Posts by Christopher Dempsey
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and section 16 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms trumps that 'unconstitutional' ruling...
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For all its multiculturalism, French language still seems to be a bone of contention in Canada, apparently more so than Maori language in NZ.
It's not so much a bone of contention, rather, a fact of life. Canada recognises two official languages. From this point down, it's up to the feds and provinces how they want to deal with this recognition.
So, Quebec has only one language (French), the ROC (rest of Canada) has one (English), with the exception of New Brunswick which is officially bilingual.
The Federal level is bilingual as well - which explains why cereal boxes feature two languages - federally mandated information has to be bilingual so make the whole box bilingual. (Actually, tri-lingual now given NAFTA).
Within provinces there are significant French speaking populations so those municipalities are entitled to adopt French e.g. St Boniface in Winnipeg, some parts of Nova Scotia, and some in Ontario.
So it's more of a patchwork of languages across the country. If you travel to a area known to be French, you just deal with it. Most French are bilingual, most Anglos aren't.
Every Montreal Canadiens game is broadcast on TV in French only. While the majority of Montreal residents are fluent in French, a significant minority are not (the city has a large immigrant population, both from elsewhere in Canada and overseas).
Montreal is fascinating linguistically speaking. The existing historic population is Quebecois and English so that forms the basis of language divisions (West Island is English, East, North, and South Montreal is French). The anglos in Montreal are significant minority; they descend from the existing stock of English settlers in the 1700/1800s. The majority are bilingual with a few hold-outs against the Quiet Revolution of the 60s that made French the official language.
Then there are anglophone immigrants and francophone immigrants - so Jamaicans are anglophone but Haitians are francophone. Lebanese are francophone or anglophone. Vietnamese are francophone. Everyone else just becomes francophone.
There is no immigrant population into Montreal from the ROC - if anything the population flow is one way, down the 501 to Toronto.
Which is a long way of saying that the idea of French language being a bone of contention is not true. It's more of a fact of life.
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And astonishingly, I find that the LLA has, actually cancelled a licence.
Is this the first one? Will they cancel other licences? Will they show teeth?
But sadly, given the poor state of bureaucracy in NZ Aotearoa, someone will simply apply in another name - use a front company - make their grandmother the applicant - and will be granted the licence.
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From the windswept beaches of the far north to the blustery winds of the southern reaches of Raikura, never in Aotearoa.
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Yes, the 'right' to make a living selling alcohol (somewhat profitably I might add - all those pokies and bottle stores in South Auckland aren't there for an altruistic reason...) takes absolute precedence over anything else.
Which is why any punishment the Liquor Licensing Authority (LLA) hands out will be along the lines of one to two days closure for bottle stores and restaurant, usually on Sundays/Mondays.
I'm sure the police have a few choice words to say about the LLA.
Membership of the LLA is one District Court Judge and several other members, usually retired JPs - who invariably are white, older and straight. You can draw your own conclusions about the world view of the Authority.
I support your 'Fuck up-Fuck off' policy Matthew. No law change is needed to apply this kind of policy - all the tools are there within the current Act - just have to encourage the LLA to actually apply the policy.
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Ta for that... context is king.
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blows against the empire...?
no Krakatau, no IslamBut, volcanoes, earthquakes or whatever, holding this country transfixed right now is the first release from the Noordin Top autopsy. It seems that the fundamentalist terror hero of parts of central Java (where his poster keeps appearing in the streets, and the police tear it down to have it appear again) had either been sodomised, or had been keeping explosives up his butt.
Either way the media is loving this as it the public, and it's gone a long way to destroying the post death mystique of this prick.
The police clearly took some pleasure, if you will, from releasing this as quickly as possible (and other such inevitable jokes doing the rounds).Charming. Abso-fucken-lutely charming. What better than to take a terrorist down a peg than to suggest he was a HHHHOMOSEXUAL terrorist.
Juxapose that against this horrifying story about Muslim gangs luring gays and murdering them and I feel a little queer.
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One thing EVERYONE who visits the US should do - that copy of the green form they staple in your passport - the airline's supposed to take it when you check in to leave - sometimes they forget - if they do the INS thinks you're still in the country - don't go to the gates until you're sure the airline took it from you.
I've only been to the states twice, but both times the departing airline has forgotten and I've either had to remind them, or stop myself going on the plane to return to the counter to double check that it really does say "take this out before you leave".
hmmm... I was in England in July at a conference. At the end of it I caught a flight from Manchester to Heathrow then home.
When I checked in at Manchester I asked about having to go through immigration/customs ... the nice lady said that I would have to do that in Heathrow. I duly lined up in Manchester and went through airport security.
I get to Heathrow and transfer to T5 - but here's the thing, it was a straight transfer to T5, no customs/immigration, nada. Just follow these signs and get on that lovely driver-less train to T5.
Plane arrived, I got on and away I went.
Question is, have I 'left' the UK? Nobody stamped me out or anything so I'm left wondering, am I still 'virtually' in the UK?
Anyone have any ideas?
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Sigh. ON goes my elected rep hat...
Further to my warning about the Council Liquor Policy process I have received the following information;
Council staff have confirmed that consultation is still continuing; key stakeholders (police, DHB, ALAC, Hospitality industry) are being asked to make submissions.These submissions will inform advice on future options for Council.
Staff believe that the government's consideration of the Law Commission's report will take some time to eventuate in any case, and any governmental response will severely water down the Law Commission's recommendations [i.e. do nothing].
Accordingly, if you thought by the Mayor's remarks and Cllr Bhatnager's comments that you didn't need to do anything - in fact you do. If you want to have your say, say it here.
