Who orders a new hearing for a Supreme Court of Canada ruling where 9 justices knowingly published a lie and sent it to the media? Who “slaps” Justice Rosalie Abella for knowingly lying in her ruling and belittling the applicant? Certainly not the Canadian Judicial Council!

snap of twitter comment by edmonton lawyer Avnish Nanda, "every litigator's nightmare"

Avnish Nanda [Edmonton lawyer] ‏@avnishnanda June 8, 2018 Retweeted David M Tanovich

Every litigator’s nightmare. Appearing before a judge that is aware of their status relative to the parties, and uses it towards a particular result at the expense of the law, fairness, and in the end justice. All you can do is appeal, hope it’s all caught on the record.

Denise Lightning @Lightninglaw June 8, 2019 Retweeted David M Tanovich

How is this person still a judge? And where was the crown in this exchange? Local lawyers afraid to speak out. Any wonder Indigenous people sceptical of seeing justice when Judges flout their own SCC.

Windsor judge criticized as two court rulings tossed out by Doug Schmidt, June 7, 2019, Windsor Star

A Windsor judge has come under fire following decisions by higher courts that overturned two of her recent rulings.

But it’s the strong language used by the judges in those appeal rulings that is raising eyebrows within the local legal community.

In one case, Ontario Court Justice Micheline Rawlins was criticized by a local Superior Court judge for having made “a substantial number of significant errors in principle,” while in the other written decision she was chastised by a panel of Court of Appeal for Ontario justices for having “exceeded the bounds of what is permissible” in her comments and queries of the accused at a trial in her courtroom.

Both appeal decisions — released May 7 and 23 — have circulated widely and are generating discussion within the local community of criminal defence and prosecution lawyers.

As for the wording used in those decisions, “you rarely hear that,” said one veteran Windsor lawyer. That attorney, and a number of others contacted by the Star, declined to comment on the record, explaining they must still regularly appear before Justice Rawlins.

In the Court of Appeal decision, the three judges tossed out convictions for assault using a weapon and assault causing bodily harm against Abdirisaq Hussein Said. Last September, Rawlins found the defendant guilty of having attacked a Windsor pizza store owner and an employee at the business’s Wyandotte Street location. It took 10 stitches to close a gash to the employee’s face which the judge ruled was caused by Said stabbing him with a screwdriver.

Fatal to the appearance of justice
The appeal court judges determined that Rawlins had strayed so far into the territory of the prosecution — with “persistent challenging of the appellant” and her own cross-examination of the accused during his time on the witness stand — that it “created an overall impression that was fatal to the appearance of justice.” The defence’s argument was that Said was, in fact, defending himself after being chased and attacked by the pair.

The appeal judges were also critical of Rawlins’s “derision” and “belittling” of Said’s defence lawyer, Paul Esco, citing one of her questions to him during the trial: “(You) did do criminal law at law school, right?”

Contacted by the Star, Esco said he did not want to comment: “I’m working in these courts — I’m in a difficult position here.”

The other case saw Rawlins reject a joint sentencing submission by the defence and Crown. On appeal, Superior Court Justice Christopher Bondy ruled that any single one of a number of “errors in principle” by Rawlins would have led him to overturn the sentence Rawlins imposed.

Bondy wrote that Rawlins “clearly lacks insight” in sentencing principles meant to guide judges in handling cases involving Indigenous people before the Canadian courts. He also accused his fellow judge of using courtroom language that “discloses a profound lack of insight into the burdens faced by those in society with mental health issues which often underlie and include drug and alcohol addiction.”

Ronald Contreras had pleaded guilty and was convicted of breach of probation for attending a local Duty Free Store in April 2018 while prohibited from doing so by a court order. The Crown and defence lawyers presented a joint submission for a 10-day custodial sentence, less nine days in “enhanced” credit for pre-sentence custody.

