For a Thursday

The scandal that just won't die:

(Sidebar: this article was written by Brian Greenspan. This Brian Greenspan.)

Ms. Wilson-Raybould has expressed the position that any intervention by the attorney-general with the decision of the director of public prosecutions (DPP) would have been automatically suspect and that it would risk calling into question prosecutorial independence and the rule of law. The DPP, in fact, fulfills her responsibility under and on behalf of the attorney-general, and the act which governs her authority empowers the attorney-general to assume carriage of a prosecution or to direct the director. The attorney-general’s power to superintend prosecutions is an important aspect of our system. The former attorney-general treated the DPP as essentially unreviewable. Politically accountable oversight in ensuring that the public interest is properly taken into account isn’t anathema to the rule of law. The attorney-general’s power to superintend prosecutions is an integral part of our justice system.

The DPP is expressly mandated to notify the attorney-general if a case “raises important questions of general interest.” The conviction of SNC-Lavalin would affect thousands of people, including employees, pensioners and shareholders who were innocent bystanders to the alleged wrongdoing. In fact, one of the key underlying objectives of remediation agreements is to reduce the collateral negative consequences to those not engaged in the wrongdoing. The DPP fulfilled her responsibility to notify the attorney-general, recognizing that this case raised important questions of public interest. However, rather than address, assess or weigh the competing positions, the attorney-general appears to have reflexively deferred to the DPP and abdicated her responsibility for vigorous and independent oversight.

Yes, about that:

C: So, um, I don’t know if he is going to call you directly — he might — um and he is willing — I think he is thinking about getting somebody else to give him some advice…you know he does not want to do anything outside the box of what is legal or proper — um…but his understanding is, you know, the DPA tool is there and you have options that we talked about before to ask for reason from the OPP or even take over the prosecution. He just wants to understand more at this point of why the DPA route is not taken up on this route. So he is thinking on bringing someone in like Bev McLachlin to give him advice on this or to give you advice on this if you want to feel more uncomfortable you are not doing anything inappropriate or outside the frame of…

JWR: I am 100 per cent confident that I am doing nothing inappropriate.

C: Yeah, no, but would not be if you decided to use some of these tools under the law…cause I think he feels that the government has to have done everything that I can before we lose 9,000 jobs…and a signature Canadian firm. ...

JWR: Right so, um, I again am confident in where I am at on my views on SNC and the DPA haven’t changed. This is a constitutional principle of prosecutorial independence that Michael. I have to say, including this conversation and previous conversations that I have had with prime minister and many other people around it, it is entirely inappropriate and it is political interference. And l…the prime minister obviously can talk to whomever he wants, but what I am trying to do is to protect him. I could have a conversation with Beverly McLachlin…l can call her right now…um… l am just, um, issuing the strongest warning I can possibly issue that decisions that are made by the independent prosecutor are their decisions.

** 

“In an interview with The Canadian Press, Neil Bruce says the Montreal-based company, unlike the Trudeau government, has never cited the protection of 9,000 Canadian jobs as a reason it should be granted a remediation agreement to avoid a criminal trial. However, he says there’s a public interest for such an agreement because its well-qualified employees will be forced to work for U.S. or European competitors if it is barred from bidding on federal contracts for a decade.”

So Jody was ready to consult Beverley McLachlin if it would have been helpful and the oft-trotted out claim of protecting 9,000 jobs has been debunked, but - hey! The Narrative, right?


Also:

Vice-Admiral Mark Norman's lawyers are using the words of the country's top bureaucrat at the height of the SNC-Lavalin affair as they press for access to secret government documents about their client's case.

Norman's legal team argued during a pre-trial hearing Wednesday that testimony Michael Wernick, the outgoing clerk of the Privy Council, gave to a parliamentary committee earlier this year opens the door for them to see the documents, which the government has labelled as solicitor-client privilege.

Wernick told the Commons' justice committee that he made the decision last October not to prevent the release of thousands of other secret cabinet documents requested by Norman's lawyers.

"I made the decision, of my own volition, with my own authority, that the easiest way to deal with the Norman matter was to let the judge decide what was relevant," Wernick said on Feb. 21.

Norman's lawyers say Wernick's comment amount to a waiver of solicitor-client privilege, meaning emails, memos and other documents related to Wernick's decision should be released despite the government's argument that they contain legal advice.

Norman's team believes those documents will prove Norman's case has been tainted by political interference and boost their efforts to get the breach-of-trust charge tossed out.

It's just an economy:

Core inflation was up to 1.97%, far above the prediction of 1.8% made by economists.

And when it comes to gas prices, the price has surged massively.

Gas costs went up a whopping 12% in the last month. 

**

Justin Trudeau will increase the federal government’s per-person debt more than any prime minister in Canadian history who did not face a world war or recession, says a new report by the Fraser Institute.

The conservative think-tank says from 2015, when he assumed office, up to the end of his current Liberal government in October, Trudeau will have increased federal per-person debt by 5.6%, to $32,589.

Also - that must hurt:

In a stunning exchange during Ontario’s legal challenge to the Trudeau Carbon Tax, a federal lawyer for the Trudeau government was shredded as she attempted to defend the tax.

The lawyer was forced to admit that Ontario’s carbon emissions have gone down 22% over the past 14 years, all without a federal carbon tax in place.

