What you need to know about the latest threat facing the world’s economy

By The Associated Press - Saturday, February 16, 2013 at 6:28 PM - 0 Comments

LONDON – The world economy faces a new threat. Instead of a banking collapse or too much debt, fears are growing that countries are using their currencies as an economic weapon.

History suggests that’s never a good thing.

If too many countries try to weaken their currencies for economic gain — sparking a “currency war” — that could stifle business confidence and investment, sow turmoil in financial markets and derail a fragile global economy.

Following their meeting in Moscow this weekend, financial representatives from the world’s leading 20 industrial and developing countries warned that “excess volatility of financial flows and disorderly movements in exchange rates have adverse implications for economic and financial stability.”

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Flaherty pleased with G20 progress on adopting ‘credible’ fiscal policies

By The Canadian Press - Saturday, February 16, 2013 at 11:11 AM - 0 Comments

MOSCOW – Leaders from the world’s top 20 economies have made progress when it comes to balancing fiscal discipline and economic growth, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said after the latest G20 meeting.

Flaherty said Saturday he’s pleased by the G20 leaders’ pledge to adopt “credible, medium-term fiscal strategies” in line with their past commitments by the group’s next meeting in September.

“Too often this discussion has led to a false dichotomy between fiscal discipline and a pro-growth agenda. The bottom line is we need to strike the right balance,” he said in a conference call following the two-day summit in Moscow.

But he stressed it will take persistent effort to stabilize the global economy.

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G20 finance chiefs end meeting in Moscow pledging not to target exchange rates

By The Associated Press - Saturday, February 16, 2013 at 8:15 AM - 0 Comments

MOSCOW – Finance ministers and central bankers from the world’s 20 leading industrial and developing countries have pledged not to target their exchange rates for competitive purposes.

The two-day meeting in Moscow ended with a joint communique that included a promise that the G20 members would “refrain from competitive devaluation” and “resist all forms of protectionism and keep our markets open.”

Markets have been concerned by developments affecting the Japanese yen, which now trades near a three-year low. Japan is facing charges that it is trying first and foremost to lower the value of the yen to stimulate its economy and get the edge over other countries.

If too many countries try to weaken their currencies for economic gain — sparking a so-called “currency war” —the fragile global recovery could be derailed.

Misconduct case against ‘kettling’ police commander put over

By Colin Perkel - Tuesday, January 8, 2013 at 12:55 PM - 0 Comments

TORONTO – A senior police officer responsible for two notorious “kettling” incidents at the infamous G20 summit in 2010 had his case put over for two months Tuesday to allow time for disclosure.

Supt. Mark Fenton faces five separate charges related to the incidents in which police boxed in and arrested numerous people in the downtown core.

Fenton, who was the major incident commander at the time, is accused of making an illegal arrest, unlawful detention and harming the reputation of the police force.

He has pleaded not guilty and none of the allegations has been proven. Continue…

It’s Harper vs. Europe at the G20

By John Geddes - Sunday, June 17, 2012 at 12:20 PM - 0 Comments

Christinne Muschi/Reuters

On the international economic stage, Canada is usually cast in the supporting role of the reliable consensus-seeker. But when he joins the leaders of the world’s major economies next week at Los Cabos, Mexico, for what is shaping up as a high-pressure G20 summit, Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be playing a less familiar part. Harper’s refusal to contribute to an International Monetary Fund plan to help stabilize Europe’s economy has been described by a major ally as “irritating” and slammed by a former top federal Finance official for jeopardizing hard-won Canadian credibility when serious economic challenges are up for discussion at the highest levels.

The fact that Canada was holding out, along with the U.S., as the IMF sought more resources in the face of Europe’s prolonged crisis has been a simmering issue for months. Only recently, though, has it shifted from being a topic of arcane debate among international affairs wonks to fodder for loud partisan slanging on Parliament Hill. When Thomas Mulcair voiced support for the IMF plan last week, the Conservative attack machine suddenly revved up, and a succession of Tory MPs took turns denouncing the NDP leader for asking “Canadians to tighten their belts so they can hand out billions of dollars to Europe,” in the process putting “a huge burden on the economy here.”