Rawlins, however, added a 12-month probation order, including a condition related to alcohol and drugs. The defence, said Bondy, argued that condition “would only set the offender up for failure.” Rawlins disagreed but Bondy said she didn’t explain beyond: “I want substances gone.”

Bondy wrote that joint submissions “help resolve the vast majority of criminal cases in Canada” and that there is “an undeniably high threshold” for judges to depart from such submissions.

“It was a minor offence, for sure, but I don’t believe it’s a minor issue — that’s why we appealed,” said Bobby Russon, a Windsor lawyer acting for Contreras. “I appreciate Justice Bondy being so emphatic because it’s a clear area of the law.”

“She’s been slapped on the wrist — I hope it has some affect,” said another Windsor lawyer, who also would only speak on condition of anonymity. “She can be fair … but she can be extremely rude,” said yet another lawyer.

The Star attempted to contact Rawlins but was told the judge is currently on vacation. [Why hasn’t the judge been removed from the bench or assigned clerking duties for a year?]

Said had attempted to obtain a lawyer to launch an appeal of Rawlins’s finding of guilt and subsequent sentencing to 90 days in jail, but he couldn’t afford one.

He filed an appeal anyway, acting in person in Toronto, and was assisted by the Court of Appeal’s duty counsel. The Court of Appeal ruled in Said that “the trial judge’s interventions … rendered the trial unfair.” It set aside the convictions and ordered a new trial, at the same time, however, urging the Crown to take into account “the appellant has served his sentence.” Said served 60 days of his 90-day sentence. [Emphasis added]

Refer also to:

2019 04 15: Abellian “Law” by Mark Mancinni, Double Aspect

It is with an utter lack of surprise that I yet again fill the virtual pages of Double Aspect with thoughts on another of Justice Abella’s comments on the nature of judging. Both Leonid and I have continuously written about how Justice Abella frequently displays a judicial arrogance  that is inconsistent with the role of a judge in a constitutional democracy, both descriptively and normatively. I hesitate to write yet again on the same subject.

But I am moved to do so by the utter lack of accuracy in Justice Abella’s recent speech at Fordham University, where she described a bastardized version of the Canadian approach to constitutional and statutory interpretation. Here are the comments in a release from Fordham:

“Our judges don’t draw lines over whether to follow a linguistic word approach or an intentionalist approach,” she said. “We just Look at how we think this provision should be interpreted in light of all the things you worry about: what did the Legislature mean, what do the words say, what was the purpose of the statute, all of that.”

Justice Abella discussed the importance of the Edwards v Canada case, more commonly known as the Persons Case, which concluded that women were eligible to sit in the Senate of Canada. In the 1929 decision, Lord Sankey stated that the British North America Act is “a living tree capable of growth and expansion within its natural limits.” Justice Abella spoke about this idea, the living tree doctrine, as a basic guiding principle.

“[The living tree doctrine] is constitutional but it’s also philosophically foundational,” she said. “It’s how we approach not only the constitution but also our statutes. What is the fair, appropriate, and just meaning of the phrase? We read it in the most reasonable way possible.”

I need not repeat yet again, from the constitutional perspective, why Justice Abella’s comments are wrong as a normative matter respecting the living tree.  I want to concentrate on the seemingly more mundane matter of statutory interpretation, and Justice Abella’s statements that we apply a “living tree” methodology in that context. She is flat-out, embarrassingly wrong as a positive law matter; but as a normative matter, the view is dangerous.

On positive law grounds, it is completely untrue that courts in Canada apply a “living tree” approach to the interpretation of statutes as a matter of course. The Supreme Court has held, time and time again, that statutes should given the meaning they had at the time they were adopted. This was the definitive statement of Dickson J in Perka, at 264-265, citing authorities noting that “The words of a statute must be construed as they would have been the day after the statute was passed…” and “Since a statute must be considered in the light of all circumstances existing at the time of its enactment it follows logically that words must be given the meanings they had at the time of enactment, and the courts have so held.”  Most recently, as co-blogger Leonid Sirota stated on Twitter, this was the approach adopted by the Supreme Court in R v DLW  where the Court cited Perka, noting that while broad terms might be afforded a more flexible interpretation, the original meaning governed in that case. Justice Abella dissented. So, contrary to her belief,  the general rule is that the original meaning of a statute applies.

