Rahim Jaffer Got a Pretty Sweet Deal

Technically you played a lawyer on TV. ;-)

Technically you played a lawyer on TV. ;-)

Holy crap.  Even the judge commented on what a deal it was.  So let's get this straight: cocaine possession and drunk driving, and all that sticks is a teensy little "careless driving" charge?  I wonder whether people will scream for the Crown attorney's head.

Quote:

Crown attorney Marie Balogh told the court the initial charges were dropped because there was no reasonable prospect of conviction.

The judge, Mr. Justice Doug Maund said he could read “between the lines” of the evidence presented to him.

“I'm sure you can recognize a break when you see one” the judge told Mr. Jaffer.

The former MP was sentenced to a $500 fine. He had already agreed to make a $500 charitable donation to the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

“I'm sorry. I know this was a serious matter,” Mr. Jaffer said afterward outside the court. “I know I should have been more careful and I took full responsibility for my careless driving.”

"My careless driving" - ha!

So let me get this straight:  If I drive drunk and blow >0.08, I'll probably go free because there's no reasonable chance of convicting me?

Thousands of people have been convicted of DUI on the basis of their breathalyzer results.  I would really like the Crown to elaborate on why these results were somehow different.

I will point out that lots of lawyers get DUIs dropped to careless driving. My friend was one and she fought with the cop and verbally abused cuz she was smashed. Expensive but very very doable and plea pargains are normal

"I took full responsibility for my careless driving." I am speechless! The 2010 Chutzpah! Festival is taking place this month in Vancouver. Mr. Jaffer should consider entering an act.

Good lawyer?

How about connections to government.....

nah good lawyer. Connections to government should have seen no charges, not a plea bargain which my coked up drunk stripper friend got (cost her 10k though) as well. Its not unusual for a DUI case actually. If you have the cash you can ebat a DUI with a plea bargain everytime.

Of course you have to have the cash which means the poor and 'middle' class get screwed

For Remind's benefit, I'd like to state that I think Jaffer's plea bargain is bullshit.  I also think that what I wrote above should be recognizable by anyone as sarcasm, but Remind assures me that she can't see it.

Michelle:  you work near my workplace if I'm not mistaken.  Could I swing by to swear on a stack of Bibles, if it comes to it?

na, bacchus the Conservatives could not have done that, no plausible denability to be gained.....it is all about appearances and what can be sold as plausible to their suckers, errr followers, no...I mean supporters.

There's no justice. If there were, Jaffer would have been sentenced to a lengthy term of house arrest in Prince Edward Island.

Kill two birds with one stone.

Maybe, given this example, we could support a law to remove the ability of judges & crown prosecutors to allow the plea bargaining of DUI charges where the level is >= .09. That way this could not happen. Same goes for any drug possession charges (excluding MJ maybe?).

I don't have a problem with that.

I don't have a problem with what Jaffer got either. The law works the way it works. Had he got jail time, I'd have been fine with that too.

What have you got against PEI, Unionist? We'd have to close the bridge if that happened. St. Helena, it ain't.

I actually love PEI - but Jaffer's wife famously does not. I thought it would be poetic justice if she had to return and face the security folks at the Charlottetown airport just to visit hubby. [That's just in case anyone didn't get your St. Helena quip, Caissa...]

Or just start by asking why they'd even consider it, when they've got a breathalyzer that says "guilty as charged".

Exactly. And the bag of coke. 

Forget about the DUI...That wouldn't be the first time someone walked away with a 'careless driving" conviction.

What boils my blood is the fact that the cocaine possession wasn't even brought up. "I take full responsibility of my careless driving"? How about the blow you were busted with? And who says he was sticking it up his nose? Maybe he was freebasing which would make him a CRACKHEAD.Since when do people walk away without even a fine for cocaine possession? And the irony is that it is the Reform Party who want mandatory minimums aka zero tolerance. He should have been subjected to a criminal record like everybody else---hence not being able to cross the border,not being able to find a job in his current field,(because he would no longer be bondable),only to be employable flipping burgers and having difficulties finding housing---just like any other Canadian charged with a drug offense.

