Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The Canadian constitution is far superior in protecting the citizen from the power of the state. We may have even gone a little overboard in that respect and it makes it very hard for law inforcement. For example, If a police officer asked to look into my trunk I would say no way. If he insisted I would ask him, Are you detaining me? If he said yes then he would be in big trouble because detaining me is a form of arrest and if he had no probable cause then he would loose when I sued him and the force he worked for. It's a very inportant issue that the police do not have the power to detain or harrass people for no reason. If I was asked to show ID I would refuse and there is nothing they could do about it but get themselves into trouble if they pushed the issue.
Wow. If you refused any of that here you'd get beaten up.
The U.S. has absolute prosecutorial immunity, which shields prosecutors from civil actions for wrongdoing. Canada did away with that in Nelles v. Ontario, 2 S.C.R. 170 (1989). The U.S. has 1 out of 100 adults locked in prison. Canada is closer to 1 out of 1000. Cops and prosecutors are held accountable in Canada. In the U.S., they are free to do as they wish with no oversight or accountability. One of the primary reasons why I am moving to Canada and never looking back. Canada has a far superior system of justice.
I'd rather take cold, dreary weather than sitting in a prison cell... which is the fate of 1 out of 60 adult men in the U.$.A. thanks to our for-profit prison industry and the ignorant "tough on crime" politicians.
America's gun control system is completely out of wack as well. You'd have to take that into account. You could walk into any Kmart in the US and purchase a gun without a single credential (sometimes without even an ID)! In Canada.... even handguns are completely ILLEGAL. Canada's social issues are extremely limited compared to down south and that's definitely an attractive reason to stay/move here.
Any Kmart in the US? You do know gun control laws vary by state dont you?
As far as the US justice and prison system is concerned I have to agree with many of the statements made in this thread. The incarceration rate is disgraceful and the reason is the backward war on drugs which groups non violent offenders, which results in an out of whack prison population.
At the same time though, just because Canada is "better" in this regard than the US, they hardly should get a pat on the back. Canada still has one of the highest incarceration rates in the Industrialized world. Compared to basically any European nation the prison population is also out of whack.
Also keep in mind that the exact same racial issues are present in the Canadian justice system as in the US. Blacks make up 2% of the Canadian population, but make up over 6% of the prison population; Aboriginals make up 3% of the Canadian population, but 18% of the prison population. It is horrible how some people can completely ignore these issues and applaud a country on its justice system and these things are still happening in this day and age. I think both the US and Canada can learn a thing or two from other nations when it comes to race and justice, neither should be held as an example.
You are absolutely right. Quebec, the most "european" of provinces, has the lowest incarceration rate in Canada but it's still higher than the rates in France, Germany, Spain, etc. Canada locks up its citizens at about twice the rate that Europe does. The U.S. locks up at 20 times the rate. If the U.S. didn't have such a horribly high rate of incarceration I'm sure we'd be more readily comparing Canada to Europe and demanding change in Canada. I would argue that the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, which all have incarceration rates similar to Canada, show that Canada is roughly in line with other common-law anglophone countries. The U.S. is the clear outlier. The adversarial system (defense lawyer vs. prosecutor) creates a strong incentive for the Crown's counsel (prosecutor) to win even in cases where a conviction would not represent justice. Civil law systems such as those in continental Europe are lambasted by legal scholars in the U.S. and other common law countries as not being impartial enough like the adversarial system. But in practice it seems the civil law countries have much lower rates of imprisonment, and European countries have lower overall rates of crime, so maybe they are doing something right after all. Gentoo, interesting that you are from California and considering a move to Canada. I was telling my wife recently that if California had Canada's system of government, it would be essentially perfect both when it came to government and weather.
You don't understand,
I can suffer painfully from cold in temps as mild as 54 F.
That's September through May in Toronto when I can too cold in the middle of the day.
I'm not sure I'd like every aspect about AZ's aridity though.
107 F dry heat is nothing to me.
That's like my sun-heated car temp where I go relax in on a coolish sunny summer's day.
Wow. If you refused any of that here you'd get beaten up.
^^ Most Canadians don't know this...
I didn't know that was a part of our Constitution.
I believe refusing a breathalyzer test here is the same as failing one, so you'd get charged with blowing over 0.08.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
