Law Times

Page 6 NOVeMBeR 30, 2015 • LaW TIMeS www.lawtimesnews.com COMMENT Pragmatism, polling, and politics he Liberal government's decision to break one of its key elec- tion promises barely a month into governing shows that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is as much a pragmatist as he is a poll watcher — much like former prime minister Jean Chrétien. Trudeau likely lost few votes when he decided to forgo bring- ing in 25,000 refugees by the end of the year, as originally prom- ised. It was an unrealistic time frame for such a massive opera- tion. In fact, he probably won over some Canadians, since 51 per cent disapproved of his Syrian refugee plan, according to a Nov. 18 Forum poll. Trudeau likely also won support with his plan to accept only chil- dren, women, and families, at the expense of single males, a bone tossed, no doubt, to the 58 per cent of Canadians who believe there is a security risk to settling Syrian refugees. The Paris bombings cer- tainly didn't help the Liberals' cause any. While backing down will no doubt ruff le the feathers of refugee advocates, it was a prudent move and one that should buy his gov- ernment time to, as he says, "get it right." The downside of getting it wrong was too great a risk. Prime min- isterial legacies are built over months and years, yet they can be de- stroyed in seconds. What if a poorly vetted refugee turned out to be a terrorist who committed a heinous act on our soil? It's a burden that no prime minister of any political stripe should bear. The Paris bombings show how precarious the climate is that we live Duffy trial loses its political lustre ack in August when Sen. Mike Duffy's trial took a recess, some said it was to give then-prime minister Stephen Harper the time he needed to get back into power. It didn't work out that way. Politics had its way. Harper has gone off to Calgary. No- body's seen him in Ottawa for weeks. He may end up selling oil for a big multi- national. He started out with an oil company, pushing the mail cart around at Imperial Oil in Calgary before he went into politics. In Courtroom 33 in Ottawa, where the Duffy trial is being held, nobody talks about Harper anymore. Two weeks ago, his name didn't come up even once during the trial. The Duffy trial is into the fourth quarter. It's a regular criminal trial now, not the political circus that it was earlier this year. No more daily parade of Ottawa's Conservative Party elite, no more of those dozen-or-so people from Harper's office, including no more Nigel Wright, Harper's chief of staff, explaining how he gave Duffy a $90,000 cheque to pay off Senate debts. This trial is serious. Duffy faces jail time on 31 charges of bribery, breach of trust, and fraud related to his Senate expenses and his office budgets on Parliament Hill. What happens to him all depends on Ontario Court Justice Charles Vaillancourt, a jurist who knows his stuff. Duffy chose trial by judge alone. No jury for him. He also has one of the best crimi- nal lawyers in the country — Donald Bayne. Nobody talks about Wright or any of the other Harper staff that Duffy called "the boys in short pants." For the past two weeks, the wackiest witness was an old friend of Duffy's, Ger- ald Donohue, a former CTV technician with a Grade-10 education whose health has been slipping. Donohue told the court how he signed something like $65,000 in cheques to pay Duffy debts. Donohue did the cheque signing through a couple of small con- struction companies that belonged to his wife. The cheques were made out to in- dividuals and to companies such as Jiffy Photo and to several people who worked for Duffy, including a private trainer and a makeup artist. Donohue told the justice the amounts he signed on the cheques were what appeared on company invoices or what Duffy told him to pay. Donohue's heart problems and other health issues forced him to testify via closed-circuit video from his home in Carp, Ont., near Ottawa. There was a problem. The video transmission was faulty. It kept being interrupted or came in garbled. If there's something that upsets a judge, it's when he can't make out what a wit- ness is saying. Every so often, Vaillancourt would halt the trial and ask a technician to fix the video, while Donohue took a need- ed break. At first, Vaillancourt gave the techni- cian 15 minutes to fix the transmission problem and then later ordered another time out. Finally, he postponed the trial for the entire weekend until the following Tues- day. A patient man he was but not a happy justice. None of this struck Duffy as funny. He sat stone-faced next to his lawyer, the bril- liant Donald Bayne, who has been waiting to take over with his defence as soon as the prosecution is finished, likely some time this week. Bayne has promised us that Duffy will testify on his own behalf. Earlier in the year, Duffy promised that from the witness box he would spill the beans on Harper. Duffy told the news media and the Senate that Harper and his people had forced him to do things that led to crimi- nal charges against him. But a bombshell is no certainty now. Going after Harper as in "Good to Go, now" is no longer such a major objective. This is no longer a political trial. The Ca- nadian electorate took care of that. Staying out of jail is the objective now for Duffy. Duffy now has more important things to do than attack Harper. When Vaillancourt finally rules on the case, no matter what he rules about Duffy, perhaps he'll have some useful advice for Canada — something about how the Canadian Senate should run its business from now on. That would be useful. LT uRichard Cleroux is a freelance repor- ter and columnist on Parliament Hill. His e-mail address is richardcleroux34 @gmail.com. ©2015 Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted or stored in a retrieval system without written per- mission. The opinions expressed in articles are not necessarily those of the publisher. Information presented is compiled from sources believed to be accurate, however, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions. 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However, we must do so in a well-facilitated manner that ensures processes are in place that both afford proper protection to the citizenry at large and, more importantly, to ensure that those coming to Canada are welcomed and provided with an op- portunity to succeed rather than fail. Canadians, no doubt, will rally around them once the f low starts. As for our pragmatic prime minister, will he be true to other campaign promises when the heat turns up on them, which it always does in politics? Only time will tell. I doubt that this will be the last time he considers backing down from a bad plan. And that's not a bad thing. LT The Hill Richard Cleroux B T

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