B.C. Civil Liberties Association
Gloria Jean Taylor, 1948-2012
A lifelong activist, she became the only Canadian to win the right to get a doctor’s help to die, after a legal battle in B.C.
On the need to restart the debate on assisted suicide
Lee Carter and Hollis Johnson discuss death and chocolate in a Swiss clinic
The high price of growing cucumbers
British Columbia: The B.C. Civil Liberties Association has filed a class-action lawsuit against the district of Mission over a bylaw that allowed homes using more than the average amount of electricity to be inspected for signs of a grow op. Residents who were growing cucumbers or had incorrect wiring—with no marijuana to be found—were nonetheless fined up to $5,300, and in one case had trouble entering the U.S. The bylaw has since been suspended pending review.
Who’s suing whom?
A compendium of lawsuits from across the country
Where the talk of torture could lead
Could Canadians actually be charged with war crimes?
The fine art of paramilitary euphemism
The B.C. Civil Liberties Association is to be applauded for a marginal victory in the seemingly endless fight against homegrown Winter Olympics totalitarianism. But make no mistake: it is a very marginal win, at best. The Vancouver police purchased the American Technology Corp.’s LRAD-500X acoustic beam generator, supposedly for use as a loudhailer at public gatherings and protests. Both the police and American Technology object to media references to the device as a “sound gun”, a “sonic cannon”, or a non-lethal weapon. But it has been used that way in the field, and the VPD has effectively conceded the point by agreeing, under BCCLA pressure, to disable a device setting that allows the LRAD to generate “powerful deterrent tones… to influence behaviour.”