Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

How to manufacture a crisis

by Aaron Wherry on Wednesday, June 16, 2010 12:45pm - 63 Comments

Last night, CTV reported that it has “learned” Karla Homolka will be eligible for a pardon this July and, according to its sources, she is likely to apply for one.

As noted previously, this apparent revelation has been a matter of public record for five years.

Alas, not until this past April did Mr. Harper’s government decide this was a cause for concern. And not until May did his government introduce legislation to deal with the issue. (And not until last week did the bill apparently reach second reading.)

So today, with the House set to adjourn tomorrow, his government is apparently quite concerned that legislation might not pass the House in time. And so now let the desperate demands and panicked proposals be traded.

Tags: Crime, justice, Karla Homolka, pardon, Vic Toews

More by Aaron Wherry

http://intensedebate.com/people/WDM WDM

Helen Lovejoy is running the Department of Public Safety.

Toby

Won't somebody think of the children…at the last minute?

http://intensedebate.com/people/danby danby

If the other parties are slowed by due diligence and the bill does not pass before recess, you can be sure that we will face a summer of ads featuring pictures of Karla Homolka and her parole enablers Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton.
Fall election anyone?

http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

I think if the bill fails to pass prior to the recess due to honest due diligence, then your (and Wherry's) implied point stands: this is the fault of the government for being clueless and slow to act.

On the other hand, if the bill fails to pass prior to the recess due to obstruction from the Opposition in an attempt either to further embarrass the government or for some ideological cause, then the blame rightly rests both on the government's blundering and on the Opposition's obstructionism, in which case the ads you describe would be justified.

I know Wherry's stance on the matter; he's made no effort to hide it. And I can see your stance on the matter as well. But I think it would be wiser to withhold judgment until we see what plays out between now and the recess.

Lord Kitchener's Own

withhold judgment until we see what plays out between now and the recess

Just so we're clear, you mean "what plays out between now and tomorrow" then? 'Cause this urgent call to do something after years and years of doing nothing, comes as the House is set to adjourn tomorrow.
danby

There's no doubt that experience plays a major factor in how we interpret both the big picture of our world, and the little pictures that shape it. Argue it any way you want, but based on my interpretations of events, I simply do not trust the motives and maneuvers of this government.
I find the timing of this bill no different than the motive behind burying far too much diverse legislation in their 880 page omnibus bill; no different than their denying the will of Parliament in the release of the Afghan documents; no different than their never ending obfuscation when they promised transparency. For me, the well is poisoned and the fact that an ineffective opposition enables the Conservatives to continue with their never ending election campaign does not make it ok. It's not my idea of good government – or of good opposition.
If the bill fails to pass prior to the recess due to obstruction from the Opposition in an attempt either to further embarrass the government or for some ideological cause, then I will personally be appalled with the opposition's behaviour – but in the meantime I view this as just another cunning ploy by a Prime Minister I find no reason to trust. It can certainly be argued that he also has a penchant for trying to embarrass the opposition for political gain, or ideological cause.
I ask you: with all the spin that will accompany this flurry activity, will we be able to definitively tell the difference between due diligence and obstruction?
About the only thing we can all agree on is that Karla Homolka should never be granted a pardon for what she's done

http://intensedebate.com/people/TJCook TJCook

"I ask you: with all the spin that will accompany this flurry activity, will we be able to definitively tell the difference between due diligence and obstruction?"

That's the nut graf right there. Look at how the Conservatives have raked the Senate over the coals for "obstructing" their agenda. The fact that it's not even remotely true didn't stop them in that case, so it won't need to be true now either.
Gaunilon

"I ask you: with all the spin that will accompany this flurry activity, will we be able to definitively tell the difference between due diligence and obstruction?"

A very good point indeed. Here's what I think: the bill is only 14 pages long and was introduced in May. This is not like Obama's 1000-page Healthcare bill introduced just prior to the vote …there is no way the House hasn't had time to read and consider C-23.

Therefore, if the Opposition brings forward some reasonable objection that there isn't time to debate, I'll blame the Conservatives. But if they don't have an objection beyond "we want more time to examine the bill" or "we want to make sure it's done properly" or some such vague weaseling, I'll count it as obstruction for political purposes. The NDP's objections about making it more difficult for people to obtain pardons (yes, it obviously will do that) I count as obstruction due to ideology.

tedbetts

Why is treating this bill like any other bill considered "obstruction due to ideology"?

Here is some excerpts of the bill that is "only 14 pages long".

