Raymond Tomlin is a veteran journalist and educator who has written frequently on the political realm — municipal, provincial and federal — as well as on cinema, mainstream popular culture, the arts, and technology.
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On VanRamblings yesterday, we wrote about Selina Crammond, all around good person, community activist, person of principle, and someone who keeps VanRamblings on the straight and narrow (as must appear obvious to anyone, VanRamblings needs all the help we can get — particularly when it comes from persons of conscience like Selina).
In addition to Selina Crammond’s community activism and commitment to change for the better, her ace drumming in the feminist four-piece moody-pop buddy-rock band supergroup Supermoon (see the video above), growing up in the chilly, rural climes of The Pas (630 km northwest of Winnipeg, and considered to be the Gateway to the North), Selina’s sterling work over the years with the good folks at the Vancouver International Film Festival, her longtime membership in Vancouver’s progressive, working class, roots-based political party, the Coalition of Progressive Electors, and by very dint of her presence in our lives just generally bringing a sense of joy, optimism and activism into people’s lives, the aforementioned 34-year-old Selina Crammond is also the Director of Programming (this is her second year in that capacity, although she’d worked with Dorothy Woodend and the fine staff and volunteers at DOXA, for years and years and years) with Vancouver’s prestigious, groundbreaking spring film festival, the acclaimed DOXA Documentary Film Festival, which kicked off last night, and gets fully underway tomorrow, although there’ll be screenings this evening at 6pm of Chilean director Nicolás Molina’s Flow, followed by an 8pm screening of Emmanuelle Antille’s A Bright Light: Karen and the Process, both films screening at The Cinematheque, located at 1131 Howe Street.
DOXA Documentary Film Festival Director of Programming Selina Crammond (left), and DOXA’s Operations & Volunteer Manager, Gina Garenkooper. Photo credit: Milena Salazar.
After a full year of preparing for DOXA 2019, VanRamblings believes that Selina Crammond is deserving of recognition for her critically important work in the arts, and across our community to makes ours a better world, and a more understanding love-based world. Therefore, VanRamblings officially declares today, Friday, May 3rd 2019 Selina Crammond Day (we’re sure our Vancouver City Council will be on board for next year!).
Here are a couple of the DOXA 2019 Programmer’s Picks …
Selina Crammond’s pick … Midnight Traveler
After receiving threats from the Taliban, filmmaker Hassan Fazili, his wife and their two young daughters are forced to flee their home in Afghanistan and seek refuge in Eastern Europe. Intimate, and often shaky, footage shot by the family on their iPhones captures a wide range of moments, from startling racism in eastern Europe – to meditative reflections on Fazili’s love of cinema. The result is a portrait of a resilient family that offers a very human face to the ongoing refugee crisis.
Joseph Clark’s pick … Instructions on Parting
Prepare to be devastated. Instructions on Parting is an emotionally challenging film, that is at once hand-crafted and cinematically stunning. Rarely has such an intimate film demanded to be seen on the big screen.
Amy Jenkins | US | 2018 | 95 minutes
Wednesday, May 8, 2019 - 8pm
Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour Street)
Click on the graphic above to be taken to the #DOXA2019 Twitter account.
#DOXA2019 will present 82 films from across Canada and around the world, representing the very best in contemporary documentary cinema. Get your tickets at www.doxafestival.ca. Better hurry. Quite a few #DOXA2019 screenings are already sold out, or have limited tickets remaining for the scheduled screenings.
Here’s the full schedule. See ya at #DOXA2019. Bring your dancin’ shoes!
Alexandra Morton, featured in Twyla Roscovich’s documentary, Salmon Confidential, is a Canadian American marine biologist best known for her 30-year study of wild killer whales in the Broughton Archipelago in British Columbia. Since the 1990s, her work has shifted toward the study of the impact of salmon farming on Canadian wild salmon.
