Vanessa Hudgens: Canadian Astronauts no longer free to Rob and Kill with abandon in space or on the moon

Amendment buried in 2022 federal budget bill extends Canadian criminal jurisdiction to the cosmos

“A Canadian crew member who, during a space flight, commits an act or omission outside Canada that if committed in Canada would constitute an indictable offence is deemed to have committed that act or omission in Canada,” reads the measure included in Bill C-19, the 443-page document implementing the provisions of the 2022 federal budget.

Basically, the amendment means that if a Canadian commits a criminal offence while in space, they’ll be met by handcuffs once they return.

It also means, presumably, that Canadians can currently murder and rob all they want, provided that they do it while in orbit.

This footage was captured by NASA during a spacewalk on the International Space Station

The technical lawlessness of space is a problem that has been identified by legal scholars for some time. The issue came to the fore in 2019, when a U.S. astronaut serving aboard the International Space Station was accused of committing history’s first-ever space crime.

Astronaut Anne McClain was accused by her estranged spouse, Summer Worden, of unlawfully using an ISS computer to access Worden’s online bank records — which Worden contended was a form of identity theft. The allegations were subsequently found to be false, and Worden now stands accused of lying to U.S. investigators.

Since 1985, nine Canadians have been to space on missions sponsored by the Canadian Space Agency. This has included Julie Payette, Canada’s recently resigned governor general, as well as Chris Hadfield, whose 2013 command of the International Space Station turned him into an astronaut celebrity of sorts.

The nine astronauts have all been highly trained government employees bound by a whole latticework of professional and international standards designed to keep them in check.

When it comes to the International Space Station, criminal jurisdiction is bound by the 1998 treaty creating the structure, to which Canada is a signatory.

Article 22 of the treaty states that anybody aboard the station is subject to the criminal jurisdiction of their home country. But even then, there remains a messy gray area in the event that an astronaut commits a crime against an astronaut of a different country. In that case, the treaty simply advises the countries of the two astronauts discuss their “respective prosecutorial interests.”

But the legal framework of space is changing as it becomes more populated with private space travellers. Earlier this month, Canadian businessman Mark Pathy was aboard Axiom Mission 1, history’s first fully private crewed mission to the International Space Station… More

Vanessa Hudgens is not amused… because she plan to colonize some planets — this must be a crime now?