[posguy]

Legal structures and especially state or state sponsored entities in Canada work much differently than in the US.

The ICBC has a literal state sponsored monopoly over car insurance, titling a vehicle and driver licensing, whereas in the US no state handles car insurance, while titling a vehicle and driver licensing are not necessarily the same state organizations.

This state sponsored vertical integration enables abuse of authority in cases like https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/xa9j3x/church_...

Whereas here in the US I know many people that mix and match between different states DOLs and DORs for a variety of reasons, and your not going to get stuck with the same stubborn employee who can control every facet of your ability to identify yourself and also legally drive a vehicle on the road.

The DUI checkpoints up in BC are wild too, I'm glad they are banned in Washington and Oregon. Suspicionless stopping of cars en masse followed by interrogation by police seems like an overreach.

[Scoundreller]

> Suspicionless stopping of cars en masse followed by interrogation by police seems like an overreach.

I’m pretty sure Canadian DUI checkpoints are limited to interrogations about alcohol/drug intoxication (edit: and a few matters regarding the vehicle itself) unless something else is offered/observed.

Supreme Court basically agreed that they are warrantless and detainments without reasonable suspicion, but considered them acceptable for the purposes of preventing drunk driving so that’s all the carve out it for. See R vs Mellenthin here: https://torontodui.com/knowledge-centre/everything-you-need-...

(Worth noting that Canada’s constitution is basically toilet paper for a lot of things because a judge (or politician!) can override a lot of it)

[idiotsecant]

> limited to interrogations about alcohol/drug intoxication (edit: and a few matters regarding the vehicle itself) unless something else is offered/observed.

Which in effect means that they are unlimited. They make wide use of drug detecting dogs. If a drug dog indicates you might have contraband, that allows further intervention. It is widely known that drug dogs can , worst case, be trained to hit when a hit is not present. Best case they have a bond with their handlers that tells them that the handler wants there to be a hit, whether the handler consciously conveys that or not. This increases the odds that there will be a hit.

Drug dogs are basically a override-the-law get you into jail free card, and any system that allows them as evidence of probable cause basically does not require probable cause.

[epgui]

No, in effect this is not an unlimited power. Just ask any Canadian criminal law lawyer what they do all day.

I don’t know about K9 units, but I’ve never seen one anywhere in Canada, except maybe at an airport once.

[Teever]

They brought a bunch of police dogs into my Canadian high school for a 'random' search.

I saw the principal come into the class I was in and point out a specific kid that she wanted searched.

The distrust of authority that I learned from that experience is without a doubt the greatest lesson I ever got in high school.

[epgui]

That is for sure suboptimal, but it is not necessarily representative of most Canadians’ experiences.

[throwaway59596]

Why does that matter? The point is that it can happen and it's normal enough that the principal just did it and the police just followed up, no questions asked no eyebrows batted. That it's hidden enough is worse, not better for Canada, if it was outrageous there would be outrage and everyone would know - but nobody cares.

[asfarley]

This is representative of my experience.

[vkou]

> Drug dogs are basically a override-the-law get you into jail free card, and any system that allows them as evidence of probable cause basically does not require probable cause.

Police dogs manufacturing search warrants is more of an American problem than a Canadian problem.

You might have more rights on paper in the US, but in many respects, you have more of them in practice in Canada. The letter of the law matters way less than how the law is implemented in practice. Public culture, legal culture, political culture, and policing culture all play into this.

The right to bear arms is enshrined in the constitution, yet there's no shortage of people who have been executed for 'reaching for an (often imaginary) gun' during a 'routine traffic stop' that, oddly enough, predominantly targets minorities...

[jonahrd]

One of the biggest problems is Canada is the assumption of country wide immunity from systemic issues because "it's worse in the States". This prevents lots of real change from happening and allows lots of really bad laws to exist.

[sekh60]

I am Canadian, living in Canada and I really hate this. We constantly compare ourselves to the States. Why can't we compare to a country more with aspiring to? Like one of the Nordics?

[red-iron-pine]

Canada is bigger, way more diverse, has way more population, and is structurally, historically, and culturally similar to the US.

And speaking as someone who has lived or worked in a couple of those countries: it ain't all rainbows and cupcakes.

Denmark ain't exactly crazy about foreigners, plus there was just an article here about how ruthless they are with data surveillance. There isn't a huge market, jobs are tight, and "tall poppy syndrome" is a thing -- which is a problem for the HN wannabe-tech-mogul crowd. They're not the most open people -- kind, nice, polite -- but also closed off; its not easy to make friends. They're not crazy about immigrants, and there is very much a "for us, by us" mentality; high immigration in Sweden is, like in much of Europe, not popular with large segments of the population.