The oppositon should jump all over this but of course they won't..And Canadians in general will be indifferent to it and forget about the whole affair in a week's time.

Snert wrote:

For Remind's benefit, I'd like to state that I think Jaffer's plea bargain is bullshit.  I also think that what I wrote above should be recognizable by anyone as sarcasm, but Remind assures me that she can't see it.

Michelle:  you work near my workplace if I'm not mistaken.  Could I swing by to swear on a stack of Bibles, if it comes to it?

I suppose you could...but this post is totally out of left field for me - what brought it on?  I didn't see remind say that...?

She was nagging Snert in another thread about his sarcastic view of Jaffer's conviction (and moaning that i had not said anything about the whole issue).

I just heard Carol MacNeil on CBC News Network read a statement from the Ontario AG's office. The substance is that there were problems with the evidence, which rendered conviction unlikely. Naturally, they refused to be more specific. If true, this would seem to mean that the police screwed up very badly on this case.

About the judge....

Well, turns out the judge in the case, Doug Maund is a long-time Tory:

• When Brian Mulroney was prime minister, Maund was the chief of staff to Mulroney's health minister Perrin Beatty.
• He backed Kim Campbell in the leadership race to succeed Mulroney
• He was appointed to the Ontario bench in October, 2000 by the Ontario attorney general of the day, none other than current federal finance minister Jim Flaherty.

http://davidakin.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2010/3/9/4476113.html

I would like to respond to the comments of Bacchus and others, who seem to believe that anyone with enough money to hire the best lawyer can get off on an impaired driving or drug charge. While having actually tried criminal cases (albeit many years ago) has not decreased my level of cynicism about the "justice" system, it has lowered my level of credibility about the allegedly miraculous abilities of some high profile lawyers to win any case.

The fact is that cops, like all people, make mistakes in many of the cases they work on. In some percentage of cases, these mistakes are severe enough to render the crucial evidence inadmissible at trial. Often, the Crown can get convictions anyway, because the defense counsel is not aware of the fatal errors that the police have made. However, if a client is willing to pay big money to have a lawyer spend a lot of time examining everthing the police did with a microscope, any fatal errors the cops have made will be discovered.

This is probably what happened in Jaffer's case. The investigating officer made some fatal error in dealing with the evidence, and the defence lawyer discovered that error. Jaffer accepted a slap on the wrist, and the Crown counsel sheepishly withdrew the charges. On the other hand, if the police work is flawless, no lawyer can get an acquittal, or make a sweet deal like this one.

Of course, there is always the possibility of political influence being involved. But if it were, in a plea bargain case like this, it would be at the police or Crown prosecutor level, not the judicial one. It seems to me irrelevant that the judge who presided at this hearing was a Tory supporter. No judge could have done anything differently under the circumstances.

The whole thing stinks...Where are the opposition parties? Do they not want to offend centrist Canadians and appear somehow playing partisan politics? If Jaffer was an NDP,Liberal or Bloc MP,The Cons would be all over this like flies on Parliament Hill.

Didn't Svend Robinson also cop a plea bargain?

And didnt the Cons make hay of that in the House?

I'm so glad to see Cons getting tough on crime.

Our stooges in Calgary and Ottawa are drunk all'a time. They drink to forget their stoogery.

I wouldn't grant such a generous take on things as Micheal Moriority dispences.   I think the evidence issue is all part of the fiddle, and I'm not believing any of that for a Toronto second.  

The fix was in from the get go.

The justice system has just confirmed in a drunk drivers and cocaine users head that he is above the law.

That would explain why I saw Jack and Olivia front and centre at a bar on national tv.

It would be interesting, indeed, to do breathalyser and blood tests on MP's and Senators before they sit down to drive the country.

I think when they do arrive for work in the pm senators are happier than pigs in muck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edXQYuhbyKU

Oh heywood you are just sooooooo cute,  being all that and a bag-o-chips sexism wise.

