Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin reveals behind-the-scenes details of battle with Conservatives Need I say BULLSHIT?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mclachlin-supreme-court-harper-battle-1.4433283

'Shocked': Retiring chief justice was blindsided by Stephen Harper's public attack

Beverley McLachlin reveals behind-the-scenes details of battle with Conservatives

By Kathleen Harris, Rosemary Barton, CBC News Posted: Dec 14, 2017 4:47 PM ET


 2365 Comments
Commenting is now closed for this story.

 

Ralph Smyth

Just remember, conservatives are always right, and everyone else is always wrong, that's why they attack most anyone who stand up to them, just like Harper did chief justice Mclachlin. Just like 45 does.

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David Raymond Amos

@Ralph Smyth Methinks you really should read my comments sometime soon.N'esy Pas?

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David Raymond Amos

@Ralph Smyth Oh my trust you would it rather unbelievable the lengths the CBC would go to block comments of mine. The one they just blocked to you took the cake.

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David Raymond Amos

@David Raymond Amos So CBC why do you still block my legitimate comments particularly in light of the conversation I had with your General Counsel and the email I sent her yesterday?

 
Erica A. Blair

Damn!.... Say it Beverly.

So many people were oblivious to Harper's attacks on our basic rights, our Charter, our judiciary, our parliament and our cherished Canadian institutions.

History will not remember him fondly.

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David Raymond Amos

@Erica A. Blair Methinks to be fair because of my comments published within Crown Corp's news item I should notify Justice Marc Nadon that he and I now have a conflict of interest N'esy Pas?

David Raymond Amos

@Erica A. Blair Hmm seems that I must notify Justice Marc Nadon now

 
MIke Webster
The Supreme Court is a political institution. Its members are appointed by the PMO using criteria that are not clear but probably based on whether or not lower court judges have issued decisions that the government of the day likes - and whether a particular appointment will have benefits for the government.

The Supreme Court decides whether to hear cases or not based in part on its own "political views" and agenda. The Supreme Court demands 25 copies of all the voluminous documents in the lower court files, in the event that it decides to hear a case. The cost and work to assemble those 25 copies - and the financially ruinous court costs if you lose - make it impossible even for litigants acting as their own lawyers to take a case to the Supreme Court. I know - I tried once.

If criticism will tarnish the Supreme Court of Canada, then the criticism is well deserved. There is much to criticize about the Supreme Court. Public trust must be earned, Beverley McLachlin, not obtained because people are afraid to speak up.

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David Raymond Amos

@MIke Webster You said

"The cost and work to assemble those 25 copies - and the financially ruinous court costs if you lose - make it impossible even for litigants acting as their own lawyers to take a case to the Supreme Court. I know - I tried once"

I say

Its my turn to put a matter before the court However I cannot lose much because the corrupt justice system already bankrupted me in 2005

"If criticism will tarnish the Supreme Court of Canada, then the criticism is well deserved. There is much to criticize about the Supreme Court. Public trust must be earned, Beverley McLachlin, not obtained because people are afraid to speak up"

I say I have never been afraid to speak up. Why else would I run for public office five times while the RCMP harassed me and even falsely arrested and illegally imprisoned me for the benefit of my political opponents?

Methinks we should not forget that the crybaby Justice now exiting stage left today considers herself the champion of the pro se litigants seeking access to N'esy Pas?

Small wonder Beverley McLachlin quit not long after I mentioned her to a panel of 3 Harper appointed judges on May 24th, 2017 in the Federal Court of Appeal eh?.

BTW I remember you if you are the guy who wished to be the Commissioner of the RCMP before Harper appointed Paulson.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/rcmp-officers-sue-force-over-use-of-sensitive-personal-data-1.3265878

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David Raymond Amos

@MIke Webster Why is it that I was not surprised that CBC disabled my reply to you so fast that it no doubt it made Harper's head spin?

  
Adrienne Jade

Richard Sharp - no one backs KPMG.

David Raymond Amos

@Adrienne Jade Justin Trudeau and his minions certainly do

 
Matt Dunnigan

Judges aren't partisan and they're infallible, right?

I wonder if she knows Judge Moore...?

David Raymond Amos 

@Matt Dunnigan "Asked by Barton to respond to allegations from some Conservatives that the Supreme Court had become "activist" in terms of social policy, McLachlin said the court is only doing its duty required by the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms."

