09:42 on 2012/05/19 Reply  

• Anto 10:48 on 2012/05/19 Permalink

  I’m taking a little comfort in the fact the poll was started Thursday, before the details of the law were released to the public.

• Maggie_T 11:08 on 2012/05/19 Permalink

  They who are in fact clueless still deserve the right to express their self-righteousness and moral certainty in spite of their lack of a clue.

• ac 14:07 on 2012/05/19 Permalink

  Yea I’m conflicted about this Bill. It doesn’t really take away our right to protest, petition government etc. All we have to do is provide an itinerary 8 h in advance; now if you want to hold a successful demo, I hope you started organising more than 8 h in advance! you wanna get people to know you’re holding this thing. I don’t know, doesn’t seem like that’s a big problem to me. With respect to the fines; I agree with em, hell it’s not fair to limit some kid’s ability to go school – that’s insane.

• St-Henri 17:59 on 2012/05/19 Permalink

  It looks like the police are going to be selective with their implementation of the laws (mask law too) and only go after the real trouble makers. Walk softly and carry a big stick.

• ant6n 20:14 on 2012/05/19 Permalink

  @MaggieT
  Are you saying the students are clueless, or the ones who voted in this CROP poll?

  @St-Henri
  Are you saying that selective enforcement of laws is a good thing?

• Kevin 20:54 on 2012/05/19 Permalink

  There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.

• St-Henri 20:56 on 2012/05/19 Permalink

  @ant6n That’s too general a question to answer. In the following specific cases I am happy that the police use discretion; (1) The SVPM are going to selectively enforce the mask law tonight and not arrest mask wearers who are demonstrating peacefully. (2) When the police don’t bother a family having a picnic with wine or beer in a public park (3) When someone walks past the cops on Ste-Catherine street smoking a joint and is left alone. How about you, what do you think?

• Chris 21:10 on 2012/05/19 Permalink

  ant6n, selective enforcement of laws is the only way. There just aren’t enough cops or hours in the day otherwise. Maggie_T, yes, but if you google it, you’ll see it’s a famous quote.

• ant6n 22:42 on 2012/05/19 Permalink

  I think one should avoid laws that inherently need selective enforcement to be practical. There are some laws that police offers let slip every once in a while, but this is a law that’s always unenforced unless the police officer decides (s)he doesn’t like you or what you are doing. Also, selective enforcement may mean only certain groups may be targeted, which is bad.

• Stefan 04:49 on 2012/05/20 Permalink

  i did not find the question asked in the poll anywhere.
  ask people if they want that a small sub-group of the population, which does not include them, pays part of the public debt and they will say yes.
  but ask them if they want to live in a country where everybody should have the same chance to get an education and they’ll say yes as well …

• Raoul 07:22 on 2012/05/20 Permalink

  Hopefully enough people will defy the law – i say clog up the judicial system and let it grind to a halt – make enforcement more expensive that the increases are worth- they wont have any choice but to strike it down.

• ant6n 09:15 on 2012/05/20 Permalink

  @Raoul
  Isn’t the student strike getting more expensive than what tuition increases would bring in? Must be a matter of pride for Charest to have his way.

• Kate 10:49 on 2012/05/20 Permalink

  Seems to me laws are always selectively applied. That’s where profiling comes in – if you’re a young black guy, something you do automatically looks more suspicious to the cops than the same thing done by a middle-aged white guy (and I mean perfectly normal things, like driving a nice car).

• Josh 15:46 on 2012/05/20 Permalink

  By that logic, ant6n, anyone who dislikes a law should just round up everyone who is like-minded to protest, clog the streets and sometimes break laws. Is that how we settle issues in our society? With a street-fight until you get what you want?

• Kate 17:27 on 2012/05/20 Permalink

  There are various ways to protest laws that are perceived as unjust – slow, expensive court challenges, electoral change, and popular demonstration are all means that have all worked and are legal means in democracies – more or less.

  The vast majority of the protesters in our case have been peaceful and are carrying out a kind of protest which is sanctioned and used worldwide. The fact that a small number of casseurs have broken laws does not invalidate the logic of the majority of the demonstrators.

• Kevin 17:56 on 2012/05/20 Permalink

  @St-Henri
  #2 is legal in my hood.

