There's a particular hatred the far-left in Canada holds for Rex Murphy. It's mostly because he occupies a position in the Canadian media -- a contributor for the CBC and host of Cross Country Checkup -- that suggests to them that he should be one of them. But he is unequivocally not one of them.
This becomes most evident whenever he takes aim at one of the far-left's sacred cattle. When he does so a single sentence uttered by Murphy can leave the far-left quivering in outrage.
Such was apparently the case when Murphy took aim at one of the far-left's most recent sacred cattle: the so-called "white privilege" theory. (It doesn't really measure up as a theory, but I've already been over that.) That provoked sputtering outrage from David Bernans of the Montreal Media Coop. In the course of his diatribe, Bernans manages to prove everything Murphy says about the promoters of "white privilege" "theory" to be absolutely correct.
To whit:
"Rex Murphy offers us this pearl of wisdom in his latest National Post column:
'It is bitterly ironic that the anti-racist message has been reduced to this: You have all that you have only because you have white skin.'
No Rex. You have all that you have because of your truly unparalleled talents as an apologist for the wealthy and powerful. No person of any race or gender can suck up to powerful interests with as much self-righteousness and ostentatious erudition as you. You are a sycophant extraordinaire.
You have no qualms with knowingly misrepresenting the white privilege thesis in your hard-won column at the National Post. It's true Rex, you cannot explain every single advantage that every white person has only by reference to white privilege. Therefore, white privilege does not exist. Case closed. That must really put the National Post editorial board and other predominantly white institutions at ease."
This particular outburst left me with a new appreciation for much earlier in Murphy's column, when he wrote the following:
"For if there is one movement, that by its humourlessness, its obsessive mania and its blindness to its failings, chokes on its own goals, it is the so-called anti-racism movement."
Because he couldn't handle Murphy espousing on the many, many shortcomings of "white privilege" "theory" peddling "anti-racists" (each of these terms framed separately because they are all separately absurd) Bernans finishes his "rebuttal" with a racially-charged remark.
That shouldn't surprise anyone, though: it's what new-age racists like David Bernans do.
Monday, May 19, 2014
Saturday, May 17, 2014
MMIW: Take Note, Liberals, This One's On You
As Canadians were getting ready for the annual May long weekend -- treated by many Canadians as their first big adventure of the summer -- the RCMP were getting ready for something altogether different.
They were releasing an eagerly-awaited report on murdered and missing indigenous women in Canada. And they were preparing for the shrill expressions of outrage from the Canadian left in this country... who actually seem quite oblivious to the reality that they, themselves, are to blame for the sad revelations in the RCMP's report.
It's not all bad news. But it's mostly bad news. So, first, the bad news;
Aboriginal women in Canada are disproportionately represented among the country's murder victims. They are most likely to be murdered by a member of their own family. Their murderers are most likely to be not only a repeat offender, but a repeat violent offender. Their murderers are most often intoxicated when they commit these murders, and frequently do it after having had an argument with their victim.
That's the bad news. It's very bad news.
There is some good news: notably, that the rate at which these cases are solved is statistically identical to the rate at which the murderds of non-aboriginal women are solved. This is very much contrary to claims made by the Native Women's Association of Canada, who have spent years outraged that these cases have been placed under the care of professionals, as opposed to their own amateur investigators.
Now for the worst news of all. It's the worst it could possibly be: the Canadian justice system is failing indigenous women.
That failure is very much the design of the usual suspects the left would happily march before the inquiry they are currently demanding: the lawyers, social workers, criminologists, sociologists and assorted race-hustlers who oversaw the softening of the Canadian justice system. The so-called "experts" who we're continually told know better for us than we know for ourselves. The same ones who oversaw the continual shortening of sentences for criminals -- including violent criminals -- that has turned the killers of indigenous women loose. The same ones who have insisted that race should be deemed a mitigating factor in sentencing.
They're the ones who set aside two key principles of criminal justice -- punishment of the offender and protection of both victims and society -- and effectively left indigenous women at the mercy of their abusers; abusers who far too often became their murderers.
And now these are the same experts who, in the face of a government that has set out to turn back the clock on the softening of criminal justice in Canada, run before the courts and say "you can't do that." Not only have they softened Canada's criminal justice system, they demand that it remain that way. And activist judges schooled in the same far-left ideologies have proven stunningly eager to go along with it.
The Liberal Party bears special blame for the mess. They're the ones who amended the criminal code to facilitate this softening, and they're the ones who appointed the judges who seek to set it in stone.
These same people are now demanding a public inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women. And I say: let's have an inquiry. But not the inquiry they want. Let's put them on the stand and force them to account for their role in this ongoing tragedy.
Let's put the lawyers, social workers, criminologists, sociologists and assorted race-hustlers responsible for this before a Parliamentary inquiry and make them account for the social experiments and bad ideas that have led to this unacceptable state of affairs. And as soon as we're done shaming these so-called "experts" for their failures, let's tear what they've built down to its foundation and build it again, properly.
