Northman's Fury

A Toronto judge has ruled that Canada's pot possession laws are unconstitutional after a man argued the country's medicinal marijuana regulations are flawed.

. . .

In court, the man argued that the federal government only made it policy to provide marijuana to those who need it, but never made it an actual law. Because of that, he argued, all possession laws, whether medicinal or not, should be quashed.

The judge agreed and dismissed the charges.

"The government told the public not to worry about access to marijuana," said Judge Howard Borenstein. "They have a policy but not law.… In my view that is unconstitutional."

This should cause some interesting debates. Personally, I've been in favour of decriminalizing marijuana for some time, so I can't help but applaud a ruling such as this one, Of course, I don't see the current government doing anything on that front. It's more likely the Conservatives will try and use this ruling as a reason to discontinue the medical marijuana policy instead. Still, rulings like this one means the momentum is moving in the right direction.

It looks like there's some other folks who have realized these new patrol boats aren't exactly everything there being promised to be.

On Monday, Harper announced that Ottawa will spend about $3.1 billion for the construction of six to eight new Polar Class 5 Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships, as well as invest another $4.3 billion to operate and maintain those vessels over their 25-year lifespan.

But critics have already deemed the steel-reinforced ships to be less powerful than icebreakers, as they can't break through thick ice in the coldest winter months. The armed patrol ships will also be stationed outside the North for most of the year.

Rob Huebert, an analyst with the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary, said Canada needs new icebreakers to replace the aging fleet of Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers currently in service.

While Huebert said Ottawa's made a positive step in the right direction with Monday's announcement, he remains somewhat skeptical because he has heard a lot of Arctic spending promises before.

"When we see the actual contract, and we see an actual ship start construction … it's at that point that I'll feel totally comfortable that in fact we are making the right steps," he said.

Audlaluk also said many people in the North have heard numerous government promises for everything from more military personnel to a deepwater port in a northern community.

"To me, as someone living in the High Arctic, I've heard talk like that before," Audlaluk said.

"I'm just curious to see how far that's going to go this time, because they made promises like that before during and after the election."

I'm not holding my breath on this. The one election promise tied to this that I have been paying truly close attention to is the promised deepwater port that is to possibly serve as a operational base for these ships in the brief summer months such vessels would be useful in the Arctic. The announcement of its location, not its construction mind you, just where they plan to put it, has been delayed at least twice since December, and they're still "looking at options" as of the announcement of these ships yesterday.

The federal government will fund the construction of six to eight new Arctic patrol ships to help reassert Canada's sovereignty over the North, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Monday.

A few things about this announcement:

a) They've announced this before, they're just milking it, and will probably continue to do so given there are a number of stages to go through yet before they even start building these ships

b) As the previous story noted, the Coast Guard needs its icebreakers replenished or replaced. The boats Harper announced are useless in heavy ice conditions. Hell, we just had an oil tanker arrive with greater ice-breaking ability than these are supposed to have. Without the big icebreakers, these little patrol boats aren't terribly useful.

c) Dave at the The Galloping Beaver, who has some expertise in these matters, posted about this during the May announcement, and pointed out that sovereignty patrols are the responsibility of the Coast Guard or RCMP Maritime units, not the Navy's, and so giving these new ships to the Navy makes little sense, plus in the comments it was noted that since Cabinet telling the Navy to get the ships rather than the Navy requesting them, the odds of them ever actually being built is quite low.

d) About that deepwater port we Iqaluvummiut were promised:

Documents obtained by CBC News indicate the military has evaluated four possible sites to base the vessels, including Iqaluit.

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However, he said Iqaluit wouldn't be the best location because it is nowhere near the Northwest Passage. Canada's military should be centred right in the middle of the Arctic, at Resolute Bay, LeBlanc said.

"Iqaluit is completely on the east coast of Canada and it would take ages to go to the West Coast from Iqaluit," he said.

"In terms of Canadian sovereignty, I think it would be the wrong place."

Bastards!