Some years ago when attending the annual press conference for the Vancouver International Film Festival fall film fest, upon entering the Vancity Theatre, my young lefty feminist friend (at the time a VIFF film traffic co-ordinator), the multi-talented Selina Crammond — who at present is the hard-working, year-round Director of Programming at DOXA, Vancouver’s spectacular homegrown documentary film festival, which kicks off tomorrow, by the way! — approached me the moment I walked through the open doors to the theatre, excitedly stating to me, “Raymond, you’ve got to see Twyla Roscovich’s documentary, Salmon Confidential, it’s the best doc at VIFF this year!” (there is nothing more in life that I like than having my interests taken care of by women of conscience — and, let me tell you, Selina has long kept me on the political straight and narrow, reinforcing always the principled way I must conduct the affairs of my life).
From a political perspective, what struck me most about about the issues uncovered in Salmon Confidential was that the Stephen Harper government, aided by the Christy Clark government had muzzled scientists for both levels of government, and rather than address the problems that were destroying the salmon population along British Columbia’s coast, accepted significant amounts of money from the fish farming industry in exchange for not acting to remedy a problem that was destroying the wildlife ocean population along British Columbia’s once pristine coast.
What does the above recitation on the failure of government have to do with the headline of today’s VanRamblings post? Simple.
Who we elect to power in Ottawa, and across the water in Victoria, has a dramatic effect on the environment, on the livability of our towns and cities, and on our coast — and arising from the plangent work of Jody Wilson-Raybould this past four months, uninformed, apolitical Canadians would appear to be on the brink of re-installing (this time) a far-right Andrew Scheer-led government in Ottawa, which like all far right governments will move legislation to protect the interests of Big Oil and their corporate donors, at the expense of the preservation of our planet, and the quality and viability of the economic lives of the vast majority of Canadians.
In early January of this year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s popularity was at an all-time high, supported by 56% of Canadians (15% more than his Liberal Party), with the Conservative Party’s Andrew Scheer stuck back at 28%, the same as his party (the base of the Conservative party is redolent of the Trump base, or as Hillary Clinton referred to them, “the deplorables”), with the NDP at 15%, Elizabeth May’s Greens at 8%, and Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party and the Bloc Québécois tied at 4%.
As of earlier this week with the publication of the Léger poll …
Just 27% of respondents said they’d vote for Trudeau’s Liberals — 13 points behind Scheer’s front-running Conservatives, who, at 40%, were in the range needed to win a majority of seats in the House of Commons.
The Tories led in every region except Québec, where the Liberals enjoyed an eight-point lead with 31% support; the Conservatives and Bloc Québécois were tied at 23 per cent.
Nationally, the NDP had 12% support, one point ahead of the Greens; Maxime Bernier’s fledgling People’s Party of Canada registered just 3%.
Now, we’re still about six months out from the federal election (Monday, October 21st), but it ain’t lookin’ good for those us who give a good galldarn about the environment, about transit, affordable housing, diversity, Canada’s policy on refugees and immigrants, and in British Columbia, our dwindling salmon stock and the viability of our coastal waters.
A great deal has been written about Jody Wilson-Raybould running to become our next Prime Minister. “Saint Jody,” people across the nation have written, “We want Jody as our next Prime Minister. We need a person of principle at the helm of our government.” ‘Ceptin, one thing.
Jody Wilson-Raybould doesn’t speak French. Not a word — showed absolutely no interest in learning Canada’s “other” official language when in Ottawa, the mother tongue of 7.2 million Canadians (that’d be 20.6% of Canada’s population), and the millions more for whom French is a fluent second language. In 2019 or beyond, what is the possibility that a majority of Canadians would vote for a unilingual English-speaking Prime Minister? And what would be the divisive Trumpian impact, if Canadians were to cast their ballot for a unilingual English Jody Wilson-Raybould as Prime Minister (at the head of the Green Party? — watch your back, Elizabeth May)?
Vidkun Quisling (on the left, above) was a Norwegian military officer and politician who nominally headed the government of Norway during the occupation of the country by Nazi Germany during World War II. The derogatory term “quisling” is usually meant to mean “traitor” or collaborator. He was shot for treason after the war.
As we wrote above, four months ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was sitting pretty in the polls, and well on his way to re-election. Sunny ways had carried the day. In early May 2019, his political prospects would appear to be foundering. How did this change of circumstance occur?
A well-respected commenter, a former, much-beloved and admired elected official and Professor Emeritus in UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning, wrote on VanRamblings’ Facebook timeline yesterday the following about Canada’s former Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould, “A team player at her worst who played gender politics, who perceived herself to be ‘not answerable to the PM’, and figured she could act out.”