And I lean over and watch my elected rep hat fall off my head....
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I held off on commenting, either in my private or public capacity, on the flip-flop of Messers Bhatnagar and Banks on Council's Liquor Policy reivew. A wave seems to have diverted all attention.
However, in my private capacity I can say the following;
I once knew a guy whose father used to be a Red Squad member then a Chief Inspector before becoming a liquor licensing inspector. Back in the 90's if I bumped into him he'd tell me which bars he wanted to close down. Most of them were busy. The busier they were the more trouble would be blamed on them. The idea was that if someone got drunk at a bar and went out and caused a crime then it was the bar's fault. The police kept (and probably still do keep) these stats and supplied them to the council. So if your bar was popular and served a broad social group you were much more likely to be shut down. The police viewpoint on bars is very much about "policing" them. The council's viewpoint shouldn't be - it should be about delivering what ratepayers want. By employing cops as liquor licensing inspectors our viewpoint is being lost. If they want to shut a bar they will.
All true. I used to work in the District Licensing Agency (DLA) at Auckland City Council. There were and still are two Licensing Inspectors who are ex-cops, the third one rose through the admin ranks. It wasn't till about 2000 that a move towards 'policing' became the norm i.e. using stats gathered from intelligence (duh: asking the drunk where he had his last drink) and the DLA worked with Police to put pressure on these places.
To be fair it wasn't for the purposes of shutting them down - more for the purposes of complying with the Act i.e. not supplying liquor to drunks. Most bars complied after pressure, but there are some that don't seem to get the message.
Sticking my elected rep hat on I'll say the following;
The Mayor's decision to pull the policy (and note, this is by no means clear - Council staff are still saying 'make submissions!') could be seen as a response to Simon Power's musings about the Law Commission's report on Liquor Legislation. But I suspect that this is not the case. Ad-hoc decision making is a feature of most local government of whatever stripe.
However, to pull this policy debate ignores the real issue of liquor abuse in our communities. We could fiddle around with hours and the like, but essentially, the 'entertainment precincts' would have simply magnified to a very real extent the problem of liquor abuse in communities; no amount of fiddling is going to deal with that problem.
Either we acknowledge the problem and tax/restrict the hell out of it, or we pay for the consequences with police attending violent incidents, and doctors patching up drunk teenagers at A&E.
Tom said
Auckland DOES need a new liquor policy - but here is an idea, how about you take a holistic view of the matter - for example, look at things like at least ameliorating the worst of bad planning by offering to subsidise the retro-fitting of double or triple glazing and air conditioning in inner city apartments?
I would point out that if one tried to put into place such subsidy Council would never hear the end of it, and for good reason. The better route is via implementation of high built environment standards, but as we all know, high quality standards have never been a particularly strong suit of Auckland City developers, despite their union wringing their hands; they want to make their money fast and get out of there quick. Low standards suit them only and bugger everyone else.
C'n'R are, well, 'subsidised' by developers so it is unlikely they will ever institute high standards, and if City Vision try, they get billboards and Granny Herald thundering about nanny state and campaigns by Granny to toss out City Vision.
Matthew said:
The impression is very much of a bunch of political hacks who, fearing for their futures, are determined to try and ensure that their obnoxious utopia is presented as an option for Megatropolis when all the existing legislation from across the region is eventually rationalised.
There is an extraordinary amount of this going on. The ordinary punter in the street has not a clue about how their future city is right now being shaped - by officers and by elected representatives, but generally by an un-elected bunch of businessmen (with the token Maori businesswoman).
For example, the Auckland Transition Authority has called for tenders for provision of professional services. The tender call was for one week only. The services were for diverse work-streams, among those, rationalising seven district plans into one. You do realise that communities are shut out of this exercise? That you may find yourself with a development in your street that you never had a chance to discuss, let alone agree to. Are you not worried?
Rodney's gift of planning control is astonishingly under-handed - he's handed planning to corporate control, effectively.
Tom said:
I read some travel writer somewhere saying we don't do cities well in New Zealand, that the "real" New Zealand is out there in the provinces, as if real New Zealanders spend their lives doing bunging jumping hakas onto jetboats that are zooming across the surface of active volcanoes.
Yet Auckland occupies a pivotal and critical role in our nation’s cultural life. Auckland is our only proper city, and therefore is unique in being the only truly urban New Zealand experience in the entire universe. The obvious importance of this is completely missed in the policy making mix. The cultural and economic value of the bright lights of a large urban area in retaining and attracting desirable BYTs and fostering our cultural identity as something other than as a bunch of Ed Hillary mini-me’s is scorned or ignored, and to me this stunts our growth as a cultural nation.
All to depressingly true. The RMA, crafted by National party, deliberately shunned any recognition for urban areas, or for the elephant in the room, Auckland. That was a blend of Wellington's fear of Auckland, and neo-liberal view of an individual property rights to do whatever the hell (usually) he liked which reduced Auckland to equivalence with Alexandra, Ashburton and Waiouru. Doing whatever you liked is the same there as in Auckland. Therefore there is no need to acknowledge Auckland as an urban area unique to Aotearoa.
Matthew said in response to the question:
what the hell do you have to do to actually lose your liquor license in this country?
Good question. One that I think you'd need to ask the judiciary, not the cops. Revoking liquor licences goes through the courts - due process and other such commie nonsense - rather than being something that a given police officer can decide looks like a good idea on the night.
Actually it is very hard to lose your liquor licence. Very hard. The Liquor Licensing Commission has never ever revoked a licence. Conversely, it is ridiculously easy to get one.
Basically once you have one, you are set for life.
There ends my elected rep discourse. Whipping off said hat...