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SUNDAY SPECTATOR
April 10, 2005
Gomery Canada
Though it is now partially lifted Justice John Gomery's publication ban on testimony to the "Adscam" sponsorship inquiry highlighted differences between Canada and the United States. These were once not so terribly large. While one country might be loyal to a Crown and the other to a Flag; while one might stress "peace order and good government" over the other's "life liberty and the pursuit of happiness"; while most of one country remains north of most of the other -- we shared a legacy of freedom. A free press and free speech; the public's right to know about important events and to openly discuss them; the whole idea of responsible self-government -- these were things shared across the border. Both nations were deeply rooted in Anglo-Scottish legal traditions and social conventions -- the roots sunk into the fertile soil of the Judaeo-Christian moral order. We had that common understanding of right and wrong which alone makes freedom possible. Some things could never be done not because there were laws against them but because free men would never condone them. The perfect example would be trying to suppress the sort of information on which a government could stand or fall. That goes to the heart not merely of our "rights" -- for rights must finally be vague abstractions if they are not made particular to person and circumstance -- but of who we ARE. The idea that the defendant in a case at law is entitled to a jury uncontaminated by hearsay against him is indeed deeply founded in our common law. And a publication ban on testimony at a hearing before his trial could possibly make sense when the crime has no political ramifications. People who feel they "need to know" the speculative details of a ghastly rape or murder could be plausibly dismissed as voyeurs. But when the case is about massive corruption in very high places the imposition of a publication ban is obscene. What Jean Brault was saying to Judge Gomery's hearing is as public business as public business gets. There is no subtlety there. I was less surprised by the audacity of Judge Gomery's publication ban than by the spinelessness with which it was obeyed. Our journalists merely whined as an obnoxious precedent was being set against free speech and press in Canada. I could detect no spirit of defiance. As a friend a lawyer in Texas wrote to me: "The publication ban is so Canadian and so un-American. There would only be a handful of Americans Left or Right who would condone suppressing publication of information germane to the public welfare. This is information mind you that the press has legitimately received -- not information leaked to them. "The press and the politicians have a 'right to know' but the public doesn't. Absolutely appalling." Meanwhile we learned that the integrity of the Gomery inquiry itself was under attack from the former prime minister the corruption of whose government was under review. Jean Chr?tien's legal challenge to Judge Gomery whom he alleged was somehow biased against him was being fast-tracked in a Federal Court. And with no one uttering a strong objection. My Texas correspondent again: "This would never happen in the U.S. If one desired to disqualify an investigative officer on the ground of bias one would have to assert it prior to the proceeding commencing. Or one might seek a reversal of the findings on the basis of bias. But to change horses in midstream -- that's preposterous. "All part of a general scheme to make up the rules as they go along." There will always be evils and evils attempted no matter how open and free the system but what marks a legal order in precipitate decline is the failure to make a huge scene over an evil of such magnitude. As a practical matter any enterprising person could have found scuttlebutt on what is really going on in this country by Google-searching until he had tracked the appropriate American blogs and websites. It is sheer luck that we have communications technology that can now help the truth penetrate deep into places like Communist China Cuba Zimbabwe Uzbekistan and Canada. The Iraqis could finally under the oppression of a monstrous tyranny turn for help to the U.S. Marines. It is sad that they could not liberate themselves. It is sadder that as tyranny begins to encroach upon the throat of our own Canada we must turn for help to the U.S. bloggers brigade. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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