Judge who berated rape victim is a Conservative Party hack

In September of 2014 Judge Robin Camp of the Alberta provincial court acquitted Alexander Scott Wagar a six foot one 240 pound man of the rape of a 100 pound 19 year old girl.  Throughout the trial the Judge repeatedly referred to the alleged victim as 'the accused', asked her why she just didn't just keep her knees together and pronounced from the bench that "sex and pain sometimes go together, that — that's not necessarily a bad thing."

The case was successfully appealed and will be retried.  Three months after the appeal was filed Justice Minister Peter Mackay appointed Camp to the federal Bench.The fact that Camp had TWO appeals against his rulings for basic mistakes of law and grotesque breach of impartiality would have been completely available to Mackay at the time he appointed Camp.  Camp is now barred from hearing cases as the case against him heats up.

Alberta Attorney General Kathleen Ganley has forced an inquiry into the conduct of Federal Court Justice Robin Camp after his controversial remarks during a sexual assault trial surfaced late last year.

By asking the Canadian Judicial Council to move the complaint to a formal inquiry, the council will skip the review panel phase of its investigation.

Camp got his law degree in South Africa in the 1970s when apartheid was still the law of the land.  He is an Alberta Tory Party insider, Managing Partner in the same law firm as Alison Redford's husband in commercial law (The same law firm at the center of a roiling scandal over improper tendering of Alberta's tobacco company litigation.) before being appointed to the provincial bench by the government of the day.  Because he was already a provincial court judge he could then be appointed to the Federal bench without the same kind of vigorous review other candidates have to go through.

He was also on the board of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, a far right legal group founded by Reform Party and Wildrose party member John Carpay who once berated Ralph Klein for failing to use the Notwithstanding clause to block gay rights.   With connections to the Fraser Institute and other far right groups and secretive about their funding despite the explicitly political nature of their activism they are known for their opposition to human rights legislation and hate speech laws, their defense of Trinity Western University over its discrimination against gays and their attempts to override democracy and undermine public healthcare through legal assault. 

He's a prominent, high profile member of the Canadian right wing establishment.

The Conservatives, both provincial and federal were so eager to get a true believer  Conservative insider on the court they appointed a monster.

How dare the NDP trick Albertans by delivering on their promises!

Claiming the NDP lied to Albertans via the cunning trick of telling them the truth.  Its the kind of pretzel logic and cognitive dissonance you could only get from the Wildrose.

Derek Fildebrandt, a Wildrose Party member of the legislature and finance critic, on Friday said he expected the NDP to be a “centre-left” government when it was elected, but that Premier Rachel Notley has turned away from embracing moderation. He cited the government’s decision to increase the minimum wage as an example. The NDP campaigned on a pledge to raise minimum wage. The MLA, however, argued the NDP never planned to follow through on its promises.

 

“The NDP platform was never intended to ever be implemented. The NDP platform was a hard-core ideological document” that was meant to pull the then-ruling Progressive Conservative Party “in a particular direction,” Mr. Fildebrandt told reporters after Ms. Notley delivered a speech to 1,600 members of Calgary’s business community.

“It was never actually meant to be implemented as real policy.”

Mister Fildebrandt perhaps this is how your party conducts business, making promises and commitments you never intend to keep purely for electoral gain - recent history would certainly back up this view of Wildrose ethics - but don't judge others by your own party's low standards.

Albertans are getting precisely what they voted for no matter how loudly you shriek and stamp your feet, have the class to at least respect the choice of Albertans even if you don't agree with it.

UPDATE:  Yeah, this is the same Derek Fildebrandt who in the aftermath of Southern Alberta's devastating floods argued that flood relief should be privatized.  He called for mandatory, strictly market determined flood insurance for anyone living in a potential flood zone and if the market determines the cost will be too high for some Albertans, too bad, so sad, they just have to lose their homes and land, leaving them to be snapped up by some individual or corporation who CAN pay huge flood insurance rates - basically a massive wealth transfer of land and property UP from the working and middle class to the wealthy and powerful.

