It is sad that even on a public forum such as this that lawyers resort to the use of the Aristotleian 'Fallacies of Philosophy' to present their opinion, rather than putting up an honest debate on the issues presented on such websites as 'detaxcanada.org'.
I am certainly prepared to engage in honest debate. I will stand by the posts I have made so far as well. If you think I have said anything that is untrue or dishonest feel free to quote it and provide your reasoning.
The Supreme Court of Canada said in a court case "Bank of Canada v. Bank of Montreal" in the late 1970s that Canadian (holds equally true with FRNs) are only 'promissory notes' as per the Bills of Exchange Act, Canada, Section 176.
This is a very popular decision among the "detaxer" crowd. I have spoken to more than one person who has attempted to use this decision to make the claim that they can pay their mortgage (or some other debt) with their own "promissory note." The argument is that since currency is also a promissory note, then if I write my own promissory note it is currency. So I write a promissory note for $200,000 grand, give it to the bank, and they can't forclose on me anymore because the mortgage is now fully paid.
The case was about a bunch a bunch of money ($5 bills) that were destroyed when the bus they were being transported in caught fire. The court described the legal questions as follows:
Is a $5 note issued by the Bank of Canada and intended for circulation a promissory note within the meaning of s. 176(1) of the Bills of Exchange Act, R.S.C. 1952, c. 15? If so, and in the event of that note being accidentally destroyed, is the holder entitled to claim a duplicate note under s. 156 of this Act, or to obtain judgment in the amount of $5 against the Bank of Canada? Those are the questions in this case.
The eventual decision was that the $5 bill is legal currency and also a promissory note.
like any other promissory note, it can be redeemed in legal tender; and its quality of being itself legal tender is not incompatible with its being a promissory note.
It is explained in the decision but basically the court determined that because of the wording on the bill it was a promissory note. The effect of this was that you could go into a bank with a $5 bill and demand $5 and the bank was obliged to give you another $5 bill. So in a very technical way, Canadian $5 bills used to be promissory notes in addition to currency. This of course in not the case anymore as bills no longer say "will pay the bearer on demand..." But for whatever reason people still rely on this case to make all sorts of ridiculous arguments that obviously have never been accepted by the courts.
For example
this case where a person tried to argue they had satisfied their child support obligation by giving some "bonds" that the person had made themselves and which were obviously worthless. The court said:
She also relies on Bank of Canada v. Bank of Montreal, 1977 CanLII 36 (S.C.C.), [1978] 1 S.C.R. 1148,76 D.L.R. (3d) 385, a case about banknotes destroyed and partially destroyed by a fire while in transit. The issue was whether the banknotes were promissory notes. It is not clear what proposition of law from this case supports her assertion that the Documents satisfied the parties’ agreement given that there is a substantial difference between banknotes and the Documents.
In the end we have a fiat currency. The paper has no intrinsic worth beyond other pieces of paper. Yet if you see $20 on the ground you probably pick it up everytime, wheras if you see a similar sized piece of scrap paper you leave it or throw it in the garbage. So money has worth. Everyone agrees with this. If you are the one person who doesn't believe it, even if your arguments are all correct you are still wrong in the sense that your views don't line up with reality. Even if there were some academic argument that made complete sense and money should be worthless, it isn't. Reality says otherwise.
There is, and cannot be authorative case law for dismissed cases for want of jurisdiction over a free will man.
I agree there are no such cases. However, there is no reason why there couldn't be if in fact your argument had any merit. There are hundreds of reported cases where charges have been dismissed for want of prosecution. None of these were situations where the court agreed that it had no jurisdiction over a free will man. Every time that argument has been tried it has failed. If you have reason to believe otherwise please post the case because I would be very interested in reading it.
Once again though, even if your argument were 100% correct, the fact is it won't work in court. We know that for a fact it won't. There is 0% chance of that argument being succesful. So my question is, even if you are correct, why would try to convince people to do something that you know has zero chance of success and will only wind up costing them?
It could be they incur court costs and waste everyone's time. But there are also people who forego actual legal arguments that might be succesful in favour of something that has no chance. If it has no chance of success then surely you should not try to advance this argument even if it 100% correct and the courts are all wrong.
