Professor Dennis Baker contends that discretion has also been skillfully integrated into Crown Policy Manuals to "contextualize" prosecution and therefore affect the law. For decades, provincial attorneys general, including Quebec's Marc-André Bédard and Ontario's Arthur Wishart, used open and notorious non-enforcement strategies to essentially suspend federal abortion laws. In response to Rodriguez v. British Columbia, the B.C. Prosecution Service did much the same with assisted suicide; its policy manual "gave a number of factors that made prosecution of a qualified medical practitioner who ended the life of a terminally ill person with their consent very unlikely", according to BakerBecause the administrative and financial burden of implementing criminal legislation in Canada, particularly the Criminal Code, needs the assistance of provincial attorneys-general, the federal government must respect their prosecutorial discretion. The power of attorneys-general grants provincial governments significant influence, allowing government preferences to affect federal policy.This leads us to Filmer, whose words started this article. Sir Robert is not a nihilist; all of his works are infused with a profound belief in divinely inspired natural law, which kings and plebeians must adhere to. His point in the prelude to The Anarchy is simply that human law is arbitrary and must be such. The remaining questions are who will serve as an adjudicator, by what means, and for what purposes.
The growth of Canadian progressivism
and federal-provincial relations has brought these issues into sharp focus. A federal law states that no one may take the life of an unborn child. Another imprisons fathers who refuse to accept phony anthropologies imposed on their child after birth. A province could choose to abrogate either, and the action would be arbitrary.However, in terms of moral foundation and consequence, the activities could not be more dissimilar. The former denies justice, whereas the latter commits injustice. If our political ideals prohibit us from seeing this distinction, we've already lost. We can gnash and scream about norms (long abandoned by our opponents) and the spirit of the law (see preceding set of brackets) when our opponents effectively use nullification, or we can adapt.I have strong reservations about any type of administrative nullification. It is a half-measure that relies on legal savvy, significant guile, and the unpredictable nature of government changes. So be it. Politics is a nasty business, and perfect justice does not exist in this world or via human hands. That lies elsewhere.These difficult problems regarding law, authority, and political power may soon return to the forefront if Smith is elected UCP leader and, as a result, Alberta's next premier, and he proceeds to give the Alberta Sovereignty Act voice.Not long ago, the majority of Canadian children were raised by a stay-at-home parent. It was just 1976. Prime Minister Trudeau was almost five. His father was still in the office.
Today, however, that figure has dropped to just 18
There are numerous causes for this tremendous shift in societal standards, including, of course, more professional options for women, as well as growing housing and education prices.This trend is often regarded as an example of social progress and a boon to the economy, as female labor force participation now matches that of men. But what's commonly missed is the growing cultural pressure on parents, particularly moms, to return to work. In effect, we have transitioned from a society that pressures moms to stay at home to one that forces them to return to work, regardless of whether they want to.This pressure is especially noticeable when it comes from self-proclaimed progressive voices, who generally frame the importance of mothers returning to work as necessary to help boost the economy — a talking point emphasized repeatedly by supporters of the federal government's subsidized child care program.There's a paradox going on here: progressives who are usually skeptical of concerns about economic efficiency suddenly become hard-core economic utilitarians when it comes to women returning to workIt is crucial to note that altering social expectations from the 1970s and 1980s were mostly good. The expectation that "women's place is in the home" and that their "proper role" was to be full-time parents robbed women of choice and autonomy, and in many cases left them financially dependent on partners, forcing them to endure family arrangements that were sometimes unhappy or even abusive.
However, it is legitimate to question whether the
pendulum has swung too far the other way. Many women today feel compelled to "do it all." The expectation, particularly in professional settings, is to juggle both a career and a family, and they will be bombarded with messages hinting that they are "letting down the team" if they do not follow this current progressive motto. This is both inappropriate, as official messaging should not be contributing to this pressure, and demeaning to stay-at-home parents by indicating that their value to society is solely measured in terms of GDP.Surely the purpose of government policy should not be to dictate to Canadian families what their work-life arrangements should be, but rather to enable all parents to make the choices they desire — and there are several options beyond the false binary of remaining at home or working 9-to-5. For example, some — if not many — families may prefer to engage the assistance of their extended family for childcare.While the mutual benefits of grandparent time are widely acknowledged, it is still unfashionable to highlight the advantages of stay-at-home parenting, including as greater education and health outcomes. Such evidence highlights the inadequacies in government policy that discourages parents from choosing to stay at home with their children.
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