Pubdate: Sat, 21 Jun 2014
Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2014 The Toronto Star
Contact:  http://www.thestar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456
Author: Chantal Hebert
Page: A10

PETER MACKAY'S INNER KAMIKAZE ON FULL DISPLAY

When it comes to assessing the performance of Justice Minister Peter 
MacKay, one of the main Conservative actors of the just concluded 
parliamentary season, the first question is where to start?

Should item one on the list be the minister's Internet surveillance 
bill, a proposed law whose intrusiveness may not pass muster with the 
courts? Bill C-13 would give telecommunications and Internet 
providers legal immunity for voluntarily handing over their 
customers' private data to law enforcement agencies.

Privacy experts - including the just-appointed federal information 
commissioner Daniel Therrien - have called on the government to take 
the more contentious sections of the legislation back to the drawing 
board. Conservative ministers have a history of ignoring contrary 
expert advice, especially if it runs against the grain of the party's base.

But in this instance, the justice minister will find no solace in the 
notion that he is taking a hit for the team for, according to a 
just-released Forum Research poll, a majority of Conservative 
supporters dislike his bill.

Then there is the prostitution bill that MacKay brought forward last month.

It was never going to be doable to satisfy every party in the 
prostitution debate. But this bill was brought in with a minimum of 
public or bipartisan discussion.

It is not clear that it is more Charter-proof than the struck-down 
law it seeks to replace. Since the government will not ask the 
Supreme Court for an opinion, it might take years of litigation to 
get a definitive answer.

The messed-up appointment of Federal Court Judge Marc Nadon to the 
Supreme Court last fall was unprecedented, as were subsequent 
Conservative insinuations that Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin had 
somehow crossed a line in the matter and MacKay had a central role in 
the episode.

That being said, it is a rare member of any cabinet who survives 
without being a good soldier. When it comes to government policy, no 
minister is an island and one's power of initiative is constrained by 
the collective will of the government and the commands of the prime minister.

But flying solo - far from showcasing MacKay's acumen - seems to 
bring out the kamikaze in the minister.

It takes an uncommon degree of societal tone-deafness to assert, as 
MacKay did, that women are too busy raising children to apply to the 
federal bench . . . and to double down on the statement by 
prescribing that, in their early years, children need their mothers 
more than they do their fathers.

That prompted a tweet from MacKay's Quebec counterpart Stephanie 
Vallee, who noted that being a mother of two who commutes from 
Gatineau to Quebec City weekly did not make her a bad parent or a 
lesser justice minister

As it happens, neither Ontario nor Quebec reports a paucity of female 
candidates for its provincial bench.

Moreover, it is common knowledge that, given a choice between equally 
able candidates of each gender for the Supreme Court, this government 
has defaulted to appointing male judges in all instances but one.

More than a few parents would also beg to disagree with MacKay's 
contention that mothers are more essential to the welfare of their 
young children than their partners.

That would be news to the 80 per cent of new Quebec dads who take 
advantage of the province's parental leave program to act as their 
infant's primary caregiver for a number of months.

Work-family balance issues in a fast-evolving societal environment 
are not part of the ministerial brief of an attorney general. 
Neither, for that matter, is dispensing parental advice as the 
minister did this week when, as a father, he condemned the Liberal 
policy of legalizing marijuana.

If he insists on flashing his new parental credentials from his 
ministerial pulpit, MacKay might want to ponder the fact that many of 
the Liberal delegates who supported the pot legalization policy were 
parents who had a head start on him in raising teenagers in a world 
where marijuana is available for the asking.

The justice portfolio has, on two notable Canadian occasions, been a 
springboard to national leadership. In this instance, history is not 
in the process of repeating itself.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom