Musk’s company distributed child porn to the world, and he did Nazi salutes – supporting white supremacist BS – on an international stage. But I’m sure the sex tourist’s crimes were so much worse that your point is totally valid and reasonable. It’s like arresting the homeless guy for robbing a bank for $200, while letting a white collar criminal get away with embezzling hundreds of thousands. “Trust us, the system works!”. Yeah, ok, sure.

And yes yes, please educate me on all the legal bullshit that clearly still matters. Look, if Canadians are watching a Canadian go on international media and throw up Nazi salutes, and seeing a Canadian run a massive anti-Canadian social media company that distributed child porn for a while to the masses, and they’re seeing this person get away without a scratch / no accountability for these sorts of actions, it sends a very clear message – just like the right-wing in the USA getting away with an attempt to violently overthrow their government sent a very clear message. “Due process” shenanigans and lawyer stupidity is a big part of what’s gotten us to this point. Legal sorts going “Well, you see, technically, he’s allowed to distribute child porn because of loopholes and grey areas!” doesn’t change shit for victims, nor does it make anyone think the legal system actually works in the interests of the people – the ineptitude and ineffectiveness of the legal system to hold these people to account for actions that are clearly harmful undermines the authority and validity of the court system. Your points feel similar to a lawyer in the states trying to pretend that the law/constitution matter, while the supreme court is busy accepting paid vacations to chill with Putin in his palace, gobbling down Trump’s dick and enabling all the human rights abuses and disregard for the law by the administration going on in the states. You can’t claim the US courts are unbiased/fair, when their supreme court is so highly questionable and clearly politically controlled. On Canada’s part and in terms of international law, Canada’s government is already signalling very clearly that the foundation of an international rules-based order is toast, and that nations need to re-orient their setups accordingly – so I’ll prolly not bother getting too mired in the murk of an international legal system that’s been declared on life support at best.

Like Netanyahu is wanted by the ICC for war crimes. Australia, a country that claims to comply with the ICC and is a ‘middle power’, just invited him over for a friendly visit. Those international laws are totally still working and valid, I better get reading! Oh, wait.

As to your example with weed smoking – frankly, if you were broadcasting your habit into the UK and promoting weed publicly on international channels targeting the UK, and then you went to visit the UK, I’d be fine with them holding you accountable. Likewise, if a Canadian goes to a foreign country, and then starts doing shit like they did in ISIS, Canada basically abandoned those people for years because we didn’t want them back, and we were generally all fine with them languishing in squalid jails in syria for their atrocities. Especially because, by Canadian court standards, it’d be nearly impossible to get an actual conviction due to the lack of documentation/evidence trails from that period/region. And in the ISIS case, yeah, Canada was eventually told by the courts that they should’ve done more to repatriate those immoral/monstrous people – so it was “against the law!” to do what Canada did, but Canada fuckin did it anyway cause it was the right thing to do.

And Meng? Say what you want, she was clearly a pawn in an international spat between the USA and China, designed to alienate Canada and China from one another. And it worked for years, with relations being completely soured right up until Carney’s recent visit. Again, it was “technically legal” to do that, but Canada likely shouldn’t have gone along with it – the states didn’t even want to extradite her, as the whole point was to fuckup Canada/China relations.

Lawyers are scum, there’s a good reason there used to be tons of lawyer jokes shitting on the profession. AI could eat the lot of them, and the regular citizen likely wouldn’t notice a difference. “We made the law so stupid that you need to pay us hundreds of thousands of dollars to figure out if you’re in trouble! And even then, it doesn’t really matter cause your innocence is basically determined by how much money you can spend on us! Yay! Fairness!” – congrats, so there’s no difference between a lawyer telling me stupid shit, and an AI telling me stupid shit, as it all just sounds like stupid shit.

Canada isn’t beyond going after people for crimes committed in other countries. Just look at how well we’ve repatriated and ‘forgiven’ the atrocities of people who went and joined ISIS. Or that swirly-face guy who did the whole child-sex-tourism thing in Thailand, but still got nabbed in Canada for it. Or Meng, who’s wires were sent outside of Canada, and yet she was still detained, by Canada, for years, because the US said so.

