The Mike Duffy Case

The Mike Duffy Case

 {Lap-Dog Journalism.  Hi-Jacking Your Head.  Eating Your Soul }part II



Written by Robin Mathews

One: It doesn’t touch the real matter of guilt or innocence. Two: It avoids the basic question about the trial. “It”… is the conventional press and media.

One:  The trial is about the guilt or innocence of Stephen Harper – not Mike Duffy, and not the Senate of Canada.  Almost without question the “creator” of the historical event called Mike Duffy is Stephen Harper. And the creator of “passer-to-Mike-Duffy-of-a-cheque-for-$90,000.00, Nigel Wright”, is Stephen Harper.  Hi-jacking your head, the conventional press and media mentions neither of those things.  It huffs and puffs about … anything else.

A basic question about the trial – never even hinted – is fundamental. Is it a “show trial”, a mockery of justice conducted full in the face of Canadians?  Or is it real?  Eating your soul, the conventional press and media thunders and wonders about minutiae of the event.  It doesn’t ask the basic question: Is this all a fraud?  Is the trial of Mike Duffy on 31 counts … a fraud, a show trial, political game-playing?

Remember, the investigation has been conducted and the trial set on foot by (what I call) the lap-dog RCMP under the direction of the lap-dog Bob Paulson, Commissioner.  He has given evidence of being a complete Harper flunky, I would say.  History is full to the brim of “police chiefs” (given one name or another in history) who serve the boss, only (caring nothing about justice).

Evidence that the boss is being served is the idiocy of the Nigel Wright position.  Staring the conventional press and media in the face is the principal charge in the case: that Mike Duffy received a bribe of $90,000.00 in the form of a cheque written on his own bank account and handed to Duffy by Nigel Wright.  But Nigel Wright is NOT charged with paying a bribe!

Beyond the realm of belief – the Canadian public is invited to believe that a bribe can be received that is not paid! 

I wrote about that insane matter earlier, wondering in my solitude if perhaps I had missed an obvious point that everyone else writing about the matter had seen?  And then Duff Conacher, lawyer, founder of Democracy Watch and seventeen-year-long fighter for democratic procedures in Ottawa, was interviewed on CBC.  What stood out for him about the trial?  Without hesitation, he said it was the situation of a bribe being received that had not been paid!

In my opinion the Harper forces are so confident of coming events they believe they can pull off “the bribe received but not paid” act and get away with it. They believe they can protect Nigel Wright because they believe (in my opinion) that everyone – prosecution, defence, press and media, political parties, and the judge are all on side.

If the counsel for the Defence doesn’t shred Nigel Wright on the witness stand, challenging the charge against Duffy and forcing concentration on the matter for hours or days - and if the judge brushes the issue aside whatever Defence counsel does to expose Nigel Wright– then (I say) we will know the trial is a fraud and a farce: fixed in advance.

[NOTE: Democracy Watch is going to conduct a case against the Conservatives in Ottawa for bribery on this matter.  They have asked for financial help. Google ‘Democracy Watch: Harper PMO Prosecution Fund’. This column was finished when I went to my email  and found the message from Democracy Watch, and the impending case for bribery. Think of contributing.]
The question of the judge opens another matter never mentioned by the conventional press and media (or the political parties).  Why is there no jury in this trial?  Where is the jury?  One of the most important political trials in Canadian history is being conducted by judge alone, not by judge and jury.

This is a case in which “the people of Canada” absolutely need to be represented in the form of a jury of ordinary Canadians selected in the normal fashion used to create juries in Canadian practice.  What is going on?  Why have we not heard from the conventional press and media on this matter?  Guess why not?

In the normal course of trials the defendant or defendants may choose trial by judge and jury or trial by judge alone. The lawyer for someone charged is always (because of experience) very important in making the choice.  The choice – in political trials – is always strategic, political, power-soaked, and full of dangers for future employment. 

IN THIS CASE Canadians must ask if there has been a spoken or unspoken, open or tacit agreement to avoid having representatives of the people of Canada in the trial? Their presence could be very embarrassing, and so we must ask if there has been an “agreement”, however much unspoken?