Yea Right

This Lady can cry me a river. McLachlin and her minions in the Canadian Judicial Council ignored my concerns about our justice system since August of 2005 over six months before Harper won his first mandate.

On May 24th of this year I had quite a hoedown with a panel of 3 judges in the Federal Court of Appeal (all appointed by Harper) with members of the RCMP attending to watch the circus unfold its tent. Within a week or so of my mentioning McLachlin and the Newfie judge I was complaining of in 2005 they both announced their early retirement. Need I say I have been waiting patiently for tomorrow???

 
John Douglas

May 01, 2014
CBC

"The Prime Minister's Office late Thursday suggested that the chief justice of the Supreme Court tried inappropriately to intervene in the process to appoint Justice Marc Nadon, even though her advice came before Nadon's appointment was announced and ultimately would have saved the government an embarrassing defeat."

she attempted to save the government embarrassment BEFORE any mention of Nadon was ever mentioned by Harper

Harper was caught again not telling the truth

David Raymond Amos
@John Douglas So you say but methinks former Justice Minister Mackay said something else in this very article N'esy Pas?

"MacKay called the episode "unfortunate" and said, in hindsight, things that happened and that were said could have been avoided.

He recalls the phone call he took from McLachlin on July 31, 2013, when he was at the Whitehorse airport, but declined to divulge details of the "private conversation."

He did say however that, had the roles been reversed, he would have had to resign for trying to influence a decision of the court.

"That's what was deemed inappropriate," he told CBC News.

MacKay said the appointment of a Supreme Court justice is the sole power of the prime minister, and recalled that Harper received a legal opinion supporting the validity from former justice Ian Binnie."

George Lewis

@John Douglas

To maintain the public trust, not only does a public official who holds a high position that requires them to act in a politically neutral way (like a referee) have to avoid acting in a partisan way, they also have to make sure their actions cannot even be seen/interpreted as acting in a partisan way.

Erring on the side of caution is the right approach in a such a situation.

Whether she was right or wrong, the appearances are bad & undermine the credibility & objectivity of her office.

Reminiscent of the infamous "tarmac" meeting between former President Bill Clinton and then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch during an investigation involving Hillary.

Even if Bill is telling the truth about what happened, the optics are bad.
& weaken the credibility of the government.

These types of bad optics are what public officials & politicians are required to prevent/avoid.

Another example would be the Canadian judge who was going to chair a mock trial for David Suzuki. It was a political stunt.

& the only thing that prevented her from doing so was that Ezra Levant pointed out how it was wrong for a presumably neutral/non-partisan judge to participate in such a political/partisan event.

Shev withdrew just a few days before the event.

Had she gone ahead she very well could have been removed from her position.

Who wants "referees" to start taking sides? We wouldn't want that in our sports. We certainly don't want that in our democracy.

We don't want to go down this slippery slope.

David Raymond Amos

@George Lewis "To maintain the public trust, not only does a public official who holds a high position that requires them to act in a politically neutral way (like a referee) have to avoid acting in a partisan way, they also have to make sure their actions cannot even be seen/interpreted as acting in a partisan way.

Erring on the side of caution is the right approach in a such a situation.

Whether she was right or wrong, the appearances are bad & undermine the credibility & objectivity of her office."

I agree. In fact just yesterday I had many conversations with bureaucratic lawyers and others in private practice along with several people working for public officials about the actions of our justice system and the words of this Chief Justice in particular before this article was published. Trust that they will never dare to deny it. Nor will Ezra Levant

David Raymond Amos

@John Douglas
Methinks the retiring Chief Justice McLachlin will be "Shocked" when she finally admits that she read the letter and and the documents I sent her byway of Registered US Mail in August of 2005 long before Harper was ever our Prime Minister N'esy Pas?

 
Nigel Marshall

It's funny how the law-and-order types love law and order until their laws are deemed unlawful and out of order.

David Raymond Amos

@Nigel Marshall "It's funny how the law-and-order types love law and order until their laws are deemed unlawful and out of order."

Its a sad but true statement but far too many laws are not being upheld everyday within our courts that are much out of order.

J. Allen Murray

@Johny Ng

the SCoC , has a majority of conservative appointed judges sitting.. how is it you find them all to be liberals?

why do you want to tell con-tales in public when those fibs can be shown as such , by a 2 year old?

@Bob Evans ( funny is how Justin Trudeau kow tows to oh so rule of law Communist China).. Funny how just yesterday Cons on here were blasting Trudeau for not Kow towing to china and coming back with a Trade deal.