"The first step in the creation of any market is to have demand for a product. To start, at-risk property owners should be required to purchase flood insurance. The best way to safeguard against U.S.-style gerrymandering in who must have insurance is to only require insurance for properties that have made claims under the Disaster Recovery Program (DRP). If you’ve made a claim for assistance, you need insurance.

Like automobile insurance, making a product mandatory creates a market where one would otherwise not exist.

Premiums should be determined strictly by actuarial calculations that reflect risk, not political considerations. For some homeowners, premiums that reflect the full risk will be too great to bear."

VOTE!

#abvote

 Alberta Progressives, 

The right wingers, the dedicated small 'c' conservatives, the people who think going on strike should be grounds for firing, the people who know better than to say out loud certain things, but who still hate gays and immigrants and public workers and YOU and know the dog whistles to look for, the people who make you sad and mad and ashamed when you think of them running our province or being catered to....

They are going to vote. They are intensely, incandescently motivated to vote now that it really does look like Canada's conservative heartland is about to be delivered up to the socialist hordes, they will be more likely to vote than in any election in YEARS in this province. They desperately want to cancel out YOUR vote.

And they still might. Riding a wave election must be like surfing a tidal wave and wiping out at the last minute is more than possible.

If you think your vote doesn't matter IT DOES, in 2004 the election of MLA Thomas Lukaszuk came down to a half dozen appeals and THREE votes. That kind of knife's edge could be repeated in any riding in this province right now.

VOTE!

And donate to the NDP, the Conservatives are reaping  last minute panic donations from Corporate Alberta. Don't let the PCs saturation ad buy their way out of their hole without the NDP being able to fight back.

In Character

Honestly anyone surprised by Danielle Smith's craven rat paddle away from the sinking Wildrose ship just hasn't been paying attention. When she couldn't control the Calgary school board with the the sheer self evident perfection of her Fraser institute indoctrinated ideology she blew it up in a display of juvenile mean girl behaviour that has typified her career. 

When it became clear that her deeply held passionate conviction that global warming was just a nasty fraud perpetrated by the 99% of scientists who belive in it meant a permanent exile in the electoral wasteland she abandoned it - publicly at least - with barely a moments delay. When it became obvious that good, moral gay hate clutched close to the withered hearts of her bigoted supporters had inexplicably become a barrier to her ambition she suddenly began pretending to be a lifelong defender of diversity and proud friend of Dorothy.

She's one of Canadian politic's most calculating, chameleon like, weather vanes to ever leave principle lying in a pool of its own roadkill blood as she tools down the highway to the bright future of power in devoted service to the elite.

Don't these mewling whiners understand her needs are what really matter?

The Personal and the Political

"Did they expect us to treat them with any respect?

they can polish their medals and sharpen their

smiles, and amuse themselves playing games for a while

boom boom, bang bang, lie down you're dead" 

Pink Floyd, The Fletcher Memorial Home

I've read some truly nauseating screeds in the last few days about individual acts of civility and grace by Margaret Thatcher that supposedly put the lie to her being heartless and cruel. I'm reminded of Sam Donaldson saying of Reagan that if you were down on your luck he would give you the shirt off his back - then sit down shirtless at his desk in the Oval office and with a stroke of his pen take your parent's social security away, your kid's school lunches away and the poor's welfare away. That kind of disconnect between the personal and political isn't evidence of a secret hidden heart, just a failure of imagination and empathy bordering on psychopathy.

Remember when Jack Layton was harshly attacked for pointing out that the social cuts that Paul Martin's liberals committed literally meant they had blood on their hands because of the deaths they would cause? Who's interests are served by the suggestion that pointing out the real human costs of policy is out of bounds?

Maggie Thatcher was hated and reviled for causing real human costs and suffering to thousands of real people. Suggesting that hatred is inappropriate is the real disrespect.

The Slaughter Continues

Three horses, three beautiful majestic animals killed in the Chuck Wagon races at Stampede.  We all knew it wasn't a matter of if, only when.

