My assumption has been they know who they are but can’t catch them to make an arrest or are working up to something big, but maybe I’m completely offbase.
I would be curious to hear more about what is going on with our ports as clearly these are the exit routes for stolen cars and we seem to be helpless to stop it. Not sure why we wouldn’t have the military take over some port operations (I’m looking at you Montreal) since the current operations seem to be compromised by the criminal organizations.
Edmonton city centre mall absolutely cratered during the pandemic. The mall was 90% non customers and shelter seekers ect and there were security officers who did nothing (no blame to them). They started having an actual police presence during and it’s improved especially during the day but the stores already left en masse