Four Lawn Signs Are Worth a Thousand Words

My favourite is the third.

The Federal Liberals: Working Very Hard to Do Nothing About the Cadman Thing

Well, by a few hours, someone beat me to this. Since its contents are virtually identical to what I was going to say, I’ll just let you bask in this absolutely spectacular commentary:

Totally Unacceptable Response from Liberals on Cadscam

Comments inserted inside the Liberal email:

The Cadman Affair

Dear Liberal Friend,

Over the last week we have witnessed Canadians’ already fragile trust in the Harper Government dissolve as allegations of the Conservatives’ 2005 attempt to acquire the vote of former MP Chuck Cadman come to light.

If anything, the Conservatives’ knee-jerk reaction has been consistent over the years: when in trouble, intimidate, bristle and threaten litigation.

If the allegations prove correct, this attempted transaction is an affront to the democratic process and possibly a contravention of the law.

What the heck does that mean? If the “allegations prove correct” it’s not “possibly a contravention of the law”. It IS a bribe and HAS to be an affront to the democratic process of the country, if a criminal investigation leads to a conviction in the affair also known as Cadscam.

We Liberals will keep asking for the truth on the Chuck Cadman affair, both inside and outside of the House of Commons.

If your last paragraph is any indication, those questions aren’t nearly tough enough.

Stephen Harper has acknowledged that it is his voice caught on tape admitting there were discussions regarding “financial considerations” between Conservative party officials and Mr. Cadman. Now, Mr. Harper must explain – without any of the ambiguity we have witnessed all week — what the nature of those discussions was.

We need your help to keep the Conservatives’ feet to the fire on this disturbing issue. Canadians deserve the truth, and with your financial support, Liberals like Stéphane Dion, Michael Ignatieff, Ken Dryden, Marlene Jennings and Ralph Goodale will get to the bottom of this.

No way. Did the Liberal President just ask people to pay the party if we want them to continue to get to the bottom of this? What happens if we don’t pay up? Will they stop asking questions in the House? Maybe they’ll avoid more votes? It sounds like they are asking for bribes to do their job! Asking questions in and out of the House of Commons is FREE.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

The Honourable Marie-P. (Charette) Poulin, Senator
President

PS. Visit www.liberal.ca to learn more about the facts concerning this very important issue.

Any why isn’t there an RCMP investigation into Cadscam yet? Did I miss the announcement of one starting? There’s an audio tape confirming the Prime Minister knew that party officials were offering Cadman replacements for “financial considerations”. That’s a BRIBE. You can’t offer a Member of Parliament financial incentives for their vote, it’s against the law. I’m completely ashamed of our country that we can let an entire week go by without formally investigating alleged criminal activity from the most powerful Canadian, caught on tape.

Maybe the new Liberal forum needs to be plagued with people asking the Liberals why they felt a donation request was a good idea in an email talking about politicians using bribery. They are turning a career ending move by Harper, into an “ethics probe”. As if Canadians could give a fig about the ethical status of politicians, it’s rarely been a reason to vote them out before. The Conservatives preach all about criminals serving the time if someone does the crime; Live by the sword, die by it!

Need Legal Aid? Get Stuffed!

“Brenner said they were wrong and told them to get stuffed.”
- Ian Mulgrew, Vancouver Sun [see below]

Aside from the perverse standards of journalism at the Vancouver Sun, the above indicates that the BC Court of Appeals is not willing to contribute to a humane notion of legal aid for the resource-deprived embroiled in civil cases.

While legal aid for criminal cases was not the issue, after deep cuts across the country to legal aid for victims in civil cases, the Canadian Bar Association wanted the courts to establish a standard of justice that offends the neoliberal budget cutters that are particularly harsh in BC.

People deserving legal aid include those facing unjust eviction, mothers reeling from deadbeat dads ignoring court-ordered financial support and scores of others find themselves unable to afford effective representation in civil matters.

Of course, the rich do quite well since they can afford counsel to pursue their legal issues. Civil legal aid, however, is becoming far less civil than it deserves to be.