As this series about Jody Wilson-Raybould draws to a close, let us review Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s conduct over the past four months …
Following the resignation of Treasury Board President Scott Brison, Prime Minister Trudeau announced a Cabinet shuffle on Monday, January 14. In the week prior to the shuffle, Mr. Trudeau met with Jody Wilson-Raybould to tell her he was moving her to a newly-created, senior portfolio, where she would become the new Minister of Indigenous Affairs, allowing her free reign to redefine the state and nature of the relationship of Canada’s indigenous peoples to the federal government. Ms. Wilson-Raybould refused Mr. Trudeau’s assignment. One of VanRamblings’ correspondents wrote yesterday, “He should have fired her right then and there.” Instead, Ms. Wilson-Raybould accepted the post of Minister of Veterans Affairs. On February 12th, Ms. Wilson-Raybould resigned from her Ministerial post.
1. In leaking to the Globe and Mail the alleged PMO efforts to intervene in the SNC-Lavalin case while still a Cabinet Minister, one would have to ask, “Where would be the integrity in that?” And although she says she felt inappropriately “pressured” to suspend the criminal proceedings against SNC-Lavalin and instead have the firm pay a fine, the “pressure” turned out to be just 10 meetings and 11 phone calls over a four-month period. Some pressure! Importantly, at the end of the day she was still allowed to make the decision on SNC-Lavalin.
2. Following her resignation from Cabinet, Jody Wilson-Raybould accused the Prime Minister and PMO staff of “interference” on the SNC-Lavalin file, in the process creating a constitutional crisis that carried through the two succeeding months.
3. On March 6th, Ms. Wilson-Raybould said “Trudeau’s offer of Indigenous Services was like asking Nelson Mandela to administer apartheid,” going on to state, “My fear and disappointment is that despite sounding the alarm providing advice, pushing and challenging, sharing perspectives of lived Indigenous experience, providing a lens into the reality of being Indigenous, the federal government has fallen back once again to a pattern of trying to ‘manage the problem’ with Indigenous Peoples. In my view it is never appropriate or proper to have as a goal managing the challenges and the byproducts of colonialism. The goal must be to right the wrongs, to address the wrongs, to change patterns, transform the foundations and all that we do must be framed to achieve these goals.”
Subsequently, the nine remaining indigenous members of the Liberal caucus publicly expressed support for the Prime Minister, stating that “over the course of the past four years, Canada has seen a generational restorative change in the relations of Canada’s indigenous people’s to the federal government. We fundamentally disagree with Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s construction of the government’s accomplishments over the course of the past four years — or as Ms. Wilson-Raybould has stated, lack of accomplishments — in re-defining the relationship of Canada’s aboriginal peoples to the state.”
4. Ms. Wilson-Raybould has made the story about herself and has displayed no concern that she threw her fellow Liberals MPs under the bus, many of whom will lose their seats and their jobs because of her damning testimony against Trudeau and members of the PMO, and ongoing, vengeful conduct towards the Prime Minister.
5. As Attorney-General, Ms. Wilson-Raybould sought to appoint a conservative justice of Manitoba’s Queen’s Bench into the position of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, an entreaty that was soundly rejected by the Prime Minister.
6. During her tenure as Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould failed to appoint Supreme Court justices to fill the 48 vacancies on Canada’s high courts in the provinces and territories across Canada, and for her term as AG was consistently called out for failing to do so, all the while impeding the judicial process and the rights of Canadians to a timely hearing of charges leveled against them by the state, and arising from the Jordan ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada (mandating a maximum 30-month period for a case to be heard by Supreme Court justices in the provinces and territories), the creation of a circumstance that resulted in tens of thousands of cases being stayed or dismissed, with the courts having to release accused murderers, rapists, child sex offenders, and the worst of the worst among Canada’s criminal element.
Further, Ms. Wilson-Raybould failed to reverse the mandatory minimums legislation brought in by the Harper government, as stipulated as a priority in the mandate letter she was given by the Prime Minister upon being appointed Attorney General, on November 4, 2015.