This makes sense. No matter what one thinks the strengths of living constitutionalism are in the constitutional context, the argument loses force in the statutory world.  At a formal level, constitutions are restrictions on the legislature, and one could argue that they are developed by the judicial branch through strong-form judicial review, in Canada. But statutes are clearly the product of the legislative branch (or their delegates). Judges have no warrant–at least since 1688–to legislate. At a functional level, it could be true that Constitutions are not easily amended, and so judges should develop their meaning to new facts. But that same argument is so clearly wrong in the statutory context, where statutes are passed and amended by legislatures all the time.

One might try to steel-man Justice Abella’s comments by relying on the comments in R v DLW and other general interpretive principles. It is true that “dynamic interpretation” is indeed a distinct method of interpretation, recognized in Canada: see Ruth Sullivan on the Construction of Statutes at 175 (2014). While it is true that the Court in R v DLW and other cases have noted that statutory terms can take on a “dynamic meaning,” this is far from the ordinary rule, generally only applicable in defined circumstances given defined statutory language: see Sullivan, at 177. And even if it was, the dynamic approach is not inconsistent with original meaning, and it does not support Justice Abella’s broad misunderstanding of textualism. One can speak of two types of original meaning:

Situations in which statutory terms should be statically applied to the same situations that were in their contemplation at the time of enactment.

Situations in which statutory terms are broad and must be applied to new facts as they arise.

Both of these situations are consistent with original meaning. In the first case, both meaning and application are largely frozen at the time of enactment. Sullivan says an interpretation of this sort is justified when “…new facts are functionally equivalent or analogous to facts that were within the ambit of the legislation when it first came into force” (Sullivan, at 179), for example. In the latter case, though, the legislature has spoken more broadly, and this is where a “dynamic” approach enters the fray. But this does not mean that the statute receives a new meaning according to some Abellian idea of an unbridled living tree: it just means that its contours are applied to new facts. We constrain the meaning–the scope of application– using text, context, and purpose. I always use the example of the Kyllo decision in the US, in which the Court endorsed the proposition that the 4th Amendment (protecting against searches and seizures) applied to infrared searches of the home. The scope of the 4th Amendment always protected the home, and it applied to the new facts of infrared searches.

The situation, then, is much more subtle and sophisticated than Justice Abella suggests, and the subtletly does not work in her favour.

Undeterred, she goes on to suggest that courts in Canada take an “anything goes” approach to statutory interpretation, seemingly rejecting textualism. This mistake is even more bizarre, considering the very recent decision in Telus v Wellman, which I wrote about here. Justice Abella, in her Fordham talk, suggests that courts do not draw lines between “textualism” and “intentionalism” in Canada. But she herself attempts to do so (wrongly) in her dissent, at para 107 of the decision:

The debate between those who are “textualists” and those who are “intentionalists” was resolved in Canada in 1998 when this Court decided that “there is only one principle or approach, namely, the words of an Act are to be read in their entire context and in their grammatical and ordinary sense harmoniously with the scheme of the Act, the object of the Act, and the intention of Parliament. We do not just look at the words.

Not only that, but the majority in decision in Wellman comes down on the side of text over abstract, judicially defined purposes. Justice Abella was in dissent–she did not win the argument, for very good reasons. So, again, Justice Abella finds herself claiming that the law is something when it is not.