That characterization did not, needless to say, match the IMF’s preferred description of its strategy. Since last year, IMF head Christine Lagarde has been travelling the world, seeking more than $400 billion in new support to draw on if needed to shore up Europe’s various troubled economies. Almost all of the G20’s members, from Australia to Japan, are expected to confirm pledges to Lagarde’s kitty when they gather at Los Cabos. But Harper expressed stern skepticism about putting Canadian money into any eurozone bailout at last spring’s G20 meeting in Cannes, France. Since then, he and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty have consistently argued Europe is rich enough to solve its own problems, and the IMF’s proper role is to support poorer countries.

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C-38 and the IMF

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, June 13, 2012 at 10:24 AM - 0 Comments

While the Conservatives fume about IMF assistance for Europe—three more members’ statements were devoted to lamenting for it all yesterday afternoon—the IMF also features in the budget bill. Clause 375 amends the Bretton Woods and Related Agreements Act so that the Minister of Finance “may provide for payment out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to the International Monetary Fund in the manner and at the times provided for by the Agreement set out in Schedule I of a sum or sums of money, not exceeding in the whole an amount equivalent to the subscriptions required from or permitted to be made by Canada, namely, eleven billion, twenty-three million, nine hundred thousand Special Drawing Rights.”

What does that mean? As part of the quota reform agreed to by the G20 ministers in October 2010, Canada’s exposure to the IMF will increase by slightly more than $1 billion. Here is the finance department’s explanation.

This is a commitment made by all IMF countries at the November 2010 G20 Seoul Summit of historic quota and governance reform. This will enhance the IMF’s capacity to provide support to the global economy, increasing the voice and representation of emerging market and developing countries. This predates and is unrelated to the current debate about the adequacy of IMF resources in the context of the European crisis.

How this is accounted for is explained here.

“Funds provided to the IMF do not affect Canada’s net debt measure as they constitute financial assets of the Government. Canada earns interest on these claims at the SDR interest rate when they are drawn to fund lending programs. IMF claims are booked as a part of the official international reserves of the Government of Canada. The preferred creditor status of the IMF, in addition to other financial safeguards, permits Canada to classify claims as official international reserves.”

Yesterday, Shelly Glover specifically mocked the suggestion, from Bob Rae, that IMF funding would be booked as an asset.

‘What does Canada get in exchange for this lost credibility?’

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, June 12, 2012 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Scott Clark dissects the Harper government’s loud refusal to be part of an IMF initiative to backstop Europe.

By refusing to join the G-20 initiative to augment IMF resources, Canada’s credibility in the G-20 will be seriously diminished. Canada has been able to “punch above its economic weight” in international organizations and institutions because of the quality of its advice and the seriousness of it commitments to international institutions. Other members of the G-20 will see Canada’s refusal to participate as a weakening in its commitment to the G-20 and the IMF.

Another reason given for not contributing to the G-20 Fund is that this would require the use of taxpayers’ money. Presumably what the government is saying is that at a time when government spending is being cut it would be inappropriate to “give” taxpayers money to the IMF to help wealthy European countries. This is completely misleading. Funds are not given to the IMF; funds are lent to the IMF. More importantly the funds that would be lent to the IMF would not come from Canadian taxpayers. The funds would come from foreign exchange reserves held at the Bank of Canada. As of May 23, 2012 Canada had foreign exchange reserves of $68.7 billion … Were Canada to contribute to the G-20 fund the “contribution” would involve a transfer of SDRs from the exchange reserves to the IMF in exchange for a commitment that the funds would be repaid. There would be no use of taxpayers’ money and there would be no budgetary impact.

In April, Mark Carney appeared before the House finance committee and Peggy Nash asked the bank governor about Europe and the potential impact on Canada. She then asked Mr. Carney for the pros and cons of contributing to the IMF firewall. Continue…

The Commons: Question of the day — ‘What is a fabulation?’

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, June 11, 2012 at 5:33 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. For an omnibus bill, an omnibus question.

“Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives’ Trojan Horse budget will slash vital public services that Canadians rely on: food inspections, border security, research and development, housing, health care, employment insurance, Old Age Security. The list goes on and on,” Thomas Mulcair reported.

There were grumbles and objections from the government side.

“The Conservatives cannot even tell Parliament the details of their own proposals or how much they will cost. If the Conservatives are so proud of all these cuts, why are they hiding them?” the leader of the opposition asked, the first of three questions tabled with his opening opportunity. “Why are they ramming them through? If they are so good, why not study them?”

