Christie Blatchford: McHale outfoxed the crown

An exercise in futility may be the most appropriate way to describe the crown’s efforts in Cayuga court yesterday.

Christie Blatchford of the Globe & Mail summed up the session quite nicely in her latest column stating: “The absurd exercise lends credence to speculation that the AG was planning to stay the charge against the OPP boss yesterday, but was outfoxed by Mr. McHale, who complained in writing last Wednesday that the earlier date wouldn’t allow him to prepare properly or present his evidence to the Crown.” If you have not yet done so I can not strongly enough recommend reading her column here.

After Gary McHale succeeded in having a criminal charge of attempting to influence a municipal official laid against Julian Fantino, the crown needed a plan to make the charge that they argued against in Superior court go away to appease the government who signs their pay cheques while still somehow appearing neutral to the public.

The problem with this notion is that it’s not possible. The public scrutiny of this charge has made it clear to even those who had never heard of Caledonia that something is terribly amiss here. So lacking the ability to appear anything but biased, the crown decided to rush this matter into court yesterday instead of letting the first hearing take place on the court ordered date of February 3 2010.

There can be no question that they didn’t just do this for the sake of making the scenic drive down to Cayuga. There was a plan in place which everyone in attendance concurred was likely to stay the charge against Fantino before he had even received his summons. It’s like a child taking off a band aid really. You may not want to do it but your mommy and daddy say you have to so you try to do it fast and hope that the pain is short lived.

A wrench was thrown in the works by Gary McHale however when he informed the crown that he had additional evidence against Fantino. To not appear to at least look at the evidence would be a disastrous public relations move, and it would have given Mr. McHale an easy and quick appeal. So in the spirit of keeping up appearances the crown stood up at this hearing that they had arranged and asked the Justice to adjourn the hearing to February 3, 2010.

Yes folks, they moved the court date up from February 3 to January 15 so that they could stand up in front of a rather full court and ask for a delay until February 3. It would have been entirely redundant had they not recognized in front of everyone that for the time being Gary McHale is the prosecutor of this case. What might Mr. McHale do as acting prosecutor in the next 2 weeks? Time will tell, but I imagine his next move will be an interesting one.

It must be nearly unfathomable to the office of the AG that they continue to be outsmarted at nearly every turn by an average citizen like Gary McHale, but it’s happened almost too many times to count now.

Watching the crown ask for this adjournment I could not shake the image of Attorney General Chris Bentley sitting in a corner of his office wearing a dunce cap. That image would of course carry over quite nicely to Fantino, McGuinty, the crown lawyer, and anyone else who actually continues to support what’s been happening in Caledonia for nearly 4 years.

For anyone who’s too young to know what a dunce cap is, they were placed on the heads of students who did something particularly stupid in school as a means of humiliating them into behaving more appropriately in the future. Public humiliation was a frequent tactic used by educators in those days, and based on the stories I’ve heard from my grandparents and parents, I think it’s a good thing that as a society we don’t punish our children in this manner anymore, but perhaps the cap would be an effective tool to curb the behaviour of lying scheming politicians, commissioners, lawyers, and anyone else in a position of authority who preaches to us about right and wrong while consistently doing what they know is wrong.

I would put this forward to my MP to be tabled for discussion in the legislature, but they shut down parliament so I guess dunce cap legislation will have to wait.

As this wonderful day dream about politicians in dunce caps faded, I returned to the awesome reality that Gary McHale who has no legal training, no money, and comes to court in his finest pair of running shoes has the crown completely tied up in knots. They have no idea how to continue their politically motivated choice of prosecutions without public backlash, and it’s happening in front of a stage of national media who are hungry for the truth.

With a small army of media at the ready lead by one of Canada’s most respected journalists Christie Blatchford, perhaps the truth will finally set Caledonia free.

Jeff Parkinson

To learn more about the battle to stop Julian Fantino from abolishing the civil rights of Non Native Canadian citizens, see FantinoGate here

To learn how you can help us restore the rule of law to Ontario, see this page.