Two normative conclusions can be drawn about Justice Abella’s odd talk at Fordham, one about the merits of what she says the law is and one about the role of a judge in Canada. Take the latter first. It would be one thing if what Justice Abella said was an honest, innocent mistake. But I find it that hard to believe in these circumstances. Wellman just happened, and Justice Abella lost the argument she now claims she won. Why a judge in our democracy would say this—especially to an international audience—is unclear. We should expect better

The merits of the suggestion that courts in Canada apply a living tree approach to statutes are also lacking. First, as Craig Forcese said on Twitter, the suggestion would amount to a complete reversal of the ordinary structure of our Constitution. The judicial function is, to state what I thought was the obvious, completely separate from the legislative. Justice Abella seems to have much in common with the old English judge who told an unfortunate lawyer trying to give his best interpretation of the statute: “Do not gloss the statute, for we know better than you, we made it.” We’ve moved far beyond these days, and it is odd for a “progressive” judge like Justice Abella to suggest we go back in that direction. Parliamentary sovereignty should stand for something.

The suggestion that judges should make up statutory meaning as they go along would have positively corrosive effects in many areas of law. Criminal law is an obvious example, but administrative law is another. Judges, rather than Parliament, would be the master of agencies if they could expand or narrow the scope of delegated power exercised by these agencies depending on the judges’ particular worldview. Not only does this stand inconsistently with the Court’s own professed idea of deference, it is dangerous to subvert Parliament’s laws in service of a judge’s ideology.

And this, I suppose, is the point. While I believe that Justice Abella means well, she reveals an unfortunate arrogance that crops up in speech after speech. For one, she claims the law is her opinion when it is not. Then, she takes on the mantle of judging what a statute should mean, given her own impressions of what it requires. It takes someone with much self-confidence to do this. Whether or not we should have confidence in her is quite another matter altogether. A Supreme Court judgeship is not enough, in a democracy, to give its holder the mantle of deciding what laws should mean or which laws should apply. Someone who believes so is better suited to be a politician than a judge.

2018 11 06: Delusions of Grandeur, Justice Abella sets out a vision of the Supreme Court as arbiter of national values

I didn’t realize that writing op-eds for the media was part of the judicial job description, but apparently it is. There was of course Brett Kavanaugh’s instantly-notorious op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. And, ten days ago, Justice Abella followed in now-Justice Kavanaugh’s footsteps, with an op-ed of her own, in the Globe and Mail. The op-ed is an adaptation from a speech given on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Supreme Court of Israel; but Justice Abella, presumably, thinks that it deserves a Canadian audience as well as an Israeli one.

Why that ought to be the case, I am not quite sure. Part of the op-ed is meaningless twaddle: we have, Justice Abella tells us, a “national justice context” that is “democratically vibrant and principled”. Part is rank hypocrisy: the Supreme Court’s “only mandate is to protect the rule of law”, says the person who has devoted many a talk to criticizing the very idea of the Rule of Law and arguing that it had to be replaced by something called the rule of justice. Part is rotten grammar: “human rights is [sic] essential to the health of the whole political spectrum” (emphasis removed). But all of it is a self-assured presentation of a role for the judiciary that has nothing to do with the Rule of Law, and this bears commenting on.

Justice Abella begins by proclaiming that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms sets out “a uniquely Canadian justice vision, a vision that took the status quo as the beginning of the conversation, not the answer”. One might be tempted to think that this is a reference to section 33 of the Charter (which, for all ts flaws, is indeed “uniquely Canadian”), or at least to some version of the “dialogue theory”, according to which courts and legislatures both participate in the elaboration of constitutional rights. But this would be a mistake. Justice Abella likes her judges “bold”, and her legislatures obedient. The “conversation” to which she refers only involves the members of the Supreme Court.

And while she begins by seemingly conceding that “[t]he Charter both represented and created shared and unifying national values”, Justice Abella then argues that it is the Supreme Court that has developed “a robust new justice consensus for Canada”. It is the Supreme Court that serves as “the final adjudicator of which contested values in a society should triumph”. (Wait… didn’t the Charter already represent and create shared values? How come these values are, after all, contested?) Fortunately, says Justice Abella, the Canadian public and its elected representatives have fallen into line and followed the Supreme Court’s moral leadership: “[c]riticisms and questions were of course raised, but usually with civility.” If Canada is committed to “pluralism and diversity”, rather than “obliteration of the identities that define us”, that’s because “[a]ll this came from the Supreme Court”, and its teachings were accepted by both “the public” and “the legislatures”.