Here Peter Van Loan stood and asserted that which apparently renders all else moot. ”As a result of our Economic Action Plan, consistently opposed by the NDP, we have delivered for Canadians over 760,000 net new jobs so far,” the Government House leader sang. “Economic Action Plan 2012 continues on that path.”

It is a wonder we went so many years referring to that annual document of federal accounting as a “budget.” Such a dreadful word, it practically begged for Orwellian adjustment. It is further to wonder why the finance minister hasn’t been redubbed the Economic Action Minister. Or why the government has stopped with “economic action.” Why not the Bountiful Riches And Everlasting Happiness Plan for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Canada? Jim Flaherty could start calling himself Captain Awesome.

In any event, this was mere segue. Continue…

Which security experts were responsible for the G20?

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, June 11, 2012 at 4:27 PM - 0 Comments

Nearer the end of QP today, the NDP’s Andrew Cash rose to inquire about the latest revelations concerning the G20 summit in Toronto.

Andrew Cash: Mr. Speaker, a G20 planning document by the Canadian Forces listed a number of potential security threats. Among them, embarrassment to the Government of Canada. It is too bad it did not listen, because that is exactly what happened. It cannot plan the largest civil security undertaking in Canadian history on the back of an envelope in four short months. The results: smashed windows, illegal arrests, a city turned upside down. After so many G20 failures, will the government finally do something right and apologize to the people of Toronto?

Peter MacKay: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member would know that security decisions around the G8, G20 were made by security experts, not politicians. In fact, the members of the Canadian Forces that supported the RCMP that supported municipal and provincial police were there to provide security for Canadians and for our international guests. This was an unprecedented period in our country’s history with the G8 and G20 coming back to back. I am very proud of the work that was done by members of the Canadian Forces.

It was Elizabeth May’s turn to ask a question today and, a few moments after this, she took the opportunity to follow up. Continue…

Stephen Harper, Thomas Mulcair and Europe

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, June 8, 2012 at 2:41 PM - 0 Comments

Before QP yesterday, the Conservatives used four members’ statements—from Shelly Glover, Randy Hoback, Bernard Trottier and Pierre Poilievre—to lament that Thomas Mulcair would prefer to bail out the “sumptuous European welfare state countries and the wealthy bankers that lend to them”—a “reckless” plan that would apparently “kill jobs and put a huge burden on the economy here at home.” Finance Minister Jim Flaherty then criticized Mr. Mulcair during QP, in response to questions from the NDP leader, and after QP, in a scrum with reporters. Today, another members’ statement—Mr. Poilievre, again—was dedicated to bemoaning it all.

All of this seems to have been inspired by the leader of the opposition’s questions in the House on Wednesday. Mr. Mulcair noted that the Prime Minister had, in an interview with the CBC, expressed concern about the global impacts of the European economic situation, but that, in April, Mr. Flaherty had refused to go along with other G20 countries in contributing to an IMF initiative to backstop Europe. The following is the closest Mr. Mulcair comes to endorsing a Canadian contribution to the IMF’s fund.

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister pretends to be concerned now, but two months ago in Washington the Conservatives were singing a different tune. At the G20 meeting in April the Minister of Finance led the effort to block an international plan to resolve the European economic crisis. He told European countries “to step up to the plate” and fix the problem on their own, as if our fate were not intimately connected to theirs, and he gets applause for that from the peanut gallery. When will the Conservatives stop lecturing European countries and put forward a real plan to protect and create jobs here in Canada?

Of the developed economies, only Canada and the United States are declining to participate. Mr. Flaherty’s concerns are, at least partially, related to the IMF’s governance structure. Germany has publicly registered its concerns with Canada’s reluctance.

What of the G20 and the largest mass arrest in Canadian history?

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, May 22, 2012 at 12:42 PM - 0 Comments

Ontario’s Office of the Independent Police Review Director released last week its review of the G20 summit in Toronto. Among other issues, the report notes the federal government’s late announcement of the summit’s location.

