Who supports the death penalty?

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 11:05 AM - 145 Comments

In his interview with the CBC, Mr. Harper acknowledged that he personally supports the death penalty in certain unspecified circumstances. In his support, the Prime Minister is conceivably joined by the Justice Minister, who voted in favour of the reintroduction of capital punishment in 1987.

When Ekos polled on the issue last March, it found that 40% of Canadians supported such reintroduction.

Data from 2000 suggests that opinions on this issue have remained relatively unchanged in 10 years. In June of 2000, 43 per cent disagreed with capital punishment while 44 per cent agreed with it. Those who support the reintroduction of capital punishment tend to be Conservative supporters (53 per cent), residents of Alberta (48 per cent), men (43 per cent), seniors (45 per cent), high school grads (48 per cent) and college grads (46 per cent).

Jim Prentice’s goodbye bash

By Mitchel Raphael - Tuesday, December 28, 2010 at 3:11 PM - 1 Comment

Former cabinet minister Jim Prentice held a goodbye party before the House rose. Prentice (left) with Justice Minister Rob Nicholson.

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Tory MP Lynne Yelich (left) with Karen Prentice.

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The Commons: These fleeting words

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at 7:20 PM - 75 Comments

The Scene. This space has been used in the past to acknowledge the futility of placing anything more than passing significance on the pronouncements of this government’s ministers and mouthpieces. Their words are like daylilies, blooming only for 24 hours before fading into memory. To quibble, to seek to extend their meaning beyond nightfall, is to argue with the sun.

Perhaps then what follows here is relatively pointless. But then sometimes the rhetoric is so colourful, its aroma so intoxicating, that it is difficult to forget; near impossible, whatever one knows to be true, to admit to oneself that these are merely passing fancy.

So it is that we turn to the blooming words, uttered less than a week ago, of this nation’s Justice Minister and Attorney General.

“Mr. Speaker,” Rob Nicholson declared, under some attack from the other side, “no group of individuals has more respect for human rights in our country than the Conservative Party … There is no group of individuals over the course of Canadian history that has had a better record for standing up for human rights than the Conservative Party of Canada and its predecessors.”

These were strong words strongly delivered. Mr. Nicholson’s reading comprehension has been the subject of some lament, but his ability to stand and fulminate is unquestioned. His is a raring appearance of great conviction.

But here we are, less than a week later, struggling to reconcile that rhetoric. Continue…

Is Canada tough on crime or doing just fine?

By Ken MacQueen - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 9:47 AM - 0 Comments

Lucas Oleniuk/TORONTO STAR / Fred Chartrand/CP

If hard criminals do soft time in Canada, as the federal Conservative government insists, then John Virgil Punko seems a poster boy for all that’s wrong with the judicial system. In police jargon, Punko was “a low-level mope”—a full-patch member of the Vancouver East End Hells Angels with a healthy dose of greed and a bad addiction to Percocet. Such vulnerabilities made him a useful target in 2003 when the RCMP launched E-Pandora, a $10-million sting operation aiming at netting the big fish in the East End Angels.

Punko got into methamphetamine production with Michael Plante, an “official friend” of the gang—one the RCMP had secretly turned into a paid informant. Business went well; in late 2004 they expanded into cocaine trafficking. By July 2005—when police swept in, arresting six Angels and a dozen associates—Punko had amassed $381,000 in drug profits, and a world of trouble. Found guilty of provincially prosecuted weapons and mischief charges, he was sentenced in July 2009 to five years and three months—a penalty effectively reduced to a day because he’d been in custody since his arrest. Finally, in late 2009, he faced a series of high-stakes federally prosecuted drug charges.

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The inexperienced lifer

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 11:05 AM - 0 Comments

Over the weekend, Jeffrey Simpson lamented for the lifers he sees as presently dominating federal politics. He defined a lifer as one who has been involved for a long period of time at any level of politics, not just as a candidate or elected representative. In this way, for instance, Mr. Harper is a lifer because he has been involved in politics since the mid-80s.