Outside of some cultural artifacts like Rugbrod or the Copenhagen obsession with fermenting every kind of food, there isn't much you can't get in Canada. Slightly less fat, slightly better dressed, and the English was often better.

[908B64B197]

> You might have more rights on paper in the US, but in many respects, you have more of them in practice in Canada. The letter of the law matters way less than how the law is implemented in practice. Public culture, legal culture, political culture, and policing culture all play into this.

In Canada the government unilaterally suspended the constitution (because that's a thing over there?) in the 70's for mailbox bombings. It was later revealed that the feds were behind these [0]. They did it again to shut down peaceful demonstrations against covid restrictions, where the protesters setup a bouncy castle close to the parliament. So I'm not sure about having more rights "in practice".

> The right to bear arms is enshrined in the constitution, yet there's no shortage of people who have been executed for 'reaching for an (often imaginary) gun' during a 'routine traffic stop' that, oddly enough, predominantly targets minorities...

Well, in Canada minorities found out the hard way what happens when only the cops (and criminals) have guns [1]. Not sure either of those are better.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_controversies_involvin...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatoon_freezing_deaths

[vkou]

Just three summers ago, the government spent a bit over a month, regularly gassing, brutalizing, and beating peaceful protestors in my town. And it didn't even need to unilaterally suspend the constitution to do so.

It didn't seem like anyone needed to suspend the constitution to firebomb a neighbourhood in Philadelphia in 1985, either. 250 completely uninvolved people were left homeless by that. Go back a bit further in time, and discover that both countries were perfectly fine with running internment camps.

It frankly doesn't matter what the law says. What matters is how it is applied in practice.

PS. The constitution was suspended not for the mailbox bombings, but during the October crisis, when a cabinet minister was kidnapped and murdered by a secessionist terrorist group. You did a sleight of hand on unaware readers by portmanteauing the two events together.

Also, the CORAF (the 'constitution') was only adopted in '82, a decade after the crisis.

[908B64B197]

And to that I say the perpetrators should be held accountable and prosecuted. The fact that it wasn't is a completely different issue.

They should certainly not be able to avoid prosecutions because "woops we decided that, on that particular day we'll just ignore the constitution". You can't build a truly free country without the rule of law.

[int_19h]

The biggest problem in Canada is that whole "notwithstanding" backdoor in the Charter. And it's not even a hypothetical concern, given how it's been used in e.g. Quebec.

[JohnFen]

> You might have more rights on paper in the US, but in many respects, you have more of them in practice in Canada.

Generally speaking in the US, the rights you have in practice (as opposed to on paper) are determined by how wealthy you are. Much like how we have the best health care in the world if you're wealthy, but the worst (among wealthy nations) if you aren't.

[hutzlibu]

"Drug dogs"

Fun fact: Most police "drug dogs" you see in public are actually normal dogs, because "drug dogs" are quite expensive and can only be put to service for a limited time (and they stress out with lots of noise and people). But if the people think the dog is a drug dog, then their reaction is often telling enough.

(but I don't know, if they do this in canada to get the "allows further intervention", but this is usually a grey area anyway)

[ed25519FUUU]

Where do you get this from? The training of a drug dog would be one of the first things challenged in a criminal drug case and would terminal to establishing probable cause.

[hutzlibu]

My information is EU (germany) based and was a general remark, not specific to those traffic controls (and whatever specific rules they have).

Here what matters in court is, have drugs been found. If the cops think someone looks suspicious enough, they can search him. And if drugs were found, than this is all that matters in court, because obviously the cops were right with their suspicion if something was found. I don't see how that evidence could be challenged in court?

(No one said, that the dog is a drug dog. People just assume it and the police uses that assumption)

[idiotsecant]

>Here what matters in court is, have drugs been found. If the cops think someone looks suspicious enough, they can search him. And if drugs were found, than this is all that matters in court,

That is entirely incorrect. German law follows a similar structure to the United States regarding the admissibility of evidence that was collected improperly. Evidence obtained in violation of the law, particularly by infringement of the privacy of the home or person, may be excluded from the trial if the violation is deemed to have a significant impact on the reliability of the evidence. The standard of probable cause in German law is known as "concrete indications of a specific criminal offense" (konkrete Anhaltspunkte für eine bestimmte Straftat). It requires officials to have concrete indications that a specific criminal offense has been committed or is about to be committed before they can conduct a search or seizure.

