Pour une constitutionnalisation du droit à la sécession au Canada

"Mémoire présenté à la Faculté des études supérieures en vue de l'obtention du grade de maîtrise en droit, option recherche (LL.M.)"

Les référendums sur la souveraineté de l'Écosse et de la Catalogne : le renvoi relatif à la sécession du Québec en comparaison

L’année 2014 est marquée par les référendums sur la souveraineté de l’Écosse et de la Catalogne, deux nations partageant de nombreux points communs sur les plans de l’histoire et de la culture. Le cadre juridique pré-référendaire de chacune de ces régions est fondamentalement le même: l’existence juridique de l’Écosse et de la Catalogne est directement issue de la volonté d’un État central unitaire, respectivement le Royaume-Uni et l’Espagne. La compétence législative de tenir un référendum sur l’autodétermination de ces régions est d’ailleurs ambiguë. Devant ce dilemme, le Royaume-Uni permet à l’Écosse d’organiser un référendum sur sa souveraineté. Il en résulte un processus démocratique juste, équitable, décisif et respecté de tous. De son côté, l’Espagne interdit à la Catalogne d’en faire de même, ce qui n’empêche pas Barcelone de tout mettre en œuvre afin de consulter sa population. Il en découle un processus de participation citoyenne n’ayant rien à voir avec un référendum en bonne et due forme. 20 ans après le dernier référendum sur la souveraineté du Québec, l’étude des référendums de l’Écosse et de la Catalogne nous permet de mettre en lumière la justesse, mais aussi l’incohérence partielle des enseignements de la Cour suprême du Canada dans son Renvoi relatif à la sécession du Québec. D’un côté, la nécessité d’équilibrer les principes constitutionnels sous-jacents de démocratie et de constitutionnalisme est mise en exergue. Parallèlement, les concepts de question et de réponse claires, d’effectivité et de négociations post-référendaires prennent une toute autre couleur face à un nouvel impératif absent des conclusions de la Cour suprême : celui des négociations pré-référendaires.

Les référendums sur la souveraineté de l'Écosse et de la Catalogne : le renvoi relatif à la sécession du Québec en comparaison

L’année 2014 est marquée par les référendums sur la souveraineté de l’Écosse et de la Catalogne, deux nations partageant de nombreux points communs sur les plans de l’histoire et de la culture. Le cadre juridique pré-référendaire de chacune de ces régions est fondamentalement le même: l’existence juridique de l’Écosse et de la Catalogne est directement issue de la volonté d’un État central unitaire, respectivement le Royaume-Uni et l’Espagne. La compétence législative de tenir un référendum sur l’autodétermination de ces régions est d’ailleurs ambiguë. Devant ce dilemme, le Royaume-Uni permet à l’Écosse d’organiser un référendum sur sa souveraineté. Il en résulte un processus démocratique juste, équitable, décisif et respecté de tous. De son côté, l’Espagne interdit à la Catalogne d’en faire de même, ce qui n’empêche pas Barcelone de tout mettre en œuvre afin de consulter sa population. Il en découle un processus de participation citoyenne n’ayant rien à voir avec un référendum en bonne et due forme. 20 ans après le dernier référendum sur la souveraineté du Québec, l’étude des référendums de l’Écosse et de la Catalogne nous permet de mettre en lumière la justesse, mais aussi l’incohérence partielle des enseignements de la Cour suprême du Canada dans son Renvoi relatif à la sécession du Québec. D’un côté, la nécessité d’équilibrer les principes constitutionnels sous-jacents de démocratie et de constitutionnalisme est mise en exergue. Parallèlement, les concepts de question et de réponse claires, d’effectivité et de négociations post-référendaires prennent une toute autre couleur face à un nouvel impératif absent des conclusions de la Cour suprême : celui des négociations pré-référendaires.

La réflexion phénoménologique au crible de la grammaire : la question de l’expression de la vie intérieure de la conscience chez Husserl et Wittgenstein

Cotutelle avec l'Université Panthéon Sorbonne - Paris I

Australia, Korea and the Korean Question in the United Nations, 1946-1991

One previously unrecognised feature of the history of the political relationship between Australia and Korea is the role played by Australia as a member of the United Nations Organization in respect to the so-called Korea Question. Drawing on source documents from UN Resolutions and Australian Archives this article examines the changing positions of Australia as the Korea Question developed in the UN General Assembly. This spanned a period from the beginnings of the UN Organization until the time when both Koreas were admitted as members in 1991. The article proposes the Australian positions as responses to changing domestic and international political contexts.

To WPPSI or to Binet, that is the question : a comparison of the WPPSI-III and SB5 with typically-developing preschoolers

This study compared two popular measures of cognitive ability for preschool children. The Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence – Third Edition (WPPSI-III) and the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale – Fifth Edition (SB5) were administered in a counterbalanced order to 36 typically developing 4-year-old children. There were significant correlations among all WPPSI-III and SB5 composite scores but a small number of children had notable differences between their scores on the two measures. Children tended to prefer the SB5 over the WPPSI-III. Implications for practitioners who assess preschool-aged children are discussed.