Saying “Nothing can be done!” is not the attitude Canada has taken in other scenarios. Even when the person is basically let go after a while (Meng), they still took some action. Here, Canada just shrugs, and lets the US give money to Alberta separatists, while they’re also running disinformation style campaigns and influence campaigns focused on disrupting and heightening instability in Canada: they control most of Canadas major media afterall. Musk is basically immune to accountability for his actions due to his relationship with the US administration and his giant pile of money: things that frankly, should make him a foreign agent of some sort, with far more scrutiny to his actions within Canada/impacting Canada. He practically runs an anti-Canada influence machine in X, and is openly manipulating things like Wikipedia (grokepedia) to align to the US Administrations distorted/fabricated world view. His status is similar to how Trump is immune to anything in the Epstein files, realistically, and he’s only fussed about it cause he’s a narcissist worrying about his legacy – not because he’s worried he’ll face any direct accountability for his past actions.

Hate speech is a criminal offense in Canada. Any other citizen doing a nazi salute and promoting white supremacy risks literal jail time. Hell, the guy subsequently pushed out a kiddy-porn grok tool, and still isn’t getting held accountable.

One of the functions of the courts is to basically “make examples” of public/blatant violations of the laws, to re-enforce the importance of obeying the laws to other would be criminals.

Musk, a Canadian citizen, lands in Canada, as he frequently does, you throw him in Jail. Max sentence is two years, so have him serve the max – I mean, the scale of his actions certainly would warrant a proper display of punishment. We threw Meng Wanzhou in jail based on the descriptions she provided for doing Wire Transfers, held her in Canada for years before she was released. So, that’s what the government’d do if Musk wasn’t a billionaire/US figure immune to all laws in Canada. Laws that only really apply to the poors.

Just like our government used those hate speech laws to punish musk, a canadian citizen, for doing nazi salutes on international media / supporting fascist ideals openly?

I dont see it happening. Many of our laws are just for poor people / commoners.

The fairly luke-warm ‘stay’ petition, rabid ‘leave’ petitions, and generally failing recall attempts, seem to paint a slightly more muddled picture.

At least BC’s premier is openly using the Treason word for this shit.

Anarchism is a bit of a fantasy once it encounters reality, like most political ideologies. The most viable attempt at an anarcho-government was in spain before Franco. It failed in terms of running a functional country, with the short lived experiment being unable to even decide whether to arm the few defenders against Franco’s authoritarian capture of the country – Durruti had to basically raid/steal weapons for his troops to mount any kind of resistance.

So literature I’d recommend is basically spanish history.

they declared canada a threat due to miniscule amounts of fent going over the border in their direction. The US Supreme court, shortly before coming out with a ruling on whether the tariffs are legal or not, decided to just shelve that decision for an indefinite amount of time in the future. I don’t think the USA gives a flying fuck about your implied rules / order. This administration will tariff whoever they want, and the courts will approve it because the supreme court is controlled by the administration. Just like how they’ll let ICE shoot people, and then refuse to investigate it, stating their officers have immunity.

They’re likely intentionally targeting only ‘some’ EU members, because that’ll help them drive wedges between EU members and break up that block. They won’t give a fuck about any WTO shit, Trump and them actively want to see the EU broken apart and claim all this shit is in the interest of US national security.

I mean, if you want to continue dreaming like the USA makes sense / is rational at this stage, go ahead. I just dont think its that practical.

Holding public officials to a higher standard is not in fashion these days I suppose.

Not sure you’ve read it properly then. “As a regular citizen” is a qualifier in that statement, with the point being that once you take an oath of office there’s a different set of standards that apply. Once you take on a position of authority and power as an elected representative, you have an obligation to put the interests of your elected constituents before the interests of your ties to your foreign ancestral home.

Yes, allies, sure. We’re tepid trading partners, as of 2017, a time when Ms Freeland had authority in Canada’s government - and which, given her current decision, it would be reasonable to question whether that trade arrangement was made because it was in Canada’s best interests, or was it more out of loyalty to Ukraine, with too many concessions made on the Canadian side?

We’re not official military allies, as they’re not in NATO. Preventing that alliance from being ‘formalized’ is/was a big part of russia’s thin justification for their aggression.

