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.
Please educate yourself on how international law and extradition treaties work. Meng Wanzhou was never charged with a crime by the Canadian government. She was charged by the US government for crimes committed under their jurisdiction. She was detained in Canada to be given over to the US authorities because that’s how extradition treaties work.
I’d gladly comment on the other examples, but I’d need something more concrete to go on than vague gestures at that “that guy who did that thing.”
And yes, some Canadian laws do apply to Canadian citizens even if you commit the crime outside of Canada. Treason, for example. We allow for limited exceptions in those kinds of cases. Sex tourism and terrorism are, to my recollection, both examples where that would be the case.
But hate speech is not. And while you argue, if you want to, that it should be, even changing the law today would not put Musk in any immediate legal jeopardy because the Charter of Rights and Freedoms commands that no person shall ever be subject to criminal prosecution unless the action they took was illegal at the time that it was committed.
Personally, I don’t think thats a legal can of worms we want to be opening any time soon. Because the more we try to apply our laws to citizens abroad, the more other nations will feel empowered to do the same to us. My family are all British-Canadian dual nationals. I don’t want to be arrested in the UK the next time I visit my family, just because I was smoking weed here in Canada where its legal, thank you very much.
Sometimes we have to accept that while we may be disgusted, horrified and outraged by someone’s actions, the law simply isn’t an effective tool for responding to those actions.
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.
The operative words here are “in Canada.”
Musk hasn’t done anything in Canada that would meet the definition of hate speech.
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.
Please educate yourself on how international law and extradition treaties work. Meng Wanzhou was never charged with a crime by the Canadian government. She was charged by the US government for crimes committed under their jurisdiction. She was detained in Canada to be given over to the US authorities because that’s how extradition treaties work.
I’d gladly comment on the other examples, but I’d need something more concrete to go on than vague gestures at that “that guy who did that thing.”
And yes, some Canadian laws do apply to Canadian citizens even if you commit the crime outside of Canada. Treason, for example. We allow for limited exceptions in those kinds of cases. Sex tourism and terrorism are, to my recollection, both examples where that would be the case.
But hate speech is not. And while you argue, if you want to, that it should be, even changing the law today would not put Musk in any immediate legal jeopardy because the Charter of Rights and Freedoms commands that no person shall ever be subject to criminal prosecution unless the action they took was illegal at the time that it was committed.
Personally, I don’t think thats a legal can of worms we want to be opening any time soon. Because the more we try to apply our laws to citizens abroad, the more other nations will feel empowered to do the same to us. My family are all British-Canadian dual nationals. I don’t want to be arrested in the UK the next time I visit my family, just because I was smoking weed here in Canada where its legal, thank you very much.
Sometimes we have to accept that while we may be disgusted, horrified and outraged by someone’s actions, the law simply isn’t an effective tool for responding to those actions.
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.