David Raymond Amos

@J. Allen Murray Methinks Haper's buddies Justices Suzanne Côté and Russell Brown went from mere lawyers to the Supreme Court in record time N'esy Pas?

 
Mary Burns

There is a reason for separation of powers. This balance is vital for the functioning of a democracy.

David Raymond Amos

@Mary Burns "There is a reason for separation of powers. This balance is vital for the functioning of a democracy."

True but how can that be so when the judges are sourced from a pool of politically vetted lawyers?

  

John Douglas

Harper was caught again

btw...hopefully the RCMP are still looking into why the Harper Gov't tried to contact Deloitte while they were conducting an audit and investigation into Duffy

 

David Raymond Amos

@John Douglas "hopefully the RCMP are still looking into why the Harper Gov't tried to contact Deloitte while they were conducting an audit and investigation into Duffy"

Methinks that file was long closed if in fact it ever existed in the first place. N'esy Pas?

David Raymond Amos 

 @C Martyn Tyntof "Harper made a law forcing the RCMP to get government approval before investigating them. So, they dropped the investigation."

Thats a new one on me. However I do know for a fact that two members of the RCMP attended the hearing I had before the Federal Court of Appeal on May 24th, 2017 after I spoke personally to their General Counsel mere days before. Methinks my file is far from closed because I have yet to put that matter before the Supreme Court

It appears that the Harper appointed judges in Federal Court waited until Chief Justice McLachlin exited stage left just in case she was willing to hear the matter, N'esy Pas?

  

Darren Gregory

Integrity and Grit.

Tough Shoes To Fill.

 

David Raymond Amos

@Darren Gregory Methinks thou doth jest too much N'esy Pas? If she had true grit she would held on for two more years and heard my matter.

 

Martin Oram

Con's refuse to admit that they were wrong even when they get caught.

David Raymond Amos

@Martin Oram "Con's refuse to admit that they were wrong even when they get caught."

Methinks you should pull the docket of Federal Court File No T-1557-15 and ask the liberasl some tough questions N'esy Pas?

 

Cyril Hurd

Who would you believe in this situation, an eminent jurist or a hack politician? The answer should be self-evident.

David Raymond Amos

@Cyril Hurd "Who would you believe in this situation, an eminent jurist or a hack politician? The answer should be self-evident."

I give up who?

 

John Reekie

People tend to have short memories. Good to be reminded.

David Raymond Amos

@John Reekie Methinks a certain Justice has the shortest memory of all considering the emails and phones call I made to her lawyers a mere 2 weeks ago N'esy Pas?

mo bennett

the reformabals and the liberacons are both the same. only their spelling is different!

Rara Roland

@mo bennett politics! Blind partisanship or not: no matter who or what you might place trust in, it’s always a crapshoot.

David Raymond Amos

@Rara Roland A rigged crapshoot

'Shocked': Retiring chief justice was blindsided by Stephen Harper's public attack

Beverley McLachlin reveals behind-the-scenes details of battle with Conservatives

By Kathleen Harris, Rosemary Barton, CBC News Posted: Dec 14, 2017 4:47 PM ET

Beverley McLachlin is retiring from the Supreme Court of Canada after 28 years on the bench, including 17 years as chief justice. (Evan Mitsui/CBC) 

Retiring Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin says public trust in a vital democratic institution was at stake in an extraordinary public battle between her and former prime minister Stephen Harper.

In her first public comments on the dispute, McLachlin told CBC News that Harper's claim that she had acted inappropriately by trying to contact his office could have undermined the administration of justice in Canada.

"I was worried that any such allegation could tarnish the administration of justice, could tarnish the office of chief justice, could tarnish the court," she said in a wide-ranging interview with The National's co-host Rosemary Barton. "That was my main concern.… But it turned out, I think, quite well."

McLachlin, who retires Friday after 28 years on the Supreme Court, including 17 as chief justice, said she was "shocked" by Harper's public accusation that she tried to meddle in the Conservative nomination process to pick a Quebec judge to the high court.

She said she first learned of the political broadside from the front page of her morning newspaper.

McLachlin said she was in Moncton, N.B., for a speaking engagement at the time in May 2014 and was up early to catch a morning flight back to Ottawa, when she read Harper's accusations in a story on the front page of the Globe and Mail. She says she was "astounded," and took some time to consider how to respond.