They were releasing an eagerly-awaited report on murdered and missing indigenous women in Canada. And they were preparing for the shrill expressions of outrage from the Canadian left in this country... who actually seem quite oblivious to the reality that they, themselves, are to blame for the sad revelations in the RCMP's report.
It's not all bad news. But it's mostly bad news. So, first, the bad news;
Aboriginal women in Canada are disproportionately represented among the country's murder victims. They are most likely to be murdered by a member of their own family. Their murderers are most likely to be not only a repeat offender, but a repeat violent offender. Their murderers are most often intoxicated when they commit these murders, and frequently do it after having had an argument with their victim.
That's the bad news. It's very bad news.
There is some good news: notably, that the rate at which these cases are solved is statistically identical to the rate at which the murderds of non-aboriginal women are solved. This is very much contrary to claims made by the Native Women's Association of Canada, who have spent years outraged that these cases have been placed under the care of professionals, as opposed to their own amateur investigators.
Now for the worst news of all. It's the worst it could possibly be: the Canadian justice system is failing indigenous women.
That failure is very much the design of the usual suspects the left would happily march before the inquiry they are currently demanding: the lawyers, social workers, criminologists, sociologists and assorted race-hustlers who oversaw the softening of the Canadian justice system. The so-called "experts" who we're continually told know better for us than we know for ourselves. The same ones who oversaw the continual shortening of sentences for criminals -- including violent criminals -- that has turned the killers of indigenous women loose. The same ones who have insisted that race should be deemed a mitigating factor in sentencing.
They're the ones who set aside two key principles of criminal justice -- punishment of the offender and protection of both victims and society -- and effectively left indigenous women at the mercy of their abusers; abusers who far too often became their murderers.
And now these are the same experts who, in the face of a government that has set out to turn back the clock on the softening of criminal justice in Canada, run before the courts and say "you can't do that." Not only have they softened Canada's criminal justice system, they demand that it remain that way. And activist judges schooled in the same far-left ideologies have proven stunningly eager to go along with it.
The Liberal Party bears special blame for the mess. They're the ones who amended the criminal code to facilitate this softening, and they're the ones who appointed the judges who seek to set it in stone.
These same people are now demanding a public inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women. And I say: let's have an inquiry. But not the inquiry they want. Let's put them on the stand and force them to account for their role in this ongoing tragedy.
Let's put the lawyers, social workers, criminologists, sociologists and assorted race-hustlers responsible for this before a Parliamentary inquiry and make them account for the social experiments and bad ideas that have led to this unacceptable state of affairs. And as soon as we're done shaming these so-called "experts" for their failures, let's tear what they've built down to its foundation and build it again, properly.
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Sniff... They Grow Up So Fast...
I think it's fair to say that in federal politics, a party hasn't really grown up until they've had a multi-million dollar scandal.
The federal NDP has spent 50 years trying to get themselves into a position where they can actually have a multi-million dollar scandal. For the first time in their history, they are. So in terms of multi-million dollar scandals, they're batting a thousand.
Plenty of people have had serious concerns about the NDP's "satellite offices" they've been operating in ridings in which they do not have an MP. In my opinion the legitimacy of these offices focuses strictly around whether these offices, and the staff employed by them, are performing work on parliamentary business for opposition MPs or partisan work for the NDP. In my personal opinion, so long as they're doing the former, the offices should be fine. I've said this before.
But the problem is that the NDP lied. In October 2011, Jess Turke-Browne, Deputy Chief of Staff for then-interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel (not for Thomas Mulcair as I mistakenly reported earlier) lied to House of Commons staff when she insisted that the staff for these satellite offices would be working in Ottawa.
In response to this revelation, current NDP leader Thomas Mulcair has adopted an interesting approach: he's using the Pamela Wallin/Mike Duffy/Patrick Brazeau defense.
You've heard it before: they followed all the rules. The expenses were approved. They were where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there.
The consensus has become that this defense was laughable. I've never been so certain about that myself, as I don't consider the allegations against the Senators to have ever been adequately investigated. But what is certain is that Thomas Mulcair had a heyday with the affair. He was like a pitbull in question period. He'd found himself a fresh bone to chew and he gnawed it for all it was worth.
But now with his party under fire, let's look at how Mulcair is defending himself:
They followed all the rules. The spending was approved. They were where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there.
Sound like anyone you've heard of? Sure it does.
Except, they weren't. The employment forms the NDP submitted to House of Commons staff insisted that the staffers would be working in Ottawa. They weren't. Apparently, seven NDP MPs signed those forms. They aided and abetted Turke-Browne in her apparent deception of HoC staff.
And hear Mulcair: parroting Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau. Well done.
Whoever those seven MPs are -- they know who they are, and soon the rest of us will too (one of them is Guy Carron) -- owe the House their resignations. Nycole Turmel owes the House her resignation. And the buck stops with the leader: Thomas Mulcair owes the House his resignation.