The academic research in this regard—though Simpson’s definition complicates a direct comparison and his focus on party leaders is relevant—has generally raised the alarm about the exact opposite concern: that our MPs have too little experience and are too prone to turnover. To wit. Continue…

A quick study

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, August 19, 2010 at 12:43 PM - 0 Comments

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson introduced Sue O’Sullivan, the new victims of crime ombudsman, yesterday at the National Press Theatre. Ms. O’Sullivan took questions and precisely six questions after she assured the audience that she’d have no problem speaking truth to power, she was asked the following and responded as follows.

Question: I’m curious. You say you have 30 years of policing under your belt.  What are your thoughts on the long-gun registry that’s supported by most police chiefs and police officers across the country?

Sue O’Sullivan: Well, I think right now what I want to focus on is the priorities for victims.  And that’s what – to talk about making sure that their rights are respected and certainly there’s going to be a lot of different important issues that come along but for me in this ombudsman office and the role that it is, is to help victims individually and collectively and is to look at discussing some of those important issues but today just to focus on those priorities.

Question: Wouldn’t police officers argue that the long-gun registry protects potential victims?

Sue O’Sullivan: Yes, they would and, as we’re well aware, that position has been put out there.  But I’m here as Ombudsman to be focussing on what the rights and what the needs of those victims are and that’s where the priorities are going to be for the Ombudsman’s office.

I've read this novel before

By Colby Cosh - Monday, August 9, 2010 at 9:18 AM - 0 Comments

Bill C-95, the “criminal organization” amendment to the Criminal Code passed in 1997, has borne its inevitable fruit. Devised to calm the spirits of a fearful nation, the law bent civil liberties into new and fascinating shapes. It created a new offence:

467.11 (1) Every person who, for the purpose of enhancing the ability of a criminal organization to facilitate or commit an indictable offence under this or any other Act of Parliament, knowingly, by act or omission, participates in or contributes to any activity of the criminal organization is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.

Which sounds fair enough, but be sure to check out the convenience-of-the-Crown caveats in subsection (2):

(2) In a prosecution for an offence under subsection (1), it is not necessary for the prosecutor to prove that

(a) the criminal organization actually facilitated or committed an indictable offence;

(b) the participation or contribution of the accused actually enhanced the ability of the criminal organization to facilitate or commit an indictable offence;

(c) the accused knew the specific nature of any indictable offence that may have been facilitated or committed by the criminal organization; or

(d) the accused knew the identity of any of the persons who constitute the criminal organization.

To put it another way, you can conceivably be tried for “participating in or contributing to” a criminal organization even if it didn’t get around to committing any crimes, you didn’t do anything to help it actually commit crimes, you didn’t know what particular crimes it might be thinking of committing, and you couldn’t possibly pick anybody else in the group out of a lineup.

This might seem to make things pretty easy for the police and the prosecutors. Nonsense! According to them, their job can never be easy enough. Like farmers and civil servants, they cease complaining only intermittently to inhale oxygen, and there is no shortage of Joint Multi-Level Integrated Discussion Committees before which they can retail their grievances. C-95 proved pretty hard to apply because the courts require the criminal-ness of any “criminal organization” to be proven anew for each trial of its members, and everybody in the justice system is reluctant to fix this by creating an official statutory list of “criminal organizations”, for fairly obvious reasons (a group added to such a list could just change its name, insignia, and totems, and members of criminal groups not yet added could conceivably use such an omission in their own defence).

So the crime-obsessed Conservative government, looking for other ways to make the law more easily applicable, has stepped back and taken a look at the definition of a “criminal organization”:

467.1 (1) “criminal organization” means a group, however organized, that

(a) is composed of three or more persons in or outside Canada; and

(b) has as one of its main purposes or main activities the facilitation or commission of one or more serious offences that, if committed, would likely result in the direct or indirect receipt of a material benefit, including a financial benefit, by the group or by any of the persons who constitute the group.

There would seem to be some protection for the citizenry there: the broad, pulverizing apparatus of the “criminal organization” bill is available for use only against groups of people engaged in “serious offences”. Until now a “serious offence” had been defined as “an indictable offence under this or any other Act of Parliament for which the maximum punishment is imprisonment for five years or more”, but the government of the time, perhaps never considering that it could be supplanted in the people’s affections, allowed for more offences to be added to the list by Order-in-Council without the consent of Parliament.

