"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Monday 11 September 2017

FIDDLE-DE -DEE ...FIDDLE-DE-DUMB

The trial of two former staff  in former Premier Dalton Mc Guinty's office started  this morning. 
The charge is destroying documents related to the cancellation of two gas generating plants which were already under construction. The two could go to jail if found guilty.

After the investigation leading to charges,the RCMP officer noted no evidence was discovered 
Involving Premier McGuinty. 

The charge was about destroying all the evidence. 

The decision to cancel the construction was made on the eve of an election.

A majority of seats for Liberals was the prize. 

The new, cleaner plants being built replaced coal-fired plants They were ordered closed on the eve of  the previous election, because of local pressure. Opposition  to the newer, cleaner plants was still an issue. 

Authority for supply of electricity legally resides with Hydro Ontario. Premier McGuinty made the decision to cancel the contract on the eve of the last election. The same Premier has since written
a book about leadership. 

Cost of cancellation of plants already under construction eventually acknowledged were in excess 
of a billion dollars with nothing to show but rusting girders and padlocked gates within chain link fencing. 

Two members of Premier Wynne's staff are currently facing charges of bribery to persuade a sitting member of the legislature to step aside to allow a federal M.P. to receive  the nomination. MP Thibideau  won the Sudbury seat . He had his price. Remuneration had to be the same and jobs for two riding 
Assistants(2) provided. The member has been named to the Cabinet. 

The spurned Sudbury member is disabled. He cannot write. Conversations must be recorded.  recorded. 

Physically disabled people who refuse to surrender to disability tend to be pretty bloody-minded
individuals.  Outcome of the conversations  about giving up his seat should have been anticipated. 

The story continues.....with  a peculiar tilt to it. 

News of inquiries and investigations  to the south of us has somewhat similar parallels with variously different means of arriving at the truth. A special prosecutor has been appointed. A full scale investigation is underway. 

A Senate committee is conducting an inquiry. A Committee of Congress busies itself also with the same inquiry. A grand jury is involved. 

Bits and pieces of Information leak steadily throughout from all sources 

The process could take months but the truth will out. 

A court trial  in Ontario is a different process.  

Even though trial by jury is the judicial right of the complainant . Even if the jury has heard only the evidence permitted by the judge. Even if the trial lasts  five weeks. 

The judge can dismiss the jury in an afterthought ,for trumped -up reason and take the decision unto himself .

 He can take an additional thirteen months, receivenew information from defendants throughout, none of it in open court, and  finally,  write a thirty-nine page  of equally trumped-up logic to justify the decision .

Ontario trials do not necessarily produce facts. Only arguments. 

On argument, a judge may not permit critical evidence.

Competence of trial lawyers  need not factor. 

If a judge decides it would be inappropriate for government authority to be at fault, he is at liberty  to make that decision. 

The Ontario trials currently underway involving government matters should be interesting to watch . 

But that's not likely to happen. 

The media also makes a decision in that regard. 


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nobody in this lying, cheating, stealing government (somehow in politics that's all legal) will be going to jail. Fines will not be given, nobody will lose their jobs, and probably win the next election! The money that being spent at these hearing and trails is probably enough to produce a top Hollywood movie wth A lister actors.