[chucksmash]

> The DUI checkpoints up in BC are wild too, I'm glad they are banned in Washington and Oregon. Suspicionless stopping of cars en masse followed by interrogation by police seems like an overreach.

I was just wondering about these (in the US) the other day. When I was growing up, I seem to remember them being a thing and going through them as a passenger but in 20+ years of driving, including on NYE/July 4 and late at night, I've never come across one.

Are there still states doing these?

[Aaronstotle]

I see them every year on NYE when I'm in LA and even some random weekends in Oakland

[Operyl]

Saw one in South Florida on multiple nights during Super Bowl weekend.

[beached_whale]

The US has CBP checks on roads, doesn’t it?

[vkou]

And DUI checks, and 'random' stops where the officer in question didn't like the cut of your jib, smelled pot in the car, and would love to know where you're going.

America's a big place, there's a very wide range of things that law enforcement do in it.

[posguy]

Only in states that permit CBP to operate inland checkpoints. California banned the practice a few decades ago, you can see where the CBP used to operate checkpoints between San Diego and Los Angeles as you drive north along the freeway.

[cbron]

Yes, but very limited. They are only allowed to ask "are you a US citizen", and walk a dog around the car. I've never had one take more than 60 seconds in either AZ or CA.

[NikolaNovak]

I'm a tall middle aged middle class white man and I had no issue with any police check in my life either.

I think there are demographics that have different experiences than mine, especially when there's a dog involved (who can provide any excuse necessary:)

[brailsafe]

I don't believe police at checkpoints in Canada are walking dogs around the car or asking whether we're citizens or not, it's just a matter of whether or not someone's had drinks, I'm fine with it

[grecy]

> I've never had one take more than 60 seconds

In Australia I've been stopped many dozens of times for a "random breath test" where they stop every car and make you blow into the device to check blood alcohol.

I've never had one take more than 30 seconds.

[goodcanadian]

As a Canadian, in Australia, I was surprised by the random breath test. That is not allowed at check stops in Canada unless there is another reason to suspect you have been drinking (smell of alcohol, slurring words, that sort of thing).

[throwaway742]

I refuse to comply with those.

[selimthegrim]

Louisiana (New Orleans at least)

[cgh]

> The ICBC has a literal state sponsored monopoly over car insurance

No, this is only true for the most basic plans (called Autoplan). For anything beyond this, eg third-party liability, collision, comprehensive, etc., you can buy private insurance or go with ICBC for those plans too if you want.

[Jensson]

But that basic insurance is extremely overpriced compared to similar insurances in other countries, and it is mandatory so you have to pay it.

[InitialLastName]

If it's overpriced (relative to payouts) and the funds get returned to the population at large (through public services and mitigation of indirect damage caused by drivers) then that sounds like a very effective way to get drivers to pay for their externalized costs (in a way that other countries' privatized, profit-limited insurance schemes doesn't afford).

[int_19h]

I lived in BC 10 years ago, and the notion that ICBC is extremely overpriced for no good reason seemed to be the prevailing and rather strongly held belief cutting across the political spectrum there.

I'll grant you that this is anecdata, but if there are any public opinion polls demonstrating that ICBC is doing what it's doing with an actual consent of the governed, I'd love to see them.

(Elections don't satisfy this because people effectively vote on many different issues as a batch, so a few hot-button issues can dominate everything else in practice, making it impossible to interpret the outcome as a mandate for a particular policy unless it was one of those hot-button issues.)

[wirrbel]

What is overpriced for an insurance? people pay their fees and get damage compensation in case of a successful claim. So an insurance can be overpriced if the compensation is way lower than the fees on average (administrative overhead or extracted profit from the insurance provider) and then of course you can hold the opinion that the insurance's coverage is too hight, which also leads to higher fees to begin with.

Anyway, you can pretty sure simply analyse this with the business data.

If you make a poll you'll just poll for the public sentiment. And frankly "the tax is too damn high" can be heard everywhere pretty much regardless of the taxes.

[aceofspades19]

The issue with ICBC is that you are forced to do business with them no matter how you feel about their business practices or how much they are charging. ICBC can change their pricing completely from year to year and there is nothing you can do about it if you need to keep driving your car. This is not even an exaggeration, a few years ago ICBC did adjust their rates such that some people were suddenly paying thousands more per year despite having no claim history, They have since changed the fee structure since then but it is a bit scary when your premiums go from $2000 per year to $5000 or more.

