Calgary man out of a job after racist tirade caught on video.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Since1984

I really think this guy doesnt need any support. I understand that....yes things should have been handled when they happened....but honestly. If you are not this guy.....you should probably choose a better case to stick up for.

This behaviour is despicable and that is coming from someone who has had a 15 year drinking problem

I think you completely misread my comment.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

This is entirely incorrect. There is no such thing as "pressing charges" in Canada. The Crown prosecutes criminal offenders. All the cabbie would be is a witness, and there's video here.

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

The crown alone chooses when charges are laid.

I know it's different than the States and I know the Crown/law enforcement agencies have the say in large crimes, but there's got to be some qualifier. I've been in two situations and known and read about many more where the decision has come to the person who has been 'wronged'.

Maybe one of the lawyers on board can clarify?

IE, I know major crimes are often a crown issue, because they are deemed to be in the public interest, or crime against society, but this isn't always the case.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

The case in questions was clearly assault. I'm okay with the guy losing his job.

However, I think we need to be careful about how far we go in sanctioning unpleasant attitudes. If every Canadian who hated minorities in general, or even middle-eastern immigrants in particular, lost their jobs tomorrow, our EI and social services systems would break under the strain. Ditto if everyone who believed homosexuality was immoral lost their jobs (a population that would include a large proportion of recent immigrants). And if every sexist - that is every man who uttered derogatory comments about women in general, or made offensive remarks to a woman based on her gender - lost his job, I suspect the members of this forum would suffer more job losses than the downturn in the energy industry has caused.

I'm not about to defend the d-bag in the OP. But I do think it's legitimate to raise concerns about how far we, as a society, go in sanctioning ugly (but not illegal) attitudes. We can get into some pretty murky territory. What if the management of a Canadian company based in the U.S. fired a Canadian employee over comments in social media (or caught on camera) calling Americans a bunch of idiots?

[CliffFletcher]

^^^ So are you claiming that the standards of what's offensive (or racist, sexist, etc.) in our society are universally recognized? Or are you suggesting that maligning a group of people based in their nationality is different from maligning a group of people based on their race?

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

^^^ So are you claiming that the standards of what's offensive (or racist, sexist, etc.) in our society are universally recognized? Or are you suggesting that maligning a group of people based in their nationality is different from maligning a group of people based on their race?

Pretty much. If ugly attitudes about Americans were prevalent to a point in Canadian society that they contributed to discriminatory practices against them, I might have a different opinion.

I don't want to put in words in your mouth, but your first post also kind of sounded like "Hey, let's not force bigots to face any kind of tangible consequences for their bigotry because we're way too bigoted as a society to enforce those consequences without severe side effects."

[PsYcNeT]

I think there should be a Trading Places-style clause in the legal code regarding these issues. The results would likely be pretty hilarious.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by rubecube

I don't want to put in words in your mouth, but your first post also kind of sounded like "Hey, let's not force bigots to face any kind of tangible consequences for their bigotry because we're way too bigoted as a society to enforce those consequences without severe side effects."

Any form of bigotry short of assault or discrimination under the charter is just another one of the myriad forms of being of being unpleasant. And being unpleasant isn't illegal. And if it was, most people are probably guilty of one form or another in the subjective opinion of some of their fellow citizens.

I sometimes worry that fewer and fewer people understand why we have freedom of speech in the first place. The difference between offensive speech and merely unpopular speech is a moving target, and largely subjective. You don't think Americans warrant the same protection from collective insults as visible minorities, but there's no legal or logical basis for your opinion. And there will never be consensus on who deserves to be shielded from unpleasant comments and who doesn't (do Jews? Ukranians? The Irish? Mormons?) Which is why we allow people to be offensive; better some people have their feelings hurt than we put severe restrictions on speech in order to ensure that nobody is ever offended by the comments of anyone else.

[Looch City]

^ Man it's great being white eh?

[PepsiFree]

This isn't the United States though. In Canada free speech is not absolute. While he may not be technically breaking a hate speech law he also can't justify his speech to Canadian society (as evidenced by most of the comments here) so it certainly doesn't make it OK. Society has every right to punish a bigot as a bigot does to express himself.

From my experience: People who advocate why freedom of speech should allow you to be a verbally cruel person in public without social recourse have as little understanding of freedom of speech as anyone else.

