Catch & release
The courts are at it again. As if things weren’t bad enough, the marsupials in charge of Canada’s beleaguered “justice” system just keep on flinging the crap hither and yon like a bunch of disgruntled caged chimps on angel dust.
For those that need the latest count, here it is (more or less):
- 2 of the TO17 have been sprung on bail.
- 2 of the accused in Jane Creba’s murder have also been allowed to fly the coop.
- Jodie Wheatle was out on bail for gun charges when he gunned down salesman Sepehr “Danny” Fatulahzadeh-Rabti outside a car dealership last year.
- Edward Kelly strolls out on aggravated assault charges after he had sex with an 18-year-old without telling her he has AIDS (something he is in a habit of doing, BTW).
- 48 suspects busted in the Project Triple XXX gang sweep went in the revolving jailhouse door and right back out again.
- After having both their names and faces splattered all over the Canadian media, the courts still persist in the belief that information about the identities of the Medicine Hat murder suspect and the Taber shooter can be hidden; as if the genie can be shoved back into the bottle.
And those are just the ones that pop off the top of my head. Luckily, you & I don’t seem to be alone in our outrage over this tomfoolery. Ontario Opposition Leader John “Guess-What-Party-I’m-With” Tory has sounded off that he’s ready to make an election issue of this. Well, it’s about damned time. The high-and-mighty ‘roos have been buggering about with justice in this country for decades now with virtually no government willing to step up and rein them in. From the Singh decision to same-sex marriage to upholding a sentence of only one day for killing someone, the SCOC has taken one clanger after another that no elected official would ever dare try to make into law and rammed them down our throats.
So just how did we end up with this mess in the first place? Well, I hate to say it, but most of this trouble started with a document that was intended to protect Canadians: The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Yes, you heard that right. No matter how well or poorly intentioned the authors were (and that’s not a debate for here), the fact remains that it is a deeply flawed document.
Adopted in 1982 courtesy of Pierre “Up Yours” Trudeau, the Charter was intended to replace The Chief‘s Bill of Rights and provide equal protection for all Canadians. The actual result, however, has been the limiting of democracy in Canada and the emergence of an increasingly militant and beligerent judiciary, which can only be reigned in through the invocation of section 33, the infamous “notwithstanding clause” that the lefties like to shriek about so much (except when a Quebec court puts the boot to the Canada Health Act). In ratifying the Charter, power has been taked out of the hands of duly elected individuals in Parliament and final, absolute authority has been bestowed on nine unelected individuals, answerable to virtually no one, who show with ever-increasing frequency that they are both out of touch with the everyday realities of average Canadians and dangerously condecending and paternalistic in their views of the same. And the worst of the bunch is SCOC Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin (who I’ve ranted about before).
McLachlin, with her “The rule of law requires judges to uphold unwritten constitutional norms, even in the face of clearly enacted laws or hostile public opinion†attitude, feels that judges and judges alone should be trusted with deciding what the law is and what it is not.
Since Her Majesty signed the Charter into law, no Canadian Prime Minister has had the guts to stand up to the courts and take back what rightfuly belongs to our elected Parliament: the final authority of legislation (some have even suggested that the Liberals have deliberately encouraged judicial activism to get things into law that they could never get away with in the House). Harper, however, has been subtly daring the Supremes to screw with him for some time now but the Almighty Boomers have been reluctant to hop in the path of ol’ “Roo Bar” Steve. This is likely because they know damned well that Harper is one wonk with the guts and backbone to not only amend the Charter, but also to scrap it altogeather and start from scratch, if that’s what needs to be done (and it may well be).
Yes, the lefties will pinch a titanic fit and assorted special interest groups will go ballistic but the sooner power is given back to the government, and the people who elect them, the better it will be for everyone. Here’s hoping the Supremes call Harper’s hand, and soon.
