the daily snivel

My dear friends Mike and Melissa, whose wedding I attended almost exactly a year ago today, just wrote to inform us that Melissa had a miscarriage, and their 19-week-old daughter Madeline fought on for two hours, just long enough to be baptised before she passed away.

Many of the people who read this blog know them, and I hope you'll join me in keeping these wonderful friends in your thoughts today in their time of grief. 

On July 12, 2006, I was Called to the Bar as a Barrister and Solicitor and a Member in Good Standing of the Law Society of Upper Canada. I am now a lawyer.

I'm pictured above in my legal robes, which are required court attire in the Superior Court and every appeal court, and you can't be Called to the Bar without them. While some people simply borrow or rent theirs, I know I'll be needing them sooner or later, and I wouldn't feel like a proper lawyer if I didn't have them ready for an unexpected trip to the Supreme Court (as happened to one of my mentors within a week of his first being Called). They cost me $500, all told, but I think they're worth every penny scrimped and borrowed to afford them. I think I look very, very smart in them... though in fairness to the inherent power of awesomeness within the robes, it's probably them more than me looking so damn smart. I'm on the record as saying that you could shave a gorilla and slap him in a set of those and people would still be saying to themselves, "Man that guy looks sharp."

This is the culmination of about 8 years of work. I can still remember the decision to switch gears in 1999 and enter the Criminology Program at Carleton University (transferring out of the Cognitive Science Program, where i was rapidly discovering that I'm Just Not That Into computer programming), which was amazing and daunting at first, just so I could follow the passion I'd long held for the rule of law, and social justice. In doing so, I kicked my GPA hard in the rear and came out of my undergraduate degree with highest honours.

You've read a lot about the following three years of law school, mostly spent as a student at the Legal Clinic where I honed so many skills, the past year of completing the Bar Admission Course, going to Toronto and back again, and the past ten months during which I completed my Articles of Clerkship at the Clinic. In that time I've studied, crammed, fretted, lost untold hours of sleep, and discovered a great deal of newfound confidence as I did things I would not have thought possible of myself. It's been a lot of hard work, and long hours, and on the way I lost a good friend whose mental health declined to the point where she could not continue, and I no longer know where or how she is. I've also proven myself to a lot of people who didn't think I would amount to much. More than that, though, I've shown that the faith and support of the many more people who believed in me was not misplaced.

It's a tremendously strange feeling being a lawyer all of a sudden. One day I'm just an articling student -- last in line to call cases at remand court, can't argue a bail hearing, can't appear in Superior Court, can't give legal advice -- and then, at a ceremony at the National Arts Centre, presto-chango, I'm a lawyer. I mean, it wasn't just that. First, we had to assemble at 8:00 am. Then we took our seats and one-by-one called us across the stage by name where we shook the hand of the Treasurer of the Law Society of Upper Canada and were given the Degree of Barrister-at-Law and led back to the seats with the rest of our colleagues, where we took three oaths (a voluntarily oath of allegiance to the Queen and her heirs, and the mandatory Barrister's Oath and the Solicitor's Oath), and a special sitting of the Superior Court of Justice and the Court of Appeal confirmed our ability to practice before the courts. Plus lots of speeches, of course.

Nevertheless, it's certainly an odd feeling. I wish I could say I felt any wiser or more learned. If anything, being a lawyer is a lot like being an articling student, but a lot more expensive. No sooner have you taken your robes off from the ceremony but you're being sent invoices for your Law Society fees and your LawPRO (Lawyers' insurance) premiums. Not to mention there's the fact that you no longer have the security blanket of a Principal who must sign off on all your actions and correspondence. All the mistakes I make in the future are entirely my own. Meanwhile, I still have a lot of debts, and there's more to being a lawyer than simply hanging up a shingle and raking in the juicy retainers. There's a lot to be done first, and that's certainly the (slightly) scary part.

Happily, I'm going to remain at the Legal Clinic until the end of the summer, staying on to help supervise one of the divisions while one of the Review Counsel is away. I'm glad that I'll be there a bit longer, as it will allow me the chance to finish a couple of very important cases and projects I've already invested a great deal of care and labour into, as well as giving me time for a graceful and gradual exit. I've already moved out of my posh office to make way for the new articling student, who starts Monday and to whom we wish to give a proper welcome by having a permanent and comfortable space set aside for. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll work wherever there's space (probably in the supply office I used last summer when I was part-time and working on the website), though I've decided to take up the Director's offer to use her office while she's away for three weeks, since I know I'll miss my former office's window air conditioner before long.