With this scandal the NDP has finally grown up. Now they have to own up.
The federal NDP has spent 50 years trying to get themselves into a position where they can actually have a multi-million dollar scandal. For the first time in their history, they are. So in terms of multi-million dollar scandals, they're batting a thousand.
Plenty of people have had serious concerns about the NDP's "satellite offices" they've been operating in ridings in which they do not have an MP. In my opinion the legitimacy of these offices focuses strictly around whether these offices, and the staff employed by them, are performing work on parliamentary business for opposition MPs or partisan work for the NDP. In my personal opinion, so long as they're doing the former, the offices should be fine. I've said this before.
But the problem is that the NDP lied. In October 2011, Jess Turke-Browne, Deputy Chief of Staff for then-interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel (not for Thomas Mulcair as I mistakenly reported earlier) lied to House of Commons staff when she insisted that the staff for these satellite offices would be working in Ottawa.
In response to this revelation, current NDP leader Thomas Mulcair has adopted an interesting approach: he's using the Pamela Wallin/Mike Duffy/Patrick Brazeau defense.
You've heard it before: they followed all the rules. The expenses were approved. They were where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there.
The consensus has become that this defense was laughable. I've never been so certain about that myself, as I don't consider the allegations against the Senators to have ever been adequately investigated. But what is certain is that Thomas Mulcair had a heyday with the affair. He was like a pitbull in question period. He'd found himself a fresh bone to chew and he gnawed it for all it was worth.
But now with his party under fire, let's look at how Mulcair is defending himself:
They followed all the rules. The spending was approved. They were where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there.
Sound like anyone you've heard of? Sure it does.
Except, they weren't. The employment forms the NDP submitted to House of Commons staff insisted that the staffers would be working in Ottawa. They weren't. Apparently, seven NDP MPs signed those forms. They aided and abetted Turke-Browne in her apparent deception of HoC staff.
And hear Mulcair: parroting Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau. Well done.
Whoever those seven MPs are -- they know who they are, and soon the rest of us will too (one of them is Guy Carron) -- owe the House their resignations. Nycole Turmel owes the House her resignation. And the buck stops with the leader: Thomas Mulcair owes the House his resignation.
With this scandal the NDP has finally grown up. Now they have to own up.
Monday, May 12, 2014
Contempt
It's been a talking point of the NDP and their partisans since forever: contempt of Parliament.
It dates back to 2011 when the Liberals and the NDP trumped up a contempt complaint against the then- and still-sitting Stephen Harper-led government, then rammed it through the commons because they could.
The government misled the commons, they argued: it wasn't actually true. Even a Constitutional expert as vaunted -- and hardly a staunch ally of the Conservative Party -- as Ned Franks declared that the case was razor-thin. But that didn't matter because between them, the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois had the numbers. The facts didn't matter then.
And I'm sure the NDP is hoping they don't now. The story recently broke that the NDP has been operating what they insisted were constituency offices in constituencies they don't represent, in the case of Saskatchewan, in a province where they don't have a single MP.
They misled the House of Commons. They told HoC staff that the staff the NDP had hired to work in the so-called "satellite offices" would be working in Ottawa. They didn't simply submit information to the House that the opposition refused to accept. They lied. Which makes this case for contempt of Parliament a whole different beast.
According to documents obtained and reported on by iPolitics, NDP leader Thomas Mulcair's then-Deputy Chief of Staff met with two House of Commons staffers -- one from Finance Services and one from Human Resources -- on October 3, 211. Ms Turk-Browne told the staffers that the hirees would be working in Ottawa.
It was a lie. There's no way, whatsoever, that it wasn't a lie.
And to cover up what? That I can't understand.
As outraged as a lot of people were about the so-called "satellite offices." Personally, I wasn't. While it's true the NDP located these satellite offices in ridings where the elected MP was not NDP, Canada's system of representation is actually quite complex. Canadians are represented locally by their MPs within their own ridings, and across provinces and regions within government, and within cabinet.
A lot of people in Saskatchewan, for example, didn't vote for the Conservative Party or the NDP. And while it's perfectly reasonable for Conservative MPs (and one lonely Liberal, Ralph Goodale) to become MP in each riding where they won a plurality of the vote, it's also perfectly reasonable for those voters who didn't to also have access to a voice in Parliament. In their case, it's the opposition.
There's plenty of room for argument regarding the democratic legitimacy of this. In my opinion, it's legitimate. I don't understand why the NDP opted to lie about this rather than argue for its legitimacy.
But it seems to me that now there's only one thing to do: Thomas Mulcair was and remains responsible for the actions of his Deputy Chief of Staff. He's the leader of the NDP, and the leader of the opposition.
The House of Commons should immediately vote to hold the NDP caucus in contempt of Parliament. The entire NDP caucus must then resign their seats in the House of Commons and run in by-elections. At the very least Thomas Mulcair must be held responsible for the deceit that took place within his staff and under his watch.
It dates back to 2011 when the Liberals and the NDP trumped up a contempt complaint against the then- and still-sitting Stephen Harper-led government, then rammed it through the commons because they could.
The government misled the commons, they argued: it wasn't actually true. Even a Constitutional expert as vaunted -- and hardly a staunch ally of the Conservative Party -- as Ned Franks declared that the case was razor-thin. But that didn't matter because between them, the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois had the numbers. The facts didn't matter then.
And I'm sure the NDP is hoping they don't now. The story recently broke that the NDP has been operating what they insisted were constituency offices in constituencies they don't represent, in the case of Saskatchewan, in a province where they don't have a single MP.
They misled the House of Commons. They told HoC staff that the staff the NDP had hired to work in the so-called "satellite offices" would be working in Ottawa. They didn't simply submit information to the House that the opposition refused to accept. They lied. Which makes this case for contempt of Parliament a whole different beast.
According to documents obtained and reported on by iPolitics, NDP leader Thomas Mulcair's then-Deputy Chief of Staff met with two House of Commons staffers -- one from Finance Services and one from Human Resources -- on October 3, 211. Ms Turk-Browne told the staffers that the hirees would be working in Ottawa.
It was a lie. There's no way, whatsoever, that it wasn't a lie.
And to cover up what? That I can't understand.
As outraged as a lot of people were about the so-called "satellite offices." Personally, I wasn't. While it's true the NDP located these satellite offices in ridings where the elected MP was not NDP, Canada's system of representation is actually quite complex. Canadians are represented locally by their MPs within their own ridings, and across provinces and regions within government, and within cabinet.
A lot of people in Saskatchewan, for example, didn't vote for the Conservative Party or the NDP. And while it's perfectly reasonable for Conservative MPs (and one lonely Liberal, Ralph Goodale) to become MP in each riding where they won a plurality of the vote, it's also perfectly reasonable for those voters who didn't to also have access to a voice in Parliament. In their case, it's the opposition.
There's plenty of room for argument regarding the democratic legitimacy of this. In my opinion, it's legitimate. I don't understand why the NDP opted to lie about this rather than argue for its legitimacy.
But it seems to me that now there's only one thing to do: Thomas Mulcair was and remains responsible for the actions of his Deputy Chief of Staff. He's the leader of the NDP, and the leader of the opposition.
The House of Commons should immediately vote to hold the NDP caucus in contempt of Parliament. The entire NDP caucus must then resign their seats in the House of Commons and run in by-elections. At the very least Thomas Mulcair must be held responsible for the deceit that took place within his staff and under his watch.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Bob Paulson to Charlie Angus: "Go Cut Yourself a Switch, Boy"
Let it never be said that the far-left gives up easily.
In the wake of the RCMP's decision to end the investigation of former PMO Chief of Staff Nigel Wright without pressing charges, various individuals refused -- simply refused -- to accept that. From iPolitics columnist Michael Harris to Green Party leader Elizabeth May, people began demanding to know why Wright wasn't charged.
Timmins-James Bay MP Charlie Angus -- who is also the NDP's ethics critic, despite his own run-in with Elections Act violations -- decided to take that a step farther. He decided to write the RCMP. He might not be so happy he did. RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson decided to write back.
Here's an especially-tasty excerpt from Paulson's letter:
"While I'm at it, permit me to point out that in your letter you alternately refer to '...the decision to drop the charges against Mr Wright', and 'the decision to end the investigation into the actions of Mr Wright...' While I'm sure your selection of words was largely innocent you must understand that Mr Wright was never charged with any offense and so the RCMP did not decide to drop charges. The RCMP decided not to bring charges after we thoroughly and completely investigated the matter. Illustrative perhaps of the complexity of these situations and the need for precision around these sensitive matters."
Ouch. I imagine that Mr Angus is learning that perhaps sometimes it's better to let the facts stand in the way.
But here's the thing: there is no reason whatsoever to treat Mr Angus' letter for anything other than precisely what it is: an attempt to put political pressure on the RCMP. If it were an NDP MP, staffer, or operative under investigation, and a Conservative MP doing the same thing, the NDP would be freaking the fuck out. They would be insisting that this MP was applying political pressure in order to obtain a result from which he could gain political advantage.
And they wouldn't be wrong. Except that isn't what's going on. It's an NDP MP -- an ethics critic, no less -- applying such political pressure. It's no less acceptable.
And it's no more ethical. To attempt to place political pressure on the national police force in a highly politicized matter is an act of extremely questionable ethics, to say the least. Of course no one should expect Mr Angus to do the right thing and resign his portfolio -- he didn't do so the last time his adherence to the rules -- and election law -- were found to be sorely wanting.
