I’m Katie. I’m a freelance journalist who likes toast. I sometimes work with cub reporters at King’s and I am filling in for Tim today.
News
1. Teens get conditional discharges in revenge porn case
(Unwanted sharing of sexual images, often consensually given to the distributor under false pretenses, is colloquially known as “revenge porn,” even if revenge is not the motive.)
In a Bridgewater court, six young men and boys who shared intimate photos of least 19 girls without the girls’ consent received conditional discharges yesterday and expressed remorse for their behavior.
When they were all under 18, they shared several images of the girls in a shared Dropbox account.
Aly Thompson, reporting for the Canadian Press, writes:
The case is one of Canada’s largest involving a relatively untested law introduced in 2015 to combat the non-consensual sharing of intimate images.
The law came after the suicide of Nova Scotia teen Rehtaeh Parsons, whose family says a photo of her allegedly being sexually assaulted was circulated among students at her school in Cole Harbour.
The judge who made the decision criticized the teens’ defence lawyers, Thompson added, “for arguing in a joint-submission that the girls should have known photos shared through Snapchat could have been saved.”
He said that wrongfully blamed the victims.
“Such thinking and such comments harken back to a time of sexual stereotyping that anyone who has been offended against sexually must have put themselves in that position… It’s discouraging that (society) would still look to women and blame them for what took place,” said Scovil.
But defence lawyer Stan MacDonald said that was not the intent of their arguments. He said what they did was present an “alternative view.”
“At no point in time did we make any attempt whatsoever to blame any victims,” said MacDonald, one of six lawyers who argued for an absolute discharge. “I take issue with the comments that the judge made.”
The boys will follow court-ordered conditions for nine months, including community service and counselling, notes Thompson.
Wayne MacKay, CBC’s legal columnist, said on CBC Information Morning today that he would have liked to see “greater restrictions on social media” in the sentence, because the sharing had been so systematic.
“With young people, that’s how you really send a message,” he said. “Limiting your access to social media, we’re limiting your life as you know it at this age.”
2. Come back, Pride fraudster
Christopher Scullino, 31, used to be Pride’s Vice-chairman and was accused of defrauding the group in 2013. He was supposed to be in court for a preliminary inquiry into the case on August 21 but his lawyer hasn’t been able to make contact with him!
Steve Bruce, writing for the Chronicle Herald, reports that a Halifax judge has issued an arrest warrant for Scullino so that he can face his charges.
3. Grabher… later
You probably know the story by now: For years Lorne Grabher had a vanity licence plate with his last name on it, because freedom. Then government officials decided his name sounds like a “socially unacceptable” directive, and they made him get plain old numerical plates. Now, Grabher is suing.
In Nova Scotia Supreme Court yesterday, lawyers set dates for a trial on September 5 and 6 in 2018. They’ll argue that the decision should overturn. But now, lawyers for Grabher will also question the constitutionality of the regulation itself.
Grabher’s lawyers say they’ll present an amended affidavit that argues a government regulation is so vague it violates a freedom of expression guarantee in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Yesterday after the hearing, I asked Grabher’s lawyer Jay Cameron how far, exactly, this argument went. Should I be able to put “NAZI88” on a licence plate?
“Did you know there’s a Swastika, Ontario?” he replied. “As a town?”
Cameron added that people’s lives are getting better in Canada and that means “people think they have the right to be offended because they have too much time on their hands.”
Later, Cameron and I spoke again. To be clear, the answer to whether I should be able to roll up with a NAZI licence plate is a “no,” he said. “But that’s my opinion as a private citizen.”
Cameron added that the law should be specific and clear enough that it prevents Nazis from getting licence plates without allowing every government official who felt uncomfortable by something to make a selective call.
“If it promotes hate, that’s unacceptable. If it promotes violence, that’s unacceptable,” he said. “Just being offensive…is not enough.”
3a. What’s this Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms anyway?