As part of its membership in the G8 and G20, Canada committed to host the 2010 G8 and G20 summits. In June 2008 the Canadian prime minister announced that the G8 summit would be held on June 25 and 26, 2010, in the small town of Huntsville, Ontario, about 200 kilometres or three hours’ drive from Toronto. Not until December 2009 did the federal government announce that the G20 would be held in Toronto on June 26 and 27. The Metro Toronto Convention Centre was officially chosen as the  venue on February 19, 2010. That left the federal and provincial authorities with just four months to plan the security and policing needs for the summit. As a result of these short timelines, planning was rushed and inadequate, leading to a breakdown in executing many of the operations during the event itself.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews dismissed questions about the summit during QP last week. In doing so, he claimed to quote a New Democrat.

The NDP has made wild allegations about the actions of our national police force, such as, “Canada is becoming a police state, where the toe of an officer’s boot or punch in the gut is the rule of law.”

Unfortunately, it’s not clear whether any New Democrat has ever actually said this. I’ve asked Mr. Toews’ office to explain the reference, but have yet to hear back. (Update 3:51pm. The minister’s office confirms that Mr. Toews was quoting the Star’s paraphrase.)

A Google search shows that those words, with qualification, appear in a December 2010 report about a news conference convened by the NDP’s Don Davies. But as the reporter’s paraphrase of what Mr. Davies had to say. Continue…

Byron Sonne cleared of all charges

By Jesse Brown - Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 2:04 PM - 0 Comments

Aaron Vincent Elkaim/CP

If it can’t explode, can we call it an explosive?

If you didn’t detonate an explosive, and you didn’t make an explosive, can you be guilty of possessing explosives?

If you publicly announce that a fence can be climbed, are you encouraging people to climb that fence?

Is it credible that a grown man would be passionate about model rocketry and gardening?

Those are some of the questions it has taken our justice system almost two years to answer in the case of Byron Sonne, the self-described “security geek” who dared to scrutinize and mock the billion dollar security operation built to protect the 2010 G20 summit in Toronto. The answers, which I heard Judge Nancy Spies deliver today before a courtroom packed with Byron Sonne’s supporters, amounted to this:

Byron Sonne did nothing wrong.

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Security theatrics and Byron Sonne

By Jesse Brown - Thursday, April 5, 2012 at 2:45 PM - 0 Comments

Pat Hewitt/CP

“You guys sure as hell didn’t find any combined explosives, ’cause I didn’t make any.”
-Byron Sonne, under interrogation by Detective Tam Bui, June 26, 2010

It’s called “security theatre,” the bombastic display of body scanners and bomb squads paraded out in airports and at mega-events like the G-20 to deter terrorists and make us all feel safe. Does it stop terrorists who aren’t scared by the costumes and gadgets? Or does it miss them entirely while ensnaring hapless goofs who stick out from the crowd?

Those are the real questions yet to be answered in the curious case of Byron Sonne. They likely won’t be addressed until his criminal trial is over (the judge is deliberating now, verdict expected on April 23rd). That’s when, if he is cleared, Sonne has vowed to take legal action against the police for incarcerating him for 11 months and ruining his marriage and reputation.

But we may have to wait even longer for answers to the big questions, as the spectacular security show is back on. Yesterday, police bomb-squads returned to Sonne’s former residence in Forest Hill, two years after their first raid, and dug up his backyard.

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Carney’s new gig: Congratulations or condolences?

By Erica Alini - Tuesday, November 8, 2011 at 4:27 PM - 3 Comments

Mark Carney’s appointment last Friday as chairman of the Financial Stability Board, the world’s top banking watchdog, is a central banker’s dream. Plus, he’ll have an old school friend from his Oxford days serving as second-in-command. Great gig, right? Well…

About the FSB: The Financial Stability Board is the updated version of the Basel, Switzerland-based Financial Stability Forum, which was created in 1999 by the G7 to improve information-sharing among finance ministers and central bankers in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis. The FSB itself came to life ten years later, after the global financial crisis, when its membership was extended to all G20 members. It now includes representatives from more than 20 countries, a number of prominent international bodies, including the European Commission, and the world’s most important institutions in charge of setting international standards for the global financial market.

In part, the FSB helps design new regulations for banks and other financial institutions that aim to avoid another 2008-style meltdown. In part, as Carney put it in a CBC interview, the institution’s job will be that of “policeman” in charge of ensuring that countries follow the rules.