7. Over the course of the past four months, Ms. Wilson-Raybould has turned to retired Supreme Court Justice Thomas Cromwell, long the most conservative member of Canada’s Supreme Court, for advice and counsel, refusing from the outset to meet with her fellow British Columbian, lecturer at UBC’s Law School when Ms. Wilson-Raybould was enrolled in the university’s law school programme, the retired Honourable former Chief Justice of the Canadian Supreme Court, Beverly McLachlin.
Again we ask, is Jody Wilson-Raybould a quisling? In substance and effect, has Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s public conduct this past four months, and longer, been at the behest of members of the Conservative Party of Canada? Have members of the Opposition directed or had a hand in Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s public statements about the Prime Minister, and the Liberal Party?
From the outset, journalists have asked, and politicos have wondered, “What is Jody Wilson-Raybould’s endgame?”
The answer to that would appear abundantly clear to anyone with open eyes, and to be perfectly frank would seem to be the only logical conclusion one could draw from Jody Wilson-Raybould’s public conduct over the course of the past four months: destroy the reputation of the Prime Minister and important members of the PMO staff, bury the prospects of the re-election of her (now former) Liberal caucus members so deep under the ground that they’ll never see the light of day again, paint herself as Canada’s new patron saint of principled Canadian politics, as Saint Jody the Saviour of All That is Right and True, and bide her time til the day when she can place her name forward as a candidate to become Prime Minister of Canada.
History may be unkind to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — but there is no question that in the fullness of time, Jody Wilson-Raybould will not fare well, and 100 years from now her contribution to Canadian politics will be viewed as self-serving, destructive, disloyal and utterly at variance with the interests of Canada’s indigenous population, and the people of Canada.
That good looking man you see above is David Eby, member of the British Columbia legislature representing the riding of Vancouver Point Grey, the province’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice, otherwise known as the man for whom sleep is a foreign concept, and the hardest working member of the British Columbia New Democratic Party government.
Kasari Govender, West Coast LEAF (Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund)
At present, West Coast LEAF (Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund) Executive Director Kasari Govender is acting as co-counsel on a suit filed against Mr. Eby, as B.C.’s Attorney General, on behalf of the Single Mothers’ Alliance BC. Ms. Govender is currently arguing in the British Columbia Supreme Court that B.C.’s legal aid scheme violates the Canadian Constitution by failing to provide adequate support for vulnerable women and their children fleeing violent relationships.
Meanwhile, the Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia argues that “years of underfunding and shifting political priorities have taken their toll on the range and quality of legal aid services, and especially on the people who need them. One of the fundamental problems is that legal aid has been starved for funding for many years by successive governments, and there’s been a lot of political interference in legal aid over the years.”
Try to imagine, if you will, what it must be like for David Eby, father, husband, feminist, and outstanding person of principal and integrity to be sued by one of his valued and cherished constituents (Ms. Govender), and the oversight body of which he has long been a member. Imagine how many conversations Mr. Eby has had with the Premier, members of his caucus, members of the Cabinet, the lobbyists in Victoria working on behalf of both of the above mentioned advocacy organizations, staff in his Victoria office, his constituents, women’s advocacy organizations, and a myriad of other advocacy organizations, as he works to develop a plan to once again return proper funding to legal aid in the province of British Columbia.
And try to imagine, as well, David Eby running to the press to decry “interference” by Premier John Horgan or his Chief of Staff, Geoff Meggs, or Finance Minister Carole James, or even B.C. Liberal party leader Andrew Wilkinson, for encroaching on the autonomy of the office of the Attorney General by dint of simply speaking to him on a matter, when all each sought to do was bring a new and perhaps compelling perspective to an issue before the Attorney General for consideration, with a chuffed Mr. Eby subsequently painting himself in a 2000-word published screed on his BC NDP MLA website, calling out his colleagues in the BC NDP as miscreants, he as the only principled elected official in the BC New Democratic Party provincial government, on the side of God and all that is right and proper.
Perhaps you don’t know David Eby, but we’re here to tell you that the above untoward scenario would never unfold. Mr. Eby simply has too much integrity and grit to ever allow such a discordant circumstance to occur.
