Facing Possible Jury Duty And The Fate Of Niagara At Large – Just At A TimeThis Online News Site Is Drawing Tens-Of-Thousands Of Readers

By Doug Draper

Early this past April I received an envelope in my mailbox from the Ontario Ministry of Attorney General that I’m sure many a good citizen in this province dreads.

Inside the envelop was a letter summoning me to possible jury duty and ordering me to “report to…the Superior Court of Justice” in my old hometown of Welland, Ontario on this May 10 or, in words undersigned by a sheriff, “be liable to the penalties provided by the juries act,” whatever the juries act is.

To Niagara At Large’s good and growing friends of readers across our border in the Buffalo area and Western New York, a summons like that might mean the end of it all. Sitting on a jury for a couple of week or more would just about make it impossible for this site’s publisher to keep feeding this wonderful beast on a daily or almost daily basis.

A couple of the first things I thought of is why would they even want me to serve on a jury – a longtime reporter and columnist that has spent time observing our courts in action and has more than a few critical things to say about the fairness of our justice system.

The other thing that was riding on the top of my mind as I received this order from our courts is that this is about the last thing this publisher and writer for Niagara At Large needs as we continue to build on the official launch, this past January, of a new and independent online site for news and commentary for our greater binational.

Since our January launch, this site has posted a pretty impressive 40,000-plus readers actually clicking on www.niagaraatlarge.com for what they can read and comment on here, and we have every reason to believe that for every one reader visiting the site there are at least five times more people across our region that have signed on as subscribers to the site – meaning they read pieces from Niagara At Large as they are beamed to them, via an email, but are not visiting the site proper.

That adds up to at least a couple hundred thousand hits or readers drawn to articles from a an online site started, quite literally out of a basement office by an aging Niagara reporter that more than a few of my critics have called burned out. And that brings Niagara At Large to a point where it is time to take the site to the next level and turn this into something that is financially viable for the future.

The question is, how do we do this? Do we do it through commercial advertising or do we find some sort of not-for-profit model (check out the Voice of San Diego – www.voiceofsandiego – for one of the best models for a not-for-profit site where those foundations, groups and individuals in a community donate to keep the site alive). If you have any thoughts on which way to go – commercial, as in running ads, or not-for-profit – share your comments now or possibly for the near, if not longer future, keep your peace.

Anyway, this publisher of Niagara At Large can now move forward with these questions now that I am beyond the “summons to jury” thing. Not that I didn’t have mixed feelings about that one. I agree totally that we are blessed in this world where in many places, people who are considered a threat are just taken out and shot, that we have a jury system in this country. When it is said, in so many words, that serving on a jury is a great duty of our citizenship, in theory I agree.

Problem is that this citizens, who managed to not get his number called all the way to a point where I am sitting in a jury box this time, would feel much better about serving that duty if we saw more of the sleaze balls and crooks we read about in the media sit in that big black box for the accused.

Where are the e-Health consultants in Ontario who embezzled money from our public coffers, for example. Not one of them has been charged with anything! Then there is the infamous Dr. Smith, the character who went to courts in this province and provided false information that had parents of dead children confined to jail for years for a crime they did not commit.

I could go on and on with examples like this, and even mention the former prime minister, Brian Mulroney, who admitted during public hearings taking substantial amounts of money in bags, and not claiming it for income-tax purposes until that nefarious transaction was revealed. Only someone who lives in Munchkin Land could not see that if you or I or some other ordinary person did that, we would not have someone knocking on our door with a warrant.

There is one of the problems with Canada’s justice system – its basic disinterest in going after the more white-collar, big-fish crooks that can do at least as much damage to our society financially as someone can do with a knife or a gun. And that is one of the reasons I would have made a lousy juror to the point where I cannot accept this lopsided system.

I cannot and never will. There must be lawyers and judges in our justices system who feel the same way. When are they going to show the courage to speak out?

I finish this post by reprising a column I wrote late this May for Niagara This Week, where I have a weekly column in each Thursday edition. Here it comes now.

