Several US states made emergency contraception available from pharmacies without a prescription before Canada followed suit.So did the province of British Columbia -- 1/12 of Canada's jurisdictions, compared to almost 1/8 of the US's jurisdictions. ;)
Oops, I suspected more, and I was right:
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/172/7/845Legislation in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Quebec already allows pharmacists to dispense the drug without a physician's prescription; the drug's reclassification by Health Canada helps to equalize access to emergency contraception for women across the country.
Not up on the actual dates; so I can't say who followed whose suit in this. But that makes 1/4 of our jurisdictions, and well over 1/3 of our population.
The Canadian Medical Association Journal doesn't think much of the "behind the counter" classification, either:
Although pharmacists have front-line contact with patients and are equipped with professional guidelines for provision of emergency contraception, they are not ideally positioned for a counselling role in their typical practice settings. Few pharmacies offer the privacy necessary for such a conversation. This mundane fact, together with the professional fees attached to the consultation, represents a needless barrier to access.
... But the news would be better if a lingering paternalism in matters affecting women's reproductive health was not still hiding behind the counter. — CMAJ
As for your other complaints ... it's difficult to compare certain aspects of legislation; in the case of criminal law in particular, what is under "state" jurisdiction in the US is under federal jurisdiction in Canada: the Criminal Code of Canada applies to the entire country. (And we're rather wedded to the idea of all citizens of the country having the same fundamental rights and protections of those rights, which we think is something kinda inherent in the concept of
citizenship.)
Same with capital punishment: a bunch of states had abolished the death penalty a whole friggin century before wonderful, progressive Canada finally got around to it. Capital punishment wasn't formally abolished in Canada until the omnibus criminal law reform of 1976. But the last execution in Canada took place in 1962:
http://www.amnesty.ca/deathpenalty/canada.phpCanada retained the death penalty for a number of military offenses, including treason and mutiny. No Canadian soldier has been charged with or executed for a capital crime in over 50 years. On 10 December, 1998, the last vestiges of the death penalty in Canada were abolished with the passage of legislation removing all references to capital punishment from the National Defence Act.
There were 710 executions in Canada between 1867 and 1962. The last execution was carried out on December 11, 1962 when 2 men were hanged in Toronto, Ontario. Between 1879 and 1960, there were 438 commutations of death sentences.
I seem to recall that at about the same time, they got rid of flogging as well -- a practice that had long been considered unConstitutional where I live.Yes, that's entertaining and cleverly worded: "got rid of flogging". You mean: eliminated an obsolete provision from the Criminal Code ... or stopped flogging people? Hmm.
http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/pblct/rights/50yrs/50yrs-05_e.shtmlThe final decision to abolish corporal punishment altogether came after a progressive decline in the use of this punishment by both the courts and prison authorities and after many recommendations by commissions studying the criminal justice system. Between 1957-67, there were 333 instances of corporal punishment inflicted on offenders for breaching institutional rules, whereas in 1968, only one occurrence is recorded. It appears that October 15, 1968 was the last recorded application of its use as a disciplinary measure in federal penitentiaries. Instances of offenders being sentenced to corporal punishment by the courts likewise declined: in 1954, for example, corporal punishment was ordered only 14 times.
Or how about all those states that decriminalized 'simple possession' of marijuana way back in the seventies? Canada contemplates doing the same thing thirty years later, and suddenly they're some glorious Mecca of progressivism, putting us Murricans to shame. :eyes: And again, looking at practice rather than just formal rules can be useful. Should we maybe look at actual prosecution and sentencing practices? Do you know of anyone who has gone to prison anywhere in Canada for simple possession of cannabis in the last I-don't-know-how-many years? I don't. How about anywhere in the US? You still got mandatory minimum sentences anyplace down there for narcotics possession offences? We don't. "Cruel and unusual", etc. In fact, in 1987 the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the mandatory minimum sentence for
importing narcotics.
Bought some fine seeds this morning at a little store in one of the busy downtown shopping districts. Got yours yet? Planting season is upon us. The only reason ours won't be going in the front garden is that someone would likely steal them.
I don't say that "idealiz<ing Canada> the way some people here seem to" is particularly wise. In fact, I'm quite sure that many of the people who do it (me not referring to anyone in this thread) are quite uninformed, and would be less than happy here, and we might be less than overjoyed to have them.
Canada, like all countries, comes as a package; there are many things in that package that would be distasteful to many USAmericans, including the "liberal" ones, that we here like just fine and don't want tampered with.
Canada really is *not* just a big blue state. And on the whole we really don't want to be.
Canada also has faults, by anyone's standards, that are less apparent to the world than some of the US's faults, and also less apparent to some of ourselves than the US's are to USAmericans, since we don't hear much about them. Our hands were not lily-white during Vietnam, by any means, for instance, or at most times before or since, when it comes to participating in the oppression/exploitation of foreign populations.
But I'm not sure that peevishness at some
USAmericans' uninformed excess of zeal for things Canadian really calls for attacks on
Canada/Canadians.
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