And you, HeywoodFloyd the taxpayer,  helped pay their wages during their excellent vacation from Parliament! Pffft!

Oh you felt that poke, didja? Next time leave me out of your posts. I'm not accountable to you for when and where I chose to post.

...said the frozen choser from Canuckistan.

heywood so your sense of privilege  allows you to believe that you can "poke" sexist shit  at me, when I call you on your  hyprocritical affliations and participation here

Funny though how if you are poor the sloppy police work will result in a wrongful conviction but if you're rich the sloppy police work always works in your favour.

I think when they do arrive for work in the pm senators are happier than pigs in muck.

As much as I fail at this from time to time, Fidel, on the subject of the Senate and Senators, it is bad policy to de-humanize an opponent by comparing them to animals.   

Even the senate and senators.

Now, you could point out my hypocricy by digging up an old quote calling them an ooozing syphalytic sore on the body politic, or a tapeworm in the body politic, but it`s wrong to call them an ooozing syphalytic sore on the body politic, or a tapeworm in the body politic, so I no longer call them an ooozing syphalytic sore on the body politic, or a tapeworm in the body politic.

It's just wrong.

Funny though how if you are poor the sloppy police work will result in a wrongful conviction but if you're rich the sloppy police work always works in your favour.

Yes, funny that.

It's that ole glass house thingy that comes back to bite you in the ass.  Rahim's and his ilk are fucking hypocrites.

In the run-up to the federal election, Rahim, the Conservative incumbent in the Edmonton-Strathcona riding, launches a radio ad accusing New Democratic leader Jack Layton of endorsing marijuana use.

"When asked about marijuana, Jack Layton called it a wonderful substance, which Canadians should be free to smoke at home or in a cafe," the ad says.

"Edmontonians understand how difficult it is to make sure our children make the right choices, especially on serious issues like drug use.

"The Conservative Party supports drug-free schools and getting tough with drug dealers who sell illegal drugs to children. Don't let our schools go up in smoke . . . vote Conservative."

Opponents denounce the ad as a "dirty politics" but Jaffer defends it. He insists its intention was to get parents thinking about where the NDP stands on legal issues.

At the time, the NDP web site said the party backed marijuana decriminalization but the site also emphasized the need to keep cannabis "out of the hands of minors."

"Does he really think I would be out there campaigning to have drug dealers go to schools?" asks NDP candidate Linda Duncan. "Give me a break."

October, 2008

On election night, the race in the riding of Edmonton-Strathcona is tight. With the results still coming in, Jaffer gives a victory speech. A few hours later, Duncan is declared the winner. Jaffer becomes the only Conservative candidate to lose a seat in Alberta and Duncan becomes the first New Democrat to win a seat in the province in almost two decades.

Instead of conceding defeat, Jaffer disappears. He re-emerges two days later revealing that he has married his fiancée, Conservative MP Helena Guergis. He says that, hours after the election, the couple wed at the home of Conservative MP Ian McClelland.

In addition to making a wedding announcement, Jaffer concedes electoral defeat. He says he was waiting for all the polling station results to be counted.

May 2009

Three weeks after declaring his intention to run in the next federal election, Jaffer announces he is leaving politics and will focus instead on finishing an MBA. Still, there is growing speculation the Conservatives have forced him out, hoping that one of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's staff members will be a candidate in the Edmonton riding.

September 2009

Ontario Provincial Police arrest Jaffer north of Toronto and charge him with cocaine possession and driving while over the legal blood-alcohol limit. Soon after, Guergis declares she's standing by her man.

March 2010

Jaffer pleada guilty to a careless driving charge and is fined $500. The drunk driving and drug possession charges were withdrawn by the Crown, who said there was no reasonable prospect of conviction.

http://www.globaltoronto.com/Jaffer+gaffes/2005205/story.html

I completely agree, and this is one of the main reasons that I quit practicing law. The hypocrisy of the system just made me too sick to carry on. As with most things in this grotesque society of ours, money is the crucial factor in deciding outcomes.