Jaffer Case Exposes, Again, The Sham Of Our Justice System

By Doug Draper

Don’t know about you, but I’ve pretty well had it with reading any more about Rahim Jaffer, his wife and now ex-federal cabinet minister Helena Guergis, and all these allegations about unregistered lobbying, influence-peddling for personal profit, or whatever one or both of them were supposed to have done.

Unless the news media, RCMP or the all-too-sanctimonious members of the opposition comes forward with crystal-clear proof that one or both members of them were using positions of public trust to stuff their pockets with cash from characters angling for millions of dollars of our tax money to fund their pet projects, I don’t want to hear or read any more about this.
It doesn’t help either that Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who was instrumental in nurturing the political rise of these two fallen stars (remember that ex-MP Jaffer was once leader of the federal Conservative caucus thanks to Harper), turned around earlier this month and summarily dumped Guergis from cabinet, threw her out of the party’s caucus and ordered an RCMP probe without much of an explanation.

Can’t help but make one wonder what Harper knows or thinks he knows about one or both of this pair in a day and age when, let’s face it, prime ministers and premiers are more often in the habit of standing by an embattled party member, almost up to a point where someone posts a video of them engaging in something illegal or morally reprehensible on YouTube.

And just getting back for a moment to the sanctimonious responses to all of this from others in politics, some of Jaffer’s own former Conservative colleagues that he (meaning Jaffer) has “tarnished the reputation of all politicians,” are we to believe that this is the first someone has used old party connections to win a few financial rewards for his or her clients in the private-sector world?

No wonder Jaffer feels he and his wife are being “hung out to dry.”
So don’t bother us with any more fake acts of shock over ex-political pals trading favours for their cronies.  Unless you can show evidence of wrongdoing that would land the perpetrator in a criminal court, then keep your sanctimonious mouth shut.

And that would be refreshing in this country, wouldn’t it? Some white -collar person with connections actually having to defend themselves in a criminal court. Hardly ever happens. Not in this country.
That’s what should bother us most about this whole tawdry affair involving Jaffer and Guergis. The only time, so far, that the Crown might have taken Rahim Jaffery – never mind his wife – to court to stand trial, it didn’t!
And it just goes to show, once again, what a sham and how weighted in favour of the rich and privileged our system of justice so often is in this country.

Of course, I’m talking about one evening last year when Jaffer was driving home from a meeting with business associates in Toronto, and an Ontario Police Officer clocked him doing about twice the speed limit on a road north of the city and pulled him over. After the officer, Kim Stapleton, pulled Jaffer over, she radioed in to dispatch; “I smell alcohol. I am doing an alc test.” Sure enough, upon further tests back at the station, he was allegedly driving under the influence. And if that isn’t enough, Stapleton allegedly discovered a bag of cocaine in one of Jaffer’s jacket pockets.

But Jaffer found himself a high-priced lawyer and managed to negotiate a deal with the Crown that dropped the driving over the influence and drug possession charges (both criminal charges) and allowed him to walk away with a fine and the loss of some demerit points for speeding.

Could you imagine any of us poor schmucks getting the same lenient treatment. And where is our federal justice minister, Niagara Falls MP Rob Nicholson, who wants to get so tough on crime. Or is that toughness only going to be applied to those of us who, in the broader scheme of things, have no name and influence?

I’ve covered courts for newspapers in this region and I’ve watched, a seemingly endless parade of \poor, broken schmucks who’ve been swept off the streets standing in trial for everything from shoplifting or possessing a few joints of marijuana, etc. And there they are they are there, on trial!
But none of that for the likes of Jaffer.

Like the late American lawyer Johnny Cochran, who defended O.J. Simpson during his double murder trial, once said – you are innocent until you’ve run out of money and influence.

Just as true here in Canada, it seems, and if that sounds like I have developed some contempt for our justice system having watched it as a reporter over the past 31 years, well lets just say I’m guilty as charged.
(Doug Draper can be reached at drapers@vaxxine.com.)