'Public is entitled to the facts'

"I knew I hadn't done anything wrong, and I spent a rather miserable two hours, or 2½ hours, on the flight figuring out how this could have happened and what was going on," McLachlin told CBC News.
"When I got back to the office, I thought about it and I said, well, you know, I'm not going to get into into a fight. Judges can't get into fights with politicians. We have to just be quiet if we are accused normally. But I do believe the public is entitled to the facts."

In the end, McLachlin issued her own news release with a timeline of events and a series of numbered facts.

Declining to speculate on the former prime minister's possible "motivations," McLachlin said she believes, in the end, that Canadians understood how the events unfolded.

It was May 1, 2014, when Harper's office issued a news release suggesting McLachlin had tried to engage in an inappropriate conversation about a case.

Former prime minister Stephen Harper, left, and outgoing Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin were embroiled in a public dispute in 2014. (Canadian Press)

"Neither the Prime Minister nor the Minister of Justice would ever call a sitting judge on a matter that is or may be before their court," it read. "The Chief Justice initiated the call to the Minister of Justice.

After the Minister received her call he advised the Prime Minister that given the subject she wished to raise, taking a phone call from the Chief Justice would be inadvisable and inappropriate."

McLachlin said she had never intended to call the prime minister, since she had already flagged her concerns in a call to Peter MacKay, who was justice minister at that time.

Timeline of events

She said the call was to raise a general red flag about eligibility requirements for Quebec nominees under the Supreme Court Act, not to question the validity of one specific person, and that the call was made before the nomination of Marc Nadon.

Unnamed Conservatives had been quoted suggesting that McLachlin had lobbied against the appointment of Nadon, who was a member of the federal court of appeal.

"The suggestion they were trying to make was that I had tried to influence against the appointment of a certain justice. At the time, the only time I made a call, that justice's name wasn't even thought of," she said. "It was months later that it first was raised, so it was absolutely impossible, what they were suggesting, and so all I did was set out the timeline and the timeline was sufficient, I think, to make the point."

In the end, Nadon's appointment as a Quebec representative on the high court was ruled constitutionally invalid, because he had been a federal court judge in Ottawa for 20 years, was not a sitting Quebec superior or appeals court judge, and was not a current member of the Quebec bar.
MacKay called the episode "unfortunate" and said, in hindsight, things that happened and that were said could have been avoided.

He recalls the phone call he took from McLachlin on July 31, 2013, when he was at the Whitehorse airport, but declined to divulge details of the "private conversation."

He did say however that, had the roles been reversed, he would have had to resign for trying to influence a decision of the court.

"That's what was deemed inappropriate," he told CBC News.

MacKay said the appointment of a Supreme Court justice is the sole power of the prime minister, and recalled that Harper received a legal opinion supporting the validity from former justice Ian Binnie.

MacKay, who is now a lawyer in private practice, maintains that Nadon was qualified to serve on the high court despite the ruling.

Marc Nadon was nominated as a Quebec representative to the Supreme Court, but his appointment was ultimately declared invalid because of rules under the Supreme Court Act. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

The public spat marked the height of what had become a period of strained relations between the top court and the Harper Conservatives.

Asked by Barton to respond to allegations from some Conservatives that the Supreme Court had become "activist" in terms of social policy, McLachlin said the court is only doing its duty required by the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Charter changed judiciary

Tensions between politicians and the judiciary were heightened in the 1980s and 1990s, when the court began regularly ruling on cases that determined whether laws upheld or violated constitutional rights.
McLachlin said the Constitution changed the role of the judiciary, moving from parliamentary supremacy to a constitutional system where judges are asked to determine whether laws conform with the Charter.

"It was a sea change and for a lot of people, they didn't agree with that change," she said. "But the fact is, it became the law of the land. It became the Constitution and as a judiciary, the judiciary had no choice but to uphold that law."

The high court struck down a number of laws brought in or protected by the Conservatives, including mandatory minimum sentences, medical marijuana and prostitution laws.

But McLachlin declined to comment on whether that reflects on the quality of the legislation brought in under Harper's Conservatives and whether there was "over-reach."

"Well, you know we take what we get. If you send us a certain law, we have to judge it objectively and in accordance with the principles that have been laid down," she said. "And so that's all we do. But we definitely don't get partisan or anything like that and we simply have to call it as we see it."

Beverley McLachlin is retiring from the Supreme Court of Canada after 28 years on the bench, including 17 years as chief justice. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)