In the wake of the RCMP's decision to end the investigation of former PMO Chief of Staff Nigel Wright without pressing charges, various individuals refused -- simply refused -- to accept that. From iPolitics columnist Michael Harris to Green Party leader Elizabeth May, people began demanding to know why Wright wasn't charged.
Timmins-James Bay MP Charlie Angus -- who is also the NDP's ethics critic, despite his own run-in with Elections Act violations -- decided to take that a step farther. He decided to write the RCMP. He might not be so happy he did. RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson decided to write back.
Here's an especially-tasty excerpt from Paulson's letter:
"While I'm at it, permit me to point out that in your letter you alternately refer to '...the decision to drop the charges against Mr Wright', and 'the decision to end the investigation into the actions of Mr Wright...' While I'm sure your selection of words was largely innocent you must understand that Mr Wright was never charged with any offense and so the RCMP did not decide to drop charges. The RCMP decided not to bring charges after we thoroughly and completely investigated the matter. Illustrative perhaps of the complexity of these situations and the need for precision around these sensitive matters."
Ouch. I imagine that Mr Angus is learning that perhaps sometimes it's better to let the facts stand in the way.
But here's the thing: there is no reason whatsoever to treat Mr Angus' letter for anything other than precisely what it is: an attempt to put political pressure on the RCMP. If it were an NDP MP, staffer, or operative under investigation, and a Conservative MP doing the same thing, the NDP would be freaking the fuck out. They would be insisting that this MP was applying political pressure in order to obtain a result from which he could gain political advantage.
And they wouldn't be wrong. Except that isn't what's going on. It's an NDP MP -- an ethics critic, no less -- applying such political pressure. It's no less acceptable.
And it's no more ethical. To attempt to place political pressure on the national police force in a highly politicized matter is an act of extremely questionable ethics, to say the least. Of course no one should expect Mr Angus to do the right thing and resign his portfolio -- he didn't do so the last time his adherence to the rules -- and election law -- were found to be sorely wanting.
Friday, April 18, 2014
The Unconscionable Nuttiness of Michael Harris
iPolitics columnist Michael Harris is bitter. Very bitter. And because the RCMP have elected not to take any prisoners in l'affaire Nigel Wright, neither will he, apparently.
This week, the RCMP cleared Wright of any criminal wrongdoing. It had been alleged that Wright had committed "frauds upon the government" by giving now-suspended Senator Mike Duffy $90,000 to repay expenses that have been alleged to have been improperly claimed. A decision by the RCMP on whether or not Duffy has committed any crime is said to be forthcoming. It sounds like charges might be laid.
About the RCMP's decision, Harris is apparently furious. Furious enough that he and his left-wing cohorts haven't gotten their way that he's taken it upon himself to impugn the RCMP's independence.
"The other night on television, Stephen Harper’s former communications manager, Geoff Norquay, said that since the RCMP has assured Nigel Wright he will not be charged, nobody cares about the whole stinking mess any longer.
Well, I do. As the saying goes, justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.
In order for that to happen in the case of Nigel Wright, we deserve a full explanation of how this decision was made — and who ultimately made it."
Apparently for Harris -- who openly chafes at any suggestion that he holds a cavalier attitude toward the law -- justice being done and being seen to be done precludes the RCMP declining to charge someone who hasn't actually broken the law. An impressive leap of logic, that.
And now that the RCMP have declined to press charges against Wright apparently everyone within the RCMP must suddenly account for where they stand, and what role they had -- if any -- in the decision to not charge Wright with fraud.
Corporal Greg Horton? Commissioner Bob Paulson? Only one is known (Horton) to have played any role whatsoever in the investigation, but apparently both must answer to Michael Harris, apparently.
But here's the thing: the RCMP's decision not to charge Wright is far from surprising, and not for the reasons that Harris insinuates.
To reach this conclusion, it's worthwhile to take measure of just what Harris is alleging makes Wright's cheque to Duffy criminal:
"Even though the RCMP investigation into Nigel Wright has been dropped, what about the Parliament of Canada Act? Under Section 16 of that statute, it is an indictable offence to give a senator compensation for services rendered with respect to 'any claim, controversy, arrest, or other matter before the Senate'."
Harris' reading of the Parliament of Canada act reads with all the expertise of someone whose doctorate of laws is honourary. It seems that Wright's and Duffy's financial arrangement lacks a key component: any services rendered.
Awkward, that.
But let's take a look at what some legal experts had to say about l'affaire Wright. As it just so happens, Harris loves experts. He could listen to and defer to them all day. Or so he says.
But what did the experts say?
Well, Canada's top expert on fraud law, David Debenham, had this to say:
"'Some of us are not convinced that [Mr Wright] did break the law, actually,' said David Debenham, a partner at the Ottawa-based law firm of McMillan. Even if all the details of the document were proven true, Mr Debenham believes they offer thin proof of any wrongdoing.