We’re both, in theory, democratic nations. Though in Ukraine’s case, that’s a very recent development, given that previous leaders were largely considered russian puppets – another theorized reason for russia’s aggression being that they lost their puppet. We may show solidarity with their plight against a russian aggressor, but I don’t think that inherently makes us allies.

Ukraine is about as much an ally of Canada as any other neutral third party country on the other side of the world.

If she couldn’t represent Canada and Canada’s interests without conflict of interests, she shouldn’t have been an MP in the first place, nor should she have been given any authority over the Country’s policies/direction.

Nothing inherently wrong with continuing to be involved with / supporting the interests of your former/ancestral home (to some extent) as a regular citizen. But when you take an oath of office to represent a nation, you shouldn’t have loyalties to other nations that undermine that oath. I don’t think this is a very complicated take on the situation, nor one that warrants further explanation.

When you’re elected to represent your new home, you shouldn’t be representing your old countries interests. Doesn’t matter if she’s of Ukrainian ancestry. Just take that line, and swap it to China – we’ve a lot of elected reps who are of Chinese ancestry. “Clearly” people would take it as unacceptable if it came out that they were actually working for the interests of China, and/or if they reverted back to being members of the CCP mid-way through their term serving as Canadian representatives.

A Canadian MP, who theoretically swore some sort of oath of office to serve the Canadian people, bails mid-term to serve a foreign power. CSIS had a report a little while ago about a bunch of Federal MPs who’s loyalties were with foreign interests, not with representing Canada and the Canadian people. I wonder if she was one of the ones on their list.

Yes, anything can happen, in theory. In practice, and based on what we’ve seen historically in the US as of late, no one will be held accountable. America is ok with Fascism, and they’re OK with war crimes, especially against foreign nations. They’re generally proud to be bullies and to be asserting dominance with their elected thug.

These aren’t slanderous accusations or anything, it’s just the blunt assessment from a foreigner, given what’s going on. There’s a subset of Americans who go on social media and lament their country’s actions, and those people tend to get either offended, or depressed/resigned, when you highlight America voted for, and are enthusiastic about, their fascist dictatorship. But that minority outlier does not change that Americans en masse still support their government, even when their government has become a pretty clear fascist dictatorship to the rest of the world. Most of the country is cheering on war crimes and crimes against humanity. It comes across fairly explicitly as such through multiple media sources, from multiple countries etc.

Publicly, the rest of the world leaders are cagey about comments on Americas recent turn, because they’re all worried that America will attack them next. That’s not how your relationship with ‘allies’ should be, and many are moving to shore up militaries and cut ties with America as part of this shift. That sort of thing won’t change, even if America manages to have another election and a more ‘normal’ democrat wins that time around – because the world knows full well that America could flip flop the next time, back to even more hardcore fascist leanings.

Well, in America, war crimes usually make you a profit and get excused/vetod/protected by the govt. So there’s that reason.

It’s not like Americans are going to hold any of these people accountable. They’ve already failed to do so after Trump’s first term.

I don’t see anything wrong with that second note, translating the position into one about race instead of gender.

Equity-type programs often get started based off of aggregate differences in statistical data based on demographic slices, with good intentions. But I’ve yet to see any cases where they build in a process for removing equity support programs once a ‘goal’ is reached / more parity is visible in the data.

So as an example from Canada, equity employment programs were introduced in the mid/late 1980s to address the imbalance between men and women in the workforce. You can see how this played out in the public workforce data. In 1990, shortly after the leg came in, it was at about 54% men, 46% women. By 2000, it had flipped in favour of women, at 48% men, 52% women. By 2010, 45% men, 55% women – a greater imbalance than in the 1990s, the imbalance which had triggered supports to get put in place for women. That roughly 10% gap persisted through to 2020 at least. No legislation has been introduced to remove preferential hiring for women in the public sector, no legislation has come in to promote hiring men due to the shift in the gender imbalance.