The nasty fine print: The FSB’s chairmanship is surely enormously prestigious, and it will serve Carney well as a megaphone. Still, if the institution is supposed to be the top cop of global finance, it’s like Dirty Harry armed with a billy stick. The tough guy attitude is there, but not the firepower.

For now, in fact, the most the FSB can do to punish a country that does not follow the new rules is resort to the so-called naming and shaming. It doesn’t help that, in order to assess compliance with international standards, the institution relies on peer reviews approved by consensus. In practice, it means any member country under review can simply veto criticism, according to Eric Helleiner, chair in international political economy at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and a professor in the department of political science at the University of Waterloo.

Another problem, says Helleiner, is that the FSB wants to uphold rules for everybody–but not everyone gets a say about those rules. Whereas the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization have near universal membership, the FSB brings together just 24 countries.

The bright side: Things are looking up. So far, the FSB has been carrying on with only 20 employees, all borrowed from other organizations. At the latest meeting in Cannes, though, leaders of the G20 group of world economies promised to award it legal standing, meaning that the institution will finally get a budget of its own, and the power to hire permanent staff (and perhaps cough up a paycheque for the chairman, too).

And the FSB isn’t quite as powerless as it seems. When it comes to financial markets, explains Helleiner, the name and shame tactic tends to work better than in most other contexts. It’s not just as if Amnesty International wrote up some damning human rights report hoping to foist moral pressure on the dictators of the world (which sometimes works anyways). It’s more like Standard and Poor’s downgrading the creditworthiness of a country–the markets take notice.

Is Jim Flaherty a hippie?

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 4:50 PM - 17 Comments

First, the Finance Minister quotes Bobby Kennedy and waxes romantic about public service and “working together” for the “public good.” Now, he expresses some sympathy for the Occupy Wall Street protestors.

Jim Flaherty says he can understand the “legitimate frustration” of Occupy Wall Street protesters in light of persistently high youth unemployment … “It really is a Wall Street proposal,” he told reporters prior to flying to France for key G20 meetings on the global economy. “In Canada we have a progressive income tax and it favours people with lower incomes who are vulnerable, quite frankly, in Canadian society. Our tax system is clearly progressive. Having said that I see a point that income distribution is important and that there is a concern that a very, very small group of people have very large incomes.”

While the present circumstance may not be as dramatic, income inequality is reported to be growing at a faster pace in Canada.

Stephen Harper lectures the world

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 2:50 PM - 13 Comments

The Prime Minister calls on Europe and the G20 to get their respective and collective houses in order.

Events in the summer of 2011 have made it clear that global economic challenges are by no means behind us. What started as a sovereign debt crisis in smaller countries in Europe has now spread, causing extreme stress in the European financial sector and threatening global growth. Unfortunately, this time, the policy response to our shared challenges has not been as strong and co-ordinated as it needs to be. This slow response has resulted in missed opportunities, with each missed opportunity increasing the cost and difficulty of resolving the crisis.

We cannot afford any more missed opportunities.

Last month, Scott Clark and Peter DeVries noted that Mr. Harper was among those leaders calling on “surplus” countries “to increase their expansion of domestic demand” and thus wondered whether the Prime Minister was willing to participate in a global stimulus package (to the tune of $41 billion).

The debate around short-term stimulus: where will Canada stand?

By John Geddes - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 1:07 PM - 7 Comments

Back in the panic-stricken fall of 2008, the G20 emerged as the saviour of the global economy, with Canada joining in as the major economies joined forces to ramp up spending and keep an international recession from deepening into a depression.

Simpler times.

In the run-up to the G20 finance ministers’ meeting later this month and the leaders’ summit in early November, there’s no sign of that sort of unity of purpose. The fundamental divide: stimulus doves vs. austerity hawks. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty this week continued to position Canada squarely in the latter camp:

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About that world debt

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, September 9, 2011 at 3:08 PM - 1 Comment

Scott Clark and Peter DeVries have some questions for Jim Flaherty ahead of the next meeting of G7 and G8 finance ministers.

President Obama has said that he wants a balanced approach to solving the US deficit and Debt problem. This would require both expenditure cuts and tax increases. Mr. Flaherty has said that he would never raise taxes to deal with a deficit problem.  Lower taxes are needed for growth. This sounds very Republican if not Tea Party. What advice will Mr. Flaherty tell the Secretary of the Treasury regarding taxes to reduce the US deficit?