Agreed.  You won't refer to them as pigs in muck, and I shall refrain from comparing them to oozing syphalytic sores on the body politic, nor tapeworms living off the same(Think I threw up in my mouth a little on that one).  And never those twains shall meet in a thorough treatment of this subject by us. Spit and shake.

It's done then.  To serve the higher interest of not de-humanizing the senator or senators, we will not call them pigs, dogs (running, yellow or rabid) weasels, snakes, lice, ticks, leeches, body crabs, various sexually transmitted viruses, bacteria, mold or fungii, roundworm, tape worm, and any other single or multi celled parasitic organisms.   

Miss anything?

Oh yeah.  Crown Attorneys.  That should about cover it.

Yes because all the the things you mentioned serve a vital purpous, something our senetors don't.

No justice as far as the topic goes. I think we knew he was going to get a sweat heart deal, but this takes the cake. I agree The most shocking part was his hubris when talking about his conviction. No mention of what he was actualy charged for.

I would like to have a word with a certain ms Donna Cadman on this as well. It seems to me she and her husband got into politics because of speeding. I wonder how this sits with her. Will she bello outrage or just accept another million dollar buyout to shut up instead, maybe a senate seat will do. Yeah I know her kid died, she should be upset more so because her party is the law and order party correct.

Overheard in the halls of a court building, somewhere in Canada ...

Q: What are you hoping for, in your sentencing next week?

A: I'm looking for a Jaffer sentence of course.

Remind, your sense of privilege and self-righteousness allows you to believe that you can "call" me on things that you believe I have failed on even when I'm not posting. When that happens to you, you call it stalking. Please refrain from doing so when I am not participating in a thread. A little self-control is not too much to ask of anyone, even Babble's self-appointed moderators.

What makes me think though, and it really only just occurred to me, is what if the coke was planted because Rahim is brown and the cops really didn't know he was an ex-mp at the time they planted it. 

This whole thing could be a cover-up on both sides. Jaffer was drunk, but stopped for DWB. The cops planted coke on him to bolster their weak traffic stop. It all comes out and no-one wants culpability. So the coke charge disappears, the DWI charge disappears, and Jaffer pleads to reckless driving and everyone hopes it goes away.

Ok.

remind, don't inflame Heywood. In this thread, you started it.

Heywood, don't further inflame remind. If you both could just ignore each other that would be lovely.

Fidel, do NOT use the word Canuckistan, do we have to go through this each time?

As you were.

Heywood ain't much a fan of Occam's razor, eh?

the truth will be seen not with this sentencing but with the sentence that michael bryant another politician who was also charged gets.

we either have a double standard for politicians or we do not.

That cuts both ways-- if we search for "the truth" in a single case then we have a double standard on that.

I think there ought to be double standards when you seek leadership positions in society-- some of that is obvious. You accept the publicity and attention-- in fact you need it. One purpose of sentencing is deterrence and therefore the public purpose in that aspect will be greatest on those with the most publicity and attention. To that end those who have chosen a public life should expect a harder go of it if they break the law than a private citizen. The trial process should be equally diligent but getting a break in sentencing should not happen.

The presumption of privacy should not be the same either as accountability requires public knowledge of more details than you would need to know with a public citizen. The specifics may not need to be released but the general rationale for the sentencing or in this case plea bargaining needs to be made public if we are going to have a presumption of fair process for the rest of us.

In this case we ought to know why Jaffir got what appears to be a break. If there was planted evidence or the possibility of that then we should know and not have to guess as Heywood is. The public should know what is wrong with the evidence, otherwise three things can happen: 1) we will presume that the main problem is that he is a celebrity of sorts with better access to getting a break than others and that he is getting off without justice being served because he has friends or 2) we will presume that the system is so rigged against ordinary citizens that most ordinary citizens get screwed but he was exempt and got what he should have or 3) the system is so racist that visible minorities would normally get screwed but his status somehow prevented that. There is a huge public interest in getting to the bottom of this.

Bottom line is the public has a right to know-- not all the specifics-- but the general reason why the crown felt it had such a bad hand. Certainly enough details to support that conclusion need to be public otherwise the system will fall even further in to disrepute than it is.

