CKNW Editorial
for October 24, 2001

A couple of things this morning.

After the Liberals bailed out of the Nisga'a case they left no doubt in our minds on one score ... they're thick as thieves with the federal Liberals as I have always said they were. I’m embarrassed that I ever doubted my own instincts on this. Of course they’re all bloody Liberals … how could I have ever doubted my well honed instincts? Further thought after yesterday's editorial leaves only one possibility - they were bought off by the feds, they were ordered off by the feds or a bit of both. There really is no other answer when you think of it

If we take Messrs Campbell, DeJong and Plant at their word ... there oft repeated word ... before the election and especially in the Legislature they were indeed committed to fight the Nisga'a case on the constitutional issue, namely that you can't take constitutional powers away from a province without a proper constitutional amendment. If they are to be taken at their word, and if we are to assume that they didn't pull a NDP fudget budget trick on us by promising one stand before the election and adopting another afterwards, one has to look for a reason for the about face. The case didn't get any weaker after the election - it was lost in the Supreme Court of BC before the election and the Liberals appealed. It couldn't be that there was a conflict because the Liberal Party brought the suit and now it was a Liberal Government for the government and the party are two very different entities. The case could simply have proceeded. Of course, with political will the new government could have changed the government's position in the lawsuit, as the NDP did with Delgamuukw. Even more obviously, the new Liberal government could have made a referral of the constitutional question to the BC Court of Appeal.

Why would Mr. Campbell and company suddenly reverse course on a matter of such fundamental importance to them and the people who supported them? There is only one answer possible - the federal Liberals applied pressure and the BC Liberals succumbed. Does anyone suppose the NDP would have capitulated on a case when ordered to by the Federal Liberals?

And surely no one could possibly see the Socreds doing so. I close my eyes and imagine even the mighty Trudeau telling Bill bennett or his government what to do and I break up laughing at the thought that we’d ever have buckled under to even the great man himself. Yet, within three months of election Gordon Campbell and his sheep in sheep’s clothing have knuckled under to President-for-life Chretien.

No .. the answer is clear. The BC Liberals listened to their big boss man in Ottawa and they said yes sir! How high Sir?
Let us at least not be obliged to hear Gordon Campbell's bunch ever again claim to be a BC only party. It was in BC's interest to win the Nisga'a suit and in the Federal government's interest to see it lost. We now see clearly where the Victoria Liberal government's interests lie. Everything they do from now on must be seen in the light that they are a branch office of the Liberal Party of Canada. I wonder what the 30 pieces of silver were? My guess is a deal on offshore oil and gas.

On another matter I'm getting a lot of email saying that terrorists should be put to death with the main reason being that they are responsible for so many deaths that they deserve it. There is annoyance unto shock expressed that I could oppose it.

Let me tell you why I stand against executing convicted terrorists. Leaving aside the fact that I am philosophically against the state taking lives let me tell you another reason just as important.

Most people would place terrorists the likes of which we are dealing here as in the same category as sex murderers ... deserving of no mercy. I feel that way and I’m sure you do too. Let’s think what happens when there is a sex slaying or especially in the UK, a terrorist atrocity is committed. The public – you and I - demands an arrest right now and a prompt conviction. We want no excuses. The politicians in our midst demand to know what the police are doing. Our police forces, individually repelled, naturally, at the offence especially since they have had to personally pick up the pieces, badly want a quick suspect. And here's my point - in damn near all of the unjust convictions I have charted over the last couple of decades almost all of them were alleged sex slayers or alleged terrorists.

The term "rush to judgment" comes to mind. We only need look at the enormous pressures placed by the public on the police in the Mindy Tran case to have a good look at what can happen when an aroused public demands an accused and a conviction.

It's hard to see accused terrorists as innocent until proved guilty when the image of jetliners hitting buildings is so fresh in our minds ... as they will for the rest of our lives. But this is what civilization is all about. Justice is the presumption of innocence and all the safeguards for the most unpopular in our society.
Unfortunately, the death penalty doesn't distinguish between the guilty and the innocent ... and as long as mere mortals sit in judgment we will make mistakes. All the more will we make mistakes when the person accused is, because he occupies the prisoner's dock, hated by the society that is trying him.

Civilization, I would submit, is judged by its ability to cool its ardor when angry and to always be ready to confess its own propensity for error – even when to do so is unpopular.