After that admission was made, the judge – Justice MacPherson – responded:

“We don’t care how they achieve it, they’ve achieved reductions of 22%. Why don’t you just leave them alone?”

The Trudeau Lawyer then responded, saying that “Ontario can do nothing about what is happening in other provinces.”

The Judge fired back, saying “so Ontario has to pay an extra burden because other provinces are failing?”

Oh, this might not go well:

Premier Dwight Ball has called an early election in Newfoundland and Labrador for May 16, in what’s shaping up as a close race between the ruling Liberals and opposition Tories.

But ... but ... compassion!:

The federal government is battling First Nations organizations before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to avoid compensating First Nation children who went through the on-reserve child welfare system.

The tribunal ruled in 2016 that Ottawa discriminated against First Nation children by underfunding on-reserve child welfare services.

The First Nation Child and Family Caring Society and the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) argued Ottawa owes compensation to every First Nation child that was affected by the system.

The tribunal can award up to $40,000 in compensation to a victim of systemic discrimination — $20,000 per victim of discrimination plus $20,000 if the discrimination was willful and reckless.

However, Justice Canada lawyers, acting on behalf of Indigenous Services, argue that compensating potential victims — going back to 2006 — is outside of the scope of the case, which was triggered by a human rights complaint filed by the Caring Society with the support of the AFN.

"Remedies must be responsive to the nature of the complaint made, and the discrimination found," according to Ottawa's submission filed with the tribunal on Tuesday.

"That means addressing the systemic problems identified and not awarding monetary compensation to individuals."

Ottawa argued in its submissions that the AFN and the Caring Society were public interest organizations and not "victims of the discrimination" and did not meet the standard for compensation.

"Underfunding did not cause specific children to be removed from their homes; additional funding would not necessarily have enabled them to stay," said Ottawa's filing.

"No case law supports the argument that compensation to individuals can be payable in claims of systemic discrimination without at least one representative individual complainant."

A refugee claim of an ISIS mechanic has been rejected:

A mechanic who came to Canada in 2015 has been found complicit in crimes against humanity for repairing vehicles for the so-called Islamic State, Global News has learned.

Before arriving in Canada and claiming refugee status, the Lebanese national made several trips to Syria to work on ISIS military vehicles and also supervised other ISIS mechanics.

As such, he made a “knowing and significant contribution to ISIS,” the Refugee Appeal Division ruled, noting the terror group needed his high-level expertise in auto electrical systems.

Vehicles in good working order were “vital to the success of ISIS,” and were used for suicide bombings and combat, the panel wrote in a 23-page decision handed down in Montreal.

(Sidebar: also vital to ISIS' success, rapists who will neither be deported nor punished in any other way.)

The ruling means he is ineligible for refugee status, but federal officials would not say if he was detained or had been deported. Even his name was removed from the decision.

His lawyer declined to comment.

The case is a rare confirmation that a refugee claimant who successfully entered Canada had been involved with ISIS, although his past was quickly detected through security screening.

The Canadian embassy in Beirut approved his visa on May 5, 2015 after his wife’s sister, who lives in Canada, sent a letter of invitation. He made a refugee claim in September 2015.

 
Way to sort of crack down on the sixty or however many ISIS thugs there are running around in Canada! It almost looks like you're doing something!




On the Korean Peninsula:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has supervised a test-firing of a new tactical guided weapon, calling its development an "event of very weighty significance" in beefing up its military power, state media reported Thursday.

**

North Korea said on Thursday it no longer wanted to deal with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and said he should be replaced in talks by someone more mature, hours after it announced its first weapons test since nuclear talks broke down.

**

North Korea has dispatched teams to neighbouring China to track down and kill, if necessary, as many as seven members of the Ministry of State Security who have fled in a snowballing series of defections, according to dissident media. 

With these in mind, Mr. Pompeo should conclude that communists aren't bloody trustworthy and shouldn't be dealt with like sane persons.




Well, that is awfully nice of Japan:

The government expressed willingness to support France in restoring the Notre Dame Cathedral, while officials and notable Japanese figures expressed sadness after Paris’ iconic Catholic church was badly damaged by fire.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a message to French President Emmanuel Macron, saying that he was “greatly shocked” to see the famous cathedral engulfed in flames.

“Our hearts are with France at this time of huge loss,” Abe was quoted by the Foreign Ministry as telling Macron.

“The Japanese government will consider providing support if requested by the French government,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference.

And now, the Chaplain of Steel:

When he saw the flames getting closer to the cathedral’s two towers, Fournier’s thoughts turned to another fire chaplain: the Rev. Mychal F. Judge, who died at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Fournier’s job has made him a witness to some of his own city’s most traumatic events in recent years.

A chaplain with the Paris Fire Brigade since 2011, Fournier, 53, saw the bodies of the journalists and cartoonists killed at the Charlie Hebdo newsroom in January 2015. He was also at the scene shortly after an attacker stormed a kosher supermarket two days later. And he was among the hundreds of firefighters who evacuated survivors at the Bataclan concert hall during the Paris attacks in November 2015, where 90 people died in a terrorist attack.

Fournier also served in the diocese of the French Armed Forces in Afghanistan in 2008, when an ambush in the Uzbin Valley left 10 soldiers dead.

From a military base in Afghanistan to a revered cathedral torn by flames, he said, the rule, he said, is the same: “Always be on the move, or else you die.”