Generally speaking the courts are public as are judgments and legal cases-- we have little interest in them but the information is there. The huge exception comes with plea bargains (and also out of court mediation and settlements in civil law). This is a problem because these processes would not work without some measure of privacy. I am not sure what the answer is therefore but this case sure reeks of hidden public interest. It is almost undeniable that the explanation for what the Crown did has overwhelming public interest regardless of whether the explanation is what it appears to be: that he used unfair pressure and access to get a result an ordinary citizen would not have been able to bring to bear or if it is something perhaps more sinister as Heywood suggests. The likelihood of the former is much greater than the latter for several reasons.

For the sake of Heywood, I would say that racist cops would not likely come forward and admit that they planted evidence just because he was famous. I suspect that cops that are dirty for the most part are good enough at being dirty that without an admission the Crown would never know. As well the front line cops are removed enough that if they did something wrong, and there was evidence for that, it would more likely come out or be suppressed entirely than get resolved quietly in the Crown's office.

The fear/suspicion of inequality before the law is so central to the credibility or lack of credibility of our legal system that it is a huge problem if this ends here.

I agree with Sean that in this case it would be in the public interest to reveal the nature of the evidentiary screw up that resulted in the Crown withdrawing the charges. Otherwise most people will be rightly suspicious that undue influence was the real reason for Jaffer's sweet deal.

From the link in the OP:

The judge, Mr. Justice Doug Maund said he could read "between the lines" of the evidence presented to him.

"I'm sure you can recognize a break when you see one" the judge told Mr. Jaffer.

I can't help wondering if the judge will either be disciplined for that comment, or asked to explain what he meant by it. I suspect Conservatives are outraged at the judge's comment.

Vic Toews blames media for Rahim Jaffer 'smear job'

Words fail me.

Heywood's point about planted coke might have some relevance if Jaffer had at any time disputed the facts.  He hasn't.   Therefore, maybe it's interesting as a thought experiment, but it's not yet germain to this discussion.

I think it was the CBC article yesterday that had the Crown pointing to the police screwing up the evidence somehow.   I think that does demand an explanation.   It demands an explanation from the same Crown Attourney as to why police have not been investigated or charged with obstruction of justice or tampering with evidence or, at the least, public mischief.   

I mean, put up or shut up.   It reminds me of the Toronto Vice Cops fiasco, where the Crown claimed that the case dragged on and on because they couldn't get cooperation on the investigation.   Okay, fine. If that's the case, where are the charges against those who obstructed justice?

You know, I don't need to know how a magician levitates the woman to know it's an illusion.

The CONs are lying liars and hyprocrits all.

As for spurious made up allegations that drugs were planted puleeezeeeeeeeeeeeee!

If this is a citizen with a previously clean record (aside from his voting record which is filthy obviously), it isn't unprecendented for a judge to give someone a break. Drug possession is pretty minor, and 0.08 is just barely over (that's like two beers).

Besides which, as a Conservative MP, having the public know he got nailed for coke posession, this hurts him far more than it would the average person.

I'm fairly sure that very few people on this board would be complaining if this were an NDP MP.

I guess this case sets a precedent...Drugs are no longer recognized as criminal in possession....That's a policy I would be very pleased with but as I write this,some shmo out there somewhere in Canada is getting busted with a little weed in his/her pocket and will no doubt be slapped with a criminal record.

Civil rights lawyers should be using the Jaffer case as a precedent in defending people whose only crime is possessing a substance for personal use...If justice actually exists,the Reform Party's plan for zero tolerance will become null and void thanks to a precedence created by one of their own.

As for those conspiracist spin doctors crying police corruption (planting evidence)....It's clear you've been huffing big rocks from a crack pipe yourselves.

Bull shit on the public figure and getting hurt worse than the average person....that is another filthy lie promoted by those in  the public realm in order to excuse their bad behaviour and allow them to get away with it.

and the judge gave no break, the Crown did. The Judge noted that the Crown gave Jaffer the break not him.

