The partisan audacity of uniformed police officers sporting Thin Blue Line patches on their uniforms while exchanging high-fives with the Convoy Clowns in Ottawa was a disquieting reveal for some surprised Canadians in February 2022.
The Emergencies Act inquiry further exposed the breadth of the penetration of fascism at the local Ottawa cop shop when it was found ranking officers had betrayed their political masters and shared police enforcement strategies with the Bible-toting anti-mandate, anti-Trudeau occupiers.
This apparent back-alley alliance with the Christofascists and their open assault on representative democracy might explain why our men in blue and black won’t lay charges against law-breaking Conservative politicians like Jason Kenney (who is the subject of an interminable five-year investigation by Alberta RCMP), or Doug Ford (the king of conflicting interest).
It also raises the question of whether pandemic polarization has conferred immunity from prosecution on some politicians. Is a substantial segment of the local constabulary in cahoots with Conservative Party theology, and is the media keeping quiet because it is thrilling to be invited to play in the Ford Family sandbox with the likes of Toronto’s John Tory, Mark Sutcliffe of Ottawa, and other card-carrying Ford Nationals?
Conservatives in office act with impunity, as if possessing a James Bond-like license to kill the democratic process, treat the treasury as a personal bank account and turn lawmaking into an act of selective suppression of the rights of the many in favor of the few.
The OPP went after inconsequential independent MPP Randy Hillier over his Convoy tactics. The RCMP charged Sen. Patrick Brazeau almost a decade ago for various offenses involving his behavior – but nothing that rose to the level of influence peddling, graft, or embezzlement.
Sadly, detectives in street clothes draw a clear line in the muck regarding law-breaking politicians cultivating developer friends. The message is moving along; nothing to see here.
But a trapdoor is waiting for Doug and his ilk. Ontario has a private prosecution process, and it is the next best thing available in a system where the police lack the courage, resources, and motivation to lay charges on dishonest politicians in high office.
It means an incensed demographic of social democrats can rationally fantasize about ending the political career of Ontario Premier Doug Ford and his fawning, servile band of constitutional reprobates.
Private prosecutions serve an essential function, allowing individuals to address gaps or deficiencies in the public prosecution system.
“Law enforcement agencies often lack the resources required to address violations that should be prosecuted,” points out an Ontario government website.
The FAQ section on the site should add a footnote: “Such prosecutions might be a lifeline to salvaging what’s left of responsible government for 15 million Ontarians.”
Dodgy Doug may think he has carte blanche dictatorial powers till at least June 2026. Still, politically vigilant people from Timmins to Toronto want Ford and his inept fellow MPPs out of action – before the province is carved up like territory in a Five Family crime drama reminiscent of The Godfather.
For those experiencing a hitherto unknown level of fear and loathing for the kleptocratic Ford, it is time to declare war, to figuratively harken back to a 1947 New York idiom from the same Mob flick, when crime lords would vacate their homes and relocate to sparsely furnished apartments in safer areas by “Going to the mattresses.”
In 2022 Ontario, going to the mattresses means attending an Ontario courthouse and detailing a belief, on reasonable grounds (backed with sufficient details), names, addresses, and telephone numbers of witnesses one intends to call to a hearing to testify as to whether Ford has committed a criminal offense.
A mere six months into his second Demolish Ontario Governance Tour, polls show that many citizens want to arrest the vain, self-centered, and ruthless demagogue and maybe tie him to a tree on the Greenbelt. At the same time, the 10-week Queen’s Park recess transpires.
It is Year 5 of running amok in the public square as the stridently evil Ford regime continues to pump out a steady stream of bad legislation, publishing diktats from Toronto and Muskoka, the likes of which have not been seen since the divine right of kings.
Ford’s rogue parliamentarians continue to defy common-law norms, ramming overreaching statutes through the legislature late at night while offering nonsensical rationalizations for shooting democracy in the head.
Drawing from a pool of 1.8 million voters, John Tory used name recognition, incumbency, and a professionally managed campaign to outpoll all councilors, each drawing from a base of a mere 70,000 voters. King Doug cites this comparative statistical irrelevancy to anoint Tory, the President of Toronto. Following an uninspired victory, veto powers are safely stashed in Tory’s oversized money clip.
The Latin maxim ignorantia Juris nonexcusat establishes that ignorance of the [constitutional] law is no excuse. Doug Ford is out of reason at law.
