Roundup: Cruel and unusual cuts

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The Federal Court has ruled against the government’s healthcare cuts for refugees, and given them four months to make changes before they are struck down on the basis of being cruel and unusual, and the fact that the government hasn’t offered a good Section 1 defence (reasonable limits within a free and democratic society) for their cuts. The “cruel and unusual” is a fairly novel reading of the Charter, but there does seem to be some possible basis for it. Of course, it will all come out in the appeals, since the government announced immediately that it would be appealing, before trotting out the usual canards that refugee claimants were somehow getting better healthcare coverage than average Canadians (something the judgement itself noted was a falsehood). The judgement also noted that there was no proof that the changes saved taxpayers any money, since these claimants with health conditions would generally wind up in a hospital when their problems became acute, which costs the system even more. Kate Heartfield notes that legal or not, those refugee health changes are still bad policy. And in case you need a refresher, here are some of the other losses the government has had at the courts lately, which will all be the subjects of fundraising pleas. Activist courts! OH NOES!

Here is the rather packed schedule of witnesses to appear before the special sitting of the Commons justice committee next week in order to discuss the prostitution bill.

While in Calgary for Stampede activities, Justin Trudeau – who is getting a lot of attention there – said that the Liberal message is resonating in Alberta and he sounds positive about a breakthrough there. With changing riding boundaries that are more urban, a younger electorate and the amount of attention that he’s been putting into mending fences with the province, it could actually happen.

Kady O’Malley finds four storylines out of the latest party financial statements, from the fundraising gap, nascent riding associations being established out of redistribution, and the dangers of lawsuits to party coffers.

The CRTC has already received more than a thousand complaints since the new anti-spam legislation came into effect. They say they’ll be strategic about which ones they pursue for investigation, but will look at all complaints.

Peter MacKay’s idea of converting surplus US presidential helicopters for search-and-rescue service isn’t going to happen for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that doing so would break our promise to the US Defence Department that they would only be used for spare parts..

RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson wants a report on the Moncton shootings on his desk in 90 days – clearly hoping to avoid another case like Mayerthorpe, where the report took six years. That said, some RCMP members feel that they shouldn’t be conducting an internal investigation but rather that they should have someone external to the Force, like the OPP, conduct it instead.

The US Ambassador to Canada says that the Keystone XL pipeline decision requires more patience. Here’s a profile of his wife, Vicki, who is also doing some of the diplomatic lifting in his job.

The BC cabinet has set a tentative date of September 11 to meet with the Tsilhqot’in First Nation to discuss the Supreme Court ruling around their land title claim. Colby Cosh adds a bit more context to the whole situation here.

Ruh-roh! Careful testimony about metadata in the Dean Del Mastro trial shows evidence that invoices were indeed backdated to as to be outside of the writ period. This makes Del Mastro’s defence that the documents were somehow altered that much more difficult to establish. (And see – this is why metatdata is important!)

Here is a profile of Toronto lawyer Rocco Galati, who is becoming the bane of this government before the courts (not that his current suit against the new citizenship bill has a prayer of succeeding on the basis of the remedies he’s seeking since royal assent doesn’t work in the way he seems to think it does).

And William Shatner was the Grand Marshall of the Stampede Parade in Calgary, and got to rub elbows with Harper, Trudeau and fan Michelle Rempel while he was at it.