Double Standards

February 6, 2003

Plant's Judgment

Is Attorney General Geoff Plant trying to rescue his political credibility at the expense of the sentencing judge in the street racing case?

Like everyone I have heard on radio talk shows, I am shocked and disappointed that two street racers can get off with house arrest after killing an innocent woman. What protects people from vigilante justice and mob rule is the law. No matter how strongly I feel, and no matter how I articulate my anger, it is essential that we have a judicial system that acts independently. If we don't like that, then Parliament can amend the Criminal Code so as to impose mandatory sentences. In the meantime, the Attorney General needs to separate his role from that of people like me who are angry about the sentence.

The job of the Attorney General is to be accountable for his staff who determine whether an appeal is warranted. He is also responsible for defending the independence of judicial decisions. Having made a fool of himself by defending judicial independence in the context of the smoking judge while he was withholding information on the judge's willingness to share the cost, it now looks like Plant is overcompensating by stepping out of his role and behaving like a member of the public in attacking the sentencing judge. The Attorney General is not any member of the public. He has particular responsibilities, and he is now failing in those responsibilities as badly as he did with the smoking judge.

January 31 , 2003

Damage Control on the Smoking Judge

Are judges allowed to violate city by-laws, or is that yet another example of a double standard in the New Era? Section 6.5(e) of the City of Vancouver Health By-law says "Where smoking is permitted in a smoking room by this By-law the smoking room shall be equipped so that its only use is to permit persons to smoke." In other words, a smoking room cannot double as a judge's chamber.

It is sensible that the Vancouver by-law plugged the loop hole that would allow big shots to designate their offices as smoking rooms. A smoking room is nothing but a smoking room, and Attorney General Geoff Plant continues to be part of a double standard by allowing the judge to violate the by-law.

When the Campbell government was overruling the WCB so as to permit smoking, the WCB made it clear that no ventilation system is capable of making a workplace safe from second hand smoke. Whether the judge pays for all or part of her ventilation system is irrelevant. Smoking poses a deadly hazard, ventilation system or not. Using a designated smoking room as an office, or chamber, is a violation of the City's by-law.

Some BC Liberal backbenchers have started to openly criticize Geoff Plant as a result of his acceptance of the double standard. No doubt their courage is related to the Premier's escapades in Maui and van Dongen's resignation. Announcing that the smoking judge will now pay part of the costs of the ventilation system misses the point. The City of Vancouver by-law is being flouted and the WCB regulation is not being enforced. Whoever pays, and whether by-laws are enforceable in a court house or not, the double standard remains.

While the ventilation system should never have been installed, the issue of how much the judge pays for it has become another embarrassment for Plant. CBC reported that the judge offered to pay $12,000 and Plant failed to make that information public when he learned of it. He then tried to blame his cover up on the media by saying ""I actually never, never apologize to myself for the failure of the media - in the course of asking me dozens and dozens of questions, for me to assume facts that might be of interest." Plant behaved as if he has no obligation to tell the full truth unless a specific question is asked that happens to hit on it. British Columbia deserves far better.

January 20, 2003

Double Standards

Poor Gordon Campbell! Just as his handlers are thinking their worst week is behind them, another case of hypocrisy in the New Era hit the front page.

When a judge threatened to retire if she couldn't smoke, the Attorney General concluded that it was cheaper to install a ventilation system in her office. That is the kind of hypocritical double standard British Columbians were shocked to see when their Premier was behind bars in a Maui jail. Virtually no one doubts that if any other member of the BC Liberal caucus, other than the Premier, had been jailed, they would have been thrown out of cabinet and caucus. Likewise, most people believe that if anyone other than the judge insisted on smoking in their office they would be fired. It is offensive to have lower standards for the rich and powerful.

Ironically the ventilation system may not resolve the legal problem for the smoking judge, but it appears that no one will attempt to enforce or interpret the law. Prior to the government caving in to the tobacco industry and over ruling the WCB with respect to smoking in bars, the WCB forcefully argued that no ventilation system could adequately eliminate the workplace hazard posed by second hand smoke. Government amended the regulation to exempt bars; it did not amend the regulation to exempt court houses or any part of them. It is also the case that the City of Vancouver Health by-law, provides in Section 6 that smoking shall not be allowed in work places except in designated smoking rooms and that designated smoking rooms must not be used for any purpose other than for smoking - certainly not for use as an office.

The Attorney General has tried to justify his hypocrisy on the grounds of judicial independence. No one is talking about interference in a court case, or interference in any aspect of a judge's decision with respect to a case. The issue concerning the smoking judge is an issue of working conditions for those in a court house, and double standards in allowing a judge to apparently flaunt the City of Vancouver by-law and the WCB regulation. Geoff Plant did not think it was "judicial interference" when he closed court houses; how can stopping a health hazard be interference?

The Premier and the smoking judge aren't the only ones who benefit from the double standards of the Campbell government. On day one of the New Era, 8,000 people who earned over $250,000 per year received tax cuts averaging $26,000 per year. Hundreds of thousands of other British Columbians received so little that they ended up in the hole after MSP premiums were raised by 50% and a half point was tacked onto the sales tax. People at the bottom are used to being shafted by the Campbell government. It is all the more painful when privileges for the rich and powerful are so blatantly rubbed in the noses of those who pay the bills.