From everything Canadians have read this past three months, and according to the woman herself, former federal Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould would consider the ‘par for the course’ interactions David Eby takes for granted daily as part of the business of being the province’s Attorney General, as interference with her autonomy.
As we pointed out in yesterday’s column, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and members of the PMO proposed that Ms. Wilson-Raybould meet with the most distinguished lawyer in Canada, the former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, the Honourable Beverley McLachlin, she refused. “Interference” with her autonomy, don’thca know.
Clayton Ruby, civil rights advocate, and one of Canada’s most well-respected lawyers
Clayton C. Ruby is one of Canada’s leading lawyers, an outspoken proponent of freedom of the press, and a prominent member of the environmental community, who specializes in criminal, constitutional, administrative and civil rights law, who has devoted his professional career to ensuring that those who are underprivileged and those who face discrimination are given equal access to the legal system of this country, in an April 12th article in The Star, wrote …
I think I know what advice she (Wilson-Raybould) might have gotten from McLachlin. And that explains why she didn’t want, and never accepted, that offer of legal advice.
She would have been told that over the last number of years the courts of Canada, including the Supreme Court of Canada, have pretty consistently been striking down mandatory minimum penalties in criminal sentencing because they give a judge no choice about the sentence. The law under which anyone is punished must allow sufficient discretion by the trial judge to give justice to offenders.
The law that would apply to SNC-Lavalin if they were convicted provides … no discretion to lower the 10-year prohibition on bidding for government contracts in Canada …
Mr. Ruby goes on to argue that the penalty of a 10-year ban “would be cruel and unusual and a violation of section 12 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and be deemed to be disproportionate.”
Yet, then Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould demanded her ‘autonomy’ be respected, refused to consult, asked no one any questions on the state and impact of the law concerning mandatory minimum sentencing, refused to listen to outside advice, and set about to make her decision to proceed with a prosecution of SNC Lavalin as a “matter of principle” — when in fact there was little or no chance that SNC Lavalin would be convicted, or that the case would even make it to court — which is to say, the matter would be settled out of court, with severe and proper penalty for SNC Lavalin.
Arising from Wilson-Raybould’s intransigence, our government is in crisis.
Brian Greenspan, well-respected criminal defence attorney, graduate of Osgoode Hall
In a well-reasoned article written by past president of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association and founding chair of the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers, Brian Greenspan (pictured above), and published in the Globe and Mail on April 17th, Mr. Greenspan argues that Jody Wilson-Raybould did not understand her role as Attorney General and Minister of Justice …
In a free and democratic society, the prosecutorial function does not operate in a vacuum, in isolation and immune from debate, discussion and, indeed, persuasion. Isolation breeds tyranny. Access to justice requires those who administer justice to be accessible, to be open to advocacy on behalf of clients and causes. Advocacy in the adversarial process does not undermine independence. In fact, the public interest is best served by ensuring that the decision-maker has meaningfully examined the conflicting positions and has been exposed to a comprehensive review of all relevant considerations.
Mr. Greenspan goes on to argue …
An Attorney General can receive vigorous advocacy and remain objective — her objectivity can most assuredly withstand collegial conversations with government colleagues and bureaucrats, in which they share their views and opinions on the merits of a prosecution. Thoughtful reconsideration and sober second thoughts do not threaten the independence of the Attorney General, nor do they jeopardize the integrity of our justice system.
Ms. Wilson-Raybould has expressed the position that any intervention by the Attorney General with the decision of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) would have been automatically suspect, and that it would risk calling into question prosecutorial independence and the rule of law. The DPP, in fact, fulfills her responsibility under and on behalf of the Attorney General, and the act which governs her authority empowers the Attorney General to assume carriage of a prosecution or to direct the director. The Attorney General’s power to superintend prosecutions is an important aspect of our system. The former Attorney General treated the DPP as essentially unreviewable. Politically accountable oversight in ensuring that the public interest is properly taken into account isn’t anathema to the rule of law. The Attorney General’s power to superintend prosecutions is an integral part of our justice system.
VanRamblings will allow Mr. Greenspan’s words to ring in your ears.
The above testimony concludes VanRamblings’ three-part series on how Jody Wilson-Raybould failed Canadians, threw our government into an unnecessary, untenable and divisive constitutional crisis, did not fulfill her mandate, and failed to properly administer Canada’s justice system.