He has spent the past 54 months genuflecting on the multitudes of self-centered, small-minded Ontarians who voted for him in 2018 and 2022 (and who would probably vote for a Trump-DeSantis or an Uncle Doug Ford-Nephew Mikey Ford ticket if offered the opportunity).
The public can be granted generous slack for blissful unawareness of private prosecutions as a tool to make rogue, overbearing politicians more accountable.
This may have been the sole silver lining lurking in the developments that led to the Freedumb Convoy planting flags in an Ottawa church in July 2022, five months after the Jan/Feb Mad Max Bernier Occupation of Parliament Hill had expired for lack of common sense.
In a demonstration of rank disconnection from reality, The Crazy Convoyists had shape-shifted into a congregation, The United People of Canada, TUPOC, renting St. Brigid’s Church in Ottawa.
Locals wouldn’t tolerate more dunces parading around city streets less than a mile from the original crime scene. But by eviction day in late August, the Convoyists, although defeated, had taught a legal lesson to a huge Ontario demographic now on a mission to restore democracy: filing a private prosecution to fight Doug Ford’s single-minded attack on the Constitution and quite potentially the Criminal Code was an alternative to hanging on in quiet desperation.
In short, TUPOC failed in its private prosecution allegations, but the public took note.
One such concerned Ontarian is Patrick Macklem, Professor Emeritus of Law, the University of Toronto, who is requesting the Ontario Provincial Police launch an investigation into Ford and any potential offenses contrary to the Criminal Code, including:
- “…bribery, fraud, breach of trust, corruption and influence-peddling that have been or are being committed by elected or public officials in the Government of Ontario, land developers, or other private actors who stand to gain from the Province’s plans to open the Greenbelt for development.”
Prof. Macklem’s new pen pals are Commissioner Thomas Carrique of the Ontario Provincial Police and his Deputy Commissioner Chuck Cox.
The upshot is that the professor has a new side hustle out of a police drama: “Informant.” He will be asked if the police have investigated the incident, whether he has previously sworn Information in the matter, whether another Justice of the Peace refused to proceed, and, if so, whether he has any new evidence concerning the offenses.
“I, alongside many Ontarians, am particularly concerned by recent media reports that show that wealthy land speculators stand to benefit immensely from the Government’s proposal to open the Greenbelt for development,” wrote Macklem in a Dec. 4, 2022 letter to the OPP, seeking a criminal investigation into Greenbelt development.
“Since at least 2018, many of these speculators purchased large tracts of Greenbelt-protected land and have donated significant funds to secure the election of public officials who are currently responsible for the Greenbelt’s development.”
Macklem notes some of these purchases occurred after Ford’s re-election in June of this year but before the Government decided to open the Greenbelt had been made public.
The Justice of the Peace will review the application to determine if Information (criminal charge) can be sworn/affirmed, which meets the requirements of the Criminal Code. If the Justice of the Peace is satisfied that the materials presented to meet the needs, the court clerk will prepare Information to start the private prosecution process.
The Criminal Code’s section 119 offers up some exciting prose on the matters at hand:
- …being a member of the legislature of a province, directly or indirectly, corruptly accepts, obtains, agrees to accept or attempts to obtain, for themselves or another person, any money, valuable consideration, office, place or employment in respect of anything done or omitted or to be done or omitted by them in their official capacity….”
Ontarians that want to enforce the checks and balances and unwritten traditions that a government must respect (even if it has a majority shelf-life of 42 months remaining) may have been shown a pathway to real-life salvation in a courtroom, not the deliverance promised by Christofascist wannabe-Jesus street preachers like TUPOC.
Criminal trials require the public or private prosecutor to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the alleged offense occurred. This is a high evidentiary threshold. Private prosecutions are complex and technical procedures.
On the other hand, the offense of breach of public trust has a lower standard of proof: it does not require a quid pro quo or a smoking gun for its commission. Courts have also confirmed that an accused need not be aware that they were breaching the public’s trust; it requires that a reasonable person would conclude that there was a breach of trust.
Society as a whole is the beneficiary where formal, positive citizen interaction with the justice system results in some additional control over official discretion, in other words, doing the job of police authority that either won’t or can’t lay charges against an arrogant politician on a mission to please developers.
Under the public regime (i.e., police), prosecution of certain offenses may proceed very slowly for lack of resources or not at all. Private citizens, as complainants, have a statutory right to fill this void.
In Ford Nation, there is no accountability. There is no gravitas. Everything is a transaction. The public good never figures into the equation. The great question in Ontario politics is simple: How much longer will the people stand for it?
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