Can it still be called a tragedy if its as regular as clockwork?

Fuck your tradition.  It isn't worth a single horse's life, much less dozens.

Danielle Smith: Wrong for Alberta

What happens if a rigid, far right ideologue who's only experience in a public service role is a tale of obstruction, fundamental lack of understanding of the facts, radical disdain for the role of the public sector, childish spats and a seeming inability to compromise or work with anyone who disagrees with her becomes Premier?

December 6, 1998: Smith proposed the closure of up to 30 schools due to excess space in older, inner-city classrooms. Smith suggested that the money earned from selling or leasing older schools could be used to build new schools and stem the exodus of public school students to Catholic, private, charter and home schooling. Contradicting Smith, LoVecchio told the Herald that she didn't "know where she's getting her numbers," explaining that when a CBE facility is leased to a non-profit group or private school, the Department of Education excludes those students from the board's utilization rate.

December 7, 1998: Calgary Herald editorial:

'Trustee Danielle Smith's contention that the CBE will close schools and then lease the buildings is also fatally flawed. Even if such buildings are rented to day cares, private schools or other users, Alberta Education still applies the space against the CBE balance sheet, but not the students. Previous decisions to lease old schools instead of sell them has simply exacerbated the CBE's poor utilization rate.

Ted Morton's Email Cover-up

Ted Morton, the candidate of the far right for leadership of the Alberta Progressive Conservatives who has touted his 'open and honest' approach to governance used a pseudonym email address, seemingly to thwart public access to his official ministerial communications.

Alberta Progressive Conservative leadership candidate Ted Morton used a covert email for his internal communications while he was a government minister to evade potential public scrutiny, documents confirm.

Emails leaked to CBC News show Morton used the name Frederick Lee – his actual first and middle names – as an official government email address while he was minister of Sustainable Resource Development (SRD).

At a July 2007 meeting, the ministry’s communications director gave SRD staff an explanation as to why Morton used the email address.

“She informed us that if you see an email with the moniker Frederick Lee, not to worry about it, it was just the minister using that email when he didn’t want people to know it was him doing the writing,” former staff member Derrick Forsythe says.

Another ministry employee confirmed staff were told about Morton’s use of Frederick Lee for his internal communications.

Forsythe left the ministry several months later over what he characterized as ethical differences, including Morton’s use of an email alias, and the expectation that staff were to co-operate with this obfuscation.

“I thought it was wrong,” Forsythe says. “It never quite sat right with me … that he could use an email that wasn’t known to the public.”

Guilty of Bribery

Not just bribery, but bribery with the goal of avoiding compensating poverty stricken villagers they had poisoned.

A Calgary energy company pleaded guilty on Friday to bribing a foreign government official six years ago.

Niko Resources Ltd. is an oil and gas producer with operations in Southeast Asia.

The firm was charged under the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act.

Company officials admitted in a Calgary court that the firm bribed a Bangladeshi government minister in 2005 following a blowout at one of its fields.

The company provided a vehicle and free trips to Canada and the U.S. to the government official who was in charge of how much nearby villagers would be compensated by Niko for the blowout.

Both the Crown and defence lawyers are recommending a fine and victim surcharge amounting to almost $9.5 million.

Their CEO was the highest paid executive in Canada last year.  Someone should do a study on the linkages between executive compensation and corporate cultures of corruption.

Shower of Schmucks

A tiny group of pathetic inadequates who can't find anything about their lives to be proud of but the melanin level in their skin cells plan a march in my town tomorrow.  So far all they've accomplished is some cowardly attacks on the streets and internecine attempts to kill each other and now the probable end of one of their idiot's military career.

WINNIPEG—Military police are investigating a Canadian Forces reservist from Winnipeg who is alleged to have been planning to attend a white-pride demonstration this weekend in Calgary.

Capt. Karina Holder says the military can take action even if the reservist doesn’t attend the event, providing investigators find evidence.