Okay, I’ve written a lot on Grabher today. But …
I just wanted to add that it was kind of interesting that so far we haven’t heard much about the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms yet in Nova Scotia media. I looked around and did some basic googling to see if we could find out more about this group who has brought this case to the fore. Here’s some of what I learned:
• The Centre was founded by John Carpay, who was a 2012 candidate for the now-defunct Wildrose party in Alberta, and was also that province’s director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
• Its board of directors includes Marco Navarro-Genie, president of the right-leaning Atlantic Institute for Market Studies
• It also includes Barbara Kay, the National Post columnist known for controversial takes calling Quebec’s ban on niqabs in public offices “progressive” and asking “who is left to praise living men in mainstream media?”
• It has advocated for a similar licence-plate case in Manitoba, where someone wanted to make a Borg joke and put a licence plate-y version of the word “assimilate” on their vehicle, prompting complaints from the Indigenous community
I interviewed founder John Carpay about the mission of JCCF and I’ll have a piece up on the Examiner later today. Keep refreshing your browser!
4. If a tree falls surrounded by people, did it make a louder noise?
Chris Benjamin, writing for The Coast, looks at the scourge of right whale deaths and asks if more whales are dying — or if we’re just paying more attention. Read the story here.
Views
1. It’s time for #VisionZero
“Have you heard of #VisionZero? It’s the Swedish road safety philosophy. It goes: “No transportation benefit can be traded for a human life,” urban planner Kyle Miller tweeted last night after he saw a motor vehicle hit a motorcyclist on North and Maynard Streets, leading a fire truck to be called to the scene.
“It’s why Sweden has the world’s safest roads. Because a crash like this in Sweden would not be acceptable. But here in Nova Scotia, it is.”
Miller wrote this important thread after seeing the crash about what we’re willing to sacrifice on the road. Read it.
2. Don’t bring the City to an antique store
They’re not great at haggling deals.
Halifax and the Nature Conservancy of Canada have reached a tentative deal with private developer The Shaw Group to buy a 154 hectares of land for $6.6 million. The land, which is needed to make a nature preserve on the Purcell’s Cove backlands, has been assessed at $1,512,200 — about a fourth of the tentative sale price — according to Zane Woodford in Metro.
What gives?
Woodford reports that The Shaw Group bought the land for $4.7 million, aiming to build:
The Shaw Group’s subsidiary Clayton Developments tried to have the land zoned for development in 2014, but council voted to keep the property’s urban reserve status.
Three years later, Shaw is now walking away, not only offloading this package of land, but doing so for a higher price than what they paid for it.
Here are my questions:
• Why?
• If the city is refusing to zone the “urban preserve” land for development, it’s going to effectively look like a nature preserve anyway, right?
• A Halifax statement says the land has been “unofficial park land” for decades. We’ve enjoyed this for decades without paying anyone millions of dollars. So why not just keep enjoying this nature preserve that we got FOR FREE by DOING NOTHING, Halifax?
Please explain to me why I’m wrong in the comments.
Noticed
Joining the Maritimes’ proud tradition of jumping on horses when they’ve been nearly beaten to death, writer/activist Chris Parsons and some other guys named Andrew, Hugh and Graham have a new “Dirtbag Left” podcast. It’s called Dog Island. It involves a lot of swearing and many plans to eat the rich.
Snark aside, it is actually very good.
Government
City
Thursday
Point Pleasant Park Advisory Committee (Thursday, 4:30pm, Universalist Unitarian Church of Canada) — nothing much on the agenda.
Friday
No public meetings.
Province
No public meetings this week.
On campus
Dalhousie
Thursday
IWK Research Rounds: Us and Them or We? Microbiome Beyond Diversity(Thursday, 9am, Cineplex OE Smith Theatre, IWK Health Centre) — Johan Van Limbergen will speak.
Friday
Mysterious Barricades (Friday, 7pm, Rebecca Cohn Auditorium) — q free concert to mark World Suicide Prevention Day. Performers include Catherine Martin, Peter Allen, Scott Macmillan, D’Arcy Gray, Marcia Swanston, Lucas Hernandes Nascimento, Erin Costelo, Greg Myra and the Blue Engine String Quartet, with host Olga Milosevich.