On a racial basis, the same pattern can be seen in our post secondary education grants, bursaries and scholarships. Funding for these sorts of initiatives in Canada allows for them to screen for specific equity groups – what some term visible minorities. The roots of that being based on reasonable equity goals – ie. there’s a statistical gap in education levels for a minority group, so they allow people to target funding to minority groups. However, while these policies have been enforced, white men have become one of the least educated groups in Canada, with about 24% of white men attaining a degree, compared to 40% of asian guys (with the highest rate of attainment amongst chinese/korean guys, at ~60%). White men are still not considered an equity group, and so cannot have funding specifically targeted to them to try and address this equity issue. And we haven’t ‘removed’ the ‘disadvantaged’ minority groups from receiving systemic advantage, even though they are out performing the supposedly privileged majority group. The system quite literally has race-based controls working against white men, with a justification of correcting an imbalance that not only doesn’t exist in the data, but where the data shows white men as significantly worse off. The system is basically designed to kick them when they’re down.

I can highlight that education item a bit more using a personal example. A coworker of mine has a kid going to BCIT, one of our western province’s “leading” tech-type schools. They’re Canadian citizens, recent immigrants from eastern Europe, not wealthy by any stretch. They tried to get financial assistance for the kid through the school, but the advisor bluntly told him there were no grants/bursaries etc that he could apply for, since the kid was a white guy – all the available funding was targeted to different racial sub groups. He would have more charitable funding options available from the system we’ve setup here, had he been a third generation millionaire visible minority.

Dedicating time and effort to focus on a special category of murder and implementing harsher punishments for perpetrators based on the demographic membership of the victim, feels counter to the equitable application of justice for a country at large.

Intentionally murdering a woman because she’s a woman, is in my view little different from murdering a person for any of the other reasons that get lumped together under things like ‘first degree’ and ‘second degree’ murders. This legislation change isn’t about making murder illegal – it’s always been illegal. It’s about making the punishment more significant if the victim is a woman and the prosecution can prove the murderer had any anti-woman comments/viewpoints.

There are examples of women killing men because they’re men – there are a few famous, and more less-famous, cases where escorts, for example, kill their johns because they’re easy targets. There are examples of minority groups killing majority groups because of clearly racist/hateful motives, that get excused because of the demographics of the perp and the victim. The legislation change noted, basically says killing people is bad, but killing women is somehow worse – ie. that the genders aren’t equally treated, and women are worth more / require more protection. To apply harsher punishments unevenly based on demographics is not what I’d consider a fair and impartial system – it’s one that’s been engineered to preference the protected group’s interests over the interests of the broader whole.

Besides, men get killed 2-5x more frequently than women in many western countries – why are we trying to protect the gender that has far better overall results? This is sorta a gender equivalent to giving tax breaks to the rich – they already have it better than others, why give them even more privilege? Add more supports to the demographic that has terrible stats in this area.

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Feminism has a place, but it is explicitly about promoting women’s interests – something which if allowed to continue unchecked, leads to significant disadvantages for men. It leads to the sorts of toxic masculinity backlashes that you see in the states, especially because moderates who question women’s privilege in advanced western economies start to support more extreme anti-woman positions, because there’s a perception that left wing feminist leaning ideologies work against their interests. And they’re right.

An egalitarian approach is better, once you’ve gotten to near parity. Most western countries have been at near parity for generations at this point.

Your note about disproportionate targets is misleading and inaccurate. Femicide is specifically about murders as far as I know. In the vast majority of countries, men are victims of murder more often than women (in Italy, men are victims about twice as often). They have higher rates of being assaulted/maimed at pretty much every age category in most western countries.

What you’re likely trying to gloss, is the oft repeated “victim of domestic violence” stats, which is a niche area of violence that gets used by feminist movements to ignore the arguably greater violence that men face on the regular. This sub-division is even more biased, given that men generally don’t report spousal abuse / are less likely to get injured to the point that they get hospitalized by it. Even after the victims of ‘violence’ includes pretty well all categories, in many western countries the ‘results’ are roughly even between genders – Canada for example is at about 48% of all violent offences being committed against men, and 52% against women. But again, not all those crimes are really equal – men are over represented in fatal / serious violent assaults causing injury far more often than women. They both experience violence at the same ‘general’ frequency, but men are more likely to be left maimed/dead.

Murder’s murder, in the eyes of many. It’s strange to provide additional protections for just one demographic, especially when that demographic is far less frequently the victim of murder.