“Having that attitude alone is completely incompatible with the military culture,” Holder said Thursday from Ottawa.

“It runs contrary to effective military service. You have to have that basic respect for your fellow human beings, otherwise you cannot function in this organization.”

She said they received a complaint from a member of the public but can’t confirm it was the same complaint that prompted the investigation.

Although she wouldn’t provide details, it has been reported that the 17-year-old reservist was planning to attend a white-pride demonstration planned for Saturday in Calgary and that he had expressed racist views in online postings.

Precious Bodily Fluids

Public Health policy in Calgary now being run by General Jack D. Ripper.

Double Standards at the University of Calgary

The University of Calgary believes that students who criticize their teachers should be punished.  Teachers who publicly call for someone to be murdered?  Not so much.

Comartin said there are calls for disciplinary action at the University of Calgary where Flanagan teaches political science. He said the government should be very, very clear in denouncing that kind of comment.

University spokesman Grady Semmens indicated Flanagan will not be reprimanded. "At this point, the university is not considering any disciplinary action," Semmens said. Flanagan was representing himself, not the university, when he made the comments and had a right to his opinion, Semmens said.

Comartin said the government should repudiate his comments. "I mean he is . . . he is the prime minister's mentor," Comartin said. "I don't think anybody will deny that and for them, not to stand up and say not only that we do not support that kind of a comment, but we absolutely repudiate it, there has to be some sense that they in fact, are in agreement with him."

Sour Grapes

The Calgary Herald's Mark Milke thinks Naheed Nenshi only won because of right wing vote splitting:

On the first phenomena, Nenshi should be congratulated. He ran a smart campaign, albeit occasionally negative (few are not), and he used social media to thump front-runner Ric McIver and the big blue federal Conservative machine. That was no small task in a Tory town. Still, Nenshi won with 40 per cent of the vote. McIver scooped 32 per cent and Barb Higgins won 26 per cent. That McIver-Higgins total of 58 per cent was arguably drawn mostly from Calgary's centre-right voters. Thus, had the centre-right vote not split (as it regularly does in local politics), the headlines this past Tuesday morning would have been starkly different.

Except Higgins was endorsed by, among others, CUPE and the most left leaning candidate Bob Hawkesworth when he dropped out.  Blogger and Rabble columnist David Climenhaga, who no one will ever mistake for a conservative argued a vote for Higgins might be the best way to keep hard right candidate McIver out and was by no means the only one making the same argument.

The percentage of Higgins votes that were of the 'anybody but McIver' motivation rather than the desire to vote for a mainstream moderate conservative would be instructive here, and fatally undermine Milke's argument.  Add in those who only voted for her for reasons ranging from wanting to vote for the sole female candidate or just because she was a local TV celebrity and it becomes purely ludicrous.

Sometimes first impressions...

I know a little Calgary bashing is to be expected in the progressive blogosphere.  My home town is the center of gravity for the Conservative Party and the Oil industry - to the extent that those are in any way  two different entities.  It's where Stephen Harper calls home - or at least where his riding is.  Ezra Levant, Rob Anders, the Calgary School...shit, you've got me convinced, I'm living in one giant tea party rally in the shape of a city.

Oh yeah, and it looks like we just became the first major Canadian city to elect a Muslim as Mayor. 

This is what you want, this is what you get

I want to vote for Bob Hawkesworth for Mayor of Calgary.  I need to vote against Ric Mciver.

I'm a progressive, with the exact opposite social and economic positions from the far right extremism of Mciver, I'm a trade unionist and  Mciver has unambiguously expressed anti-union views, I'm a worker at the city owned utility company that Mciver has explicitly threatened with breaking up and selling.

With Hawkesworth polling in the single digits a vote for him becomes a protest vote, certainly not the first I've cast, but the same polls show that Higgins, a moderate compared to Mciver is easily within striking distance of a win.  Nenshi is polling a distant third and at least some of his supporters and those of the other trailing candidates can be expected to throw their support to Higgins come election day - while the supporters of far right candidate Craig Burrows, thankfully crashing and burning as he deserves, can be expected to defect to Mciver.