Hence the empowerment of the Supreme Court, coupled with its independence, is all to the good. “[D]emocracy, Justice Abella insists, “is strengthened in direct proportion to the strength of rights protection and an independent judiciary”. Indeed, the very “humanity” of a country would be imperiled by attacks on judicial power. Hence Justice Abella’s plea in defence of the Supreme Court of Israel, delivered, she says, in her capacity not only “as a judge”, but also “as a citizen of the world”. (I assume Justice Abella has not been shy about criticizing the feebleness of the judiciary in countries like Russia and China, too, though I don’t think she has published op-eds about them. Perhaps she has even criticized the backward ways of the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, which haven’t seen it fit to remit the adjudication of contested values in their societies to the courts, though I can recall no op-eds on that subject either.)

I have no firm views about whether Canadian judges should go around the world lecturing other countries about how to organize their constitutional arrangements, whether in their capacities as citizens of the world or as public officials. (How many ordinary citizens of the world are, after all, invited to give pompous speeches, and allowed 1200 words of op-ed space in a national newspaper to bring them to hoi polloi?) I do, however, have some thoughts on the substance of Justice Abella’s views regarding the role of the Supreme Court in Canada’s constitutional structure. Co-blogger Mark Mancini has already presented his, but my take is somewhat different, so I hope the readers will forgive a measure of repetition.

Mark stresses the fact that, if the Supreme Court is to be the arbiter of national values, it is not at all clear why it should be staffed by judges—that is to say, by former lawyers, who are not trained for or especially good at this task. Why not economists and philosophers instead? Mark writes that if courts make abstract, political, and resource-intensive value judgments for the society on the whole…—if we have sold the legislature down the river—then they should at least be good at it.

And if the courts are not, after all, to be replaced by philosophical-economic colloquia, that’s probably because what we really want is for judges to stick to law.

I largely agree with this, but there is an additional move in Justice Abella’s argument that Mark does not address: the claim that adjudication by the independent Supreme Court is somehow democratic and that, indeed, democracy is strengthened the more powerful the court is. I think it is a crucial argument. After all, legislatures, which Mark doesn’t want to “sell down the river”, are also staffed by people who tend to have no particular expertise in either economics or philosophy, and who are subject to all manner of perverse incentives to boot. Why should they be making value judgments for society? The generally accepted (which isn’t necessarily to say correct) answer is, because they are democratic institutions. That’s why Justice Abella wants to claim the democratic mantle for the institution that she extols (as do others who make similar arguments).

How successful is the claim? In my view, not very successful at all. It starts from the premise that there is more to democracy than elections. Let us grant that. Still, there are important questions that need answering. What is this “more” that a polity ought to have, beyond periodic elections, to be counted as democratic? Jeremy Waldron would mention things like separation of powers, meaningful bicameralism, and “legislative due process”, rather than judicial review of legislation. Justice Abella doesn’t even consider these possibilities, and thus does not explain why they are not sufficient. She thus does little to justify judicial review of legislation at all, let alone the robust, value-defining version that she favours. Others would add federalism and federalism-based judicial review, but not necessarily the rights-enforcing variety.  And even granting the insufficiency of structural devices to foster and protect genuine democracy, one can doubt whether it is this form of judicial review that we should favour. Aren’t more limited versions, along the lines of John Hart Ely’s “representation reinforcement” or the Carolene Products footnote 4‘s special protection for “discrete and insular minorities”) sufficient? Justice Abella has no answer to this objection either.

