Canada, and in this case the territory of Nova Scotia: land of libel tourism in which the criminals can sue anyone for just about anything they say and get a court judgement. Nova Scotia, one of the few countries that ever voluntarily gave up its independence, and is now part of Canada, is not normally thought of as a mechanism for tyranny.
But when my friend Doug Handshoe, in his corruption fighting blog Slabbed, began reporting about corruption on the Gulf Coast of the United States that linked back to a property scam in Nova Scotia, he found out otherwise. He was sued in a foreign (foreign from where the statements were made) court, and had real fines and penalties leveled against him.
A number of bloggers have commented on his recent victory.
Slabbed gets the Canadian lawsuit against him tossed in good ole US Federal Court
Y'all Politics, 22 December 2012
After the default judgment was issued in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia by Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Susan Hood, she entered a judgment in which she awarded Trout Point Lodge general damages in the amount of $75,000, and Perret and Leary each $100,000 in general damages, $50,000 in aggravated damages, and $25,000 in punitive damages. None of those damages were upheld by the U. S. District Court
Judge Guirola also took strong issue with an injunction against Handshoe by the Nova Scotia court, which would effectively put him out of business. He said that an order issued in the area of First Amendment rights must “be precise and narrowly tailored to achieve a pin-pointed objective.”
“This broadly worded injunction…” said the judge, “would not be issued in a domestic court.”
The United States is not exactly the pillar of freedom that we like to portray ourselves as, but it is important to remember that we are not alone in our problems. And while this is a victory for Doug Handshoe, he isn't going to be able to vacation in Canada, and may need to be careful if he goes to a different country that might enforce Canada's ruling.
9 comments:
Heh, good for him.
“If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.” --Ronald Reagan
I saw what was coming even before 9/11. I seriously consider moving to another country. In the end I decided I'd rather stay here and fight with fellow patriots when the time comes than run away now and hide with strangers.
I am an American and I live part time in Nova Scotia where we own a coastal home. Make no mistake, Nova Scotia and Canada are not the US, and they do not have identical values or anything approaching an identical system to our own. In some ways, their probate system and tax structure are much worse than our own. In some ways, however, their system in better. Thanks for posting this interesting post.
Stephen, With all the people he has battled, I find it amazing that it is these (obviously guilty) folks who he has to deal with.
John, If you have the money, I guess having a backup country is not a bad deal. A lot of wealthy Chinese use Canada as a backstop because to some degree the Chinese have been willing to allow people to buy their immegration status. However, I am with you. A country that can seem welcoming now, can change its attitudes quickly in a crises. But a lot of people feel they are entitled to a certain station in life, and buying their way into another country is one way to go
Jane, One of my grandmother's mother's side came from Nova Scotia, but I have never been there myself. The various rights and freedoms offered are often very unusual. Some countries are much freer in some areas than others. Canada is smaller, and mostly has a more homogeneous population. However, where there are differences, they don't always seem to handle them well. There has been consistent talk about various parts of the country breaking off over some dispute or another.
Russell,
Although there is a lot of seccession talk in Canada (and here at the moment), it is extremely unlikely that Quebec or anywhere else will break off from Canada. Quebec simply needs the social service dollars from the other provinces and can't survive without them.
Nova Scotia is quite diverse. There are French speaking people there, called Acadians. Lots of loyalist British, the Mik Mak Indians who have intermarried now. In the last few years there are lots of people, like the Germans who have come to NS as a vacation paradise, and other Europeans also.
My paternal grandmother is a direct descendant of one of the first Scottish settlers, and he is prominent in history books. His name is John Easson.
I can't do this because even owning a home nd farm in NS, I am an American, but if I could, I would live out my my retirement in our home there. Despite the unusual views, I feel at home by the sea.
Jane: actually I was thinking of the far west provinces: they were the most recent ones making noises. Quebec has had the enormous riots that were mostly unreported in the U.S., but they seemed like a more effective version of the occupy movement than a seccesionary movement.
My ancestors from Nova Scotia were "Hunters" who sailed for Philadelphia in 1769 and supposedly became shipwrecked in Nova Scotia and settled in Willow Hill, Ardiose, Nova Scotia. I am not sure I buy into all the drama, but they likely were from Nova Scotia before coming to the United States.
The Arcadians are of course the Cajuns who were mostly resettled in Louisiana.
Russell,
Although the Acadians of the Canadian Maritimes, the Quebecois, and what eventually evolved to become the Louisiana Cajuns did have their origins in France, they see themselves very differently. My neighbors in one of our properties in NS, near Meteghan, view Cajuns are much lower class French who evolved from their ancestors, a long time ago. These groups are furthur divided by language. The French in France speak Parisian French, The French Canadians in Montreal and Quebec City speak Quebecois, the Nova Scotian Acadians speak Acadian French and Chiac, and the Cajuns from Louisiana speak a Cajun English and Cajun French which is not understood by the others. I am fluent in Quebecois and I understand Parisian French but it is tough going with Cajun French, and sometimes with some of the hundred year old Acadians. It is interesting to see how French evolved seperately in these different cultures.
Jane, the French politized their language back in the days of Cardinal Richelieu so I would take all this talk of it "evolving" away from its base with sceptism.
In the United States, the various dialects are not evolutions away from a base but parrallel evolutions of various dialects.
The origininal French Colonists would have been subjected to the culture of "frenchifying" their dialect. As they came seperated from the homeland that movement would have withered.
French, like English, had numerous outside inclusions. Blaming the Cajuns because their inclusions are different from others is rather pointless.
Up to very recently (mass media) there were large groups of English Dialects that were incomprehensible to each other in Britian. France has its own patios languages that also had a varied in their closeness to French. In some cases their basis was Celtic or some other root language.
holy moly - with all of you americans weighing in on how the french language was bastardized...and yakking about nova scotia when i was born and raised here and am back living here now...i am not even going to bother to chime in. i'll let this dog lay.
much love Russell! your friend,
kymber
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