VanRamblings will publish a wrap-up column on the series tomorrow, where we will ask as we did yesterday, “Is Jody Wilson-Raybould a quisling?”
For now, we’ll leave you with the following re-creation of a conversation between Prime Minister Justin Pierre James Trudeau, and JWR aka Puglaas …
Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s relationship with the Canadian judiciary was, to say the least, conflicted.
In many ways, Harper’s troubled history with the Canadian judicial system mirrors what Americans are experiencing down south, with a President who rarely misses an opportunity to attack the judges and the courts for rulings with which he disagrees. President Trump learned much from Stephen Harper, who has emerged as a key & valued advisor to the U.S. President.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s frustration with the courts came to a head in 2014 when his appointment of Marc Nadon to the top bench was rejected by a six-to-one decision, a majority of justices on the top court ruling that Nadon didn’t qualify to join them on the court, the Supreme Court of Canada ruling that its composition is constitutionally protected, and the Stephen Harper government’s attempt to change the Supreme Court Act through a budget bill was unconstitutional. Now retired Supreme Court Justice Thomas Cromwell, the most conservative member of Canada’s Supreme Court, was the lone dissenting vote on the ruling of the Court.
Note should be made it was retired Supreme Court Justice Thomas Cromwell that Jody Wilson-Raybould turned to for advice when she resigned from the Trudeau cabinet, having consistently refused to meet with retired Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Beverley McLachlin, as the Prime Minister, Cabinet, and members of the Liberal caucus implored her to.
Note should also be made that in 2014, Harper accused Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin of making “inadvisable and inappropriate” attempts to reach him on the issue, an episode author John Ibbitson describes as the “nadir” of his time in power, also creating a constitutional crisis. “Not only did he lose the fight; he tarnished his reputation and damaged what should be the sacrosanct separation of powers between executive and judiciary,” Ibbitson wrote in his book, Stephen Harper.
When Justin Trudeau came to power in 2015, he sought to repair the federal government’s frayed relationship with the courts, and assigned his new Attorney General Justice, Jody Wilson-Raybould, to do just that.
VanRamblings contends Jody Wilson-Raybould failed in this aspect of her mandate, about which we will go into in some great detail below.
When Stephen Harper lost government to Justin Trudeau and the Liberals, he left an unprecedented 48 provincial and territorial Supreme Court Justice vacancies to fill, with 11 vacancies in British Columbia, and 14 vacancies in Alberta, alone. The Tories had filled 43 vacancies in June 2015, mostly in Ontario and the Maritimes.
Filling the remaining 48 vacancies, in order to preserve the integrity of the administration of the Canadian judicial system, was job one for the newly-installed Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould. Over time, the Honourable Minister failed to fulfill this critical aspect of the mandate established by the Prime Minister for the office of the Minister of Justice.
On August 11th, 2016, Chief Justice of Canada’s Supreme Court, Beverley McLachlin, hammered the government for failing to fill the remaining 45 judicial vacancies — including one at Canada’s Supreme Court.
“There is something deeply wrong with a hiring scheme that repeatedly proves itself incapable of foreseeing, preparing for and filling vacancies,” McLachlin said. “The perpetual crisis of judicial vacancies in Canada is an avoidable problem that needs to be tackled and solved. Without a full complement of judges, and an efficient system for anticipating and filling vacancies, delay will continue to be a feature of our justice system.”
Senator Bob Runciman releases a committee report on court delays in Canada during a news conference in Ottawa, Wednesday June 14, 2017.
In this June 14, 2017 front page story in the National Post, titled “Tens of thousands of criminal trials may be tossed if delays not addressed, Senate report warns”, Post journalist Brian Platt writes …
A damning report from the Senate warns of a loss of public confidence in the justice system due to unreasonable trial delays, and that tens of thousands of criminal cases may be thrown out of court starting next year if action isn’t taken.
The Senate standing committee on legal and constitutional affairs, which toured the country and interviewed 138 witnesses, says the federal government needs to provide judges with other ways to deal with lengthy trial delays beyond a stay of proceedings.
It also says the justice minister (Jody Wilson-Raybould) must address the chronic lag in appointing judges to vacant positions.
