Room 611: Monday, September 18. 2023

Today's schedule is ABCD

A Block Legal Studies - Today, we'll finish up the Law & Order episode ("True North"), and have a discussion about the issues around it. I posted the following on Friday, but here it is again. In 1976, the majority of the House of Commons voted to abolish capital punishment for all offenses under its Criminal Code. This anti-death penalty sentiment was later reiterated and reinforced in a 1987 House of Commons vote, when the reinstitution of capital punishment was again met with stern disapproval.

The cases of Atif Rafay and Sebastien Burns ended up making new extradition law in death penalty cases. The two Canadians were charged with the 1995 murders of Rafay's parents and sister in Washington state. They fled to Canada and Washington State subsequently asked for their extradition. The Canadian justice minister said he was not bound to automatically seek assurances that they would not face execution. "If the general rule was that Canadians were never to be returned to face the death penalty in the United States, the result would be unsatisfactory," said a release from the justice department. "Canadian suspects who managed to return to Canada before arrest would gain an advantage, since they would never be extradited without assurances." But on reviewing this case in 2001, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the minister of justice is constitutionally required to seek assurances that the death penalty will not be imposed in all but "exceptional" cases. The court did not spell out what it meant by "exceptional."

From the legal analysis of our Charter

Where individuals are affected by a Canadian or foreign government action that took place outside Canada, the extent to which they may rely upon section 7 will depend on the circumstances, and may require the claimant to establish Canadian government “participation in activities of a foreign state or its agents that are contrary to Canada’s international obligations or fundamental human rights norms”

In extradition and deportation cases, where the government’s participation is a necessary precondition for the deprivation of the rights to life, liberty or security of the person by another state, and the deprivation is an entirely foreseeable consequence of the participation, deportations or extraditions must accord with the principles of fundamental justice (United States v. Burns, 2001)

So, the decision of United States of America v. Burns and Rafay, 2001 SCC 7 specifically states (the Supreme Court of Canada ruled) that people cannot be extradited to face the death penalty abroad, unless the country requesting them agrees to keep death off the table.

I'll have you work on you questions from Friday:

Do you think there should ever be limits to Charter rights? Why or why not?
Describe a situation where an infringement of a right would be justified.
Describe a situation where an infringement of a Charter right would not be justified?
What do you think about the courts’ role in deciding whether an infringement of a right can be justified?
What happens if the government cannot show that a Charter infringement is justified (i.e. it does not satisfy the elements of the s. 1 analysis)?

Remember the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has three sections that limit your individual rights (Reasonable Limits, Notwithstanding Clause and Where the Charter Applies).

B Block Human Geography - we'll start our look at the Key Question: Why Are Different Places Similar? To do this we will look at Globalization in terms of culture and economy. Since we are completing a cultural/human geography course what does globalization mean and what is globalized culture? So, from the World Economic Forum:

In simple terms, globalization is the process by which people and goods move easily across borders. Principally, it's an economic concept – the integration of markets, trade and investments with few barriers to slow the flow of products and services between nations. There is also a cultural element, as ideas and traditions are traded and assimilated...Globalization has speeded [sic] up enormously over the last half-century, thanks to great leaps in technology. The internet has revolutionized connectivity and communication, and helped people share their ideas much more widely, just as the invention of the printing press did in the 15th century.

Think about McDonald's. How many countries is Dons in? According to the McDonald's Corporation website (as of January 2022), McDonald's has 38,000 locations in 100 countries (out of the 195 countries that the United Nations recognizes). That is a really big company that spans the globe with a fairly consistent menu. How does McDonald's try to retain some local culture in their global brand? Check out:

The Craziest McDonald's Menu Items Around the World
Here's what it's like to eat at McDonald's in 7 countries around the world
25 Craziest McDonald's Menu Items From Around The World
What International McDonald’s Menus Can Tell Us About Diets Around The World

So, globalization is about how people and places are connected and how they influence each other. In the last twenty years inexpensive mobile phone technology and the Internet have spread ideas faster around the world. How does that affect culture? From the United Nations:

The current era of globalization, with its unprecedented acceleration and intensification in the global flows of capital, labour, and information, is having a homogenizing influence on local culture. While this phenomenon promotes the integration of societies and has provided millions of people with new opportunities, it may also bring with it a loss of uniqueness of local culture, which in turn can lead to loss of identity, exclusion and even conflict

Increasingly uniform cultural preferences produce uniform “global” landscapes of material artifacts and of cultural values. Underlying the uniform cultural landscape is globalization of cultural beliefs and forms, especially religion and language. Globalization of the economy has been led primarily by transnational corporations, sometimes called multinational corporations. Every place in the world is part of the global economy, but globalization has led to more specialization at the local level. Each place plays a distinctive role, based on its local assets.

So, you'll have a few questions to work on for me today including:

In what ways has the communications revolution played a role in globalization?
Why might some group(s) of people oppose globalism or globalization?

To help:

Also, look at the following articles:

Does globalization mean we will become one culture?
Is Globalization Creating A Single World Culture?
Culture and Globalization
Here’s what a Korean boy band can teach us about globalization 4.0
Is Globalization The Collapse Of Culture?

C/D Blocks Social and Environmental Sciences - Today we start with Young in #115. In the first part of class, we'll begin our look at Environmental Worldviews which are connected to Environmental Value Systems. People disagree on how serious different environmental problems are and what we should do about them. These conflicts arise mostly out of differing environmental worldviews—how people think the world works and what they believe their role in the world should be. Part of an environmental worldview is determined by a person’s environmental ethics—what one believes about what is right and what is wrong in our behavior toward the environment (also called an Environmental Value System).

Some environmental worldviews are human centered (anthropocentric), focusing primarily on the needs and wants of people; others are life- or earth centered (biocentric), focusing on individual species, the entire biosphere, or some level in between. You'll get a handout to work through with Young for today and tomorrow. Wednesday we'll see how worldview is connected to political ideology and examine the environmental worldviews of the Federal political parties here in Canada.

Then with Benton you will start our environmental journey with a look at freshwater. At a biologically microscopic, atomic, and sub-atomic level water is extremely complex and without it life would not exist. Water is essential to all animal and plant life on Earth. Plants, for example, use water in photosynthesis to make their food. Roughly 60% of the adult human body is water and it performs many functions, including:

Dissolving vital nutrients in the bloodstream and delivering them to cells.
Regulating our body temperature.
Dissolving waste substances and carrying them out of the body in urine, feces and sweat.
Protecting tissues, joints and the spinal cord.

We are looking at the ecological connections to water in our observations of and mapping the riparian features of Towhee Creek. Many beings depend on freshwater and understanding the whole can help guide us to make better decisions for the future. Today you'll start with a water analysis.