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by Daradon

I know it's different than the States and I know the Crown/law enforcement agencies have the say in large crimes, but there's got to be some qualifier. I've been in two situations and known and read about many more where the decision has come to the person who has been 'wronged'.

Maybe one of the lawyers on board can clarify?

IE, I know major crimes are often a crown issue, because they are deemed to be in the public interest, or crime against society, but this isn't always the case.

Once charges have been laid by police (who may or may not ask for advice from the Crown Attorney's office before doing so), the discretion to proceed or how to proceed lies entirely in the hands of the Crown. The Crown considers two factors when deciding whether to prosecute: (1) whether prosecution is in the public interest; and (2) whether there is a reasonable prospect of conviction.

Certainly, a recanting or uncooperative witness is an important consideration with respect to the likeliness of a conviction. However, it would be unusual for the Crown to withdraw charges due to a recanting witness this early in process. In my experience, the Crown is more likely to set trial dates and give the recanting witness time to get his or her story straight until the trial date arrives.

I still think that this matter was likely resolved by way of diversion. Although I'm still a little surprised by that too.

[ernie]

Originally Posted by Makarov

I appreciate that this is a late and thoroughly off-topic reply yet I feel compelled to lost it nevertheless:

You were talking "at will" employment. Given, as you say Canada doesn't truly have at will employment, I responded from the country that does have at will employment and what "at will" really means in practice....not what people think it means. Which is the country I'm in. There is nothing incorrect in what I said.

And I believe you are wrong on not getting your job back in Canada. Having been a manager in Nova Scotia for example if you are wrongly dismissed you can indeed go through the Labour Standard Division and ask for your job back provided you had more than 3 months under your belt. I suspect most if not all other provinces are the same. I don't believe I said you could get reinstated without just cause.

And no I don't think the company needs to give different advice to any managers in any country. We're a fortune 500 company constantly at the top of the ranks for employee satisfaction and haven't missed a dividend payment for over a half a century (with no drop backs and only hikes). What we do is most definitely the correct way to do things to have a productive and happy work force which makes for a healthy company.


BUt this is off topic....I believe the person in question was justifiably punished.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Any form of bigotry short of assault or discrimination under the charter is just another one of the myriad forms of being of being unpleasant. And being unpleasant isn't illegal. And if it was, most people are probably guilty of one form or another in the subjective opinion of some of their fellow citizens.

This is privilege, dude. Bigotry is a lot more than just "unpleasantness" to those it actually affects.

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Any form of bigotry short of assault or discrimination under the charter is just another one of the myriad forms of being of being unpleasant. And being unpleasant isn't illegal. And if it was, most people are probably guilty of one form or another in the subjective opinion of some of their fellow citizens.

This is patently untrue. For example, s. 319 of the Criminal Code makes it an offence to incite hatred against any identifiable group. The Supreme Court of Canada found (albeit by a narrow 4-3 majority) that s. 319 did not offend s. 2(b) of the Charter.

In any event, the person in question here was not charged under s. 319. The state imposed no penalty for his offensive beliefs. It was his employer who chose to terminate his employment as they are entitled to do at any time and for any reason. The real issue is whether or not this employee's off-duty misconduct was severe enough to constitute "just cause" for dismissal. If so, he is entitled to no notice period or severance. If not, then he is entitled to notice. My sense is that employers with increasingly diverse labour forces and client bases will find it increasingly easier to prove "just cause" for this type of behaviour from their employees.

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by ernie

You were talking "at will" employment. Given, as you say Canada doesn't truly have at will employment, I responded from the country that does have at will employment and what "at will" really means in practice....not what people think it means. Which is the country I'm in. There is nothing incorrect in what I said.

And I believe you are wrong on not getting your job back in Canada. Having been a manager in Nova Scotia for example if you are wrongly dismissed you can indeed go through the Labour Standard Division and ask for your job back provided you had more than 3 months under your belt. I suspect most if not all other provinces are the same. I don't believe I said you could get reinstated without just cause.

And no I don't think the company needs to give different advice to any managers in any country. We're a fortune 500 company constantly at the top of the ranks for employee satisfaction and haven't missed a dividend payment for over a half a century (with no drop backs and only hikes). What we do is most definitely the correct way to do things to have a productive and happy work force which makes for a healthy company.


BUt this is off topic....I believe the person in question was justifiably punished.