This possibility, now realized, raises the natural question of how we should define a “serious offence”. Justice Minister Nicholson, in introducing the new schedule of patently less serious and mostly victimless “serious offences” on Wednesday, offered a dazzlingly simple heuristic: “The fact that an offence is committed by a criminal organization makes it a serious crime.” You will note that this introduces a curious logical circularity into our manner of upholding justice. How does the law define a “criminal organization”? See above: a criminal organization is a group of people that bands together to commit serious crimes. How do we know what a serious crime is? It’s any activity that is characteristic of criminal organizations. What, you thought Catch-22 was fiction?

Government at work

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, July 14, 2010 at 10:35 AM - 0 Comments

In the middle of an article that notes, in part, the superfluousness of changing the Criminal Code to cover “honour killings,” this explanation for Rona Ambrose’s comments.

While a spokesman for Justice Minister Rob Nicholson on Monday shot down Ms. Ambrose’s assertion that the government is “looking at” the change, his director of communications, Genevieve Breton, yesterday said “minister Ambrose’s comments are consistent with our approach” to law-making.

'After careful consideration'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, July 12, 2010 at 3:20 PM - 0 Comments

In not-at-all surprising news, the government will appeal last week’s Federal Court ruling on Omar Khadr.

“After careful consideration of the legal merits of the July 5, 2010, ruling from the Federal Court, the Government of Canada will appeal the decision to the Federal Court of Appeal.

“This case raises important issues concerning the Crown prerogative over foreign affairs. “As the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in an earlier case involving Mr. Khadr, ‘it would not be appropriate for the Court to give direction as to the diplomatic steps necessary to address the breaches of Mr. Khadr’s Charter rights.’ “Omar Khadr faces very serious charges, including murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, material support for terrorism, and spying. The Government of Canada continues to provide consular services to Mr. Khadr.”

The business of Guantanamo, meanwhile, is proceeding as smoothly as ever.

The Commons: Marching off to war with an army of strawmen

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, June 14, 2010 at 8:51 PM - 92 Comments

The Scene. For sure, this saga may arrive at a happy ending, perhaps as early as tomorrow. Our democracy may yet survive this test. We may yet get through the week with the basic foundation of our society more or less in tact. But will that necessarily atone for this spectacle? Will the end result redeem the process?

Up first at Question Period this afternoon to begin the latest turn in what will either be remembered as a testament to the enduring reasonableness of our system or the most tawdry of charades, was Michael Ignatieff. The leader of the opposition reviewed the facts—that the Speaker had ruled that Parliament could well demand to review documents related to the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan, but that the government had so far failed to agree to a process whereby that could occur. Would the Prime Minister, Mr. Ignatieff wondered, instruct the government’s representatives to agree to a suitable arrangement and abide by the Speaker’s ruling?

The Prime Minister was not present, so over then to the Justice Minister, who rose with a pair of strawmen by his side. Continue…

MPs taste wine!

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, June 11, 2010 at 4:30 PM - 5 Comments

The Canadian Vintners Association was on the Hill to allow MPs to sample some wine. There were wines from Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia, and one table from Nova Scotia. Below, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson (right).

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Bloc MP Christiane Gagnon.

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The Commons: Sound and fury signifying a lack of anything

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, June 9, 2010 at 5:56 PM - 19 Comments

The Scene. He seemed from the outset to be slightly smirking. With his first opportunity, the Prime Minister invoked the Olympics. When that failed to dissuade the opposition side, he raised his voice and began speaking forcefully about unrelated matters. The well-coached extras who fill the government backbenches sprang to their feet to roar their support.

For another day, the opposition persisted in asking about novelties—the fake lake, the gazebos, the antique boat—and pursuing the premise that behind it all was nothingness. Lacking explanation for their specific expenditures, the government responded with volume. Where yesterday the government was chastened, today it was defiant. The day would be won or lost according to the decibel count. In short order it was a contest of which side could more readily leap up to applaud. Continue…

Day 13 of 14 (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, May 10, 2010 at 3:32 PM - 18 Comments

CP’s Joan Bryden gets at a crucial point in the detainee document discussions.

