Contradictions, BC's top justice warrior and a burnt-out SUV
Along with some chillin' Christmas cheer
First, my apologies. I tried. I wanted to write a wholly uplifting, Christmas-cheer type newsletter this week. But BC politics kept getting in the way. So, you’re getting a bit of both. Kind of like a holiday-politics yule log cake that you can read. Paired best with an Empress 75 or a smooth dark roast coffee, depending.
X-ELF on the shelf
Geologists discovered a 72-kilometre fault line 10 km north of Victoria.
Oh no, our capital city is sinking into the sea!
Actually, probably not.
Because, guess what, the fault is nicknamed XELF (given name XEOLXELEK-Elk Lake fault). And everyone knows elves make presents, not earthquakes. Sure, the last known earthquake along XELF was between 6.1 and 7.6 magnitude – big enough to spawn a tsunami. And it caused a “dip slip” (like a Tetley Tea elf dance move, except involving land displacement) between 2 and 3 metres, rupturing the surface up to 73 km. But it happened ages ago. Between 2,300 and 4,700 years ago to be rather vague (as geology can be).
Which means if the fault is still slipping, it’s a very slow-mover. Scientists need to get their boots on the ground to assess potential risk. No easy task. Unless you’re an armchair expert on social media, extrapolating a trend from one event thousands of years ago is quite a feat. With any luck, XELF doesn’t span the entire length of the island, because this is one elf we want to stay off the (continental) shelf.
A 4.9 magnitude earthquake near BC’s west coast on Dec. 17 – felt from northern Vancouver Island to Kelowna – may heighten determination to unravelling the mystery.
The Premier is sure, OK, no need to keep asking
Oct. 19, 2024 is for sure going to be BC’s election day. “We're sticking to the fixed election date,” Eby said for the umpteenth time, this one to a crowd on Dec. 7. Opposition and the media mostly believe it, except Eby recently described the election as 6 months away. An innocent misspeak, he later said. And then there was that 2020 election his predecessor John Horgan called early despite having a ‘fixed’ date. So there’s a bit of cynicism in the air, which means the rumours will be swirling until Eby drops the writ.
‘I know how people die. Sadly, that's my business.’
“We always say, 'We speak for the dead,'” said BC’s chief coroner Lisa Lapointe in an interview in 2022. “It's an ability to shine a light and say, 'Why are so many people dying.'”
In her 13 years at the wheel through a pandemic, a heat dome and a drug overdose crisis, she has seen a lot of death. Lapointe announced her retirement this month. A strong-minded, independent voice, Lapointe is widely respected for her compassionate delivery of grim facts. But as fatal overdoses accumulated, more than 13,000 and counting, she became increasingly critical of public policy and the lumbering pace of change.
A hardline supporter of prescribed safer supply (despite the lack of evidence), Lapointe favours legalization of all drugs. She also opposed former premier John Horgan’s legislative attempt to hold youths in hospital for a few days of “stabilization care” following reversal of a drug overdose and laid the blame on government for many of the 600 or so deaths during the 2021 heat dome.
In the end, her public health advocacy was likely her Archilles heel. “Much of the work that I've done in the last six years has not been very supportive of the government,” Lapointe told a BC Centre on Substance Use conference crowd in April. The coroner’s office falls under the Ministry of Public Safety and Lapointe is a government employee. “It has created some challenges, most particularly for my deputy ministers who have always tried to navigate between me and the ministers and the rest of the Cabinet, who is not happy with me,” she said.
“You get to a point where you just say, well, if they want to fire me, they can fire me. So far, it hasn't happened.” Probably, she said, because she had “a special little power” in her favour. The chief coroner can bring the findings and recommendations of inquest juries and death review panels forward to the public. “And so, I continually, when challenged, go back to that and say, ‘Yes, I can do that. And here's why.’”
Which was the ace Lapointe tried to play last month at a hastily organized press conference when she and the chair of her death review panel called for public access to addictive pharmaceuticals without a prescription. But before they’d even begun, Addictions Minister Jennifer Whiteside released a letter to the media saying that access to safer supply drugs will be through a medical model only.
While many interpreted this as the BC govt blindsiding Lapointe, it may well have been Lapointe who wielded her “special power” to blindside the NDP, and government reacted accordingly. Either way, there wasn’t a lot of finesse on display and Eby will soon be free to replace Lapointe with a more compliant candidate, as he has arguably done in other sectors. Here’s an idea: Maybe her replacement could balance the composition of death review panel – currently dominated by government-funded safer supply advocates – and appoint health professionals with expertise across the continuum of addictions healthcare.