David Climenhaga makes the case for a strategic vote for Barb Higgins, and much as I may wish otherwise, he makes it well.

UPDATE: Bob concedes that he can't win.

UPDATE 2: Bob endorses Barb Higgins.

Cartoons about murdering people you disagree with sure are funny

The Calgary Herald's editorial cartoon about the Gun Registry for Monday Sept 27:

Because what the Canadian political discourse really needs is some of the American Right's eliminationist rhetoric.

Bob Hawkesworth for Mayor

This blog doesn't offer a lot of endorsements, but this is the first time in years that I've been enthusiastic about voting FOR someone inspiring in a Calgary election rather than just AGAINST someone horrifying.

Though there are a few of the latter this year too, I'm looking at you Ric McIver and Craig Burrows.

Bob Hawkesworth has been an elected official for 30 years, both as a city councillor and a stint as a provincial MLA. He served for three years as President of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association. He couldn't play the oh so tedious 'outsider' pose so popular with wannabe populists if he wanted to and isn't trying. Experience is a plus for everything else, why should it be considered an automatic negative in politics?

Hawkesworth has opposed expensive boondoggles like an unnecessary airport tunnel supported by the so-called 'fiscally responsible' right wingers vying for the mayoral job and has firmly supported keeping the city's ownership of the local utility company (Disclosure: I work there.). On development, poverty, spending, sustainability and the environment he has a history and a platform of smart, quietly competent progressive pragmatism.

I look forward to casting my vote for him.

Follow the Money

A little more than a week ago I wondered, with a certain amount of anticipatory dread, how many horses would be mowed down this year at the Stampede. It was never a matter of if, just how many.

Six so far. Mysterious heart attacks, injuries, and one so maddened and stressed that it shattered its own spine with it's convulsions after bucking its rider off.

Terrifyingly, this doesn't even come close to being a really bad year for the Calgary Stampede. In 2005 nine horses leaped off a bridge to their deaths and the peak in recent years was 1986 when twelve animals died.

In an article that otherwise is an exemplar of the 'circle the wagons in support of your subject' school of journalism they usually reserve for the oil patch, the Calgary Herald draws a connection to the Stampede's death toll, unusually high even by the gory standards of professional rodeos, and the prize money pressure to take dangerous risks.

However, some involved in the sport are questioning whether the Stampede's big cash prizes play a role in the injuries and deaths of animals at the competition in Calgary.

Although it's hard to pinpoint why there have been more animal deaths in Calgary, while other rodeo and chuckwagon competitions across the province have been relatively casualty free, one stakeholder suggests competitors feel pressure to succeed with $2 million in prizes up for grabs.

"The guys run hard at every race, but the drivers are really keyed up for Calgary," said Sandy Stafford, chairman of the Guy Weadick Memorial Rodeo in High River.

I wonder how many horses the Stampede will kill this year?

The Calgary Stampede has started and now we wait to find out how high the body count will be.

The Stampede chuckwagon races routinely feature grotesque and devastating accidents. They've caused the death of 22 horses in the last decade. That's right, an average of two a year, beautiful, majestic animals dying in splintered agony or from heart attacks caused by the terror and strain the races put them through.

So we wonder how many will die this year and wait to mourn them.

Update: That's one. Not the Chuckwagon event but another horse driven to fatal heart attack in a cattle penning event. How many more will there be this year?

Update: Monday night and two more, bringing it to three dead horses so far only four days in.

Update, Tuesday Morning: Another one last night, bringing it to four dead horses in just the first three days of competition. I feel like I'm bearing witness to a massacre.

UPDATE, Friday morning: Six now.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

My pop culture blog Bourbon and Bongwater got linked to by one of the big comics news sites this morning for my photos from Calgary's big comic convention this weekend. Note to self, running photos of attractive young ladies in chain-mail bikinis will increase readership.

A lot.

Oddly enough.