The issue of trial delays escalated last summer, when a Supreme Court of Canada ruling known as the Jordan decision, in a ruling read by Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, established a firm timeframe for when a trial must be completed after a charge is laid: 18 months for a provincial court, and 30 months for a superior court.
“Clearly it hasn’t been approached as an urgent matter,” said Sen. Bob Runciman, the committee’s chair, and former Ontario Solicitor General. He said there were 43 vacancies on the release of their interim report in August 2016; there were 48 on this report’s release.
“We’re almost two years into this government,” he said. “It’s perplexing to us with respect to the snail-like pace.”
A July 6, 2017 CBC story states that, “More than 200 criminal cases across the country have been tossed due to unreasonable delays — including murders, sexual assaults, drug trafficking and child luring, all stayed by judges because the defendant’s constitutional right to a timely trial was infringed” — due to Jody Wilson Raybould’s failure “to speed up Canada’s sluggish courts” by appointing Supreme Court Justices to fill the remaining 48 vacancies across the country.
This Global Newsstory states that, “A shortage of judges … is ‘choking’ Alberta’s court system, a defence lawyer said after a judge threw out a first-degree murder case because it took too long to get to trial.”
Keith Fraser’s December 22, 2017 story in the Vancouver Sun states that, “The shortage of judges on the B.C. Supreme Court remains persistently high, creating ongoing concerns about access to justice.”
For four years, the same story was told over and over again, in every province and territory across Canada, yet Jody Wilson-Raybould didn’t listen, failing to appoint Supreme Court Justices to fill vacancies, bringing the administration of the Canadian justice system into disrepute.
Retired Chief Justice of the Canadian Supreme Court, the Honourable Beverley McLachlin.
During his time in power, Stephen Harper implemented “mandatory minimums legislation,” tying the hands of the courts to rule on a case by case basis. Justices did not look favourably on the legislation.
As part of her mandate, Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould was required to introduce legislation that would undo mandatory minimum sentencing, such legislation similar to that recently approved by President Donald Trump, the U.S. Senate and Congress. Readers will not be surprised to learn that the Attorney General failed to introduce such legislation.
We had stated above that the Prime Minister, and members of the PMO, had requested of Jody Wilson-Raybould that she meet with the retired Chief Justice of the Canadian Supreme Court, the Honourable Beverley McLachlin, in order that Ms. McLachlin might explain the relationship between the mandatory minimum legislation, and the reluctance of the courts to rule on cases requiring a mandatory minimum. In fact, in order to avoid having to impose a mandatory minimum sentence, Beverley McLachlin would have told Jody Wilson-Raybould in 98% of cases where a mandatory minimum was involved, those cases were settled out of court, with the remaining 2% finding the defendant not guilty rather than impose an unjust sentence.
The crux of the SNC-Lavalin case was just that — the courts were always going to encourage the parties to settle out of court, resulting in a fine in the billions of dollars and, perhaps, a three-year period when SNC-Lavalin could not bid on contracts let by the federal government.
But Jody Wilson-Raybould thought she knew better, and barreled on ahead.
Tomorrow, VanRamblings will explore in some detail how Ms. Wilson-Raybould injudiciously failed to meet the responsibilities of an Attorney General to seek a variety of opinions, from a broad cross-section of sources, before deciding on a course of action — which, of course, Ms. Wilson-Raybould consistently and insistently failed to do during her tenure. Kyla Lee | Jody Wilson-Raybould Did A Poor Job As Justice Minister Kyla Lee, criminal defence lawyer at Acumen Law Corporation in Vancouver.
Kyla Lee, who you probably recognize from her frequent appearances on the evening news, and for her articles in The Huffington Post, published a recent blog post in the HuffPo, on April 6th, taking Jody Wilson-Raybould to task for failing to properly administer the system of justice during her tenure as Canada’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice …
“Yes, Wilson-Raybould did champion a bill to create a process for medically-assisted dying (ed. note. Although Jane Philpott “didn’t exactly claim credit” for the assisted dying legislation, she did work with Ms. Wilson-Raybould on the drafting of the bill, referencing her work on the legislation — as a correspondent / colleague relates to VanRamblings — as “a point of pride, in her resignation letter.”). However, that legislation is already the subject of challenges before the courts in large part because it arguably doesn’t address the concerns raised by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Carter case. This case found that the ban on physician-assisted death was unconstitutional.