Contradictions, contradictions, contradictions
Ex-NDP MLA Adam Walker came into his own this past legislative session after he was kicked out of caucus by Eby rather non-transparently over an undisclosed personnel issue related to management of his unionized constituency office. Not a criminal or sexual harassment matter, according to government. If that sounds mysterious, it is. Regardless, rather than sheepishly slink around the legislative hallways eyes downcast for being kicked out of the club, Walker’s legislative presence grew from zero to hero, like the Grinch’s heart when he finally felt love. In Walker’s case, it was more likely the taste of freedom from the party-whipped nosebleed section of the BC NDP caucus.
One of the many intriguing points Walker made during debates and points of order was on the Premier’s brag about how exports are up in B.C. Turns out the value of coal exports doubled. So, while the BC NDP was boasting about near-zero emission plans and its unprecedented Clean BC environmental goals, the province’s coal exports were rising. Asked about it by The Tyee’s Andrew Macleod, Eby distinguished between coal for thermal versus metallurgic coal. “Until we find ways to produce steel without [metallurgical coal], it is a good product to be exported from British Columbia.” Granted, there is a big difference between the two uses, but the self congratulation on both the environmental and export fronts is stunning.
It’s not the only perplexing contradiction in the government’s array of resource policies. The BC NDP support cutting trees to grind into pellets for burning in Japan, the UK and elsewhere to generate electricity and reduce reliance on coal. Yet, it only grudgingly recognizes any potential for LNG – much less polluting and damaging to the environment than burning coal or logging trees for pellets – for a similar purpose of lowering global emissions.
Maybe it’s time the province accepts geopolitical realities and stops pretending BC isn’t exporting large amounts of fossil fuels. Also maybe admit there are serious challenges ahead with electrical generation capacity meeting the BC govt’s electrification and near-zero emission targets.
Christmas break
Who knew there were two Rob Shaws lighting up BC?
Premier Eby backs his chief justice warrior
When a provincial court judge sentenced a male homeowner to 30-months probation after he secretly videotaped an international student living in his house, BC Attorney General Niki Sharma blasted her reaction on X (previously Twitter). Sharma reposted a story labelled ‘This guy is a pervert and a criminal. Our justice system is ridiculous,” and added her own commentary: “There are no good excuses to be a sexual predator. It’s important that all actors in our justice system understand a trauma-informed approach to dealing with sexual abuse.”
At issue in the news story was the lack of jail sentence, the fact the homeowner might be free to do it again after his probation was up, and the judge’s comment that the man’s “marital intimacy deficit” contributed to his conduct.
When asked about the case in a Global News interview a of couple days later, Sharma doubled down. “I think it’s very important that the judges of our province are properly trained to understand a trauma-informed, victim-focused approach to this type of predatory behaviour.” Victims of sexual abuse and predation often avoid the justice system out of fear they won’t be believed, she said. “It’s something we all need to take very seriously, including our judiciary.”
Her comments triggered letters from the Law Society of BC and the provincial chapter of the Canadian Bar Association concerned that her criticism of the judge’s decision and that he lacked appropriate training interfered with the independence of the judiciary and risked undermining public confidence in the criminal justice system.
The Vancouver Sun’s Vaughn Palmer has a rundown here.
A few days later, Sharma had massaged her message. “This is not just about one case… It's a problem with our system. And for myself as Attorney General, I own my share of that and I would expect the judiciary, the police and every independent actor in our justice system to do the same.”
When asked about the situation, Premier David Eby said he had Sharma’s back “100 per cent,” calling her “a champion of women and a champion of equality in our justice system.”
So smack-talking a judge’s work on social media and reposting a story that calls the accused a pervert and the justice system a ridiculous joke is Eby’s idea of exemplar justice warrior behaviour. This is his standard for the chief law officer of the Crown.
“Stories like these are corrosive to people's confidence in bringing forward these allegations and participating in prosecutions,” Eby said, adding it’s very important judges receive training at all judicial levels to ensure “women feel comfortable coming forward [in] every institution.”
Putting aside the appalling substance of the court case, all this criticism of the judge and his decision seemed strangely banana republic and vaguely Trump-like. Of course their motivations were different. Trump questions laws and court decisions out of ruthless selfishness, while Sharma was speaking out for victims of an unjust system.
But does it really matter why she was calling out a judge and his court decision in an independent judicial process? Shouldn’t BC’s top judicial official have more self-discipline than to insta-post her disapproval to social media followers? How can she justify reposting a news story labelled with such defamatory and derogatory comments about the people and system she leads?
Sanity check
For a sanity check, I spoke with a highly respected lawyer and former BC Attorney General. This is what I learned.
If an AG doesn’t like a court decision, s/he can invoke the Crown Counsel Act and direct an appeal. “It’s an exceptional power,” i.e., done with extreme caution and care. The decision to appeal must be published in the Gazette and a higher court can then rule on the matter.
“Complaining publicly without appealing the decision is irresponsible.”