[goodcanadian]

I have lived in BC a couple of times in my life. The popular perception that it is overpriced is definitely a thing. To add my anecdatum, ICBC was more expensive than other jurisdictions that I have lived in, but not outrageously so. Is it overpriced? Possibly. Is it extremely overpriced? I am inclined to think not.

[mthoms]

That’s similar to my experience. For the couple claims I’ve had, the process has been flawless with ICBC. Not so for my extended family in Ontario.

[megablast]

> then that sounds like a very effective way to get drivers to pay for their externalized costs

It is a start. But there is one guarantee, driver hate paying for what they use.

[rkagerer]

You don't need to compare to other countries; there's a big difference simply compared to other provinces. Here's my own anecdata: I lived in Ontario where insurance was easy. A variety of private companies offered competitive rates, and I renewed every year by simply phoning my insurer or broker and giving them my credit card number.

When I moved to BC, my rate didn't change by much. But the rest of the experience got worse. For starters you had to go into an office for everything. In my case, it took a few times to get it right. They screwed up my license and insurance twice - things like name, address, etc. (In one case a field in their database was blank that a future agent said shouldn't have been possible not to populate... go figure).

Next they gave me incorrect information. They tried to tell me I had to buy an extra add-on for my liability coverage to carry over when driving in the US - which is dead wrong if you actually read the policy. I got into a 40-minute argument that wound up being me vs. every single employee in the office (they all wandered over to see what was going on). In the end we all called ICBC-central together - it took two escalations to finally get someone who knew what they were talking about who could authoritatively confirm I was correct and all the agents in the office were wrong. They were all stunned; the one I was dealing with said "Wow, I've been selling that package to everybody who comes in and nearly none of them need it!"

Years later I tried to make a comprehensive claim for ~$7k worth of damage related to a freak weather event. The ICBC-central agent said "don't even bother to file a claim, it won't be covered". Some time later I was chatting with my old Ontario broker who said it was a no-brainer and would have been 100% covered under my old plan. (In retrospect I should have sent in the claim anyway and put up a fight... but I just didn't have the time - was doing lucrative consulting, and it made more financial sense to spend the time on billable hours than wasting it on that).

Over the years they've made many more mistakes and generally drive me nuts. At least compared to the two different companies I used for insurance during the years I spent in Ontario. Again anecdotally, most of my neighbours haven't any good things to say about them either.

One silver lining of the pandemic is it finally forced ICBC to put a process in place for doing renewals over a combination of phone and email. Still not as convenient as in Ontario, but at least it's an improvement.

I still fail to understand why BC thinks they need their own government-run insurance provider. This is a solved problem in the rest of the world.

[mthoms]

My experience has been the opposite. I’m generally happier here with auto insurance than I was in Ontario.

Regarding the ICBC add-on for US liability… aren’t all ICBC policies exclusively sold by independent brokers? If true then wouldn’t that have been an independent broker who was mistaken and ICBC proper cleared it up?

[rkagerer]

Yes that's true, but since then I've had the same discussion with other brokers, although they weren't as adamant. The basic terms around this seem widely misunderstood (at least from my own experience).

[cscurmudgeon]

But, does it?

> mitigation of indirect damage caused by drivers

But, private insurance covers that.

> through public services

Examples?

[cscurmudgeon]

Edit: Of course, this is downvoted. Can't question the god that is the govt.

[red-iron-pine]

> The DUI checkpoints up in BC are wild too, I'm glad they are banned in Washington and Oregon. Suspicionless stopping of cars en masse followed by interrogation by police seems like an overreach.

There has been a lot of pushback to DUIs. I did a poli-sci BA thesis on it. Essentially its one of the few times they make exception to constitutional rights, and assume guilt without due process.

A fairly deep explanation of what I'm talking about, and why states like WA gave up on it:

https://www.duicentral.com/dui/the-dui-exception/

[noughtme]

"Wild" meaning, the police can still impound your car at their discretion if you blow below not just the legal limit of 0.08, but below the warning limit of 0.05, or even 0!

[Scoundreller]

No shortage of drugs that can make someone a terrible driver.

Many drivers are worse alcohol-free than a legally drunk good driver.

Focussing on one cause of bad driving (lots of alcohol) is a weak approach to road safety.