'[Mr Wright appears to be] basically trying to help Mr. Duffy to do the right thing. There doesn’t seem to be a personal motive. He’s not trying to persuade Mr Duffy to break the law, he’s offering the money so Mr Duffy can comply with the law.'
Further, Mr. Debenham said he remains perplexed as to whether the ITO is even offering evidence that condemns Mr Wright’s actions. 'What, exactly, is the corruption element here? There doesn’t seem to be any influence peddling,' he said."
For the record, Mr Debenham doesn't have an honourary doctorate of laws. He just has 25 years of experience in the field as an actual lawyer (not merely as an activist). Oh, and he also co-chairs the Supreme Court Practice Group. No biggie. Certainly no reason why Harris, with his honourary doctorate in law, would want to defer to an expert.
There's two reasons why Mr Harris would discard Mr Debenham's actual expertise in favour of his own honourary (read: not actual) expertise. One reason is that he is simply unaware of it -- that in writing this column he simply failed to do his research. It wouldn't be the first time. The second is that it wasn't sufficiently political enough for Mr Harris, and so he discarded it.
Even while he tries to ascribe it to others, this is Harris' modus operandi. He politicizes everything. Now he's out to politicize the RCMP.
This is the basest form of political iconoclasm: nothing that disputes Harris' position can be acknowledged, and any institution that declines to act as his personal political enforcers must apparently be razed to the ground. Never mind that the facts do not, and never have, justified charging Wright with fraud. That doesn't matter. Harris is determined to see conservative scalps taken, and any institution that doesn't gleefully go along with it must be horribly corrupted.
But sadly Harris has played a mean trick on himself that he doesn't seem to have comprehended: in declaring his non-confidence in the RCMP simply because he didn't get his way, Harris has precluded confidence in the RCMP period. Had the RCMP charged Wright -- in clear contradiction of the requisite legal principles -- Harris could have feigned confidence in the RCMP, but it could not have been legitimate. His confidence -- or lack thereof -- in the RCMP is entirely flippant, the hallmark of a cavalier attitude toward the law. And now everyone knows it.
This week, the RCMP cleared Wright of any criminal wrongdoing. It had been alleged that Wright had committed "frauds upon the government" by giving now-suspended Senator Mike Duffy $90,000 to repay expenses that have been alleged to have been improperly claimed. A decision by the RCMP on whether or not Duffy has committed any crime is said to be forthcoming. It sounds like charges might be laid.
About the RCMP's decision, Harris is apparently furious. Furious enough that he and his left-wing cohorts haven't gotten their way that he's taken it upon himself to impugn the RCMP's independence.
"The other night on television, Stephen Harper’s former communications manager, Geoff Norquay, said that since the RCMP has assured Nigel Wright he will not be charged, nobody cares about the whole stinking mess any longer.
Well, I do. As the saying goes, justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.
In order for that to happen in the case of Nigel Wright, we deserve a full explanation of how this decision was made — and who ultimately made it."
Apparently for Harris -- who openly chafes at any suggestion that he holds a cavalier attitude toward the law -- justice being done and being seen to be done precludes the RCMP declining to charge someone who hasn't actually broken the law. An impressive leap of logic, that.
And now that the RCMP have declined to press charges against Wright apparently everyone within the RCMP must suddenly account for where they stand, and what role they had -- if any -- in the decision to not charge Wright with fraud.
Corporal Greg Horton? Commissioner Bob Paulson? Only one is known (Horton) to have played any role whatsoever in the investigation, but apparently both must answer to Michael Harris, apparently.
But here's the thing: the RCMP's decision not to charge Wright is far from surprising, and not for the reasons that Harris insinuates.
To reach this conclusion, it's worthwhile to take measure of just what Harris is alleging makes Wright's cheque to Duffy criminal:
"Even though the RCMP investigation into Nigel Wright has been dropped, what about the Parliament of Canada Act? Under Section 16 of that statute, it is an indictable offence to give a senator compensation for services rendered with respect to 'any claim, controversy, arrest, or other matter before the Senate'."
Harris' reading of the Parliament of Canada act reads with all the expertise of someone whose doctorate of laws is honourary. It seems that Wright's and Duffy's financial arrangement lacks a key component: any services rendered.
Awkward, that.
But let's take a look at what some legal experts had to say about l'affaire Wright. As it just so happens, Harris loves experts. He could listen to and defer to them all day. Or so he says.
But what did the experts say?
Well, Canada's top expert on fraud law, David Debenham, had this to say:
"'Some of us are not convinced that [Mr Wright] did break the law, actually,' said David Debenham, a partner at the Ottawa-based law firm of McMillan. Even if all the details of the document were proven true, Mr Debenham believes they offer thin proof of any wrongdoing.
'[Mr Wright appears to be] basically trying to help Mr. Duffy to do the right thing. There doesn’t seem to be a personal motive. He’s not trying to persuade Mr Duffy to break the law, he’s offering the money so Mr Duffy can comply with the law.'