... would say for good reason too,  as why should the judge take the blow back of this travesty.

The propaganda shedding about the "planting of drugs" is so blatent it make ones laugh even more at those  trying to put such a thing forward...that they would believe so arrogantly that people would be fooled by such makes them even more pathetic.

In fact, one would hope that the OPP officers read this propaganda and go after the purveyours for slander.

Harper to Guegis and Jaffer:

Travers: Tories feeling the sting of ' hyprocisy' label

excerpt:

About the last thing Conservatives now need is to be seen as the newest members of a privileged Ottawa elite preaching high standards for the rest of us while imposing on themselves more, well, flexible rules. That's known as hypocrisy, rarely a political asset and fast becoming a liability.

Yes, harper is probably pretty damn furious, as Guergis has been moved out from behind Harper, and she has been replaced by 3 other women, I guess they figured more women would cover the abscence amongst the viewing masses.

Heads up, CONs it didn't cover it up. Just made it more noticable.

And another miscue on their part thinking they could feed BS to people about Jaffer's getting off and have people believe it.

You know really they should get out of their small circle of bobbing heads and realize they are just in a circle jerk.

I think he was let off because they discovered that the coke was his wife's and she wasn't in the car when it was stopped.  Look at her behaviour that has come to light.  Pretty typical for coke heads to loose it.

Or he got the modern day equivalent of the Hatfield defence.  What my drugs, of course not, someone must have planted them? it worked for Richard all those years ago.

Civil rights lawyers should be using the Jaffer case as a precedent in defending people whose only crime is possessing a substance for personal use...If justice actually exists,the Reform Party's plan for zero tolerance will become null and void thanks to a precedence created by one of their own.

The problem being that the case wasn't dropped because they didn't think prosecuting for a little bit of coke wasn't worth it or a good idea, it was dropped because "there was no reasonable chance of conviction".  Leaving it open for the Police and Crown to zealously inflict the law upon us lesser beings, and shut us up in one of their Bastilles, or ruin us financially for being just a tad over the limit on the breathalizer.

There's no spinning this, the Jaffer case is corruption with a capital C.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As upset as any of us are here at this, I bet it pales in comparasson to the mixture of outrage and fear former Attourney General Micheal Bryant must be feeling right now.

I think most of us can agree that if Joe Public were the defendant,the prosecution and the judge would have made an éxample'of him and pat themselves on the back for being 'tough on crime'

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The reality is that charges get dropped against people all the time due to technicalities. We just don't usually hear about it because it happens to people who are not famous. My issue is not with Jaffer getting off - there may be valid legal reasons for that. I just can't stand the hypocrisy of the Tories being so quiet when one of their own is charged when they are usually only too happy to demand the death penalty for chewing gum in public.

Point well taken,Stockholm.

Is this perhaps one of the reasons why the Conservative crime bill was allowed to die?

Fact is, we have no idea why the crown dropped the charges.  People are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.  What the news tells us, is often wrong.

Fact is,your average Canadian would never walk away with a slap on the wrist for cocaine possession and a DUI.

Fact is,your average Canadian would be subjected to a criminal record.

Fact is,a drug offense would render your average Canadian unbondable therefore prohibited from a government job or pretty much any meaningful employment and would not be allowed to cross the border or travel almost anywhere in the world.

Fact is,The Reform Party is a reactionary party with a hard on for crime and punishment and are conspicuously silent on this affair.

Fact is,if it was an MP from any of the opposition parties they'd be reading the riot act and calling for the death penalty.

Fact is,The Reform Party are hypocritical...Not that that is a surprise but the carefully orchestrated public relations machine apparently has a wrench in the engine and their true face has been exposed in the last little while.

Hey,but don't despair...Fact is,Canadians have very short memories and will probably forget all about it within a week.And the fact is,the government knows that.

Alan:

Fact is that last year 50% of drug possession charges were dropped prior by prosecutors and only about 16% of those that did proceed ended up with any jail time whatsoever, and typically those involved repeat offenders. Dropping the possession charge is very standard.