[brailsafe]

This is a weak argument against checkstops. If you're a worse driver without alchohol or other relevant impairments then you shouldn't be driving either. I can't see road signs very-well without corrective lenses, so I don't, and I wouldn't pass a test without them. If you need alchohol to be a good enough driver, you probably won't pass the test sober, or we should have better tests. Moving cars are killing machines unless you're driving them well. I've been stopped at checkpoints and support them. They're scary, but driving is a priviledge and you shouldn't fuck around with it.

They're also not a solution to road safety, they just address one category. Overall road safety comes from a complete reversal of car-dependance along with improvements to road design.

[lotsofpulp]

Or a mobile device. Any time of day, I would estimate at least 50% of drivers are glancing down and using phones while driving. Even cops.

[InitialLastName]

In my area, cops are worse: They often have a full-blown laptop mounted on the dashboard next to them that always to be demanding more of their attention than the road.

[originalcopying]

I clicked

> https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/xa9j3x/church_

to get

> Sorry, this post has been removed by the moderators of r/nottheonion.

[wging]

You can't see the underlying link? It's visible on old.reddit.com: https://www.richmond-news.com/highlights/church-of-the-flyin....

[mynameisvlad]

Nope, on new reddit the link isn't clickable. I actually didn't know this was a feature of old.reddit, TIL!

[robotnikman]

Gotta love the overzealous powermods of Reddit...

[originalcopying]

making the internet a more diverse and inclusive place; by deleting content? ok

[noarchy]

>Gotta love the overzealous powermods of Reddit...

If you think that about reddit mods, I can only imagine how you feel about HN.

[zx8080]

The post title is all what's remaining. It says:

> Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster's ICBC pirate hat fight deepens

[908B64B197]

> Legal structures and especially state or state sponsored entities in Canada work much differently than in the US. The ICBC has a literal state sponsored monopoly over car insurance, titling a vehicle and driver licensing, whereas in the US no state handles car insurance, while titling a vehicle and driver licensing are not necessarily the same state organizations. This state sponsored vertical integration enables abuse of authority

It's impressive to see how omnipresent the government is everyday life in Canada, often via these state sponsored entities with bizarre ties to the government.

Alcohol sales are handled by government-owned stores (because it takes the government's unique expertise to run a liquor store?). Dairy products are subject to production quotas administered by the government, and excess production has to be destroyed (it is illegal to compete and lower your prices!). Car insurance is done through the state run monopoly so you can't shop around for rates. Health is handled by a single player, so you have no say in which providers you are assigned to (if you get one at all, they can deny coverage with year long wait times but you are still on the hook for the tax bill!). The country's largest broadcaster is state owned and operated, with journalists on government payroll reporting on... the government! Say the right thing and you might even land yourself a cushy government job [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micha%C3%ABlle_Jean

[mthoms]

Your comment is full of exaggerations and factual errors. For liquor, every province is different. Some have government owned liquor shops while others have independent stores. Some have a combination.

Government run car insurance only exists in two or three provinces. It’s the exception, not the rule.

The CBC is not “on government payroll”. It’s run independently but government funded. If you’ve got significant evidence of political parties interfering in the CBC’s reporting I’d love to hear it.

I’m not sure why you singled out Canadas first black, female, Governor General as being a problem. The GG’s role is a ceremonial, public facing, non-political role that perfectly suits someone well known who’s adept at public speaking. She’s not even the first former journalist to get the posting. Others were famous astronauts, military heroes or business leaders.

While there’s some truth in what you say (health care is in a real pickle, the dairy board is just bizarre) the rest is textbook right-wing propaganda.

[tchvil]

What was the reddit post about?

It is now:

Hey u/misanthrope2327, thanks for contributing to r/nottheonion. Unfortunately, your post was removed as it violates our rules:

Rule 2 - Sorry, but this story isn't oniony.

[creaturemachine]

How are they wild? It's about a 5-second chat with an officer and off you go. They used to hand out coupon books.

[ulrashida]

Also curious about this, "wild" is not a word I would have used for the checkpoints they set up. They've been doing it for nearly 40 years and yet our civil liberties are still intact.

As an observer of the process, they definitely have an impact. You can see people spot the checkpoint and then peel off to the nearest onramp / off-street where they then get picked up by the special checkpoint designed to ask some questions of people willing to cross medians to avoid a standard checkpoint.

[apercu]

> The DUI checkpoints up in BC are wild too

Not just BC. ON, too.

[Scoundreller]

Canada wide since DUIs are criminal code (ie: federal) offences.