Should the federal government sue the Liberals?

[August1991]

As for the optics of suing the party however, I'm with those who think Harper should avoid using this mechanism so early.

There's more than optics involved.

We punish criminals as a deterrent for would-be criminals. The punishment has to be severe enough to be a deterrent.

"Throwing the rascals out" is the best punishment for politicians because, presumably, future would-be politicians will think twice before setting up "Adscam: The Next Chapter".

If the punishment goes beyond what voters impose through the ballot box, if we start throwing politicians in jail wholesale or imposing heavy fines on political parties, we are opening up a can of worms. What stops a future PM from arresting an opposition leader or driving an opposition party into bankruptcy? Parliamentary privilege exists for a reason.

In the case of politicians, the best prosecuter, judge and executioner is a voter's ballot. That's democratic politics and it should be enough. I have not seen a good case made for anything more than that.

I don't condone anyone evading taxes but it was you that drew the comparison, not me. If you want to go that route, government goes after people who evade taxes whenever they can. They want restitution plus stiff penalties.

There's a large difference between a taxpayer and a politician.

Sparhawk's example is interesting because it shows how difficult it is draw a simple line of guilt.

My point is different. In politics, the justice system cannot do the job of ordinary voters. Many ordinary voters passed judgment on the Liberals in the past election. Live with it.

[Wilber]

As for the optics of suing the party however, I'm with those who think Harper should avoid using this mechanism so early.

There's more than optics involved.

We punish criminals as a deterrent for would-be criminals. The punishment has to be severe enough to be a deterrent.

"Throwing the rascals out" is the best punishment for politicians because, presumably, future would-be politicians will think twice before setting up "Adscam: The Next Chapter".

If the punishment goes beyond what voters impose through the ballot box, if we start throwing politicians in jail wholesale or imposing heavy fines on political parties, we are opening up a can of worms. What stops a future PM from arresting an opposition leader or driving an opposition party into bankruptcy? Parliamentary privilege exists for a reason.

In the case of politicians, the best prosecute, judge and executioner is a voter's ballot. That's democratic politics and it should be enough. I have not seen a good case made for anything more than that.

A Prime Minister cannot arrest people, that is the job of police and prosecutors. They do not press charges unless they believe there is a good chance of proving them in court.

Who's talking about throwing politicians in jail wholesale. We are talking about recovering stolen money. Parliamentary privilege does not include ripping off the public for everything you can get before you are thrown out of office, which is what the above statement seems to imply.

[sage]

August, there is a reason that the judiciary is beyond the control of politicians!

We are not talking about rounding up every member of the Liberal Party and charging/suing them. We have a transparent and relatively objective legal system that is designed for this very purpose.

The point is to treat politicians the same as a regular citizen, with all the protection afforded by our courts, yet all the consequences as well.

Criminal charges are being pursued against the individuals who the crown prosecutors feel are most culpable. In the event informaiton comes out in the trial of these men that leads a crown prosecutor to feel more charges should be pursued, they most likely will.

It is also important to note that Gomery laid the blame for the sponsorship program at the feet of Chretien, not because he had specific knowledge of the criminal activity and was an accomplice, but rather due to his mismanagement. There is a distinction between moral responsibility and criminal culpability, and I think this is being lost in this emotional debate.

[August1991]

A Prime Minister cannot arrest people, that is the job of police and prosecutors. They do not press charges unless they believe there is a good chance of proving them in court.

Tell that to Brian Mulroney.

Wilber, I don't think you and I inhabit the same political universe. Who ultimately controls the police and prosecutors?

I am not arguing that politicians are above the law. I am arguing that a government should tread with great care when prosecuting an opposition party. In a democracy, voters are the judge of politicians. Leave it at that.

Do you know the case of Singapore's Jeyaretnam?

Representing the Workers' Party, Jeyaretnam defeated the People's Action Party's Pang Kim Him in the 1981 Anson by-election with 51.9% to 47.1% of the vote to become Singapore's first opposition MP. He was again re-elected to the same seat in 1984 as one of only two opposition politicians to win in that election.

Later, however, Jeyaretnam was brought down by a series of politically-motivated charges and fines in a successful effort to disbar and prevent him from further taking part in future elections. Two months after his 1984 re-election, he was charged for allegedly mis-stating his party accounts.