The parties have yet to agree, however on the most crucial point: how to resolve any disagreement that may arise over which documents can be disclosed publicly without jeopardizing national security.

Sources said the government proposed Thursday that the issue of disclosure be decided by “consensus” among MPs on the special committee. But opposition negotiators weren’t thrilled with the idea, seeing it as a way to essentially give a veto to the government.

The government’s negotiators – House Leader Jay Hill, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and government Whip Gordon O’Connor – did not describe the proposal as a bottom line and seemed open to other options, sources said.

MPs say cheese please

By Mitchel Raphael - Monday, May 3, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 3 Comments

The Dairy Farmers of Canada held a reception at the Fairmont Château Laurier. Below, Minister of International Trade Peter Van Loan.

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NDP MP Peter Stoffer.

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Tory MP Ted Menzies, parliamentary secretary to the minister of finance, shows off a real “butter” tart.

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Conservatives and the men in blue

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, April 30, 2010 at 3:47 PM - 18 Comments

The Conservatives’ Law Enforcement Officers Caucus held a special reception for the Canadian Police Association while they were in town. Below is caucus chair Shelly Glover.

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Senator Nancy Ruth with the boys in blue.

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An undeniable win for Parliament

By John Geddes - Friday, April 30, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 117 Comments

Blair Gable/Reuters

Peter Milliken’s low-key way of speaking doesn’t automatically command attention. His stature, short and thickset, doesn’t make him an imposing physical presence when he rises to address MPs. But the Speaker of the House of Commons, who has done the job for longer than anyone in Canadian history, didn’t have any trouble holding the often raucous chamber’s rapt attention on the afternoon of April 27, when he read his landmark ruling in the clash between the House and the government’s executive branch, the Prime Minister and cabinet. The question: must the Conservative government turn over to an opposition-dominated House all the uncensored documents MPs demand to see as they probe the Afghan detainees controversy? Milliken was unequivocal—yes, it must.

But he granted Prime Minister Stephen Harper two weeks to hammer out a deal with the opposition parties on how to keep legitimate secrets from being made public when those documents are finally delivered. “Finding common ground will be difficult,” Milliken said, showing a mastery of understatement. (As if to signal just how difficult, he paused midway through reading his findings to wipe the sweat from his white-haired brow with the sleeve of his traditional black robe.) The problem is the corrosively partisan mood in the House these days, especially over anything to do with the war in Afghanistan. The government routinely accuses the opposition parties of lacking proper regard for Canadian troops in the field. And the Liberals, in particular, have taken to referring at every opportunity to what they’ve labelled the Conservatives’ “culture of deceit.”

So it’s against this backdrop of intensifying acrimony that all parties now have until May 11 to try to reach the accommodation that Milliken insists upon. The obvious way forward is for the Conservatives to turn over whatever uncensored documents MPs demand, after negotiating for the House committee on Afghanistan, which is investigating the detainee issue, to set in place procedures to make sure secrets stay secret. Milliken gently, but firmly, closed the door on the argument from the government that boils down to suspicion that MPs on the committee can’t be trusted not to leak. “There have been assertions that colleagues in the House are not sufficiently trustworthy to be given confidential information, even with appropriate safeguards in place,” he said. “I find such comments troubling.” Continue…

The negotiations (III)

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 29, 2010 at 12:41 PM - 16 Comments

The Prime Minister’s Office has sent out its version of events.

It was a productive first meeting. We hope to meet again as early as possible next week. Ministers Hill and Nicholson went to the first meeting with a spirit of openness in order to reach a compromise while respecting the government’s legal obligations.

Apparently government whip Gordon O’Connor was also present. Reference to the “government’s legal obligations” is perhaps relevant to this discussion.

The negotiations

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 at 9:26 PM - 23 Comments

The Star reports that government house leader Jay Hill and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson will be negotiating with opposition parties tomorrow on the release of Afghan detainee documents.

The Liberals have mandated house leader Ralph Goodale to work on this file, while NDP house leader Libby Davies and defence critic Jack Harris will play key roles for their side. Separately, Jack Layton met today with Gilles Duceppe and Michael Ignatieff and hopes to meet with the Prime Minister later this week.