The Conservative party may be hypocritical, but there is nothing illegal about that.

LISTEN PROGRESSIVES!

We either have a criminal system with an independent judiciary and discretion, or we fall into the conservatives trap.  Yell and scream now, but watch what you get.

1) Already, Harper is using this to justify random road side pullovers and searches without cause..
2) Do you really want minimum sentencing to apply to simple drug possession?
3) Do you want elected judges who will hike up sentencing to win re-election? 
4) Do you want a system where people are made an EXAMPLE of? 
5) Do you really want us to divert money from social programs to spend on longer trials and more prisons?
6) DO you really want to take away the prosecutions ability to offer clemency to first time offenders? 

what has that got to do with Jaffer?

and how does Harper's police state pull overs have anything to do with Jaffer's case?

and police state is actually how Harper's pull over actions are being portrayed in BC, which is surprising.

and the dropping of possession charges is not standard and there have been experts on TV stating that is was not so get a grip.

Actually, demagogue, for my part I'm on record for just wanting whatever the going rate for these offences be visited upon him as it is everyone else.    Crime and punishment political issues are a separate item.  

What progressives and regressives have to understand is that the law is an institution that exists for it's own sake, to promote the interests of it's own members first, last and allways.

It is not concerned with justice.  It is not concerned with public saftey.  

When working class or middle class people run afoul of the law, what the justice system sees is what carnies used to call a Mark, or what hustlers call a Whale.  They'll spin you through until they've taken as much as can be taken and then a bit more. 

We are so touchy, here, to used the word alleged, or parse our opinion with  "if he or she is found guilty".  We revere the concept of innocent until proven guilty.   Not so the justice system.   They could give a rat's ass about justice, guilt or innocence.  

It's all about keeping the power and money flowing in the right directions.   

Jaffer, Bryant, Snobellin, hang them all, and others besides.  If they aren't guilty of what they were charged with, they're surely guilty of something else.

Demagogue....I was arrested 10 years ago for an unpaid ticket and at the police station,I was found with 18 grams of pot.There were 6 policemen-- 2 wanted to charge me with possession with intent to traffick but the other 4 over ruled them and charged me with simple possession. When I paid off the outstanding ticket and was handed back my possessions,the policeman who had strip searched me told me to forget about the pot and I was never charged. 3 years later I smoked my last joint.But I still strongly support the total legalization of cannabis.

While I was in a holding cell that day,I actually had a pretty good conversation with one of the cops.He'd give me cigarettes and we were talking about the possession charge. He conceded that pot should be decriminalized and that it was a huge waste of paper work and resources and that-at the time-courts couldn't be bothered with it.And as much as we agreed about decriminalization,he told me that regardless of his personal politics,it is his job to eforce the law as it is written.Hence,once the Reform Party passes its crime bill,police and courts will have no choice but to charge people for simple possession.Also,and much more importantly,as it stands,it's up to the discretion of the police and the courts of who gets charged and who doesn't...So as the song goes,'They'll bust your fuckin'ass if they wanna'

All the points you brought up are really good.I think any free and critical thinking person who believes in personal freedom will not just agree with your points but be generally concerned with the Republican-esque extreme right agenda of the Reform Party.

Sadly,your average Canadian,as to the centre as they are,are indifferent to that agenda and couldn't give a rat's ass.And any scandal or injustice,evil intention or flagrant disregard to Canadian culture,tradition or justice is all but forgotten by the time the next hockey game starts.

You want to stop modern fascism(social conservatism)? You need the centrists and they,at the moment,see Stevie in a sweater and that's enough for them to believe he's a moderate. What you gonna do? 

Fact is that a friend of mine was banged up on almost exactly the same charges in Orangeville 5 years ago, a DUI along side a narcotics charge, on a first offense. Not only did she not get bail immediately on her own recognizance, and even though the narcotics charge was dropped, she still got time served and 3 years probation.

But let's not talk about preferential treatment under the law for privileged persons or Michael Bryant.