In 1986, a district court found him innocent of all charges but one; the prosecution appealed and the Chief Justice ordered a retrial in a district court. At the retrial, Jeyaretnam was declared guilty on all charges. The judge sentenced him to three months' imprisonment (later commuted to one month), and fined him SGD$5,000, sufficient to disqualify him from standing for election for a period of five years. He was also disbarred from legal practice.

There are many similar cases elsewhere and in history.

[Wilber]

August

We do no live in a police state, yet.

Mulroney was not arrested and the charges were not proved. Ultimately the courts decide who is guilty, not the PM, but if you are making a case for not allowing the PM to make important appointments in the justice system without scrutiny from and the approval of Parliament, I couldn't agree more. Who came out looking worse from this episode, Chretien or Mulroney?

Every individual or organization in our country can be held financial responsible in a court for their actions by other citizens. Recent examples of organizations would be the Red Cross over tainted blood and religious groups over abuses committed in residential schools under their control. Why should political parities have some sort of immunity that no one else in the country enjoys?

There may be no case against the Liberal party and I agree with Sage when it comes to the optics of suing. There is a political risk for any party that is seen to be going after another in court. If the case cannot be made, it could backfire badly.

[fellowtraveller]

The number kicked around is $40 million .

Harper was asked this question recently and dodged it.

What do you think, are the taxpayers entitled to their money back, or is this vindictive partisanship?

The best punishment for a politician is to lose power. We should think twice before imposing great penalties on politicians or political parties. Even Richard Nixon was pardoned.

----

"In War: Resolution, In Defeat: Defiance, In Victory: Magnanimity, In Peace: Good Will".

I'm not talking about punishment. Punishment is mainly a criminal procedure. Losing an election is neither punishment or payback, not when all that money is mssing. Gomery of course had no mandate to name names or initiate further criminal investigations. I have no idea why the RCMP did not seize Party files and find out who exactly stole the money. It is hard to make $40 million just disappear without a trace.

What I'm talking about is recovering money that was taken from taxpayers. OJ Simpson is an example of the process. The criminal courts found him guilty, a civil court found him liable. Somewhere, somebody has $40 million of MY money, and I'd like to know who it is, exactly. I'd like them to be fully obliged to give it back. I'd like to know the names of those people, and what their role was in the theft. In other words, I'd like to know what happened here, just as any case involving this much money going missing would involve.

There are no 'penalties' involved, other than somebody being forced to return what is not theirs. I'd have a different attitude if it was simple negligence, the usual bungling we've come to expect. But this is not about that.

[FTA Lawyer]

To the extent that public money wound up wrongfully in a bank account belonging to the Liberal Party of Canada, then the party should unquestionably be sued for its return. It really doesn't matter how it got there or who passed the actual cash-filled envelopes.

The law of unjust enrichment states that compensation should be ordered where there is 1) an enrichment (to the LPC), 2) a corresponding deprivation (to the public purse), and 3) the absence of a juridical (lawful)reason to not order compensation. This is a made-to-order area of the law to address such a breach of trust by politicians.

If your local MP misappropriated budget funds and they ended up financing his wife's new company, no one would even think twice about suing the MP, his wife, and her company to get the money back. There is absolutely no reason to balk at such a process just because it is bigger in scale and the "company" is actually a political party.

This concept of compensation for unjust enrichment is totally separate and apart from laying blame...in either the criminal or the civil sense. If the Liberal Party has money that they did not obtain lawfully it must be repaid...it's that simple.

Whether anyone will go to jail or not, we'll just have to keep an eye on the criminal trials.

Parliamentary privilege prevents MP's from suing each other for saying nasty things in the House of Commons...it hardly has any application as a protection for breach of fiduciary obligations or fraud against the Canadian public. If the consequence of forcing a political party to repay money they stole from the taxpayers is to wipe out that party then so be it...don't steal and you need not worry about such grave consequences.

FTA

[Boru]

If you think politicians stealing from the public purse is OK because some guy tries to get out of paying GST for having his lawn mowed, I think you have pretty low standards.

Evading the GST is stealing from the public purse - you have pretty low standards if you think the amount of money makes a difference. The party workers who benefited from the illegal funds may have never really known where the money came from but probably knew something was not right. They are no different from somebody who pays cash when they know they are helping someone evade taxes. The real criminals are the people who orchestrated the scheme and that is who the government should go after - not the Liberal party itself.

