Faculty Blog

Canada routinely detains undocumented migrants, often in holding centres and sometimes in maximum security jails.  This includes non-citizens who are extremely vulnerable: asylum-seekers, torture survivors, and those who have serious mental health issues.

The number of non-citizens held in immigration detention in Canada has been steadily climbing in recent years. In 2013, over 7300 non-citizens were held in detention in Canada for some period of time, and over 60% of detentions occur in Ontario.  Almost a third of migrants are detained in provincial jails, most often co-mingled with the general prison population. 

IWe are not speaking of non-citizens who have been charged with a crime, tried before a judge, convicted, and serving a criminal sentence. The migrants in detention may have been on their way into Canada as refugee claimants, or on their way out of Canada because they have been ordered to leave. A Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officer unilaterally decides whether to order detention, usually on grounds that the person needs to be held in custody to facilitate imminent deportation, and/or out of concern that the person might ‘go underground’.  But deportation may turn out not to be imminent because the country of origin refuses to issue travel documents, or is so conflict-ridden that it is unsafe to send anyone there.  The end result: detainees are sometimes jailed for months and years.

University of Toronto philosophy professor Joseph Heath argues for a reinstatement of rationality in social and political discourse in his new book, Enlightenment 2.0.[1]   This book provides modern examples of statements by politicians that are not based on proper factual or logical foundations.

We could use some rational logic  in the world of administrative monetary penalties. The new Canadian Anti Spam Law, (CASL)[2] is enforced by a  maximum administrative  penalty (AMP) of $1,000,000 in the case of an individual, and $10,000,000 in the case of any other person.  AMPs defy logic in two significant ways. 

First, CASL states explicitly under the heading of "Administrative Monetary Penalties",  "Violations" and the "purpose of penalty" that  "the purpose of a penalty is to promote compliance with this Act and not to punish."[3]   .   The proposition that penalties do not punish not only defies logic  but also violates basic rule of the English language.  Penalty is defined as "A punishment imposed for breaking a law, rule, or contract."[4]  

Reports abound of an apparent innovation crisis in the pharmaceutical sector, with some sources citing escalating drug development costs, declining new drug approvals, and an increasingly stringent regulatory environment. Concurrently, commentators refer to the death, or at least the decline, of the blockbuster model of drug development—where large, brand-name pharmaceutical companies rely on a portfolio of drugs that gross more than U.S. $1 billion per year—which has dominated the pharmaceutical sector for decades.