And in one sense, it all comes down to freedom. Political philosophers talk about negative and positive freedoms. Negative freedom refers to a way of defining freedom where individuals are free from “needless” meddling by the state, where we are not regulated and impeded in our pursuit of our liberty. Hyper-capitalists, libertarians and neoliberal governments look for ways to keep society from interfering with our god-given right to go about our business, regardless of how many people or watersheds we abuse.

Positive freedom defines freedom as a way of enabling those who are socially disempowered to have access to opportunity to function as well as those who are socially gifted: often groups like white, upper or middle class, English speaking males. Positive freedom efforts include things like affirmative action, or using tax dollars to fund legal aid for those not wealthy enough to pursue civil legal justice.

Obviously these two conceptions of freedom are mutually exclusive in their pure form. They also form a core conflict in our society: deregulate to the point where we have no society or gather together social and financial resources to empower those who are structurally vulnerable, thereby undermining the power of the economic, social and political elites.

The Court of Appeals has chosen to reject this effort to pursue positive freedom. It is not an isolated incident and it allows a neoliberal regime in our province and country to continue gutting social programs that allow people who aren’t white men to have a better shot at success or even meaningful survival.

The B.C. Court of Appeal has backed B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Don Brenner’s decision to kill the Canadian Bar Association’s landmark attempt to force governments to provide adequate civil legal aid to poor people.

In a majority ruling Monday, the court agreed with the province’s senior trial court judge and said he was also quite right to assess costs against the CBA.

Susan McGrath, past president of the bar association, said she was saddened because the decision means access to justice will continue being denied to those least able to help themselves.

“We’re disappointed we continue to confront procedural hurdles trying to bring this case,” the Ontario lawyer said in an interview. “We’re going to have to study the ruling and consider our options. We had hoped the courts would have been more responsive to this novel approach. We’re not giving up the fight.”

The Appeal Court said the association failed to meet even the minimum threshold for launching such an action — a reasonable claim.

“Although the action is intended to assist low-income members of the pubic and its spirit is commendable, I do not consider that the altruistic nature of the action should be afforded much weight until at least the [bar association] has established it can meet the minimal test of disclosing a reasonable claim,” Justice Mary Saunders wrote.

Supported by Justice Peter Lowry, she quoted the Supreme Court of Canada saying there is no fundamental right to access to legal services:

“Access to legal services is fundamentally important in any free and democratic society. In some cases, it has been found essential to due process and a fair trial. But a review of the constitutional text, the jurisprudence and the history of the concept does not support the respondent’s contention that there is a broad general right to legal counsel as an aspect of, or precondition to, the rule of law.”

(Justice Allan Thackray, the third member of the appeal panel, heard arguments in the case but retired in October before the decision and did not participate in the ruling.)

In a clear and well-reasoned judgment, Justice Brenner said the bar association was the wrong group to launch such a lawsuit, and the remedy it sought was far too sweeping. (The Appeal Court didn’t rule on whether the bar association was the proper body to bring such a lawsuit because it found its arguments had been so unpersuasive that that question didn’t need to be answered.)

“Instead of considering a specific statute or a specific administrative act or expenditure for constitutional compliance, this case would ultimately require the court to define a constitutionally valid civil legal aid scheme and order its provision by the [federal and provincial governments],” Justice Brenner wrote.

For almost two decades, legal aid across Canada has been a growing concern because of government cutbacks.

Provinces have curtailed legal aid services, narrowing the types of cases they cover, raising the eligibility criteria, making it harder to qualify.

At the same time, the federal government assumes little responsibility, with the primary exception of serious criminal matters.

People often have no legal assistance even when critical issues are at stake and no government is accountable.

The legal community fears we are creating a system for the rich and stacking the deck against those without resources, yet extensive lobbying has proved useless.

In 2002, the bar association launched this lawsuit. It chose B.C. for the unique test case because of the deep, deep cuts to legal services by the Liberal government when it first took office.

“Our concern has always been access to justice,” McGrath said.

The association filed a statement of claim in June 2005, alleging the provision of civil legal aid in B.C. is inadequate and those inadequacies amount to breaches of the Constitution and international human rights conventions.