Paying cash to avoid GST should be equally punished. Just because lots of people (not everyone, I sure wouldn't and haven't) do it doesn't make it right.

I see your point Sparhawk, and I agree. Those that stole public money should be jailed. The party, until they co-operate, are equally guilty. They need to tell us who stole the money, and they are hiding this. That is illegal, so they are acting criminally.

I agree that the individuals who are accomplice should be sought.

But suing the Liberal Party is ridiculous, and a waste of court time, and thus a waste of more tax money.

The Hell's Angels comparison was honestly pathetic. Trying to show relationship between those groups is moronic, and not even worth the few posts people have made criticizing it.

But yes, find the individuals involved and prosecute them criminally.

Doing anything else would only damage the Conservatives as they try to implement some kind of workign agenda now.

[fellowtraveller]

But suing the Liberal Party is ridiculous, and a waste of court time, and thus a waste of more tax money.

OK, but can you explain why you think that way?

Another example: Say the government establishes a secret fund to provide Bombardier with money, lots of money, to legally market their aircraft. A group of civil servants and Bombardier employees conspire to redirect(steal)a lot of money to Bombardier employees for their own use, a use certainly not intended by the provider of the money.. Some of the civil servants and Bombardier employees are charged criminally, but none of the public money is recovered, and no attempt is made to recover it

People would be outraged, yet are not when it is a political party that benefits. Puzzling.

I want my money back, now.

[August1991]

The law of unjust enrichment states that compensation should be ordered where there is 1) an enrichment (to the LPC), 2) a corresponding deprivation (to the public purse), and 3) the absence of a juridical (lawful)reason to not order compensation. This is a made-to-order area of the law to address such a breach of trust by politicians.

There are several questionable points here but the most serious is that this is not a legal question, it is a political question. FTA, you don't seem capable of making that distinction.

Another example: Say the government establishes a secret fund to provide Bombardier with money, lots of money, to legally market their aircraft. A group of civil servants and Bombardier employees conspire to redirect(steal)a lot of money to Bombardier employees for their own use, a use certainly not intended by the provider of the money.

That has happened. Bombardier has just cancelled a project for which it received government subsidies. None of those subsidies will be returned to the taxpayers, yet the money was never used for purpose that it was given.

Your arguments make make it seem so simple and so black and white. It's not.

One political party should be very cautious in accusing another political party of a crime. The reason we have democracy is to provide an ultimate judge of politicians. Courts cannot and should not fulfil that role.

Given the recent election results, if need be, Harper should issue, if possible, some kind of pardon.

[fellowtraveller]

The law of unjust enrichment states that compensation should be ordered where there is 1) an enrichment (to the LPC), 2) a corresponding deprivation (to the public purse), and 3) the absence of a juridical (lawful)reason to not order compensation. This is a made-to-order area of the law to address such a breach of trust by politicians.

There are several questionable points here but the most serious is that this is not a legal question, it is a political question. FTA, you don't seem capable of making that distinction.

Another example: Say the government establishes a secret fund to provide Bombardier with money, lots of money, to legally market their aircraft. A group of civil servants and Bombardier employees conspire to redirect(steal)a lot of money to Bombardier employees for their own use, a use certainly not intended by the provider of the money.

That has happened. Bombardier has just cancelled a project for which it received government subsidies. None of those subsidies will be returned to the taxpayers, yet the money was never used for purpose that it was given.

Your arguments make make it seem so simple and so black and white. It's not.

One political party should be very cautious in accusing another political party of a crime. The reason we have democracy is to provide an ultimate judge of politicians. Courts cannot and should not fulfil that role.

Given the recent election results, if need be, Harper should issue, if possible, some kind of pardon.

Because it has happened elsewhere and not pursued has no bearing on the discussion. Great, let us sue Bombardier too if our money has been taken there. . We have many lawyers at Justice Canada to handle just this sort of thing. If they are not up to it, we could contract it out on the usual contingency basis.

It is not necessary or may not be desireable, as you point out, to 'accuse another political party of a crime'. I'm referring to a civil proceeding, which can succeed independently, with or without a criminal element.

A pardon? Perhaps our resident lawyer can advise whether a pardon covers both criminial and civil liability.

Perhaps a pardon would be judicious, but only after Chretien, Martin and all the crew down at liberal HQ provided full and complete disclosure. Given the lack of cooperation and disclosure so far, I see no reason at all to be magnanimous.