What expert testimony have they heard from? Politicians, who are not in the field, don't know everything. The Conservatives change some of the very concepts and language, including the term "pardon" itself. What sort of legal research has gone into the new words and how they will be interpreted by a court? They want to call it "record suspension" instead of a pardon: does that mean the record can be re-instated? The bill requires that the applicant have shown "good conduct" – just what the heck does that mean? The "record suspension" must show a "measurable benefit to the applicant" – that change would apply to all applicants, not just the Homolkas – so what does that mean? etc etc etc

Why do Canadians have to suffer with bad legislation driven by political opportunism and headline grabbing?
Lord Kitchener's Own

I'm quite certain the government has succinct and well thought out answers to all of those questions, and will be able to easily cover those, and many more issues, putting to rest any concerns Canadians might possibly have that this is ill-conceived and rushed legislation, motivated by the spectre of a bogeywoman, being hurried to passage at the last possible moment.

And they'll do all of that sometime between now and tomorrow afternoon.

http://intensedebate.com/people/sea_n_mountains sea_n_mountains

honest q: how would we know the difference between honest due diligence and partisan gamesmanship?

http://intensedebate.com/people/sea_n_mountains sea_n_mountains

guess i shoulda read down more. danby already nailed this down. well done danby!

Richard

Parole enablers?

How do you parole someone who is already out of prison, and has been for some time?

Lord Kitchener's Own

To be fair, I wrote parole a whole bunch of times by mistake as I wrote my comments. Writing parole when you mean pardon in this instance isn't a shocking slip to make.
danby

I beg your pardon, and that is certainly what I meant.
Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

Brian

No wonder Rick Mercer & 22 Minutes aren't that funny these days… it's hard to come up with a joke when your source material is a joke already.
Ryan

To see how to really manufacture a crisis, I would recommend you to watch "An Inconvenient Truth". It's about this apparent "global warming" thingy that supposedly is caused by CO2 and the evil human beings who create it. Not sure how Al Gore got to star in the movie; he's not even a movie star.

http://intensedebate.com/people/MostlyCivil MostlyCivil

Shiny object! Shiny object!!

Ryan

As for the matter at hand… I'm not sure everyone knows everything at all times. 5 years ago I couldn't have cared less about Homolka, but now that her release date is coming up, hey, now my attention is caught.

What's wrong with that? Is there a belief that Harper is only trying to use her as anecdotal evidence of a parole-system gone wrong, or is she simply proof that something should be done?

I mean, I'm sure there are times when someone points out something to you and then you say "Hey, I didn't know about that, we should do something about it!"…

Emily

Except you aren't in govt, where it's their job to know.

Ryan

What I mean is, even in gov't, are you going to keep track of every prisoner that's up for parole, 5 years ahead of time? I'm sure there's more pressing matters.

Emily

If they can't do the job they are being paid to do, they shouldn't be there.
Lord Kitchener's Own

I don't expect the government to keep track of every prisoner five years in advance, but we've been talking about this specific issue pretty publicly for a while now, including Homolka specifically (it's been in all the papers), and now, the day before the House is set to recess and five years after the Prime Minister first mentioned it the government makes an urgent call to do something about it???

There may be more pressing matters for the government to keep an eye on, but you can't possibly tell me that I, and the commenters here at Macleans, had an infinitely better understanding of roughly when Homolka was going to become eligible for a pardon than any Minister of the Crown in the ENTIRE cabinet, despite repeated references to her becoming eligible for a pardon this summer all over our national media.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

No no, Ryan, either Harper and his conbot cronies are omniscient and just being devious, or they're blithering idiots. There is no possible median between the two…got that?

Also, the Opposition are careful sages who only want to weigh the legislation as any good legislator who ought to be forming the government should. Also, they are very nice people. Also, we like them a lot.

Lord Kitchener's Own

Omniscient?!?!? They were writing about Homolka becoming eligible for a pardon this summer in the Globe and Mail MONTHS AGO.

I don't expect the Minister of Justice or the PM to be omniscient. Is it too much to expect them to be as knowledgeable as an average citizen who occasionally reads a national newspaper??? Heck, if they just limited themselves to stories involving federal policy that appear on the front page of the Globe and Mail's website they should have seen this coming months, if not years ago.

Gaunilon

… and, as your link makes clear, that's also when they decided to take action by coming up with legislation to address it. In fact, that G&M story is about Harper having noticed the problem and starting the wheels turning on it, not about the G&M noticing the problem while Harper didn't.

Let's at least be honest about who became aware of what when.

I'm not sure it's possible to understand proposed legislation sufficiently for a good vote in this timeframe, but I'm quite certain that it's difficult to write legislation that has a chance of passing and and withstanding court challenges in this timeframe.

http://intensedebate.com/people/tedbetts tedbetts

Actually they considered it years ago and dismissed the idea of making major changes.

