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Comment by josephcsible | Hacker News Reader

> An Ontario judge has told a Brampton father involved in a custody dispute he is not allowed to badmouth the federal government’s vaccination policy within earshot of his 10-year-old son

If this were the US, that would obviously be totally unconstitutional. Does Canada not have freedom of speech?

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We do but as a country we've lost the plot and basically thrown all our constitutional protections out the window. For all the badmouthing of the US, it seems like one of the few jurisdictions whose constitution can actually endure a crisis and not just get overridden out of one sides political convenience

No, we have freedom of expression. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_expression_in_Canad...

Constitutional freedoms in Canada are different, and more limited (though this is subjective, a massive door is left open to any limits that may be “justified in a free and democratic society”… so no guarantees). For me, its been a bit shocking at how blatant the Federal and Provincial governments have disregarded them during COVID without compelling evidence: large-scale Provincial border closures, blanket curfews, an effective entrance tax (mandatory two day quarantine hotel paid up front, even when vaxxed and returning to an empty home), mass data collection by health authorities with no privacy oversight, vax requirements even for essential businesses (in Quebec), etc.

There have been a few surprising individual cases like this as well, e.g. a man in Quebec (IIRC) losing visitation rights since he is not vaxxed, a man in Alberta being ordered by the court to say specific things about vaccines, etc.

Unfortunately, even when challenged, the couple cases I paid attention to found judges biased towards allowing government action (even when no real evidence is available to support that, just vague public health justifications) since they must only determine that it is “justified in a free and democratic society” and it’s not a charter violation. More saddening is the fact that these measures are broadly popular, and I’m sure most of my friends and family don’t even see these are a fundament impingement of their rights.

> a man in Alberta being ordered by the court to say specific things about vaccines

Could you expand on this? It sounds even more outrageous than this case.

Here is the case: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/np-view-an-alberta-courts-w...

I don’t have any sympathy towards this guy for his actions or his views, but it strikes me as over the line to have a court order that if they share any views on vaccines they must include a disclaimer that their thoughts “may not be held by medical experts and what the majority of medical experts are recommending regarding vaccination and physical distancing”. How on earth is it okay for a judge to get to “creative” like that, especially when it’s in violation of charter rights?

  obviously be totally unconstitutional

I'm not a lawyer, but if there are no American laws to prevent the amount of verbal abuse to which a parent could subject a child without losing custody, it would surprise me.

Heck, this Chicago man was threatened with six months of jail-time for yawning in court! https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna32383292

Expressing a negative opinion of a governmental policy is not verbal abuse.

The majority of Canadian judges probably agree with you. I think this ruling is as much to do with the judge and the case as with differences between the Canadian and American legal systems.

People in any two countries often overestimate or underestimate their differences for hot-button topics. A good example is gun-control, which both Canadians and Americans have an interest in representing as tighter in Canada than it actually is.

I don't mean to say there are no differences, but they are often not what one initially might assume.

Maybe unconstitutional, but a judge in family court would likely order the same under threat of losing parenting time and years and cost of appeal. 'Best interest of child' and courts that hate fathers is tyranny. Not much can be done if the father wants parenting time.

No, we don't have freedom of speach. We have "freedom of expression".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_expression_in_Canad...

Australia, Canada, Austria are probably the countries that really showed their true colors during this pandemic.

Zero respect for their citizens.

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