The Prime Minister claims great success for his leadership at the G-20 in getting countries to commit to reducing their deficits in half by 2013.  What has happened to that commitment?

Why people can’t help themselves

By Andrew Potter - Friday, August 19, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 29 Comments

Jess Hurd/Report Digital/ Redux

Anyone who has ever taken part in a riot, or even just hovered on the periphery of one, knows how exhilarating it can be. Windows smashed, cars torched, stores looted—it’s like being in the middle of a video game. Yet there is a tendency to try to psychoanalyze society and interpret the mob’s behaviour as a symptom of some great underlying malaise: hockey’s culture of macho violence in the case of June’s riot in Vancouver, racism or poverty or the welfare state in the case of the looting that hopscotched across England last week.

People are over-thinking things way too much. Any proper discussion of a riot and why it happens has to start with the recognition that rioting, especially for young men, is a huge amount of fun. At any given moment, there are far more people willing to riot and loot than we like to admit, and the only reason there isn’t more of it is that if you do it by yourself or in a small group, you’ll almost certainly get caught. But if you can get enough people to riot, you can all get away with it, which is why when it comes to getting one started, what the participants are faced with is essentially a coordination problem. The trick is getting a critical mass of people willing to do it, in the same place and at the same time.

Certain events, like game seven of the Stanley Cup final, have become reliable opportunities to riot—a bunch of people show up precisely because they know that a lot of other people will also be showing up to riot. Another reliable opportunity is any sort of anti-authority protest, such as a meeting of the G20 or—what sparked the events in Tottenham—a demonstration against police violence. No matter how peaceful the initial gathering is meant to be, it is easily overwhelmed by those who are there just to smash stuff.
Continue…

System overload

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 11:35 AM - 12 Comments

Darryl Dyck/CP; Global News

In the wake of Vancouver’s riots, B.C.’s populist premier Christy Clark was quick to read the public pulse. “We will hold you responsible,” she said the morning after the mayhem. “You will not be able to hide behind your hoodie or your bandana.” A special team of experienced prosecutors, she said, would work with police to ensure swift, severe punishments for rioters—jail time, she made clear, sounding more like an Old West sheriff. The public roared its approval. The riots touched a raw nerve in Vancouver, where 19 of every 20 residents want the troublemakers prosecuted to the full extent of the law, according to a new poll by Angus Reid.

The reality of prosecuting the mess, however, will soon sink in. The premier is “out of touch with how our courts are operating,” Vancouver criminal defense lawyer Jason Tarnów tells Maclean’s. There is “no way” riot cases will get preferential treatment just because politicians are asking for it; that would be unconstitutional. Rioters will be processed by a justice system hobbled by judge, sheriff and prosecutorial shortages and a legal-aid system that no longer meets even basic needs, according to a recent report. “Justice will not be swift,” adds criminologist Robert Gordon, of Simon Fraser University. “This will be a long, drawn-out process.”

A week before the riot in fact, five Vancouver trials were ordered shut down after judges deemed courtrooms unsafe to proceed due to a shortage of sheriffs. More than 2,000 criminal cases, meanwhile, are at risk of being quashed over delays. In the past year, a range of cases, from drunk driving to drug dealing have been tossed because it took up to two years to get to trial. “It takes 12 to 18 months to get a single-day trial in Vancouver right now,” says criminal lawyer Michael Shapray. “What will happen if police suddenly lay 300 criminal charges? How are you going to find the judges, sheriffs and prosecutors for this?” In an eye-opening report released last fall, the provincial court warned that 17 new judges must be hired just to bring B.C. back to 2005 levels and slow the backlog. Instead, B.C.’s spring budget approved cuts totalling $14.5 million to the judiciary, court services and prosecution services. (In the wake of the riots, funding for sheriffs was quietly restored.)