The Commons: Never mind the fine print

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 at 6:09 PM - 117 Comments

The Scene. “Mr. Speaker, I hope I speak for everyone in this House when I salute your historic decision made yesterday.”

At least four Conservatives clapped at this submission from the Liberal leader. Michael Ignatieff paused to let the Speaker receive the House’s thanks and then continued.

“I would like to ask the Prime Minister if he will fully comply with your ruling yesterday,” he said, “and will he now work with us in good faith to do what we first proposed five months ago, that is respect the authority of Parliament, deliver the documents, and provide Canadians with the truth that they deserve?”

Confronted with the ramifications of a Speaker’s ruling as to the very foundation of Canadian democracy, the Prime Minister stood and shrugged. Continue…

The Commons: The House always wins

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 at 7:17 PM - 121 Comments

The Scene. “In his March 31 intervention, the Minister of Justice quoted from the 1887 parliamentary treatise of Alpheus Todd,” the Speaker said. “The Minister also cited Bourinot in 1884.”

This was, by these standards, riveting stuff.

“Had he read a little further,” Peter Milliken continued, “he might have found the following statement by Bourinot at page 281. ‘But it must be remembered that under all circumstances it is for the House to consider whether the reasons given for refusing the information are sufficient. The right of Parliament to obtain every possible information on public questions is undoubted, and the circumstances must be exceptional, and the reasons very cogent, when it cannot be at once laid before the houses.’”

From his seat, the Justice Minister chuckled at this reprimand. He may have by then—with a full 15 double-spaced pages left to be read—realized that the government’s case was lost. Continue…

The ruling

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 at 4:25 PM - 186 Comments

Below, the full English text of Speaker Peter Milliken’s ruling, delivered in the House over the last hour.

Further coverage from the Canadian Press, Globe, Canwest, CBC and CTV.

The Justice Minister has just now breathlessly read a statement that includes the phrase, “We welcome the possibility of a compromise.” Official Liberal reaction is here. Derek Lee’s reaction is here. Official NDP reaction is here.

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The Commons: In other news

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 13, 2010 at 6:52 PM - 46 Comments

The Scene. When all of this is past, and Helena Guergis has either been redeemed or forgotten or both, various members of this government might send her a polite note of thanks. Peter MacKay in particular.

If not for Ms. Guergis’s unfortunate spring, it might very well be much worse for the government side. If not for the opposition’s eagerness to chase the mystery of Ms. Guergis’s misdeeds—rightly or wrongly, justifiably or not—the questions would be far more profound and far less easily dismissed. As it is, every question asked about who may or may not have alleged what she may or may not have done and why we may or may not ever know about any of it, is a question that does not involve the phrases “torture” and “Asadullah Khalid” and “Afghanistan.”

Indeed, every question about the affairs of the former minister of state for the status of women is one less opportunity for Peter MacKay to stand up and say something silly. And for this we are all surely the poorer. Continue…

'You have your law, we have ours'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 1, 2010 at 11:47 AM - 11 Comments

The government has tabled another 6,200 pages of detainee documents today. As with last week’s documents, these were not reviewed by Justice Frank Iacobucci, the respected jurist theoretically hired to do just that and cited yesterday by the Justice Minister as the solution to the government’s current standoff with Parliament.

Meanwhile, CBC gets hold of an uncensored report about Afghan attempts to block detainee inspections.

The Afghan human rights agency was appointed by Canada to be its eyes and ears in Afghan prisons at the time. The rights group was supposed to help ensure the safety of detainees who had been transferred from Canadian troops to the Afghans. The Afghan security service, the NDS, took those detainees from the Canadians. The uncensored version of the document states there were “… five failed attempts to access Kandahar NDS facilities in 2007.”

The document says the NDS response on detainee access was often, “You have your law, we have ours.” It says Afghan human rights experts “discussed the access problem with [Afghan] President [Hamid] Karzai … however, this did not help.”

The government responds

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 4:34 PM - 12 Comments

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, with an array of backbenchers positioned behind him to fill the TV frame, began his remarks at about 3:45pm and concluded about an hour later. Derek Lee and Claude Bachand offered brief remarks before the House was interrupted by notice of royal assent.

Here is the prepared text for Mr. Nicholson’s remarks. Continue…