The next couple of weeks will also be spent looking for a new job. I would prefer to work at a firm or organization for the next few years, while I perfect my advocacy skills and continue to learn the law and the many strange procedures and secrets that they don't teach you in law school (though I daresay I know more of these things than a lot of my fledgling colleagues thanks to the extensive client wrangling and court experience that the Clinic gave me). Ultimately, I will probably practice Clinic law, since the clients and issues that clinics engage are where my commitment runs strongest, but in the meantime I will probably gladly work wherever my conscience and budget will allow.

So, er, if you know anybody who needs somebody...

Meanwhile, I have to extend my congratulations, along with my thanks, to the wonderful friends I've made throughout law school who are also being Called this month. You've all made the process a lot saner, and I'm glad I could share it with you. And to my family, friends, and mentors: I can never repay the support and faith you've given to me, but I will spend my entire career trying, all the while striving to do honour to your values, and the priceless lessons you've taught me. 

(For Nick and Tara by request)

1. Mac OS X is a stable, reliable, secure operating system based on Unix. It is as easy to use as it is visually appealing, while being robust and powerful enough to act as a web server or an audio production studio (and includes the necessary tools for same right out of the box).


2. If there's a Windows application you just can't live without, the new Intel-based iMacs, MacBooks, and MacBook Pros can all run Windows XP natively with the "Boot Camp" software provided by Apple. No other computer can run both systems.
   


3. When your killer legions of superintelligent computers do battle against the generic superintelligent computers of your enemies in the not-too-distant future, your computers won't be stopped dead in their tracks by someone trying to install a printer.
   


4. While no system is inherently virus-proof, there are no viruses for Mac OS X. Macs are not affected by the vast majority (if any) of spyware applications or malicious worms and scripts so popular with the kids these days.


5. Unlike some other operating systems, Mac OS X has a powerful built-in firewall turned on by default.


6. Any home with someone as beautiful as Tara living in it deserves a beautiful computer to match (awwww).


7. Before anyone or anything can muck around with your precious system files, the system requires an admin password to authorize the action.
   


8. You don't need to type in a CD key to install Mac OS X.
   


9. Unlike some companies I could name, Apple won't require you to download any snitchy "Windows Genuine Advantage Notification" software.
   


10. If someone ever asks you how many licks it takes to get to the centre of your MacBook, you'd almost be tempted to find out. It's just that lickable.
    


11. You like your iPod, don't you? It works well, it looks good, it's simple, and it delivers. It's like a sex toy for your ears. Well, who do you think made the iPod?
    


12. It comes with great, free software for getting things done, edited, organized, or running quickly: iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, iCal, Address Book, GarageBand, Front Row, Preview, Photo Booth, Apple Mail, and Safari, a quick, powerful, elegant web browser with one of the fastest growing user bases.
    


13. All Macs come with built-in high-speed wireless networking, FireWire and USB 2.0 ports, and most come with a built-in iSight camera.


14. Macs run Word, OpenOffice, Photoshop, and the Gimp, for all your essential geeky needs. You can even create, read, and print PDF files without additional software. Macs are great at networking, too. There's nothing you can't share with the Windows world.
    


15. When you factor in all the premium hardware and software you get, you'd be sorely pressed to find any other computer that does so much for the same price.
    


16. To the best of my knowledge, no Mac has ever ruined a wedding. Can any other computer, mother, photographer, or DJ say the same?
    

 

Having now ranted a good deal about the shameful stupidity of the people who urinated on the Canadian War Memorial on this past Canada Day, I now have to rant a bit about how the very outrage itself has gone quite over the top. There has been so much public outcry and, accordingly, political pressure, that we now learn that the Ottawa Police Service has assigned a full-time investigator to the matter and vowed that charges shall be laid.

Ottawa police are looking for three Canada Day revellers photographed urinating on the National War Memorial.

Police have asked anyone with information about the three to come forward.

Det. Mike Walker said police have contacted the photographer, retired Canadian Armed Forces Maj. Michael Pilon, and will ensure charges are laid.
Pilon's picture, taken around 11 p.m. on July 1 after a fireworks display ended, has prompted outrage.

...

Police said they could lay charges of mischief, being drunk in a public place and performing an indecent act in a public place. [Emphasis Added]

Worse, an Ottawa MP (and the brother of the current Premier) is actually calling for an amendment to the Criminal Code of Canada specifically making "mischief, vandalism, or destruction" of Canada's war memorials a separate criminal offence with substantial fines and imprisonment as penalties, even though the intentional destruction of property is already a criminal offence.