Continue…

Why the Vancouver rioters won’t be punished

By Randy Kim - Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 8:35 AM - 0 Comments

Darryl Dyck/CP; Global News

In the wake of Vancouver’s riots, B.C.’s populist Premier Christy Clark was quick to read the public pulse. “We will hold you responsible,” she said the morning after the mayhem. “You will not be able to hide behind your hoodie or your bandana.” A special team of experienced prosecutors, she said, would work with police to ensure swift, severe punishments for rioters—jail time, she made clear, sounding more like an Old West sheriff. The public roared its approval. The riots touched a raw nerve in Vancouver, where 19 of every 20 residents want the troublemakers prosecuted to the full extent of the law, according to a new poll by Angus Reid.

The reality of prosecuting the mess, however, will soon sink in. The premier is “out of touch with how our courts are operating,” Vancouver criminal defense lawyer Jason Tarnów tells Maclean’s. There is “no way” riot cases will get preferential treatment just because politicians are asking for it; that would be unconstitutional. Rioters will be processed by a justice system hobbled by judge, sheriff and prosecutorial shortages and a legal-aid system that no longer meets even basic needs, according to a recent report. “Justice will not be swift,” adds criminologist Robert Gordon, of Simon Fraser University. “This will be a long, drawn-out process.”

A week before the riot in fact, five Vancouver trials were ordered shut down after judges deemed courtrooms unsafe to proceed due to a shortage of sheriffs. More than 2,000 criminal cases, meanwhile, are at risk of being quashed over delays. In the past year, a range of cases, from drunk driving to drug dealing have been tossed because it took up to two years to get to trial. “It takes 12 to 18 months to get a single-day trial in Vancouver right now,” says criminal lawyer Michael Shapray. “What will happen if police suddenly lay 300 criminal charges? How are you going to find the judges, sheriffs and prosecutors for this?” In an eye-opening report released last fall, the provincial court warned that 17 new judges must be hired just to bring B.C. back to 2005 levels and slow the backlog. Instead, B.C.’s spring budget approved cuts totalling $14.5 million to the judiciary, court services and prosecution services. (In the wake of the riots, funding for sheriffs was quietly restored.)

Continue…

Nearly 60 per cent of G20-related charges withdrawn

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 at 12:54 PM - 3 Comments

Of the more than 1,100 people arrested during last year’s G20 summit in Toronto, just 317 were ever charged with any summit-related offences. Charges were eventually withdrawn against 187 of those, and only 24 have pleaded guilty. The rate at which police have dropped charges against G20 defendants is more than double the normal rate of about 30 per cent, according to University of Toronto law professor Kent Roach, raising questions about whether police were too heavy-handed during the summit. Toronto police deny they were reckless in laying charges against G20 protesters.

Toronto Star

Byron Sonne gets bail. Finally.

By Jesse Brown - Tuesday, May 17, 2011 at 11:30 AM - 59 Comments

Yesterday, Byron Sonne, the only person still being held on G20-related charges, was finally granted bail after spending almost a year in jail. The Crown is prosecuting Sonne aggressively, and will characterize him at trial (to begin no sooner than this fall) as a dangerous radical as they attempt to prove explosives charges against the Forest Hill computer security expert.

Sonne, with whom I’ve corresponded throughout his time in prison, sees himself as a civil libertarian who tested the billion dollar “security theatre” protecting the G20. Sonne says he wanted to see if and how it worked, and to see if any citizen’s rights would be violated in the process.

Details of the courtroom proceedings in Sonne’s case are subject to a publication ban. As such, coverage of his case has been limited. Toronto Life published a cover story giving many details of Sonne’s life and activities leading up to his arrest. But once the ban is lifted, the real questions won’t be about what Sonne did—they’ll be about how the police and the Crown have behaved in this extraordinary case.

'Clearly erroneous'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, April 11, 2011 at 4:33 PM - 62 Comments

Greg Weston obtains a letter sent by the Auditor General to the government operations and estimates committee in regards to a supplemtary report issued by the Conservative members of that committee.

The Conservatives’ report, presented as a dissenting opinion to the Commons the morning Parliament was dissolved last month, quotes Fraser giving high marks to the Harper government for prudent spending on the summits. The report quoted the auditor general as saying: “We found that the processes and controls around that were very good, and that the monies were spent as they were intended to be spent.”

But in her letter addressed to members of a Commons committee on Friday, which was received by the clerk and members on Monday, Fraser said the quote had nothing to do with the summits. Instead, the Conservatives falsely recycled an old comment she made on security spending by a previous Liberal government after the 9/11 terrorist attacks a decade ago.