Canada rejects anti-terror laws

[Mr. Analog]

The Canadian parliament has voted against renewing two controversial anti-terror measures that had been adopted after the 11 September attacks.

At least there's some sanity on this side of the border.

[Lazybones]

You bet, then again our government is made up of more than two parties, which I think really helps.

[Mags]

Hmmm... Kinda fence sitter whether this will be a good long term thing or not. But the thing that burns me, is that every interview I heard about it, the decision was solely based on Politics between the parties not the facts.

[Thorin]

And that's different from *any other* government initiative, how?

[Mags]

And that's different from *any other* government initiative, how?

True, but things like this lives might be involved.

[Darren Dirt]

And that's different from *any other* government initiative, how?

True, but things like this lives might be involved.

Oh please do me the amusing honour of naming a single govt initiative that doesn't involve somebody's lives somewhere somehow...

The measures allowed suspects to be detained without charge for three days and could compel witnesses to testify.

The minority Conservative* government accused the opposition Liberals of being soft on terror.

The vote comes days after the Supreme Court revoked a law allowing foreign suspects to be detained indefinitely.

- - -

* I wonder if those name-callers would change their perspective if they glanced at the dictionary definitions of the key words in this news story...

[Thorin]

And that's different from *any other* government initiative, how?

True, but things like this lives might be involved.

Oh please do me the amusing honour of naming a single govt initiative that doesn't involve somebody's lives somewhere somehow...

First we would have to clarify what level of involvement in somebody's life we're looking at.  Mags is *probably* referring to deaths directly linked to this particular government initiative.  If he's talking about loss of life as a level of involvement, then I'd say you'd be hard-pressed to link the creation of Banff National Park to anyone's death.  Sure, people die there every year, but that's because they're idiots, not because Banff National Park was created.

Now, knowing how you feel about government in general, you probably measure involvement of someone's life as meaning a lot less impact than actual death - for instance, if the yardstick is that people lose their land and therefore don't live as well as their parents, then the creation of Banff National Park can be directly linked to the people who lost their land and had to move out of the parks.

So, if we wanted to have an intelligent discussion on whether people's lives are involved, we must first agree what kind of actions would cause us to say that people's lives are involved.