• Kate 19:17 on 2012/05/20 Permalink

  Picnic drinks are a good example of ad hoc interpretation police can make. On paper, you’re allowed to have beer and wine in Montreal parks if you’re eating. So if you’re a family group, people of different ages, having an alfresco lunch in the park with a few beers or a bottle of wine, the cops will almost certainly leave you be. If you’re a group of teenagers with a two-four and a couple of bags of chips you may be in for a different dénouement.

• Ian 19:39 on 2012/05/20 Permalink

  Technically the drinking with a picnic lunch rule only applies if you are actually seated at a picnic-style table that is city furniture. That narrows the “appropriate” places for picnicking considerably. The again, I have never had a cop say boo about having some wine while picknicking with my family and I am sure a group of teens even will all kinds of food at a proper picnic bench might well get moved along if they cracked a couple of quart beers in a park.

• ant6n 23:27 on 2012/05/20 Permalink

  @Kate
  Assuming that a black person is more likely to have stolen a car is not really “selective enforcement”; I’d call it racial profiling. Because any time the police knows that somebody stole a car, they will enforce the law (I hope so, at least).

  The issue of selective enforcement is more that police will know that there is an infraction going on, and deciding whether they will enforce the law are not. Many times laws may be enforced selectively; but loi78 is such that it _has_ to be enforced selectively; even if the police wanted to always enforce it, it would be completely impractical. Leaving some discretion for police or judges may be reasonable. But for a law which cannot be enforced, this discretion just becomes arbitrary, really hurting the principle that law should treat people equally.

  (Note that in the hypothetical case of the black vs white person stealing or not stealing the car, the initial suspicion may not be equal, but the proof and sentencing, i.e. the application of law, is still approximately equal).

• Kate 16:24 on 2012/05/21 Permalink

  @ant6n: OK, I take your point.

• Josh 19:10 on 2012/05/21 Permalink

  I don’t know if you were addressing me, Kate (I never seem to know actually), but your response doesn’t really address my point. ant6n’s logic, taken to its conclusion, argues that because the protesters have caused such a financial headache (on top of all the other headaches) for government, and since the money expended from public coffers is probably now greater than what they would make from the tuition increases, that they should just give up on the law.

  That seems to be what ant6n is arguing, isn’t it? Maybe I’m wrong and someone can correct me.

  Well anyway, ant6n’s argument is about tactics pure and simple. If some other protesters at some other time, run roughshod over some piece of democratically-enacted legislation that you cherish, I won’t have any sympathy.

  Would all the people who favour the protests taking place refuse to condemn these very same tactics, if, say anti-abortion protesters employed them? You can agree or disagree with the movement, that’s one thing, but what I see over and over again in the comments here is people refusing to disagree with the thuggish tactics used by those on the side they support.

• Josh 19:23 on 2012/05/21 Permalink

  I guess I don’t understand why it’s so hard for the student leaders to say, “We condemn violence of any kind. If any of our members are causing violence, we urge them to stop.” It seems to be really hard for scores of normally level-headed people who support them, too. If I am to negotiate with people, it’s going to be really hard for me to sit down with them until they refuse to condemn the violence some of their supporters are causing.

  What is so hard about that? Yes, I know it’s not *only* students and their supporters who are causing violence, but why not try being the adults in the room about it?

• Kate 20:02 on 2012/05/21 Permalink

  Josh: I was addressing ant6n. People here have been using at-signs with names but they’re meaningless on this site. One of these days this site design will change and we’ll have threaded discussion stuff, but for the moment we’ll have to make do.

• ant6n 21:43 on 2012/05/21 Permalink

  @Josh
  I think the point taken was about the problem enacting legislation that can only selectively enforced.

  The point I tried to make earlier saying that the whole student strike movement/protests have potentially been more expensive than the actual increases (from a government point of view) was again a response to Raoul. (S)he claimed that we should grind the judicial system to a halt to protest this law. I’m saying that since Charest doesn’t seem to be concerned with total costs when it comes to tuition strikes and doesn’t “negotiate with terrorists”; it would seem unlikely that grinding the judicial system would result in the government rethinking loi78.

  Regarding students not condemning violence – they have.

• Josh 11:45 on 2012/05/22 Permalink

  Has CLASSE condemned it and urged its members not to participate? When and where?

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