David Warren: Connexions (In Canada, one bad thing leads to another)

The Ottawa Citizen ^ | April 13, 2005 | David Warren

[quidnunc]

Curiously enough, the Liberals have woven the legal rope from which they may soon be hanging. As I've learned from several commentators and lawyer friends, their anti-gang legislation, delivered in a pre-election publicity scramble eight years ago, and now written into the Criminal Code as section 467, may prove the means by which even the slipperiest and most exalted characters could be brought within sight of a jail.

It has always been hard to make a criminal fraud charge stick. It requires the assembly of a chain of evidence such as can seldom reach the top of an organization. It is much easier to get the little people, who actually touched the money. But section 467 provides the means to go for the top from the bottom. Once we have any three characters convicted as parts of a criminal conspiracy, lower down, we have a bona fide criminal organization, the mere taint of association with which then begins to pull down the rest. The Crown need only prove that the people at the top knew what the people at the bottom were doing.

So far so good. But police and prosecutors have been loathe to touch the section, from the fear that it is not Charter-proof; and a Charter challenge could dissolve years of their painstaking work. So should it come to the crunch, and the Brault allegations stand up in court, the Attorney-General of Canada, a certain Irwin Cottler — supposing him still to be in office — would find himself in a lose-lose quandary. If he wished to proceed against any of his old political cronies, who by this time might stand convicted in the public eye, the case could fall apart on technicalities. If he wished not to proceed, he would appear to be protecting them.

-snip-

[quidnunc]

FYI

[llama hunter]

The editorial cartoon in my local paper today was priceless
and if I can find it on the net, I'll post link

A Liberal party member with his brief case and bowler hat has just walked by a Hells Angel biker and a Mafioso type
and sniffs "Amateurs"

[rasblue]

I still think Toronto will vote Liberal.