We've moved from feeling rightfully shocked and angry to calling for punishments far worse than the situation merits. And the response of politicians like Mr. McGuinty seems more in line with pandering to the callers of AM talk radio shows than a measured response to an actual problem. If someone willfully destroys or damages property, it's already against the criminal law. While monuments and memorials are sacred spaces, so too are cemetaries and churchgrounds. We count on people to have the common decency and good sense and respect to not violate those spaces. If they do, they are subject to prosecution already. To call for amendments to the criminal law after an isolated incident, though shamefully and wearingly stupid that incident was, is not a judicious use of the law.

Here's one of my most fundamental beliefs: the criminal law should not be used to enforce morality. I am a strong believer that the criminal powers should be reserved for protecting the public from harm, whether that's the robber in the alley with the cudgel and the big bag with a dollar sign on it, or the corporate crook laying waste to the environment. In criminal law, this is referred to as "the harm principle." In other words: if there is no public harm in the activity, it might be just to have some law or regulation governing the activity, but it shouldn't be a criminal offence. To do otherwise, in my mind, simply enforces morality with the biggest hammer the state has, clogging courts and wasting the overtaxed resources of the police and the prosecutors in the meantime. And, of course, putting people in risk of a permanent criminal record, and possibly worse, for committing an offence whose main harm is that it upsets people.

While I cannot blame the police for responding to a public outcry, I am concerned by their change of stance in this case. The Ottawa Police Service have gone from saying "we can't be everywhere" in initial reports to "we're promising that we're going to catch these people and charge them."

While there is clear evidence for the police that some sort of offence has been committed (I won't go so far as to call it a crime), one gets the feeling that the decision has also been made for essentially political reasons. There is such a hue and cry raised about the issue that vowing that charges SHALL BE LAID seems the only way to satisfy the anger raised by this conduct -- and it doesn't hurt that people will then say to themselves "FINALLY, the police are doing something!"

I think charging people is overkill in the circumstances. It is certainly possible that the three young men now identified could get a criminal record over a drunken mistake on Canada Day, shamefully disrespectful and abhorrently moronic though that mistake was.

While I think it was unforgivably stupid to act as these people have done, I am not one to say "Oh, there outta be a law!" or "Lock 'em up and throw away the key!" I think there are a lot of regrettable things done by people that don't merit the full force of the legal system.

On Canada Day in particular, it seems that there is judicious use of discretion being exercised by the police in deciding not to charge everyone they see -- and for good reason. If you are a police officer on duty, there are literally thousands of people breaking the law come nightfall. You could empty a book writing tickets for open alcohol and public intoxication. Instead, it seems that it's better to simply take the beer bottles away from the merry drunks and understand that it's a holiday, people are celebrating, and boys will be boys and girls will go wild.

I can remember being out for a Canada Day just before I started law school, and the people I was with wanted to smoke some weed. I didn't partake. It makes me cough wretchedly and gives me heart palpiltations. Plus I think there's something pathetic about the whole practice, but that's a rant for another day. We were out in public on Wellington Street, not far from the Parliament buildings, and I remember being quite freaked out because I was terrified of being caught and charged on the eve of trying to start a career in law. But we were utterly ignored. In my opinion, the police were rightfully more worried about public safety (they asked us about some broken beer bottles at one point, but we hadn't thrown any so they moved along, whether or not they noticed that we were up-to-no-good with respect to narcotics laws) than enforcing every rule in the book. I doubt very much that, had police been on the scene this Canada Day, they would have done much more than tell the urine monkeys to move along, or keep them in the drunk tank overnight and set them free, likely without charges, once they'd sobered up some. I could be wrong, but it's the impression I have.

I abhor stupidity. I both lament and rue it. I think we all should. But to me, it's an issue of simply being profoundly disappointed in people, and wishing we could do better.

I am angry. I know why other people are angry. Both of my grandfathers were veterans. In fact, my paternal grandfather served in World War II and the Korean war. If Canada were threatened by war today, I would join the Armed Forces without hestitation to protect it. But I disagree that the full force of the justice system should be used in this situation, and it doesn't honour the freedoms and civil liberties our veterans fought for to have the state vowing to track down and prosecute a bunch of stupid young men with criminal charges for peeing.

We need to look at the context. There were drunk people everywhere. There were people taking a leak in public everywhere. There are tens of thousands of people downtown on Canada Day, and when you mix booze and crowds and scant public restrooms, you get a very predictable result. But what does punishment get us? I think it's enough that the idiots' pictures were on the front page of the Ottawa Citizen. Shunning and scorn are appropriate punishments in a situation like this. They must feel so tremendously humiliated now, praying that they can lie low and out of sight until the public gets caught up in the next outrage of a slow news month.