It maintained that coverage was limited, that financial eligibility guidelines excluded many poor people, and that the services provided are too restrictive.

As the voice of some 36,000 members of the country’s legal profession, the association said it was the most appropriate party to bring such a suit.

It maintained it was unreasonable to insist that poor individuals — denied legal aid in cases where they are unjustly evicted or when they are threatened about the custody of their children — be required to mount constitutional challenges themselves on a case-by-case basis.

The association wanted court-mandated civil legal aid across Canada with judges deciding what was necessary while taxpayers footed the bill.

Brenner said they were wrong and told them to get stuffed.

He said there are other ways to tackle the problem facing the poor, and like the Supreme Court of Canada, suggested individual litigants could raise their need on a case-by-case basis.

The Appeal Court agreed that this lawsuit as put forward by the association was the wrong way to proceed.

“We knew there would be setbacks,” McGrath said. “But I don’t think people without the financial resources and often without the emotional resources should be expected to mount this type of challenge and argue this case before the court. We’re not giving up.”

imulgrew@png.canwest.com

Justifying Invading Iran, Or Is It Iraq Again?

In a strange deja vu, the build-up to the Iraq invasion is taking place again with Iran: this time with Canada on board with the UN Security Council rhetoric.

Where Chretien fell down, Prime Minister Steve is stepping up!

March 3, 2008 (8:00 p.m. EST)
No. 47

CANADA SUPPORTS ADOPTION OF NEW SANCTIONS RESOLUTION AGAINST IRAN

The Honourable Maxime Bernier, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today issued the following statement regarding the adoption of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1803 imposing additional sanctions against Iran:

“Canada fully supports the adoption of this resolution by the Security Council, which results from Iran’s failure to comply with its international obligations under resolutions 1696, 1737 and 1747—namely, that Iran must suspend all sensitive nuclear activities, including uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing activities. Iran must also take steps to fully rebuild confidence that its nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes by, among other things, implementing the Additional Protocol to its Safeguards Agreement, pursuant to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

“We are deeply concerned that Iran has failed to clarify a number of outstanding issues around its nuclear program, as noted in the February 22, 2008, report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The Agency has asked Iran to clarify remaining questions on reports that it is pursuing studies relevant to weaponization of nuclear materials. Iran must fully cooperate with the IAEA to resolve these outstanding issues in order to clearly demonstrate that its program is solely intended for peaceful purposes.

“New sanctions under Resolution 1803 include a travel ban for targeted Iranian officials, a freeze of assets of newly designated Iranian companies and officials, additional restrictions on the sale of identified dual-use items to Iran, and a call for governments to withdraw financial support for trade with Iran, to dissuade domestic financial institutions from entering into transactions that could support Iran’s nuclear activities, and to inspect cargo going in and out of Iran via identified carriers. As with UNSC resolutions 1737 and 1747, Canada will ensure its full compliance with the decisions of the Security Council through Canadian domestic law.

“Canada notes that China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States have renewed their proposed package of incentives, which offers a suspension of further discussion of Iran’s nuclear program by the UN Security Council in exchange for Iran’s suspension of sensitive nuclear activities and implementation of the Additional Protocol. This proposal promotes a resumption of dialogue on broader political, security and economic issues. Canada strongly encourages Iran to pursue this proposal.”

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For further information, media representatives may contact:

Foreign Affairs Media Relations Office
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada
613-995-1874

Mayor Sam: Once Again Merging His Civic and Personal Campaign Activities

Below is an email I received tonight from Mayor Sam Sullivan’s civic email address: mayor@vancouver.ca. It’s the email address that the person who is elected to be mayor uses for formal civic business.

In this email, he directs us to his personal campaign website, http://mayorsamsullivan.ca. He is clearly still more irony-free than the last time I wrote about his lack of irony. That episode ended up with the webmaster of Sam’s personal site admitting that the mayor’s office used an email list from the mayor’s personal website to send a message from his civic email address.

This time, after a few items of civic interest, his email promotes a negligibly-valuable earth-focused initiative that will make many of us feel good while leading to very little meaningful change. The kicker? We can read more about this initiative at his personal website.