Recommending best answer in a collaborative question answering system

The World Wide Web has become a medium for people to share information. People use Web-based collaborative tools such as question answering (QA) portals, blogs/forums, email and instant messaging to acquire information and to form online-based communities. In an online QA portal, a user asks a question and other users can provide answers based on their knowledge, with the question usually being answered by many users. It can become overwhelming and/or time/resource consuming for a user to read all of the answers provided for a given question. Thus, there exists a need for a mechanism to rank the provided answers so users can focus on only reading good quality answers. The majority of online QA systems use user feedback to rank users’ answers and the user who asked the question can decide on the best answer. Other users who didn’t participate in answering the question can also vote to determine the best answer. However, ranking the best answer via this collaborative method is time consuming and requires an ongoing continuous involvement of users to provide the needed feedback. The objective of this research is to discover a way to recommend the best answer as part of a ranked list of answers for a posted question automatically, without the need for user feedback. The proposed approach combines both a non-content-based reputation method and a content-based method to solve the problem of recommending the best answer to the user who posted the question. The non-content method assigns a score to each user which reflects the users’ reputation level in using the QA portal system. Each user is assigned two types of non-content-based reputations cores: a local reputation score and a global reputation score. The local reputation score plays an important role in deciding the reputation level of a user for the category in which the question is asked. The global reputation score indicates the prestige of a user across all of the categories in the QA system. Due to the possibility of user cheating, such as awarding the best answer to a friend regardless of the answer quality, a content-based method for determining the quality of a given answer is proposed, alongside the non-content-based reputation method. Answers for a question from different users are compared with an ideal (or expert) answer using traditional Information Retrieval and Natural Language Processing techniques. Each answer provided for a question is assigned a content score according to how well it matched the ideal answer. To evaluate the performance of the proposed methods, each recommended best answer is compared with the best answer determined by one of the most popular link analysis methods, Hyperlink-Induced Topic Search (HITS). The proposed methods are able to yield high accuracy, as shown by correlation scores: Kendall correlation and Spearman correlation. The reputation method outperforms the HITS method in terms of recommending the best answer. The inclusion of the reputation score with the content score improves the overall performance, which is measured through the use of Top-n match scores.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the happiest of them all?

This paper turns Snow-White's magic mirror onto recent economics Nobel Prize winners, top economists and happiness researchers, and through the eyes of the 'man in the street' seeks to determine who the happiest academic is. The study not only provides a clear answer to this question but also unveils who is the ladies' man and who is the sweetheart of the aged. It also explores the extent to which information matters and whether individuals' self-reported happiness affects their perceptions about the happiness of these superstars in economics.

Mitigating Democracy and 'A Question on Reason'

This book details the early political philosophy of Jean-Paul Gagnon. It deals with the ideas of democracy as something endemic to human nature; with practical methods for the improvement of democracy; and a mix of other political concepts. The book also has a response to the Russian Federation's development of the 'mother of all bombs' which leads Gagnon to question reason itself in humanity's progress.

The application of the Park & Ride and TOD concepts to develop a new framework that can maximise public transport patronage

With growing concern over the use of the car in our urbanized society, there have emerged a number of lobby groups and professional bodies promoting a return to public transport, walking and cycling, with the urban village as the key driving land use, as a means of making our cities’ transportation systems more sustainable. This research has aimed at developing a framework applicable to the Australian setting that can facilitate increased passenger patronage of rail based urban transport systems from adjacent or associated land uses. The framework specifically tested the application of the Park & Ride and Transit Oriented Development (TOD) concepts and their applicability within the cultural, institutional, political and transit operational characteristics of Australian society. The researcher found that, although the application of the TOD concept had been limited to small pockets of town houses and mixed use developments around stations, the development industry and emerging groups within the community are posed to embrace the concept and bring with it increased rail patronage. The lack of a clear commitment to infrastructure and supporting land uses is a major barrier to the implementation of TODs. The research findings demonstrated significant scope for the size of a TOD to expand to a much greater radius of activity from the public transport interchange, than the commonly quoted 400 to 600 meters, thus incorporating many more residents and potential patrons. The provision of Park & Rides, and associated support facilities like Kiss & Rides, have followed worldwide trends of high patronage demands from the middle and outer car dependent suburbs of our cities. The data collection and analysis gathered by the researcher demonstrated that in many cases Park & Rides should form part of a TOD to ensure ease of access to rail stations by all modes and patron types. The question, however, remains how best to plan the incorporation of a Park & Ride within a TOD and still maintain those features that attract and promote TODs as a living entity.

The question concerning (internet) time

Spatial representations, metaphors and imaginaries (cyberspace, web pages) have been the mainstay of internet research for a long time. Instead of repeating these themes, this paper seeks to answer the question of how we might understand the concept of time in relation to internet research. After a brief excursus on the general history of the concept, this paper proposes three different approaches to the conceptualisation of internet time. The common thread underlying all the approaches is the notion of time as an assemblage of elements such as technical artefacts, social relations and metaphors. By drawing out time in this way, the paper addresses the challenge of thinking of internet time as coexistence, a clash of fluxes, metaphors, lived experiences and assemblages. In other words, this paper proposes a way to articulate internet time as a multiplicity.