Of Witnesses and Weakness

One week ago, the trial of the suspected murderers of Jordan Manners -- a grade 9 student shot to death in the halls of C.W. Jeffery's Collegiate in Toronto -- concluded with a verdict of not-guilty. The trial really hung on the testimony of two witnesses, one of whom retracted testimony and another that changed their testimony significantly.

In this case, the witnesses were too scared to testify.

This week, the SIU concluded it's investigation into the beating of Dorian Barton, a protestor at last year's G20 summit. The SIU determined there was not enough evidence to lay charges against the police officer accused of the beating even though a photographer witnessed the beating, identified the officer and provided a photo of the officer.

The police no doubt knew which officers were assigned what areas. Process of elimination alone would have been enough to figure out this bully with a badge. Even with all of this, none of the officers in the vicinity of the beating would identify the accused. Not even the roommate of this officer during the summit.

In this case, the police are too scared to testify.

Two crimes. Same problem. Same results: justice denied.

How can we as a society expect citizen witnesses to face their fear, stand up and testify against criminals if the police themselves won't? How can the police expect cooperation in the prosecution of criminals if they themselves will not cooperate? Do they really expect that citizens will bend over backwards -- such as freely providing DNA samples -- when the police give them every reason not to be trusted?

This is a sad, sad week for Canadian justice. I am a big supporter of our police officers having a cousin who is a member of the Ontario Provincial Police. But I expect more of them than this, certainly more than citizens who live in an area with one of the highest crime rates in the entire country. It is a tragic statement on our society when even the police are actively involved in the denial of justice.

Cowards.

On the Decorum of the House of Commons

Seeing as we are only one week and one day away from the start of the next session of Parliament, I thought I would take the time to discuss the importance of decorum in the House of Commons.

Many people are turned off by MP's turning sessions of Parliament into mudslinging contests. Of course, this is nothing new. However, we have heard time and again how it is the Conservatives who have supposedly dragged down decorum in the House of Commons.

Out of interest, I thought I would go to the Government of Canada's Hansard to see exactly how quickly the decorum of the House of Commons started to go downhill and who got the ball rolling. The first day of the session was Monday, April 3rd 2006 which basically boiled down to everybody congratulating each other and the choosing of the Speaker of the House.

The second day -- Tuesday, April 4th -- was the first day getting down to business. The opening of Parliament and Oaths of Office were fairly standard. Then came the Speech from the Throne which outlined the government's agenda and the address in reply. All very straightforward.

But the question remains... at what point did decorum break down? Was it halfway through the question period? Three quarters of the way?

Try the very first question by a member of the Opposition!

And of course it was courtesy of everybody's favourite, the member of Mississauga South, Mr. Paul Szabo wherein he brings up the proposed cut to the GST calling it "unholy".

I'm wondering if there are any Liberals out there who might be able to explain the word "unholy" as being procedural or technical.

So, the next time anybody says that it is the Conservative Party of Canada that lowered the decorum of the House of Commons when it took office, kindly point out that the party who took the first shot was the Liberal Party and the man who pulled the trigger was Paul Szabo on the very first question.

Oh, how we'll miss him.

David Mamet: A Hollywood Icon Gone Conservative

I've been a fan of David Mamet for quite some time. His stage and screenplays are nothing short of iconic and have been celebrated time and time again. If you're unfamiliar with his work, he wrote the plays The Lakeboat, American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross as well as films such as The Untouchables, Wag the Dog, The Edge and Ronin amongst countless others. Needless to say, the man is incredibly talented, skilled and intelligent.

Having grown up, studied with and been surrounded by the arts community, he spent much of his life as a left-wing liberal criticizing capitalist America. However, this view never really shone through in his works which focused more on the tragic nature of human interactions. Over the past decade he slowly came to realize that what he and his liberal friends said and what they lived were quite often two different things.

While he criticized capitalism and American society, he cherished and held tight to both aspects of his home. He even noticed this tendency amongst the far left-wing people he had long admired. It was this contradictory nature that led him to dub himself a "Brain Dead Liberal". In 2008, he even wrote an op-ed for The Village Voice titled David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer A 'Brain-Dead Liberal'. It is certainly worth a read.

In June, Mamet is set to release a new book titled The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture. And in the latest edition of the Weekly Standard there is a very interesting article called Converting Mamet that outlines Mamet's transformation, his skewering of the education system as a thought destroying clone machine and his views on the hypocrisy of liberals who cry foul at a system that they cling to harder than anyone.

The book is supposedly an exploration of Mamet's turning point from the brain dead liberal to a conservative who understands the strengths and opportunity that capitalist Western civilization offers anyone fortunate enough to live in such a system. It's always nice to witness when such an influential writer and a Hollywood icon finally sees through the nonsensical demonization of conservative politics and finds a place for himself.

From the makers of Scam Wow!

Definitely the solution to global warming / climate change / climate disruption / insert-next-ill-conceived-and-deceptive-terminology-here.

* Viewer Discretion is Advised *

Dispelling the Myth of the 60% Against Harper

We've heard it before. It's nothing new. Supporters of the NDP and the also-ran parties are once again claiming that, while the Conservatives achieved a majority, a clear majority of 60 percent of Canadians voted against the Conservatives.

Mindless, uneducated nonsense.

The only way to claim that the majority were voting against the Conservatives is if there was a virtual guarantee that either the Conservatives, a) could not have polled higher than they did on election day, or b) could in no way have hit 50 percent of the vote.

Running up to the election, polls had the Conservatives as high as 43 percent or as low as 36 percent with the Conservatives most of the time hovering in the 39 percent region.

However, Compass appears to be one of the few companies that asked the all-important question that the "Anything But Conservative" equation absolutely depends upon: voter's second intentions.

And that is a telling story indeed.

According to the real world numbers, the Conservatives were the second choice for 11 percent of the population. So, the idea that the majority of voters were voting against the Harper Conservatives has no basis in reality.

In fact, if the Conservatives kept their steady base of 39 percent and everybody who would have voted for the Conservatives with their second choice in fact did vote for their second choice, the Conservatives would have unquestionably cracked the majority marker.

But I'm not arguing against reality the way that the whining, sore-losers are. The reality is that 39 percent of the population voted for the Conservatives. And knowing that the Conservatives were the second choice of enough voters to put them into absolute majority territory, suggesting that 60 percent of Canadians voted against the Conservatives only holds true if you also say that:

1. 69% of voters voted against the NDP
2. 81% of voters voted against the Liberals
3. 94% of voters voted against the Bloc
4. 96% of voters voted against the Green Party

Now, can we put this sore-loser nonsense to bed once and for all?

** UPDATE **

And one other point I wanted to mention. The idea of an "Anything But Conservative" majority has one other major detractor. We already know how much support Canadians had in the past with an "Anything But Conservative" situation. And only 4 out of 10 Canadians supported it.

Anything? Sorry, but it looks like that 60 percent number is actually the opposite: 60 percent of Canadians are against "ANYTHING But Conservative".

** SECOND UPDATE **

In the comments, Oxygentax linked his list of significant decisions/programs made by parties who obtained a majority of the house without achieving a majority of the votes. Considering the snail's pace of significant government decisions/programs one sees in minority governments (such as the past 5 years) I imagine that you could easily count a good two-thirds of that list as gone. (h/t to Oxygentax)

And on a related note, imagine how exaggerated that kind of problem would be in a multi-party proportional representation system. Actually, you don't even have to imagine...