Former Quebec justice minister Marc Bellemare has dismissed the work of the Bastarache commission, saying the inquiry failed to uncover the truth and people will continue to believe him over Premier Jean Charest.
“People are right when they understand that I said the truth,” Mr. Bellemare told reporters.
In the report released on Wednesday, former Supreme Court justice Michel Bastarache said Mr. Bellemare’s allegation of influence-peddling by Liberal fundraisers in the nomination of judges was unfounded.
Mr. Bellemare struck back Thursday, accusing Mr. Bastarache of being “biased” and “complacent” and dismissing his report as having “no credibility.”
Mr. Bellemare said that for five days during public hearings in August he came under a barrage of questions from lawyers representing Mr. Charest, the Quebec Liberal Party and the Quebec government. Then, he said, his own lawyers were restricted to only a half hour of questions during testimony by a key witness, retired construction entrepreneur and senior Liberal fundraiser Franco Fava.
“Mr. Bastarache said I was not submitted to undue pressure. That’s false, completely false,” Mr. Bellemare said.
Witnesses who could have supported his allegations were never asked to appear, Mr. Bellemare said. Some witnesses lied under oath, he added, and others whose testimony corroborated his allegations weren’t considered in the report.
Mr. Bellemare pointed to testimony by one of Mr. Charest’s aides, Chantal Landry, who admitted using Post-it notes to identify whether judicial candidates were Liberal supporters before handing their files over to the Premier. Ms. Landry said she sought the advice of party fundraiser Charles Rondeau for nominations to senior government positions.
“This is what happened. When I was minister of justice in 2003 and 2004 I told Mr. Charest that there was pressure on me to designate judges by party fundraisers,” he said. “I told the truth. ... Everything I said was authentic.”
Parti Québécois Leader Pauline Marois agreed with Mr. Bellemare that testimony showing political pressure was involved in the nomination of three judges was not considered in the report.
“Mr. Bastarache wasn’t following the same commission people were,” Ms. Marois said. “The population heard Liberal Party fundraisers say they regularly went to the Premier’s office to influence the nomination of judges.”
The opposition parties said Mr. Charest created the Bastarache commission as a way to avoid holding a full public inquiry into allegations of corruption in the construction industry and its impact on party financing and the awarding of government contracts. The PQ and the Action démocratique du Québec vowed to pursue their demands for an inquiry.
Meanwhile on Thursday, ADQ House Leader Sylvie Roy said her party’s examination of government contracts showed the Ministry of Transportation awarded $300-million in projects between April and October, 2010, without issuing public tenders. Ms. Roy said that 80 per cent of the value of those contracts went to companies whose directors had donated to the Quebec Liberal Party.
“There is carelessness in the Ministry of Transportation,” Ms. Roy said. “We have a lot paper on which policies are written but the facts show that nothing has changed.”
In a recent report the provincial auditor questioned the Ministry of Transportation’s practice of awarding so many contracts without going through the public-tendering process.
Transport Minister Sam Hamad replied that there was nothing illegal in awarding certain contracts without public tenders and charged that the ADQ was falsely accusing his government of acting improperly.
Bellemare is to be commended on brining this issue to the public's attention. The "decision" of "former supreme court justice Michael Bastarache"
was predictable. The judiciary are effectively the largest criminal cartel in Canada and its a bit like asking the Hells Angels 'former saregent at arms" to do an inquiry into the Hells Angles.
Michael Bastarache was engaged in a political task, to make a predetermined outcome, in favour of the judiciary, you see, there is nothing like a "brother judge".
Commentary by the Ottawa Mens Centre
Its a sad fact of Canadian justice that most if not all of our judges are appointed after some level of "political influence" and "influence peddling".
After the judge is appointed, its "pay back time", the judges generally return the favour by virtually writing billions of dollars in checks in favour of their friends, returning favours and penalizing those who crossed their path while in practice.
In Ontario, the extreme feminist movement is directly responsible for a large amount of influence and intimidation into the selection of judges.
Ask any experienced lawyer about the strange phone calls they get from feminists all wanting to know their views on a particular judicial candidate before ANYONE really even knows that that particular lawyer is in line to be appointed a judge.
Then you have judges who have extreme personality disorders that border on psychopaths with psychopathic tendencies.
Others are former blue ribbon political supporters activists and their appointment is repaid according to the formula of what goes around comes around.
The problem is, there is NO real watchdog agency for the judiciary or to oversee the selection process. Judges like Allan Sheffield, Denis Power get to be flagrant abusers of judicial power and leave incredible trails of destruction behind them not to mention ill-repute to the rest of the judiciary who don't have their personality disorders.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. To suggest , to report, that there is NONE, is perhaps one of the biggest lies ever told.
The Judiciary are very good at sanitizing records, in fact, most decisions are not reported.
Many Ontario Judges are now even sanitizing the transcripts by ordering entire paragraphs be deleted from transcripts.
What those judges count on is that one party will be willfully blind to the corrupt decision however, on rare occasions, both parties agree that the transcripts are in error and wait for it, the judiciary go into a mad process of ensuring that the dirty deed is never revealed.
So, where is the payoff?
Judges make orders for costs, for their friends, against those who are politically incorrect and who judges see as easy victims who wont be able to appeal or embarrass them.
In particular, for example, judges like Denis Power and Allan Sheffield have an anger problem, they hate self represented litigants especially male self represented litigants and its against that vulnerable group, these professional child abusers make crazy orders for costs that are designed not for any valid reason but to ensure a father will never see his children again "by reason of an order for unpaid costs"..
These unpaid costs are then used to put fathers in jail indefinitely repeatedly for life without ever having had the right to a trial.
It takes dead beat judge like Sheffield and Power to create a dead beat dad.
Real crime, starts in family court with a judge engaged in obstruction of justice.
Its enough to make you want to puke.
www.OttawaMensCentre.com