Independent journalist/photographer. Author of 5 books. Staffer in the original National Post newsroom. Past vice-president of the Canadian Civil Liberties Assn
Canada’s Chief Justice Richard Wagner has installed a lifelike bronze bust of himself in our highest court.
It should be called ‘Narcissus Canadiannus”
- There is no precedent for something this vulgar in the history of the Court. It should be taken down. Richard fancies himself.
- Richard also fancies his own opinion on things. He violated legal due process and the Courts reputation by publicly accusing the Convoy - who protested backwards federal Covid policies that were soon dropped of ‘anarchy’ and ‘hostage taking’.
Now that the Convoys freedom of speech, assembly and due process rights have been asserted by lower courts the Supreme Court has to consider the appeal of the federal govt and weigh the rights of citizens against the decision of the federal government to impose the Emergencies Act to suspend those rights.
Wagners lack of judicial discretion in the first instance makes his recusal from such an important rights-defining case important because it signals not just fairness in the content of the decision but in the way the decision gets reached by the highest Court.
He has already shown his bias. Any decision against the convoy poisons the integrity of the Court if he remains present.
But Richard - the man with the bust of himself in our Court - doesn’t imagine himself under the law he imposes on others. He hasn’t completed any graduate work in law or published any academic work in law, philosophy or jurisprudence so it’s hard to know how he justifies himself in these matters.
Ironically, he has a reputation for warning others - including those far more qualified in formal jurisprudence than he is - not to critique Canadian judges like himself or their (increasingly bizarre and politicized) decisions.
But, from the Magna Carta onwards, Richard should know that in law as in politics dissent is democracy.
The dissent of the Convoy and the growing critique of Richards own bizarre behaviour and inability to articulate a judicial philosophy is exactly what’s needed to save Canada - and the Court’s reputation as a place where justice - not the ego of the Justices - is at stake.
Richard should recuse himself. And remove that vulgar bust from the Supreme Court.
#SCC #RuleOfLaw
Yes! Human beings can be strange - keen to invent & invest in conflict. I recently heard a pastor talk about a church whose congregation had split asunder 14 years prior to his arrival. Lifelong relationships irretrievably damaged. Over what type of bricks should be used to reface the building.
You’re correct, Dave. Grok can only search online material. It has no ability to evaluate the strength & breadth of what’s happening at the grassroots, out in the real world. I spent time in Alberta in early February. Visiting numerous petition signing locations, talking to folks directly, in the small towns as well as in big city town halls. There’s something unusual going on.
https://t.co/C9oTQnfSdg
This person explains that the Irish govt has agreed to a meeting with protesters, on day 4. The meeting will also include reps of third parties the protesters don’t respect, but at least there’s the potential for useful dialogue.
Quick reminder: Canada’s truckers protested for 3 wks in in sub-zero weather in early 2022. The federal govt refused to meet with them. At all. No dialogue happened.
Christopher Duffy, one of the organisers of the Fuel Protests, provides an update on the current state of events as of Friday morning.
Everything hinges on a meeting scheduled for this afternoon....
🇮🇪
The streets tonight. Tractors rolling, flags flying, our people standing tall. This is the fire of Ireland waking up and we’re not going anywhere.
The fight for our homeland has begun.
Hold the line. Stay strong. 💪🏻🫡
The Hills Are Alive 🇮🇪
Thousands of Vehicles on tonight's Donegal Fuel Protest Drive-Slow Convoy travelling here from Manor Motors to The Dry Arch Roundabout in Letterkenny.
Well Done To Everyone That Showed Up To Support The Hard Working Irish People.
@jaycurrie Yes. I realized this the first time I experienced a tractor parade (all decked out in Christmas lights, just after dusk).
There’s tons of no-fooling, huge machinery out there. In the hands of individuals.
@JoshDehaas Thank you, Josh, for this court reporting re Nova Scotia's province-wide ban on walking in the forest last summer (even forest on your own property). Fines of $29k, possible 6 months in jail.
When Paul R Ehrlich was born, global average life expectancy was less than 40 years. When he died a few days ago at 93, it was 73.2 years and rising. When he was born, 31% of children died before they were five. Today, that figure is 3.7% and falling. Yet he spent most of his time on this planet telling us that this is a bad thing, and that things are getting worse. All of his prophecies failed. Yet the bad science and bad arithmetic underpinning his claims continued to be used by the weirdo UN environmental agencies, global environmental movement, and the Guardian -- the most spectacularly debunked pseudoscience in history continued to arm the arguments against making life better, and to deny people the opportunity of taking part in markets and industries, and enjoying health and wealth. The human consequences of it are incalculable. Yet such movements founded on his grim work believe that they are the nice guys who want to make the world a better place.
Europe's official grid authority has released its report on the nationwide blackout that hit Spain last year. And while the report treads carefully politically, its data make the cause clear.
Wind and solar triggered the collapse.
Within the first 80 seconds, Spain lost 2.5 GW of generation, around 10% of its national supply, with every MW of that early loss coming from renewables.
Gas and hydro remained stable until the cascade was already underway.
The report calls it an unprecedented speed of blackout. This was a textbook inverter chain failure, with renewables dropping so fast that the grid's stabilizers never had time to react.
By midday, Spain's grid had virtually no inertia, nothing spinning fast enough to hold frequency steady.
But to admit that outright would mean questioning Europe's green transition itself, something the report appears unable to do. So the event is officially described as "a rare local disturbance," rather than what it actually was...
A systemic failure of weather-dependent power.
Is there a war on truckers?
The people who move 72% of freight in America. The ones that have to hunt for a safe place to park. The one's who all too often have no place to go to the bathroom when making a delivery.
In a regulatory system that hasn't applied the rules evenly. Competing for work against untrained labor that's flooded the market, compliments of your tax dollars.
Where the customer sets the price. The first two hours are free. And nobody cares.
Very eager to read @GordMagill's End of the Road from @C_and_C_Books.
This paragraph by C.S. Lewis, written in 1948, still hits hard:
“If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.”
@jaycurrie You’re right. The list is a long one & keeps growing. Topics the CBC can’t be trusted to cover fairly. What a mess. And what a waste :-(
Friend and fellow author Donna Laframboise, who wrote the wonderful “Thank You, Truckers!”, a lengthy tome about so many regular working class people who helped the Freedom Convoy along, weighs in with a review of my own book.
Thanks Donna!