Let's at least be honest about who became aware of what when.

They have had plenty of time to consider good law and, when their poll numbers weren't so bad, they didn't think anything significant was necessary.

Whether the details of their rush job legislation-for-votes prove to be well thought out or not, I don't know though I doubt it having seen close-up some of their other rush job pieces of legislation (like the Federal Accountability Act), but I don't see any justification for rushing through rush job legislation if the government can't get it's act together.

Not to mention the big delays in legislation caused by prorogation. Not to mention the government's preference for making Parliament unworkable generally. They have earned no goodwill in Parliament, not even tried, and certainly not for something as questionable as this.
Lord Kitchener's Own

Fair enough.

Let's say Harper became aware of the problems with pardons in April, when he found out about the James pardon, and much reference was made to Homolka coming up for a pardon this summer. Then, aware the Homolka would become eligible this summer, his government waited a month before introducing legislation to address the problem in May. Then, aware that the House is about to rise for the summer TOMORROW, his government starts publicly urging the opposition to pass the legislation quickly, such that it could be applied to Homolka. So, it took them a month to come up with legislation, and another month before they panicked about Homolka, and now, they want the legislation passed in a day.

Am I missing something?
http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

"Am I missing something?"

Yes, I think you are.

The government didn't "wait a month" to introduce legislation, they started in on it in April and introduced the legislation on May 11. That strikes me as a pretty quick turnaround, particularly since legislation like this has to be able to withstand the inevitable court challenges. Having written a few items for publication myself, a couple involving the input of lawyers, I can only imagine how much back-and-forth there must have been before this was ready for First Reading.

Where there may be grounds to criticize, in my opinion, is in the delay between First Reading and Second Reading. I don't know what else took priority in the schedule, but I can certainly envision that other things might reasonably have done so.
Lord Kitchener's Own

I guess I just figure that a month is a long time to take to come up with vital and urgent legislation that needs to be passed before the summer.

Particularly so given all of the information the government must still have on hand from when Stockwell Day did his thorough review of EXACTLY THIS ISSUE, back in <a href="http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Pardons+lenient+Blame+this+government/2780581/story.html">2006, deciding that only minor changes to the pardon system were necessary.
Lord Kitchener's Own

Sorry. <a href="http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Pardons+lenient+Blame+this+government/2780581/story.html">Link.
Lord Kitchener's Own

I hate when that happens.

Dave

but now that her release date is coming up

Homolka was released to the public years ago. The Parole Board will be requested to commute/pardon her sentence to clear her record.

Lord Kitchener's Own

That's one of the craziest bits about this story. Plenty of people read it and figure it's about Homolka being set free, not realizing that she got out of jail in 2005.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Ricard_S_Argent Richard_S_Argent

It used to be so easy to tell when it was a slow news day at Sun Media – the front page would either be:

A) Isn't this weather crazy? Accompanying photo of women in bikinis (regardless of how hot or cold it was)
B) Karla Homolka is living the good life in Club Fed! And YOU'RE paying for it!!!!1!

It would seem that Homolka continues to be the gift that keeps on giving for the "law and order" types…

http://intensedebate.com/people/LynnTO LynnTO

Well, when you consider the Bernardo trial was something that provoked debate about the death penalty in public schools in this country, one must consider that Homolka's case is indeed something of a "special" variety.

Christina Archer

Karla Holmolka has a brand new life, baby (poor thing) and hubby. Both Bernado and his ex-wife have benefited from our dysfunctional system of law. Stephen Harper and his tories may be using this as incentive to bring a majority government after the upcoming election. Ain't going to happen, I hope.
Dee

Who needs Sun TV News when you already have CTV News?
http://intensedebate.com/people/TwoYen TwoYen

Gee. They are playing politics on Parliament Hill. I'm shocked.

Out There

What is startling about this is not so much that they are playing politics on Parliament Hill but that, once again, the governing party is crafting legislation solely because of its planned tactical effect.

Past governments crafted legislation that they thought would benefit the country, and then attempted to sell themselves and the legislation after the fact. The Conservatives, seemingly, don't seem to care what happens to the country, provided they get to be in charge of it.

Wascally Wabbit

Ah How soon they forget! Her Ex- Barnardo would likely still be prowling balconies because of the incompetence of investigators – and game playing that resulted in other women getting raped (fortunately not murdered) if she hadn't turned evidence over to convict him.
She's not a model citizen – but she has served her time – apparently not offended while on parole – and since she is no longer under the influence of Barnardo – is unlikely not to re-offend.
If Toews had his way – half the population of Canada would be behind bars.
Funy – that a minister whose family values record is not without besmirchment – child out of wedlock / adultery etc. would be judging others in this manner!

http://intensedebate.com/people/tedbetts tedbetts

Let's not push the idiocy, hypocrisy, shallowness, incompetence, and selfishness of the Conservatives too far shall we.