Further, Mr. Debenham said he remains perplexed as to whether the ITO is even offering evidence that condemns Mr Wright’s actions. 'What, exactly, is the corruption element here? There doesn’t seem to be any influence peddling,' he said."
For the record, Mr Debenham doesn't have an honourary doctorate of laws. He just has 25 years of experience in the field as an actual lawyer (not merely as an activist). Oh, and he also co-chairs the Supreme Court Practice Group. No biggie. Certainly no reason why Harris, with his honourary doctorate in law, would want to defer to an expert.
There's two reasons why Mr Harris would discard Mr Debenham's actual expertise in favour of his own honourary (read: not actual) expertise. One reason is that he is simply unaware of it -- that in writing this column he simply failed to do his research. It wouldn't be the first time. The second is that it wasn't sufficiently political enough for Mr Harris, and so he discarded it.
Even while he tries to ascribe it to others, this is Harris' modus operandi. He politicizes everything. Now he's out to politicize the RCMP.
This is the basest form of political iconoclasm: nothing that disputes Harris' position can be acknowledged, and any institution that declines to act as his personal political enforcers must apparently be razed to the ground. Never mind that the facts do not, and never have, justified charging Wright with fraud. That doesn't matter. Harris is determined to see conservative scalps taken, and any institution that doesn't gleefully go along with it must be horribly corrupted.
But sadly Harris has played a mean trick on himself that he doesn't seem to have comprehended: in declaring his non-confidence in the RCMP simply because he didn't get his way, Harris has precluded confidence in the RCMP period. Had the RCMP charged Wright -- in clear contradiction of the requisite legal principles -- Harris could have feigned confidence in the RCMP, but it could not have been legitimate. His confidence -- or lack thereof -- in the RCMP is entirely flippant, the hallmark of a cavalier attitude toward the law. And now everyone knows it.
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Michael Harris Under Theresa Spence's Cone of Silence
If I didn't know better, I'd swear that iPolitics columnist Michael Harris had been out to the scandal-engulfed Attawapiskat reserve and been threatened with arrest. Simply nothing else could explain the cone of silence he's placed himself in -- at least in regards to that subject -- since Chief Theresa Spence's commonlaw spouse, Clayton Kennedy, was charged with theft and fraud.
Strange, that. After all, Harris was so obsessed with the RCMP investigation into former PMO Chief of Staff Nigel Wright that, following the RCMP dropping the investigation, he took to Twitter to suggest -- to very nearly insist -- that the case showed that the national police force's independence was now in question.
Yet Kennedy is now facing charges stemming from alleged theft and fraud that took place under Spence's watch and... silence. Nothing to be said from the esteemed Mr Harris.
This would make it seem as if Harris, who previously was one of Spence's biggest boosters in the Canadian media, had only suddenly taken leave of this particular story. But the truth is rather different: he took leave of it long ago.
For example, let's take a look at what Harris wrote about Spence on January 3, 2013:
"...Last December 11, it was shocking to see someone actually want to talk to the prime minister as the country’s most important employee, not as an imperial figure who lives at the top of an unapproachable mountain shrouded in mist. Chief Spence had the audacity to think that she was important because her concerns were important. She was also sufficiently committed to the notion of democracy (however battered it may be in Canada) that she believed talking to the prime minister — nation to nation, as promised — might benefit everyone."
She was committed to the notion of democracy, was she? Well, it turns out that her devotion didn't last the year. In August, 2013 the Attawapiskat band held an election. Spence was reelected, but election had been run with a caveat: if you live off-reserve -- more than half of Attawapiskat band members do -- you were required to travel back to the reserve to vote. The move effectively disenfranchised any band members who wouldn't or couldn't.
Only 507 votes were cast. The Attawapiskat band has 3,351 members.
In a vote held on-reserve, the majority of band members voting approved a band election code that would give all band members a ballot, whether they lived on- or off-reserve. Under the leadership of Chief Spence, Michael Harris' model democrat, Attawapiskat band council refused to ratify it.
Quite the democrat, Theresa Spence is.
Yet even after having given her his official seal of approval, to to speak, Harris had clammed up on all matters Attawapiskat long before then. And now that thousands of dollars in fraud and theft have taken place under his model democrat's watch, Harris is silent again.
But not so silent on Nigel Wright. Harris took to Twitter to fume that the RCMP owes an explanation regarding who made the decision to clear Wright, and why. It's not at all hard to imagine that Harris imagines that he would be the one collecting such an explanation. In the absence of such an explanation, Harris seems quite content to impugn the independence of the RCMP -- quite the cavalier attitude towards the law if there ever was one!
There is something important that these three stories have in common: it's what they actually don't have in common. And that is Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Chief Theresa Spence, in faking a hunger strike, was making Harper look callous in the eyes of many. Because she was harming Harper's political image, Harris endorsed her not knowing that her common law husband had seemingly been stuffing his pockets with Attawapiskat band cash. (It seems fair to at least strongly suspect that Spence herself was a beneficiary of that larceny.)