A jury is a wonderful and magical body.  It very soon is keen, aware, alert, watching, assessing … asking the judge for clarification, noting false moves, intuiting honest responses ….  In fact, a jury is often most important – not only because it provides the accused with a fair trial – but because it keeps the judge from selling out.  The judge can use every ruse, every con-trick in the trade to “instruct” the jury.  But the jury alone says “guilty” or “not guilty”.

Canadians need to know that in some major trials there are really HUGE illicit spoken or unspoken agreements.  In the BC Rail multi-million dollar case, investigation began about 2001 or 2.  In 2003 a wholly illegitimate Special Crown Prosecutor was named who worked with RCMP until 2007 to shape charges against three lower-level provincial employees, and then he conducted the pre-trial and the trial until 2010.

Because he was appointed in flagrant violation of the legislation covering the appointment of Special Crown Prosecutors NOTHING that he did in the case was legitimate.  The investigation after 2003, the pre-trial, and the trial all made up a hugely expensive farce and fraud.

I personally informed or knew who personally informed (1) the Attorney General of B.C., (1) the Defence lawyers involved in the case (3) the Chief Justice, the Associate Chief Justice, the judge on the case (4) the NDP,  (5) and the conventional press and media that the Special Crown Prosecutor’s appointment invalidated everything about the trial. 

NONE would act to close up the trial, cause the Liberal government of Gordon Campbell to fall, and force an election (to say nothing of criminal and other charges that might arise). The conventional press and media would not even report the fact of the illegitimate appointment.

Another very interesting set of events occurred in that trial which is relevant to the present trial in Ottawa.  The judge on the pre-trial was Elizabeth Bennett who was carefully observing the legal principle that defendants must be given all (possible) evidence required in order to be able to conduct an effective defence.  Judge Bennett (in my evaluation) was being too honest (for some).  She had to be removed.  And so the Stephen Harper cabinet promoted her out of the trial to the Appeals Court of B.C.  Her replacement, in my view, was more what the Gordon Campbell (and Stephen Harper) governments wanted from a judge on the case.

NOTE CAREFULLY.  Defence had chosen trial by judge alone because Defence believed Bennett would conduct an honest hearing of the case in trial.  The replacement judge was a very, very different story, presenting at least major uncertainty for the Defence.  And so the Defence juggled every ball in the court to change from judge alone to trial by judge and jury.  In the brief time the trial was conducted (before being blasted out of existence) I could see the real magic of an honest jury at work. 

[Note that in the $33 million Alberta civil case being conducted by Jessica Ernst against Encana Corporation and the Alberta Regulatory body for fracking violations, the judge first on the case was promoted by the Harper Cabinet to the Alberta Appeals Court.  (No reason was given that I know of.) By the merest chance the Chief Justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench in Alberta, Neil Wittmann, “volunteered” to take over the case … and did. He then ruled that bodies like the fossil fuels regulatory body of Alberta may act outside the Charter of Rights and Freedoms!  And so Jessica Ernst must bear the cost of application to be heard by the Supreme Court of Canada, and if granted a hearing, Ernst must bear the cost of a Supreme Court procedure for what I believe is a vexatious ruling by Justice Wittmann.]

A “judge alone” case is being tried in Ottawa on a matter that is of concern to every Canadian.  Why no jury is a burning question – but it is only one among burning questions the conventional press does not want to ask.

This is Part Two of the series: “Hi-jacking your head.  Eating your soul.” It asks if the preparation of the case against Mike Duffy has been fraudulent from the beginning.  It asks if the conventional press and media are purposefully avoiding the real questions.  It asks if there has been a spoken or tacit agreement to shape the trial in a way that defeats the fair administration of justice.  It asks why the trial of Mike Duffy is not a trial by judge and jury.  It states that the trial is not about the guilt or innocence of either Mike Duffy or the Senate of Canada, but about the guilt or innocence of Stephen Harper, prime minister of Canada.  The column asks central questions that the conventional press and media in Canada refuse to ask. Why do they refuse to ask them?  

Written by Robin Mathews

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