And yes, cannabis was legalized under Wilson-Raybould’s auspices. Or at least, some cannabis was legalized for some people. Meanwhile, medical cannabis was then subject to taxes, sentences increased for certain cannabis-related offences, and access to legal cannabis became very difficult shortly after legalization.
Along with cannabis legalization, Wilson-Raybould brought in legislation that eliminated Charter protections for those accused of impaired driving offences. This, arguably, puts vulnerable people at risk of further interactions with police. It has also been the subject of criticism for the manner in which it will disproportionately affect Indigenous and racialized people.
Other legislation introduced by Wilson-Raybould, such as Bill C-51, reverses the disclosure obligation in criminal trial to an accused person and exposes that person to cross-examination by the complainant. This fundamentally undermines our entire concept of justice in this country.
In Bill C-75, Wilson-Raybould sought to eliminate a right of cross-examination of police witnesses in criminal trials, while also attempting to remove preliminary inquiries from most serious criminal cases and prohibiting peremptory challenges in jury trials.
Remember, too, that while the mandate letter directed Wilson-Raybould to put an end to solitary confinement, under her direction the Department of Justice defended several Charter challenges to the practice of solitary confinement. And when the overuse of this method was struck down by the courts, the Department of Justice filed an appeal and sought a stay of the order permitting them to continue to use solitary confinement while the appeal was pending.
Wilson-Raybould was supposed to oversee the creation and completion of an inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. The inquiry that has occurred has been the subject of numerous scandals, with the resignations of several prominent figures, and timeline extensions well beyond the original two-year deadline. This means that justice and closure for those families, as well as an action plan to prevent further harm to Indigenous women and girls, was significantly delayed under Wilson-Raybould’s watch.
In addition to the above, let us not forget that Jody Wilson-Raybould sought to appoint a conservative justice of Manitoba’s Queen’s Bench into the position of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, a justice about whom Mi’kmaq lawyer, professor, activist and politician Dr. Pamela D Palmater stated during a CBC interview … “it is egregious that Canada’s current Minister of Justice would seek to appoint a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court with an appalling record of rulings on reproductive rights, LGBT issues and indigenous issues. What was she thinking?”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apparently agreed with Dr. Palmater, when he rejected Wilson-Raybould’s conservative pick for high court.
“Well-placed sources say the former justice minister’s choice for chief justice was a moment of “significant disagreement” with Trudeau, who has touted the Liberals as “the party of the charter” and whose late father, Pierre Trudeau, spearheaded the drive to enshrine the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the Constitution in 1982.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was well within his rights to seek to move Jody Wilson-Raybould from the position of Minister of Justice and Attorney General, for obvious good reason.
The Prime Minister did offer to make Jody Wilson-Raybould Minister of Indigenous Affairs, asking that she undo the harm of the Indian Act, and fundamentally redefine the relationship of Canada’s indigenous people’s to the state, and the state to our indigenous peoples, working with her friend, the Honourable Jane Philpott to achieve such end.
Ms. Wilson-Raybould emphatically refused such entreaty.
Despite all, Mr. Trudeau wished to keep Ms. Wilson-Raybould in Cabinet, as the only indigenous member of Cabinet, and a woman who he believed was possessed of talent, despite her failings as Attorney General. Mr. Trudeau appointed Ms. Wilson-Raybould as Minister of Veterans Affairs, a position she held for only one week before resigning, one might say in a fit of pique (tinged with a soupçon of arrogance), resigning from the Trudeau Cabinet, while making scurrilous accusations of “interference” by the PMO during her, now truncated, tenure as Minister of Justice and Attorney General.
Tomorrow, on VanRamblings, in Part 3 of this week’s Decision Canada series (there’ll be a fourth part on Thursday) we’ll explore the validity, or lack thereof, of Wilson-Raybould’s untoward contention, as stated above.
DOXA Documentary Film Festival Director of Programming Selina Crammond (left), and DOXA’s Operations & Volunteer Manager, Gina Garenkooper. Photo credit: Milena Salazar.
