OK, I have a minute or two to partially address this nonsense. Let's start with this:
Regarding "lawful excuse", Menard is referring to s. 126 and s. 127 of the Criminal Code (CC). Regarding "claim of right", he is referring to s. 39 of the CC.
(see
here where he explicitly states this)
His very first error is conflating these sections. S. 126 and s. 127 offer a defence of "lawful excuse", but do not provide for making that defence by "claim of right". S. 39 offers a defence of "claim of right", but says nothing about "lawful excuse". The former is in regards to disobeying statutes and court orders, the latter is in regards to defence of property.
To further illustrate the error, we have to consider the context and scope of these provisions. I'll start with ss. 126 and 127. These provisions are found in Part IV of the CC - OFFENCES AGAINST THE ADMINISTRATION OF LAW AND JUSTICE - under the subtitle "Corruption and Disobedience". S. 126(1) is as follows:
The first step when trying to determine the scope of a provision is to see what the courts have said about it. Like so:
We can see quite clearly that the scope of s. 126 is limited to instances where any provision of any Act has been contravened
and where no other punishment for that contravention has been enacted.
This limits the scope of the "lawful excuse" defence in that provision. It is
not a blanket defence to disobeying all statutes. It applies
only to instances where a provision of a statute has been contravened
and where a punishment for that contravention has not otherwise been enacted.
The same is true for s. 127(1), which states:
The Supreme Court of Canada has weighed on this as follows:
Just as with s. 126, the scope of s. 127 is limited to instances
where no other punishment has been enacted. The difference being that s. 127 refers to disobeying court orders rather than statutes.
In sum, these two provisions are the default punishments for when a statue or court order is disobeyed and where no other punishment exists. They are limited in scope, and the defence of lawful excuse is also so limited.
Within that scope, the defence of "lawful excuse" has particular meaning. I'll address this specifically in my next post when I get some more time.
Final note for this post is simply a highlight of Menard's lies and hypocrisy:
I asked Menard this question during his short stint here:
No response. In fact, instead of responding, he fled back to safe waters, never to be seen at JREF again.