Man
behind Homolka hearing a meticulous risk-taker
Inside
Michael Bryant's strategy
Sought to avoid `unnecessary hysteria'
LINDA
DIEBEL
STAFF REPORTER
Jun. 4, 2005. 08:31 AM
When
Karla Homolka shuffled into a Quebec courtroom in leg irons this week, she faced
black-robed Ontario prosecutors James Ramsay and Howard Leibovich. She never saw
the rosy, puckish countenance of the man who pulled the strings.
That was Michael Bryant, Attorney General of Ontario and the victor in the
battle to rein her in when she's released from prison next month.
Bryant is Karla Homolka's worst enemy, and maybe her best friend. She may not
like it, but he sees himself as the buffer between her and mob justice.
She's been on his mind from the moment he was sworn in on Oct. 23, 2003.
Bryant's Homolka strategy began to percolate right away. It picked up speed a
year ago when he put the "right people" in place and came to fruition
when his team travelled across Canada to seek support from federal, provincial
and territorial justice officials for his bid to essentially put Homolka on
parole.
Asked if he's met her, he shakes his head.
There's a long pause and he adds softly: "But I have met the victims
personally."
He refers of course to the families of the girls who were raped, tortured and
killed by Homolka and her ex-husband Paul Bernardo. He's in prison for life,
while she signed the reviled "deal with the devil" to trade testimony
against him for 12 years in jail.
Bryant has been accused of grandstanding over Homolka and trying to rewrite
history by changing the terms of her deal. Toronto lawyer Julian Falconer says
he is seeking to "wipe the egg off the faces" of Ontario officials who
made the pact in 1993.
Bryant argues that he's worked on the Homolka file since 2003 because "an
attorney-general who gets in late in the game (is) probably going to
overcompensate, so that they can suddenly look at the end of the day like
they've done something."
He defends his public role: "She's getting out ... she's going to be out
there ... and families — moms, dads, young girls — are going to want to know
that we are doing everything we can to protect them....
"I see there being unnecessary hysteria and fear around her release, with
people thinking, `Well, it looks like the justice system isn't doing its job. I
guess we've got to take matters into our own hands.'
"That can't happen. We have to have the justice system do its job."
Strip away the media throngs and all the lawyers last week and it comes down to
a struggle between Homolka and Bryant.
She's 35, with a correspondence-course B.A. in psychology. She has a high I.Q.
and there's a perception that for years she's outwitted police, prosecutors and
prison officials.
Bryant is four years older, 39, a silver medallist from Osgoode Hall Law School,
a Fulbright Fellow at Harvard, former clerk to Supreme Court Chief Justice
Beverley McLachlin and law lecturer at the University of London in Britain.
"The youngest ever" is the most familiar accolade of his life. He
looks about 20, especially with the youthful kinetic energy.
"It's scary for many people still figuring out what they want to do in life
to look at Michael and see his example," says his friend Lorne Sossin,
associate dean of law at the University of Toronto.
Bryant's sparring with Homolka could almost be a duel between "street
smarts and book smarts" on The Apprentice.
She wanted her hearing in French, leaving more than a few Ontario police
officers scratching their heads.
So Bryant sent in the bilingual Ramsay, who knows her case and represented the
Crown at Bernardo's appeal. In preparation for this one hearing, Ramsay and
Leibovich arranged to be called to the Quebec bar earlier this year.
Bryant isn't all meticulous planning. He's also a risk-taker. Both in public and
private life, he eschews the easy path.
He brought in a gradual ban on pit bulls last year, leading to a summer of
protests.
"Seeing my head on a Hitler body on a website wasn't fun for my
family," he says. But he didn't back down.
"I think that straight talk is what people want," he says, on a recent
morning at his offices on Bay Street.
He's made gutsy moves. He won election as the Liberal candidate in upscale
Toronto riding of St. Paul's in 1999, after gambling that an upstart from
British Columbia could win the nomination. He planned his assault on St. Paul's
much as he plotted the Homolka strategy — carefully and far in advance. By the
time local star candidates paid attention, he had won the nomination and was
going door-to-door to secure his base.
Former premier David Peterson says he "discovered Bryant when he was still
in his twenties. Peterson credits him "with a knack for knowing what
registers with the public."
The love of Bryant's life is Susan Abramovitch, an entertainment lawyer from
Montreal and a double gold medallist from McGill University — "the brains
in the family," he says.
Their relationship endured through working in different cities — he in Boston,
she in New York; he in London, she in Paris — and is another example of taking
the more difficult path. "The Montreal Jew and the Victoria WASP got
together," he says. "I don't know how they did it, but they did."
Bryant took courses in Judaism and did everything but convert. His says family
members now groan and tease him about being the most observant Jew in the
family.
Will he convert? He shrugs. "I'm not a theologian, I am a politician, so I
don't have to have completely formed thoughts on these things. I just have to
have vague ideas, and there is something instinctive about what I am that makes
me feel a conversion ... shouldn't happen now."
What he is was shaped by his father, Ray, and grandfather, Jimmy, municipal
politicians in Esquimalt on Vancouver Island who taught that he could achieve
whatever he wanted. "They made a difference," he says.
His mother Margaret taught him about courage. She has lived with multiple
sclerosis since her 40s and "she didn't let it define her life."
He won't let politics define his.
"It's strange to have your political dreams fulfilled at 33," he says,
of his St. Paul's victory. "But you know, I'm here for a good time, not
necessarily a long time. I don't want to be a career politician. I am here only
as long as it makes sense."
Additional
articles by Linda Diebel
Judge's order
A Quebec judge yesterday placed the
following restrictions on Karla Homolka for 12 months, following her release
from prison next month. Check in with police once a month. Give police her
address and tell them about her job and roommates. Advise police of any change
in her name or address. Stay way from drugs. Not work anywhere she would have
access to barbiturates. Not work with people younger than 16 or have any ties of
authority with anyone younger than 16. Undergo regular therapy. Give a DNA
sample. Stay away from the families of her victims. Not associate with violent
criminals. Give police 96 hours' notice if she wants to leave Quebec.
Source: Canadian Press
Source