 |
| Our Anne-with-the-stellar-reputation was also a great liberal PARTY FIXER, when the chips are down : fear the worst |
“He’ll cook the process so the federal and provincial grits will come out smelling like roses !”, the media, opposition and general public will cry.
As indeed he would.
But so would - er so will - J Michael Mac and Anne Mclellan .
But they will do so much more subtly.
They both have generally stellar reputations —- unlike someone like Dingwall, whose partisanship can be smelt a mile away.
But when the chips are down - they are just as puppydog-devotedly Liberal as Dingwall.
Case in point : Anne McLellan championed a new way of appointing justices : with the federal government supposedly listening to a special non-partisan committee of law experts to present a list of highly qualified, qualified and under qualified candidates.
(Still usually candidates who were supporters of the party in power, but progress of a sort.)
But when the NS Grits suddenly needed a suitably rewarding job for long time eminent grise/bagwoman/political organizer Heather Robertson, our Anne told the vetting committee to revisit the decision to place Heather on the less than suitable list.
A judge resigned in protest and Chief Justice Constant Glube took the controversy before parliament the minute she was retired.
Justice Robertson still got her fairy sugar plum.
J Michael Mac was even more discreet in his aid to the Grit parties in their hour of need.
He had been the bagman for Davy Dingwall and got his prompt reward as an unusually young supreme court justice.
Us little people are never sure how this or that court case ends up before this or that judge, but when young J Michael Mac was made the judge on the Regan Rape Case, he did what the gossip in the better homes and gardens of Nova Scotia told him needed to be done.
The federal and provincial Grits definitely wanted Regan to stop molesting little girls : he had started when he was 15 and was still ‘at it’ a half century later. It was hurting party recruitment of young female star candidates : besides which, many of the girls molested were the daughters of fellow Liberal party members !
But the spectre of Colin Thatcher also lay before them : when he went to jail, he basically destroyed the chances of either the provincial Liberals or Tories ever re-emerging as credible parties in Saskatchewan.
It was best if Regan was exposed in public about his half century of sexual assaults - without him going into the record books as a criminally guilty Liberal Premier.
J Michael Mac smoothly - using all sorts of legal arguments - separated or dismissed the most explosive charges - the assaults upon babysitter-daughters of his nextdoor neighbours & fellow church goers - leaving just a few very old assaults upon basically strangers.
Most jurors are or were parents - just like the voting public - and these ‘babysitting’ cases were the closest thing to a parents’ ultimate nightmare.
Imagine that your daughter is raped not by a total stranger, but by a family friend that you have trusted enough to look after her. Whether it is a priest or coach or family friend or uncle that abuses your trust, you feel tremendous self-guilt on top of the normal anger and pain over your daughter’s assault.
I saw these as the cases that would put Regan away for a long time - unfortunately, so did J Michael Mac.
The police had about 50 women who had come forward, usually unknown to each other - often provinces and decades apart - all with remarkably similar stories to potentially use to bolster the few selected charges J Michael Mac was willing to let stand.
But J Michael Mac did not let anyone hear about them - not until Regan was safely found not guilty. Then in a shock to the defence, in a stroke of pure genius, he letting all their stories be heard at once, at the same time as news of Regan’s not guilty verdict.
It destroyed Regan in the public’s eye and I do not believe he ever touched another girl in the remaining 21 years of his life.
The crown and police were not totally happy with J Michael Mac, but not angry enough with the results to take it up to appeal.
The party was very very grateful for the smooth stick-handling.
J Michael Mac moved on ever upwards.
This Wortman Review will be the feather in his cap : unless a Senate seat awaits....
No comments:
Post a Comment