That Toews is a complete and utter lying hypocrite is evident enough without trolling through personal history like that.

Comparing some personal difficulties with Bernardo and Homolka is really beyond the pale.

Gaunilon

"That Toews is a complete and utter lying hypocrite is evident enough without trolling through personal history like that. "

With defenders like you, who needs attackers like WW? Toews is a politician for whom you have very little regard. I get that. But where do you get off slinging smears like this?

http://intensedebate.com/people/tedbetts tedbetts

How about lying about the role of the senate in passing crime bills? How about lying to Elections Canada about campaign financing and getting charged? How about accusing MPs of being supportive of child sexual offenders because there were some delays in getting the registry passed and then not even bringing the bill to a vote and then once it was passed not bringing it into force for months. I could go on, but Toews is one of the worst offenders.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

"Funy – that a minister whose family values record is not without besmirchment – child out of wedlock / adultery etc. would be judging others in this manner!"

Seriously? You're equating what Homolka did to Toews's personal failures, and suggesting that the Minister of Justice shouldn't be trying to administer justice accordingly??

This is appalling.

Mike T.

OMG if the Liberals aren't careful Karla Homolka could be pardoned!

(not)

Lord Kitchener's Own

Worse than that, I hear the Liberals want to let her out of jail!!!

WDM

Apparently this has been public record for several years now. What kind of pinko commie criminal loving government were we stuck with for all those years! Thank you for coming to save us all Mr Toews.

Dan

I tried to find the most recent major changes to the pardon system, other than some minor tinkering like Minister Day's in 2006.

In 1999 Bill C-69 seemed to have revamped the system fairly dramatically. That Bill got unanimous support in the House (including some still serving MPs from all parties). It passed with barely any discussion and seems to have been widely hailed as a victory by victims rightsgroups, police organizations and even the Canada Family Action Coalition.

I wonder why ten years later it is suddenly in need of a drastic overhaul once again. oh right…. Homolka.

This is a calssic example of why SUN News TV is going to rule!
It will be fast "Homolka is elegible for a pardon in weeks!"
It will be factual: "Homolka once helped rape and kill teenage girls."
It will be investigative: "This mother we interviewed has young daughters she says she is sacred to death."
Bonko

Straight demagoguery, this "incident specific legislation".

Separately, Homolka has confessed in writing to killing her sister, and yet nobody has ever been charged in that case. Why? If you answered "because she's a woman" and the NDP government politically interfered with her prosecution to placate their feminist base, congratulations, you are correct.

Women, like dogs and cats and infants, are held to a far lower standard of conduct than men in our society, so much so they are literally above (or below, depending on one's perspective) the law. And yet they still complain of discrimination. Women can and do get away with murder and manslaughter on a regular basis in Canada – and they still complain about "equality".

In a recent case in Ontario, a woman carried a baby to term, then promptly killed it. She got 18 months house arrest – house arrest! – for what was clearly a premeditated killing, which typically carries a life sentence for a man with no parole for 15 years. In another case, a woman killed her husband; during the trial her feminist supporters *cheered* for her in the courtroom, the judge bizarrely and repeatedly stated he had empathy with the killer and seemed apologetic in sentencing her to "6" years, which is really 1 year, at a Club Fed minimum security Girl Prison where they live in "cottages".

Liberals and NDP go well beyond being soft on crime: they actively collude with murderers. They are accessories to murder, they aid and abet in murder, and they actively encourage murder with their anti-baby and anti-male hate speech and their pro-crime policies.

Mike T.

And yet it takes a man to write one of the stupidest posts ever on the Macleans boards…
http://intensedebate.com/people/LynnTO LynnTO

Liberals and NDP go well beyond being soft on crime: they actively collude with murderers. They are accessories to murder, they aid and abet in murder, and they actively encourage murder with their anti-baby and anti-male hate speech and their pro-crime policies.

So file a police report, if you think so strongly. Let's see how far that goes.

Homolka has confessed in writing to killing her sister, and yet nobody has ever been charged in that case.

As I recall, prosecutors granted her a special deal, perhaps including immunity for other crimes that she may or may not have been involved with.

The revelations that she played a more active role than previously thought, and that she killed her own sister, came to light after the deal was in place.

But sure, you can go ahead and blame the Liberals and NDP for that, too…

Bonko

Just admit you hate men and babies Lynn and we'll respect you for it. Just say it, loud and proud.

