Nicole Vishkin: The Eastern Eggplant
In their position paper, the government of British Columbia states, “The province of British Columbia supports the federal government’s plans to form a committee to oversee the application of the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling on medical assistance in dying. We therefore stipulate that the process for selecting members of the committee be transparent.” And yet, on Dec. 4, after the first committee meeting was spent discussing euthanasia and medically assisted suicide, British Columbia failed to sign the agreement. Why did British Columbia change their mind? When asked to give a statement a British Columbia delegate responded, “We made it clear in our position paper that we wanted people with mental illnesses to have access to medical assistance in dying,” they also mentioned that “we were open to cooperating with the Federal Government to see if they would establish a committee to look into this issue.” This was left out of the agreement signed on Tuesday and so the delegate stated: “We were very disappointed by that, so we decided not to sign.” When asked a follow-up question regarding where the funding for the said committee would come from, the British Columbia delegate stated that “The Federal Government has been very vague about the financing for a lot of the initiatives that they are proposing and they have been referring us to the finance committee for that information, so we haven’t had a chance to make out all the finances yet.” She concluded: “The Federal Government did say that they are committed to properly funding a committee that would look at a variety of issues and so we hope that mental health is something that’s considered.” So far, it seems like a poorly organized, empty promise.
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Nicole Vishkin: The Eastern Eggplant
When looking at Ontario’s position paper for Fed-Prov 2018, it’s surprising enough to see two of this years’ justice topics left out. On said paper, there was no mention of transgender rights, pertaining to the MSM blood donation ban revocation. Neither was there mention of gender identity and the prospect of adding to the human rights act. Is Ontario too scared to share their positions on these matters, or was this ignorance on their part? When questioned on the matter, an Ontario delegate responded that “our premier wasn’t exactly comfortable with setting a harsh position, and so I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t making any decisions that I would’ve regretting coming into the meeting.” He further made a point that this way, Ontario would come in “a little more neutral” and could “sort of see where the discussion leads instead of agreeing to something too steadfast.” This is surely a different approach to the two heavy topics and we can only wait to see what will go down in the coming committee meetings. Manya Shahi: The Eastern Eggplant
When discussing how the mental health of gun owners should be established and supervised, The Assembly of First Nations made a confident proposal. They stated that a logical solution would be to have an alert system put in place, which would send an alert to the authorities when a gun owner visited a psychiatrist or a doctor. Manitoba was quick to question them by saying “Wouldn't this make gun owners not want to visit a psychiatrist or a doctor?”. This question seemed to have caught The Assembly of First Nations off guard, as they retaliated with an unclear response. They said that the alert would only be sent if a gun owner visited an emergency medical building, such as a hospital. The purpose of this is so that authorities can find out if they had made an attempt towards suicide, which demonstrates mental instability. As well as this, the alert would not be sent immediately. As demonstrated through the statements made, The Assembly of First Nations seems quite unclear about what they are suggesting, and the consequences of implementing them. Anaum Farishta and Manya Shahi: The Eastern Eggplant
Manitoba disagrees with the majority of the Federal government's proposal and seems to think that Canada gives guns to criminals by not having stricter gun laws. However, they also stated that Bill C-42 essentially infringes on the rights of gun owners. They seem to be switching to their opinions, while also stating that “The people of Manitoba hold very strong opinions on this matter”. Additionally, they blamed rising gun violence in Canada on the United States of America, saying that the gun violence in the states is influencing the issue. When asked to negotiate bill C-42 they stated that “ we don’t want to have bill C-42 repealed” and when asked what they wanted do, they said “ I don’t know”. Manitoba seems to have contradicted their own points. Nicole Vishkin and Anaum Farishta: The Eastern Eggplant
An entire committee meeting was spent solely on addressing euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide (MAID). And in its unproductive nature, we were left with an unproductive agreement. Over half of Canada’s population refused to sign, including Ontario, Québec, Nova Scotia, British Columbia, and the Assembly of First Nations. What now? How can the Government of Canada create new legislation without the approval of such a large chunk of Canada? Manya Shahi: Eastern Eggplant
Within the Justice Ministry, domestic violence is a heavily controversial topic. Though there were various solutions suggested by each province, The Assembly of First Nations seemed to have the most controversial proposal. They had made the suggestion that the perpetrator should remain in prison or custody until the victim and their family have a safe environment to live in, and are financially stable. This would evidently help establish the safety and security of the victim. When questioned how financial stability will be determined, the province stated that financial stability would be declared when the victim Maryam Nadeem: The Eastern Eggplant
Throughout the committee meetings, the immigration ministries heard one thing, time after time. “Once again, Quebec is silenced.” Despite the fact that Quebec's representatives were the loudest and most disrespectful to the Federal and Provincial ministers, they felt silenced. Quebec was stuck on one thing, and one thing alone. Refugees. How many refugees? What kinds of refugees? Where will these refugees be? These concerns were discussed in detail by each of the provinces, yet still, Quebec was not satisfied. They pushed the Federal Natalie Mallet and Ethan McCready-Branch: The Eastern Eggplant
Quebec’s voice is not being properly heard by both the Federal Government and The Summit and the Federal Government is not recognizing the current Federal Government’s real position to have a bilingual supreme court. In an exclusive interview with the Deputy Minister of Justice for Quebec said that: “the Federal Government completely eliminated discussing this issue and refused to listen to Quebec’s standpoint”, and it was constantly misunderstood and misconstrued in an effort to spread fake news by The Summit as a request to have the committee meetings in both French and English when in reality Quebec is advocating for a bilingual Supreme Court. Quebec would like the public to know the real truth, not what was propagated by The Summit, that this is “not being discussed to preserve their culture or to be spiteful, but instead to ameliorate the legal side because it is not practical for all of the French members to be expected to be completely fluent in English and vice versa, to know all of the nuances and not miss out on smaller details of what is discussed in the Supreme Court”. Fionn O'Connor: The Easter Eggplant
At the justice meeting on December 4th, domestic violence in Canada was one of the topics, yet the Yukon insisted on using statistics unrelated to the topic at hand. Some of the sources that the Yukon cited included studies done in California, which is within a different country and a different political climate among other things. The Yukon also saw fit to compare the domestic violence situation to drunk driving in the U.K. When asked how this relates to the subject the only thing the representative had to say was “you got me there chief” not bothering to further explain the point he was making. Should a territory like the Yukon, who can not back up their own points be allowed to make decisions for Canada? In the immigration ministry, tensions are high as representatives are moving from topic to topic with no concrete resolutions being put forward. Delegates from Quebec are moving from revisiting refugee policies to testing immigrants and assimilating them into Quebecois culture. Being productive means working together to solve one issue at a time, in great depth; not jumping from topic to topic. The refugee policy needs to be amended and fast. These are real people whose lives are in the question and require help. Arguing about “how to deal with immigrants” is not going to help anyone.
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