Most of all, I want my money back, the stuff that was pilfered. We can talk about the rest after that essential first step.

[FTA Lawyer]

The law of unjust enrichment states that compensation should be ordered where there is 1) an enrichment (to the LPC), 2) a corresponding deprivation (to the public purse), and 3) the absence of a juridical (lawful)reason to not order compensation. This is a made-to-order area of the law to address such a breach of trust by politicians.

There are several questionable points here but the most serious is that this is not a legal question, it is a political question. FTA, you don't seem capable of making that distinction.

Another example: Say the government establishes a secret fund to provide Bombardier with money, lots of money, to legally market their aircraft. A group of civil servants and Bombardier employees conspire to redirect(steal)a lot of money to Bombardier employees for their own use, a use certainly not intended by the provider of the money.

That has happened. Bombardier has just cancelled a project for which it received government subsidies. None of those subsidies will be returned to the taxpayers, yet the money was never used for purpose that it was given.

Your arguments make make it seem so simple and so black and white. It's not.

One political party should be very cautious in accusing another political party of a crime. The reason we have democracy is to provide an ultimate judge of politicians. Courts cannot and should not fulfil that role.

Given the recent election results, if need be, Harper should issue, if possible, some kind of pardon.

I never said anything about charging the Liberal Party with a crime...I said, if the LPC has ended up with $ that doesn't belong to it, then the current government has an obligation to the people of Canada to bring action to get it back...I only gave the law on unjust enrichment as the ideal way (in my view) to get any such money back, without having to fly off the handle and accuse people of crimes.

I get the political question, and my argument is that the politically appropriate thing is to keep hammering away at the message of ethics and accountability in government...starting with doing whatever possible to get our money back (if in fact the LPC has some of it).

It is absolutely routine (in fact it is now legislated as mandatory) in personal injury cases, for example, for the Government of Alberta to add itself as a Plaintiff and sue for recovery of health care costs that it has to incur as the result of the negligence of the Defendant...and why the hell not??

If a Liberal candidate actually took a hundred bucks out of your wallet and used it for campaign signs, I suppose you'd just say, "oh well...he won't get my vote...and I'm not calling the police because this is politics"?!?!?

I repeat, in my view, there is absolutely no reason that the Federal government should not pursue all available legal remedies to recover losses it can prove it suffered at the hands of the LPC.

FTA

P.S., as for a "pardon", your suggested inaction is all that would be required.

[Shakeyhands]

If it can be proved in court that they defrauded the public, of course they should.

The only thing that they will be able to prove is some individuals in the party broke the rules. Attempting to sue the Liberal party itself would likely go no where.

\

Glad to see the truth come out even if it was after the election.

[mowich]

Much as I would dearly love to see the liberal assholes tried and fried I would never agree with spending the millions of taxpayers dollars it would take to bring them to court and see the process through the ensuing appeals. As was said they are out of power now and for a long time to come. Let's get on with governing the country.

[fixer1]

I believe that the liberal party was the biggest benefactor in all of this, so they should be sued not only for the return of all the money but also all the costs and expenses to get them to do so. I do not care if it bankrupts the party, or if in these efforts people will be ruined or jailed. It should be done simply because it is the right thing to do. It would be the just thing and the moral thing.

Those who oppose this are probably the same ones who believe that it is okay to do these things, because everyone else does. I have little time and patience to that kind of thinking. you either follow the law or you don't. Sometimes when the law is unclear you always must give heft to the defenant. But the law in this is very clear and so is the fact about who benefited from these actions. We must proceed accordingly or admit to there being a double standard in the law for politicians.

[Wilber]

Much as I would dearly love to see the liberal assholes tried and fried I would never agree with spending the millions of taxpayers dollars it would take to bring them to court and see the process through the ensuing appeals. As was said they are out of power now and for a long time to come. Let's get on with governing the country.

We are spending up to 80 million on the Gomery inquiry. Why quit now?

[geoffrey]

Much as I would dearly love to see the liberal assholes tried and fried I would never agree with spending the millions of taxpayers dollars it would take to bring them to court and see the process through the ensuing appeals. As was said they are out of power now and for a long time to come. Let's get on with governing the country.

We are spending up to 80 million on the Gomery inquiry. Why quit now?

Add that to their bill.