In the harbour
5:30am: Anthem of the Seas, cruise ship with up to 4,180 passengers, arrives at Pier 22 from Saint John
6:45am: Maasdam, cruise ship with up to 1,510 passengers, arrives at Pier 20 from Sydney
7am: Rotterdam, cruise ship, with up to 1,685 passengers, arrives at Pier 31 from St. John’s
8am: Onego Ponza, general cargo, arrives at Pier 27 from Szczecin, Poland
11am: Palena, container ship, arrives at Fairview Cove from Norfolk
3:30pm: Maasdam, cruise ship, sails from Pier 20 for Bar Harbor
3:30pm: Rotterdam, cruise ship, sails from Pier 31 for Boston
4:30pm: Anthem of the Seas, cruise ship, sails from Pier 22 for New York
Footnotes
Editor’s note: Thanks to Katie for filling in today. I’m really enjoying the fresh voices and much appreciate all the guest writers. Their work is allowing me to decompress while on vacation.
For instance, I so want to weigh in on the Purcells Cove Backlands issue, but I’m trying (and mostly succeeding) to not work and stay off the comments and social media while I’m away.
Oh look, a bear…
Purcells Cove Backlands: Let me get this straight. We are paying a premium for Shaw’s bad investment … and we’re giving THEM naming rights?
Every time we passed by Phuket we chuckled.
Dicks is a common Newfoundland name. Dicks was the best bookstore in St John’s.
Dildo is just one of the many fine locations in Newfoundland.
Hooray for Mr Grabher and his lawyer, we don’t need narrow minded, petty officialdom deciding what is acceptable.
And yes, I have seen the vehicle with the Grabher licence plate.
Great morning file Katie! I am enjoying the fresh take on the file during Tim’s absence.
I doubt if there is any constitutional right of free speech regarding a licence plate, but we’ll see. I suppose there may be some argument if government were allowing some slogans that some find offensive, while forbidding others. (Maybe I’m a francophone seal hunter and I want PHOQUE on my plates)
I’d make an exception on these tastefulness rules for when it is the person’s actual legal name though. I think the comparison to a Nazi licence plate is slippery-slopery-specious. It isn’t the same thing. If Mr. Grabher’s name is offensive on a licence plate then it is offensive when used elsewhere in the public sphere too. I assume it is on all his government-issued ID. (And I doubt if it is even pronounced the way people assume.)
Some people are against vanity plates as a matter of principle, but it seems to me they are easier for a witness to an accident to remember than a random string of numbers and letters, if there is ever a hit and run or a crime. Maybe we should all be forced to have them.
I agree that Grabher does not need to have his plate, and it is all pretty petty, but we do have nearly as much freedom to speak as Americans do. I’m not an expert but I don’t think there’s any consideration for the necessity of speech in our laws.
Who gets to decide what’s “offensive?”
What if, say, Christian or Islamic fundamentalists got to decide what was offensive?
I am tempted to put my own last name on vanity plates. It is pronounced “Jakes” (it is from northern England), and, of course, “jakes” is another name for a shithouse. I’m tempted to see if the government name censors would catch it.
The simplest solution would be to ban vanity plates. Bumper Stumpers was cancelled years ago marking the end of the vanity plate fad.
My personal bias would be in favor of this as I kind of think vanity plates are ridiculous. On the other hand, in this alternate universe, what would people point out to one another on long road trips?
In a free society, expressions cannot be curbed according to what offends the most sensitive among us. Freedom of expression is not needed to defend the bland and inoffensive. It’s needed to protect that which offends someone, most especially, lately, that which offends the mob.
It’s his name, for God’s sake. Find a real injustice to fight against. It’s not as though there’s any shortage.
“Free speech isn’t for talking about the weather”.
Sure. It’s not as if any women or girls are grabbed in real life. And it’s not as if women and girls living their lives in fear or at least apprehension is a “real injustice.”
That is a very,very,very long stretch – unless you believe women never read books or go to the theatre and movies.