You just happened to catch me online. A couple of quick notes: I was never discussing "at will" employment. I believe it was another poster who mistakenly applied that term to employment law in Canada (an understandable mistake).

With respect to reinstatement for non-Union employees in Canada, judges simply do not have the authority to order this in Canada. I suppose we will to just agree to disagree.

Lastly, if you are in the U.S., then my little rant about employment law in Camada was irrelevant to you. My snide remarks about your company's human resources department was a bit childish. Sorry about all that.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Iggy City

^ Man it's great being white eh?

Originally Posted by rubecube

This is privilege, dude. Bigotry is a lot more than just "unpleasantness" to those it actually affects.

“Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.”

― Noam Chomsky (that notorious and reactionary scion of Fox News bigotry)

Anyway, I doubt there's enough common ground for me to have a rational discussion with people who break humanity into sub-groups based on ethnic or religious identity and then assign those sub-groups rankings in a hierarchy of credibility and guilt based on arbitrary, simplistic, and subjective notions of privilege.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

FYI, Ernie, Makarov is quite right - there is simply no authority for a judge to reinstate your job after you've been terminated. It would be like them granting an order allowing you to execute your former employer at gunpoint - the judge simply does not have that power.

Originally Posted by Daradon

I know it's different than the States and I know the Crown/law enforcement agencies have the say in large crimes, but there's got to be some qualifier. I've been in two situations and known and read about many more where the decision has come to the person who has been 'wronged'.

Maybe one of the lawyers on board can clarify?

Several already have.

All criminal charges are laid by the Crown (RCMP here, as correctly pointed out). The victim has no right to determine whether charges are brought against an alleged offender.

The reason why the decision - and again, it's the RCMP's decision, sometimes comes down to the willingness of the victim to cooperate, is because the victim is often the key witness.

If you assault me and rob me in an alley at gunpoint, and no one else is around, and I decide that I'm unwilling to testify against you or cooperate in any way with the authorities because I just can't be bothered, it will be very difficult for the crown to prove their case.

If there is a video camera that shows you clearly sticking me up with a handgun, my cooperation, while still obviously very helpful to the crown's case, may not be necessary.

EDIT: and actually Makarov covered all of this as well... well, why bother posting at all.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Anyway, I doubt there's enough common ground for me to have a rational discussion with people who break humanity into sub-groups based on ethnic or religious identity and then assign those sub-groups rankings in a hierarchy of credibility and guilt based on arbitrary, simplistic, and subjective notions of privilege.

So are you saying privilege doesn't exist in Canada?

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

So are you saying privilege doesn't exist in Canada?

Of course it does. In some cases it's based on group identity, more often it's on an individual basis. It's impractical to address individual privilege (should you give a man who comes from a poor and uneducated family preference for entrance to medical school over a woman who comes from a family of affluent doctors?). The issue is whether it's better to address group privilege by treating all people as equal, or by trying to rebalance the scales by regarding people foremost by their group identity and then basing your treatment of them on whether they're privileged.

First you would have to identity exactly who is privileged. Is it a a binary quality - is everyone either privileged or not-privileged? If it's not binary, is there degrees of privilege and some imaginary ranking? And of course, we have overlapping identities. Does an affluent Asian woman who thinks homosexuality is immoral rank higher or lower on the privilege scale than a poor gay white man? Are all men more privileged than all women, regardless of affluence, education, or ethnicity?

Also, these identities and privileges are fluid. There was a time in this country when Irish weren't allowed in some bars, and when Jews couldn't belong to golf clubs. Nobody rang a bell one day and moved the Jewish identity up the privilege ladder over some arbitrary threshold.

Lastly, there's no correlation between bigotry and privilege. The poor or disadvantaged minority isn't any more likely to be broad-minded and tolerant of others than the secure majority. Have a friend tell you what his Chinese grandmother thinks of black people. Or look at how intolerant of homosexuality most Muslims are.

In short, using 'privilege' in such a simplistic fashion betrays extreme naivete and ignorance of history. There's a reason identity politics is rejected even by most minorities - it's an ethical dead-end that only entrenches division.

[EldrickOnIce]

^ CF, you need to listen to Rube better. He speaks for the entire social consciousness of, well, maybe the world. And had you listened, you would already be aware that only a white male can be a bigot. Pay attention please.

[Weitz]

Edit: Reading comprehension alludes me.