Justice In Lotus Land

A normally intelligent population – not CanWest monopoly press/media – has consistently asked the question: if persons employed by policy makers move to assist/further/change policy, would they not be doing so in concert with those who employ them? Indeed, more than once the public has been told, it seems, that Dave Basi informed another aide that the Minister of Finance of the day had given the go-ahead on what may have been, it is claimed, an allegedly improper action or set of actions. Has Gary Collins been investigated? Not that we know. And so it goes. On the advice of RCMP officers, apparently, Kevin Falcon, Minister of Transportation, withdrew an allegedly tainted deal for the sale of a rail spur line to Roberts Bank. Did Falcon know anything that would lead reasonable British Columbians to believe he was aware of what might be allegedly tainted uncertainties BEFORE the RCMP “advised” him? No investigation of Kevin Falcon has been undertaken as far as the public can know. Indeed, one of the markers of the case beginning as early as 2003 was the blunt statement by the RCMP that no elected official was under investigation. Why not? The question screams in the background of every step in the process being undertaken before Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett. Only weeks ago I put the question to her, formally, in a letter. The question is an eminently fair one. If men are accused of criminal acts, and if their fate, freedom, and fair trial depend upon knowing if other, senior, policy-making colleagues appear also to be guilty and perhaps, even, appear to be originators of unlawful action, isn’t it the responsibility of the judge seized with the matter to instruct the Special Crown Prosecutor to direct the RCMP to widen the investigative net and to lay charges where warranted if and as they bear on the fate, freedom, and fair trial of the men already accused? Doesn’t a fair trial demand that? The court officer who answered for Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett informed me (a) Justice Bennett did not read the letter (b) nor did the court officer tell her what is in the letter (c) except for one matter Justice Bennett was willing to address. By that means Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett was able to ignore a major, nagging, and imperative question about the proceedings around the corrupt sale of B.C. Rail. Vaughn Palmer, the man I call “Gordon Campbell’s personal representative at the Vancouver Sun” does his work well. He assures his readers of something no one can know for sure – “the judge’s determination to go ahead….” That is “not in doubt”, Palmer asserts. Dealing with her “order” without termination date that “every piece of paper associated with the investigation … be turned over to the defence ‘forthwith’”, Palmer makes excuses for the delay that has continued as if Madam Justice Bennett didn’t utter the word so beloved of Gordon Campbell admirers: “forthwith”. Order something “forthwith”, they say. Order that homelessness in B.C. cease “forthwith”. Order that privatized seniors’ homes are well run “forthwith”. Order that the Labour Relations Board and the Public Utilities Commission become honest “forthwith”. Then do nothing, and everyone will know vital change has come about. The joke that isn’t a joke is that “forthwith”, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Madam Justice Brenda Brown, for example, commanded that all demonstrations against the U.S. corporation wrecking West Vancouver’s Eagle Ridge Bluff must cease “forthwith”. When they didn’t cease immediately, she lay about her like a mediaeval prince, smiting the recalcitrant on all sides. In her eagerness to have “forthwith” mean “now”, she sent Harriett Nahanee, a sick and aged Native elder to a prison the judge was told was unsuitable. Some days later Nahanee was taken from that “hellhole” to Vancouver General Hospital to die. A number of us wrote a Complaint about Madam Justice Brenda Brown’s conduct to the Canadian Judicial Council, expecting consideration and a thorough investigation “forthwith”. But the word seems to give the CJC the same trouble it does to Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett. Six months have passed and the Canadian Judicial Council is still, apparently, combing through the Oxford English Dictionary to find a meaning of the word “forthwith” that will give it an excuse to avoid ever investigating the conduct of Madam Justice Brenda Brown. Joking aside, reasonable and prudent Canadians (unlike Vaughn Palmer) may be perplexed at Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett’s failure to make “forthwith” mean “now”, with her failure to ‘Brenda Brown’ the people who are clearly failing to move with expeditiousness to produce materials asked for, and with her apparent unwillingness to ask for a widened investigation. Those Canadians, I suspect, cannot with the joie de vivre, with the smug self-confidence of Vaughn Palmer, say they are assured of “the judge’s determination to go ahead….” The question becomes larger. Why - British Columbians have asked – why does Defence seem to ask, almost every time they arrive at court, for more disclosure of materials that may be needed for fair trial of their clients? On and on and on…? Could it be that the situation would look very different, that the processes would have been significantly faster, that the trial would be over by now instead of perpetually looming if more people had been investigated fully and then either declared clean or charged? Could it be that a failure of investigation is at the root of the repeated applications by Defence for disclosure of materials? Is it possible that the Defence is fighting a case where only some of the allegations of wrong-doing have been brought forward? If that is true, it helps to explain crippling delay in the processes arising out of the corrupt sale of BC Rail. That having been said, the idea that Vaughn Palmer is looking towards, in the near future –“accusation [by the Defence] of cover-up and withholding evidence” on the part of the premier and his ministers - should not be an idea that is even possible to entertain. This trial will be one of the most important in British Columbia history. It may involve deeply improper actions by elected officials in the highest trust positions. It may, in fact, involve the necessary invalidation of all their actions at the time of the sale of B.C. Rail and after as politicians acting in trust on behalf of British Columbians. The absolute responsibility of Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett is that she makes known now that any cover-up, delay, obfuscation, or other kind of withholding of evidence by any government person will bring a swift and tough ‘Brenda Brown’ series of contempt citations, jail terms, and more. If innocent environmentalists can feel the lash of judicial anger when they fail to follow an order “forthwith”, surely trust holders in democratic society who may be impeding the disclosure of criminal acts against the Public Good must face even greater judicial anger and action. Only when Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett shows that ‘sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander’, that justice is even handed, that members of the B.C. Provincial Cabinet of Gordon Campbell and their civil servants are equal with demonatrating environmentalists in the eyes of the Supreme Court of B.C. – only then need anyone believe that “the judge’s determination to go ahead is not in doubt”. As a footnote, British Columbians may laugh at the Black Humour of Madam Justice Brenda Brown rushing sick, aged Harriett Nahanee to an unsuitable prison (soon followed, after the court’s decison, to Nahanee’s death) in order to show that “justice plays no favourites”. For the Canadian Judicial Council – the eminent body headed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Beverly McLaughlin – justice is in the process of visibly showing favourites, month after month after month, in its failure to deal decisively (impartially and fairly) with the complaint against Madam Justice Brenda Brown herself. It’s called “Justice in Lotus Land” – and, alas, “Justice in Canada”. [Proofreader’s note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on October 23, 2007]