C Block Human Geography - So we didn't get to it yesterday. Today we'll examine where populations are concentrated looking at the concept of ecumene. Lastly we'll look at density in terms of arithmetic, physiological and agricultural forms. You've got three questions to answer for me today:
- Why isn’t North America one of the four major population clusters?
- On the map in the week 2 package...use the maps on page 47 to prepare a sketch map that shows non-ecumene and very sparsely inhabited lands (remember map basics!)
- In terms of food supply, which combination of measures of density is most important when considering whether a country’s population is too large? Why?
D Block Physical Geography - We'll finish the notes in the week 3 package on core, mantle, and crust and then, you may
use the Earth Interior web page or the Dynamic Earth webpage or the Lumen Understanding Earth’s Interior page or the National Geographic Earth Interior page or the Live Science Earth Interior page to help with questions 7
& 8 from page 366 of your Geosystems text (answers can be found between
pages 334 and 336 of the text).
Use
this diagram for your notes in the weekA Block Legal Studies - we'll talk about equality and look at section 15 of the Charter. We'll look at the difference between prejudice and discrimination. Equality is understood to have four meanings:
1. Equal before the law
2. Equal under the law
3. Equal benefit
4. Equal protection
To finish the class, I'll have you work on questions:
1. Equal before the law
2. Equal under the law
3. Equal benefit
4. Equal protection
It may be surprising to note that this clause was one of the more controversial issues of the constitutional debate. Some provinces did not see the need for equality rights to be written into the Charter since provincially human rights codes were seen as protection enough.
The phrase "before and under the law" is significant because it means that not only do people have equal access to the courts and to equal administration of justice (the "before" part) but that the laws that are discriminatory will be struck down by the courts (the "under" part). So in Andrews v. Law Society of British Columbia, [1989] 1 S.C.R. 143 Mark Andrews met all the requirements to become a lawyer in British Columbia, but he did not have Canadian citizenship. Because he did not meet the citizenship requirement, he was not accepted. Andrews challenged the provincial law, which prevented him from being a lawyer, arguing that it was discriminatory since it treated non-citizens and Canadian citizens differently. The majority of the Supreme Court decided that the provincial law infringed equality rights, because it did not let otherwise qualified people practice law solely because of their citizenship.
This case was the Court’s first decision on equality rights. It has influenced the development of equality law well beyond the specific facts of Mr. Andrew’s case, because Justice McIntyre emphasized that section 15 of the Charter protects and promotes substantive equality of opportunity for all. The court has added the following grounds (analogous to those enumerated) in section 15 (1):
- Non-citizenship (Andrews, supra; Lavoie v. Canada, [2002] 1 S.C.R. 769);
- Marital status (Miron v. Trudel, [1995] 2 S.C.R. 418; Nova Scotia (Attorney General) v. Walsh, [2002] 4 S.C.R. 325; Quebec v. A., supra);
- Sexual orientation (Egan v. Canada, [1995] 2 S.C.R. 513; Vriend, supra; M. v. H., [1999] 2 S.C.R. 3: Little Sisters, supra); and
- Aboriginality-residence as it pertains to a member of an Indian Band living off the reserve (Corbiere v. Canada (Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs), [1999] 2 S.C.R. 203).
- 1-3 on page 54;
- 1, 2 and 5 on page 56
B Block Criminology - I'll have you continue your work on three questions about crime trends:
- Using pages 37 to 46 in the CRIM textbook outline and explain the crime patterns in relation to ecology, firearms, social class, age, gender and race.
- What is a chronic offender and what is the significance of Marvin Wolfgang's discovery (why is identifying the chronic offender important)?
- How would you explain the gender differences in the crime rate (why do you think males are more violent than females)?
After a bit, we'll look at our sources of crime data. Since 1962, Statistics Canada has collected information on all criminal incidents reported by Canadian police services through its annual Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Survey. In addition to the now UCR2, Statistics Canada also collects information on victims of crime through the General Social Survey (GSS) on Canadians’ Safety (Victimization), which is conducted every five years. Unlike the UCR, the GSS on Victimization collects data on self-reported experiences with crime which include incidents that may or may not have been brought to the attention of the police. These complementary surveys are the primary sources of data on crime and victimization in Canada.
So what about trends?
Police-reported crime in Canada, as measured by the Crime Severity Index (CSI), decreased 8% in the first year of the pandemic (2020) - falling from 79.8 in 2019 to 73.4 in 2020. The CSI was 11% lower than a decade earlier in 2010. The CSI measures the volume and severity of police-reported crime in Canada, and has a base index value of 100 for 2006. The police-reported crime rate, which measures the volume of crime, also fell 10% in 2020 to 5,301 incidents per 100,000 Canadians. In 2020, police reported over 2 million Criminal Code incidents (excluding traffic offences), 195,015 less than in 2019.
All measures of the CSI - the overall CSI, the Violent CSI and the Non-violent CSI - decreased for the first time after five years of increases. Notably, the combined volume and severity of non-violent crime, as measured by the Non-violent CSI, decreased 10% in 2020. This was the largest year-over-year change in the Non-violent CSI dating back to 1998, the first year for which CSI data are available. Results from the 2019 General Social Survey on Victimization found that just under one-third (29%) of violent and non-violent incidents were reported to the police. Additionally, the pandemic resulted in exceptional conditions that may have impacted crime reporting by the public, as well as police administration and priorities which could affect proactive policing in communities.
The change in the overall CSI in 2020 was the result of lower police-reported rates for the following offences, ordered according to their relative impact on the CSI:
- breaking and entering (-16%),
- theft of $5,000 or under (-20%),
- robbery (-18%),
- shoplifting of $5,000 or under (-36%),
- administration of justice violations (-17%) and
- sexual assault (level 1) (-9%).
The number of police-reported hate crimes in Canada increased by 37% during the first year of the pandemic, rising from 1,951 incidents in 2019 to 2,669 in 2020. This marks the largest number of police-reported hate crimes since comparable data became available in 2009. Police-reported hate crimes targeting race or ethnicity almost doubled (+80%) compared with the previous year, accounting for the vast majority of the national increase in hate crimes. This difference was most pronounced among participants of Chinese (30%), Korean (27%), and Southeast Asian (19%) origin.
Police reported 743 homicides in 2020, 56 more than the year before. The homicide rate increased 7%, and marked the fourth consecutive year where the rate exceeded the average for the previous decade. Police reported 201 Indigenous homicide victims in 2020, 22 more than in 2019. The homicide rate for Indigenous males was four times that for Indigenous females and eight times higher than for non-Indigenous males.
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