My friend Chris pointed out in the comments that it would likely be my fate to represent these people, given my anger at their idiotic behaviour. And, you know, I actually hope they come here, though I daresay any criminal lawyer in Ottawa would be happy to take this case on pro bono, given the publicity it would merit. I don't believe criminal charges are founded, and I doubt they would withstand a trial, and I frankly think the state would be wasting a lot of valuable time and resources with even a by-law or provincial offence prosecution.

If anything, the case ought to be resolved with pre-charge diversion. Given that two of the "suspects" are young persons (under 18), this seems likely. In other words, I think it would be appropriate to have them perform some community service, preferably aiding veterans in some way, in exchange for which no charges would be laid. It's a faily common and commonsensical approach in such cases, and would serve legitimate public ends without overly pandering to the hue and cry. 

George on top of my iBook, having the most blissful snooze I've ever seen.

This has been your daily dose of "awww," right here on the Daily Snivel. 

On July 1, 1876, the British North America Act came into force, uniting the colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Province of Canada (which at that time was comprised of what is now Ontario and Quebec), creating the Dominion of Canada, which with the gradual addition of more provinces and territories (and finally a repatriated Constitution in 1982) came to be the country we know and love (and complain about the weather in) today. We celebrate the birth of Confederation each July 1 with a national holiday, replete with fireworks, outdoor concerts, barbecues and, well, we shall see.

I was commenting on this with a friend while out for a few friendly rounds with some Clinic folk and alumni, including the lawyer who used to supervise me when he Articled at the Clinic and I was but a law student -- and who now has a great deal of fame following the extensive media coverage surrounding his now-infamous client, charged with the murder of Jennifer Teague.

Anyway, one person at the table remarked that this would be her first Canada Day celebration in Ottawa. I stated that, while I do enjoy this holiday, there are a number of clichés you can guarantee will make an appearance, to the extent that she could put together a bingo-card marked with them and follow the day knowing they'd soon all be marked off:

1. Canada flag temporary tattoos plastered on thousands of faces
2. Red and white face paint
3. People wearing the Canada flag like a cape
4. People blowing obnoxiously and incessantly on those plastic red horns that are hawked everywhere on Canada day
5. People wearing tall, wonky, cat-in-the-hat-esque top hats marked with red and white and the maple leaf
6. and last, but not least, epic quantities of public urination.

My favourite way to spend Canada Day is with some friends, at a quiet location, with hot coals smoldering in the barbecue and some cold drinks to battle against the hot weather. In this way, you're away from huge crowds, you're not paying a fortune for a beverage, there's a place to sit, you can hear yourself think, and there's a clean bathroom close at hand. Conversely, if you're out and about, it's a basic rule of supply and demand that there are going to be tens of thousands of people downtown, and not nearly enough public restrooms to service them, especially once you add booze to the mixture.

Thus it was this year that I read this article about the revelers out this year who, once the fireworks display had ended, showed their fervent national pride in the people who fought and died for their freedom by taking a big piss all over the memorial tomb dedicated to their memory:


Photograph by Dr. Michael Pilon; as appeared in The Ottawa Citizen, July 3, 2006.

A retired Canadian Armed Forces major, Michael Pilon, took photographs after he found several people relieving themselves on the memorial around 11 p.m. on July 1, after a fireworks display came to an end.

Pilon's photographs of the urinating people were published by the Ottawa Citizen on Monday.

The incidents came hours after Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean hosted a huge ceremony at the site, which honours the country's war dead and holds the remains of The Unknown Soldier, returned to Canada from France in 2000.

I am the last person you could call a jingoist, and don't easily take offence at the sorts of things that people with more time and fewer cares tend to get especially worked up about. For example, I couldn't care less if someone decided to burn the Canadian flag -- I even think it's great that, when the kin of the odious Dr. Fred Phelps came to Parliament Hill to protest the Supreme Court's treatment of same-sex marriage, they attempted to burn a flag and had to obtain the assistance of a Mountie, who was concerned they wouldn't know how to do so safely.

But, and allow me to be blunt: FOR FUCK'S SAKE, what the hell are you thinking when you decide to take a leak on a war memorial, you clueless, drunken, fucktard? On Canada Day no less! Congratulations and welcome to your rightful new rank in life as an IDIOT. I don't doubt that you, and those who followed in your illustrious footsteps, must feel like wankers of the year, with your photos plastered in a national newspaper for all to see and scorn. And I do scorn thee.

People ask lawyers how they can possibly defend a person accused of murder. I could get into a moving discussion of the rights of all free peoples in a democracy worthy of the name, but let me say for now and more glibly that when you spend a few years representing people who clearly made stupid, ugly choices, and leaped before they looked (like an idiot who guns his roaring car down a residential street and gets caught or, worse, into an accident), what is there left that could be more wearying and irredeemable than rank ignorance and drunken stupidity?