On the other hand, it’s perfectly acceptable for the Premier and AG to comment generally on policy and practice and to lobby for changes to the federal Criminal Code “and to say the law has to be reformed because the status quo is putting the public at risk.”
Which is sort of how Sharma framed her comments a week after her social media outburst.
Since the Attorney General is the minister who controls the judicial appointment process, she can also help ensure judges are properly trained, “but she does this by working with the Court, not by complaining in the media. It is not appropriate for the Attorney General to complain about something without committing to fix that something.”
As for the letters from the BC Law Society and BC branch of the Canadian Bar Association, the former AG said, “Those letters are written whenever anyone criticizes the courts. I don’t think I was ever on the receiving end of one of them, but then I would never have said the things she said.”
More unusual than the letters being written was “the sight of a Premier and AG tag-teaming a full-on attack on a judge.”
Do what I say, not what I do
All which also presents a disturbing contrast to when Sharma’s own behaviour came under fire last month. Northern Beat revealed Sharma was personally briefed about a drug user group’s illegal narcotics trafficking more than a year-and-a-half ago when she chaired a legislative health committee. This despite the Premier and several cabinet ministers insisting they’d cut government funding to the Drug Users Liberation Front (DULF) as soon as they learned of the group’s illegal activity in October.
Read more about it here.
Instead of coming clean about what she knew when, Sharma avoided, deflected, then tried to out-virtue the questioners. She certainly didn’t rush to share her opinion on social media. When pressed by the BC United’s Mike de Jong, Sharma said it was “shameful” that when people shared their personal experiences with the committee, it was politicized.
Huh?
This was not some private conversation in a priest’s confessional. Sharma was told about the illegal activities by government-funded drug user groups who publicly presented to her and the rest of the all-party legislators while they were investigating a massive public health failure. Hence the Hansard transcript.
Bottom line, British Columbians deserve to know who knew what and when.
The case of a burnt-out SUV with the blue tarp
It sounds like an Encyclopedia Brown mystery but the character central to this story is none other than the mayor of Kamloops. Reid Hamer-Jackson has long complained about the social unrest and public health issues playing out in the inner-city neighbourhood where his business is located. He ran as mayor in 2021 on a campaign promise to clean up the city. Once elected, he applied his own brand of reform, racking up multiple run-ins with non-profits, city staff, councillors and other public officials.
The latest controversy centred around a burnt-out tarp-covered SUV parked on Hamer-Jackson’s car lot. The Kamloops fire chief said it was a fire hazard and that he asked Hamer-Jackson repeatedly to remove it. Hamer-Jackson refused, according to the CBC’s Marcella Bernardo. The vehicle was torched shortly after he was elected mayor and he left it on his lot ever since. The fire chief said the SUV had been used as a makeshift shelter and other fires had been lit in it. The SUV was removed while the mayor was in Mexico last week.
Despite the many reasons the mayor gave to leave it in place, he may have been making a statement. "There's fire all over the place," he told Bernardo. "We've got to deal with people who are struggling with mental health and addictions. We've got to get them better."
It's one thing to ‘fight the man,’ but what if you’re the man, fighting the man? We’ll keep our eye on Kamloops – how can we look away?
View from the arena
A toast to everyone who slugged it out in the trenches this year, including the politicians we’ve been holding to account. Whether we agree or not from one topic to another, we respect everyone trying to make the world a better place. If you weren’t striving valiantly or daring greatly, we wouldn’t be writing about you.
Fort St John dating aficionado tells all
Finally!
We have the perfect Christmas gift for that hard-to-buy-for singleton or smug married on your list (to borrow from the Christmastime dating satire masterpiece, Bridget Jones’s Diary). Buy this book: 50 Worst Dates, by Fort St. John author, Jane Laboucane.
Laboucane is something of a serial dater and has compiled a hit list of her most cringe-worthy, creepy, funny, expensive outings. The Treaty 8 member told Tom Summer from Energeticcity.ca that one of her favourite things is to ask people about their dating experiences. Everyone has a story! She says things have changed since she started dating in the 1990s. Apps are addictive as gambling and texting removes our ability to read social clues that used to be obvious when people’s first encounter was face-to-face.
Meanwhile, Labucane is still looking for the right guy. “My attraction towards a man tends to be directly related to the number of red flags he exhibits.” Hopefully that means, the fewer, the better!
Good Luck on your quest, Jane. One piece of advice you might consider: Give an engineer a try. They’re smart, loyal, detail-oriented, handy around the house. They may be a bit absent-minded sometimes and make corny jokes, but they work hard and they’ll never stick you for the tab. Mostly they’re just grateful to have a girlfriend.
Thanks, as always, for reading. We couldn’t do any of this without your support.
Merry Christmas or Happy tidings to whatever you’re celebrating this month!
Fran
Questions, comments or leads, contact Fran@NorthernBeat.ca
For brain calisthenics, read NorthernBeat.ca