The speculation by RCMP investigator Corporal Greg Horton that in giving now-suspended Senator Mike Duffy $90,000 to pay seemingly-improperly-claimed expenses back to the taxpayers Nigel Wright had committed fraud was ammo in the arsenal of the opposition for months. The story hurt Harper, so of course Harris mentioned it as often as he could.
But Clayton Kennedy being charged with theft and fraud? Well, that has nothing to do with Harper. So because the story doesn't harm Harper politically, Harris steers clear of it.
If I'm being unfair to Harris he can feel free to correct the record at his leisure by explaining his evident disinterest in the Kennedy story. It seems to be clear at this point that whatever got Harris' dander up about Wright, it wasn't the speculated -- never even alleged -- fraud. Remember: Kennedy (linked to Spence) has been charged and Wright (linked to Harper) was cleared.
So is Michael Harris huddled under a cone of silence? Or is it more of a code of silence -- a left-wing Omerta?
Only Harris knows for certain. And he may feel free to explain at his earliest convenience.
Strange, that. After all, Harris was so obsessed with the RCMP investigation into former PMO Chief of Staff Nigel Wright that, following the RCMP dropping the investigation, he took to Twitter to suggest -- to very nearly insist -- that the case showed that the national police force's independence was now in question.
Yet Kennedy is now facing charges stemming from alleged theft and fraud that took place under Spence's watch and... silence. Nothing to be said from the esteemed Mr Harris.
This would make it seem as if Harris, who previously was one of Spence's biggest boosters in the Canadian media, had only suddenly taken leave of this particular story. But the truth is rather different: he took leave of it long ago.
For example, let's take a look at what Harris wrote about Spence on January 3, 2013:
"...Last December 11, it was shocking to see someone actually want to talk to the prime minister as the country’s most important employee, not as an imperial figure who lives at the top of an unapproachable mountain shrouded in mist. Chief Spence had the audacity to think that she was important because her concerns were important. She was also sufficiently committed to the notion of democracy (however battered it may be in Canada) that she believed talking to the prime minister — nation to nation, as promised — might benefit everyone."
She was committed to the notion of democracy, was she? Well, it turns out that her devotion didn't last the year. In August, 2013 the Attawapiskat band held an election. Spence was reelected, but election had been run with a caveat: if you live off-reserve -- more than half of Attawapiskat band members do -- you were required to travel back to the reserve to vote. The move effectively disenfranchised any band members who wouldn't or couldn't.
Only 507 votes were cast. The Attawapiskat band has 3,351 members.
In a vote held on-reserve, the majority of band members voting approved a band election code that would give all band members a ballot, whether they lived on- or off-reserve. Under the leadership of Chief Spence, Michael Harris' model democrat, Attawapiskat band council refused to ratify it.
Quite the democrat, Theresa Spence is.
Yet even after having given her his official seal of approval, to to speak, Harris had clammed up on all matters Attawapiskat long before then. And now that thousands of dollars in fraud and theft have taken place under his model democrat's watch, Harris is silent again.
But not so silent on Nigel Wright. Harris took to Twitter to fume that the RCMP owes an explanation regarding who made the decision to clear Wright, and why. It's not at all hard to imagine that Harris imagines that he would be the one collecting such an explanation. In the absence of such an explanation, Harris seems quite content to impugn the independence of the RCMP -- quite the cavalier attitude towards the law if there ever was one!
There is something important that these three stories have in common: it's what they actually don't have in common. And that is Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Chief Theresa Spence, in faking a hunger strike, was making Harper look callous in the eyes of many. Because she was harming Harper's political image, Harris endorsed her not knowing that her common law husband had seemingly been stuffing his pockets with Attawapiskat band cash. (It seems fair to at least strongly suspect that Spence herself was a beneficiary of that larceny.)
The speculation by RCMP investigator Corporal Greg Horton that in giving now-suspended Senator Mike Duffy $90,000 to pay seemingly-improperly-claimed expenses back to the taxpayers Nigel Wright had committed fraud was ammo in the arsenal of the opposition for months. The story hurt Harper, so of course Harris mentioned it as often as he could.
But Clayton Kennedy being charged with theft and fraud? Well, that has nothing to do with Harper. So because the story doesn't harm Harper politically, Harris steers clear of it.
If I'm being unfair to Harris he can feel free to correct the record at his leisure by explaining his evident disinterest in the Kennedy story. It seems to be clear at this point that whatever got Harris' dander up about Wright, it wasn't the speculated -- never even alleged -- fraud. Remember: Kennedy (linked to Spence) has been charged and Wright (linked to Harper) was cleared.
So is Michael Harris huddled under a cone of silence? Or is it more of a code of silence -- a left-wing Omerta?
Only Harris knows for certain. And he may feel free to explain at his earliest convenience.
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