I can't believe you are defending a murderer who raped and killed at least three young women. You are a sick, sick individual.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Halo_Override Halo_Override

I can't believe you're not butter.

tedbetts

I think the emphasis on Homolka is misdirection itself. While some portions of the bill relate to pardons of sexual offences, the bill is a wholescale change of the pardon system. Here is some excerpts of the bill that is "only 14 pages long".

What expert testimony have they heard from? Politicians, who are not in the field, don't know everything. The Conservatives change some of the very concepts and language, including the term "pardon" itself. What sort of legal research has gone into the new words and how they will be interpreted by a court? They want to call it "record suspension" instead of a pardon: does that mean the record can be re-instated? The bill requires that the applicant have shown "good conduct" – just what the heck does that mean? The "record suspension" must show a "measurable benefit to the applicant" – that change would apply to all applicants, not just the Homolkas – so what does that mean? etc etc etc

Why do Canadians have to suffer with bad legislation driven by political opportunism and headline grabbing?

JamesP

From the NPB Policy Manual:
"For the purpose of the CRA, good conduct is defined as behaviour that is consistent with and demonstrates a law-abiding lifestyle."

I don't think there is a need for legislation for Karla Homolka to be denied a pardon. Doesn't the National Parole Board have every right to refuse her request for a pardon? If I'm wrong can someone correct me?

The NPB operates independent of the Ministry of Public Safety and answers to parliament. Vic Toews can't issue orders to the chairperson, but he can let his position be known. Would it be a breach of ethics for the government side to communicate their desire for a pardon to be refused? Is this happening?

If it was a serious aim of the government to have Homolka denied a pardon I don't see why they couldn't have this done without legislation at all. For anyone who wants to let the NPB know how they feel about this, why not write Harvey J. Cenaiko.

Orson Bean

The other thing that's kind of ironic about this is that the government is going on and on about how it's way too easy and quick to get a pardon now. They keep using the word "rubber stamp". Well guess what? If you subject all of the pardon applications that come up to a fuller review, you're going to get a huge backlog in applications, much like our refugee-determination system. So voila. We get more bureaucracy. From the Tories. I guess the difference will be, unlike the refugee-determination system, there's practically nobody in the political arena who will stand up for people who wait years or decades to get their pardon application considered. The John Howard Society isn't exactly a feared political force in Ottawa.
Kyle

I just flicked on CBC Newsworld and noticed that the host is calling this Bill "the race to keep Karla Homolka behind bars" rather than the race to keep her from being pardoned. So obviously this is working for the Conservatives.

Lord Kitchener's Own

When the Prime Minister hears she was released in 2005, he's going to blow a gasket!!!

chet

We get busy on our taxes as April 15th nears,
We frantically clean the house hours before the company arrives,
We work on that memo till midnight the day before it is due.

It's called human nature and deadlines and the natural increased importance of matters as a deadline looms.

To a liberal writing about a conservative its called cunning malice.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what those on the left fear most about the fox news of the north. The inability to spin everything anti-conservative has them justifiably horrified.

Gee, I wonder whether audiences will be receptive to a media that doesn't generate a media firestorm over a communion wafer, a pooping puffin, the 105th time parliament has been prorogued, etc.
chet

And it surely must take the predictability of the reactionary left, to reflexively oppose ANYTHING Harper does,

and not some genius on Harper's part,

to manage to have Harper's detractors indirectly stand on the side of Canada's most horrific monster.

Taliban? Check.

Homolka? Check.

Next up: liberals oppose Harper's statement against Satan.
http://www.recordsuspensions.org/ Ryan

Harpers actions regarding this whole situation have been ridiculous from the get go. His shotgun reaction was to throw this bill up and then use his attack dog Vic Toews to go after any MP that would dare debate some the points in this bill. At least the other parties stood firm and refused to cave in, and the bill being voted on today is a mere shadow of its former self…now if only the convservatives can manage to restrain themselved and debate, discuss and amend the rest of the bill properly….for info on what record suspensions/pardons (whatever theyre called now) mean to Canadians,
check out my blog.
Lord Kitchener's Own

Crisis averted apparently.

Details still sketchy, but apparently they'll separate the bill so that they can pass a bit now that would make it more difficult for notorious criminals to get a pardon (don't ask me, it might not even be worded that way, as I said, details are slim) and then they'll debate the rest of the bill when the House returns.

I'm still a little worried about passing bills that, basically, we all know are aimed at dealing with one specific case, but still, this seems a reasonable move. If there are problems with whatever they pass now, they could presumably fix those up in the Fall when the new, more far-reaching bill is introduced.

I think Karla gets to stay free though.