Instead, Justice Abella is content to assert that more judicial power is better, including for democracy. Surely, this isn’t necessarily so. Justice Abella herself, and most Canadian lawyers, would likely be horrified at the idea of judicial review enforcing property rights and freedom of contract against democratic majorities. They would insist, as Justice Holmes did in his dissent in Lochner v New York, 198 US 45 (1905), that “a constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory … It is made for people of fundamentally differing views”. (75-76) (The only exception to this, of course, concerns labour unions; fundamentally different views regarding their role in the economy have been read out of the Canadian constitution by the Supreme Court, led by Justice Abella.) On reflection, everyone—including Justice Abella—would agree that the protection of rights by an independent judiciary is not, in fact, always good. At the very least, it matters which rights are protected—and if it is the judiciary that effectively decides this, then it matters how it uses its power to do so.

This brings me to Justice Abella’s most remarkable claim—that it is indeed the Supreme Court that defines not just our constitutional rights, but Canadian values more generally. Mark characterizes this is “judicial supremacy”, but I prefer using this term to mean unyielding judicial control over constitutional meaning (the way Professor Waldron does here, for example). Justice Abella’s ambition is not so limited; she is not content to decide what our supreme law means [and break the law and defame ordinary canadians seeking justice for charter violations (how dare we be so arrogant)]; she wants to be the ultimate authority on what Canadians believe in [To force all Canadians to be pro Israel, no matter how horridly people are murdered, human rights violated and lands of others stolen?] . This is shocking stuff. In a free society, there can be no such authority, whether in the Supreme Court or elsewhere. In a free society, one cannot point to the constitution and say, Thatcher-style, “this is what we believe”. Citizens in a free society disagree, including about fundamental values. A constitution is only a judgment, albeit one reached by a super-majority—not, mind you, an actual consensus—about which of these values will be translated into legal constraints that will be imposed on the government until the constitution is amended. The courts’ job is to interpret these legal constraints, as they interpret other law; it is not to dictate “which contested values in a society should triumph”.

Justice Abella thinks that she is some sort of great and wise philosopher, and as such is qualified to dispense advice, both judicially and extra-judicially, on how people should organize their affairs and even what they should believe in. Her ladyship is labouring under a sad misapprehension in this regard. She is no great thinker. She has no answer to obvious questions that her arguments raise, and no justification for her extravagant assertions of authority. It is unfortunate that a person so utterly misguided holds an office with as much power and prestige as that of a Supreme Court judge. Still, as important as this office is, it is less significant than Justice Abella imagines. We remain free to reject the values the Supreme Court would have us subscribe to. When these values amount to uncritical polite deference to philosopher-kings in ermine-collared robes, we have very good reason to do so.

2018 11 30: Judging Canada’s Supreme Court Judge Rosalie Abella by Canada First Immigration Reform Committee

In the past month, PM Trudeau announced yet another government apology, this time to Canada’s Jews. According to Trudeau, Canada had sinned greatly in 1939 by denying entry to Canada to Jews fleeing Europe aboard the ship St. Louis. According to Trudeau, those Jews were forced to return to Europe and suffer WW2’s Holocaust.

Before issuing any other apologies, Trudeau should do some important research. The family of Rosalie Abella, one of the judges on Canada’s present Supreme Court, survived the Holocaust and migrated to Canada after World War 2. In the mid-1980’s, ironically, Rosalie Abella , in a campaign of arrogant and sloppy research, released an “Employment Equity” report which ignited a virtual Holocaust within Canada. That Holocaust has destroyed the job-hopes and entire lives of at least hundreds of thousands of Canadians. In fact, the number of victims may well exceed the 6 million figure of Jews killed in Europe. If Canadians are to hear another apology, it should be coming from Canada’s Supreme Court Judge Rosalie Abella and the herd of “Diversity-hiring” promoters she unleashed in Canada’s public and private sectors. If Trudeau is remotely interested in performing his duty to Canadian-born, he should be demanding an apology from Abella and her herd of boot-lickers and should be ending the so-called “Employment Equity” (really “Employment Inequity”) program she started. After that, how about some Canadian-style Nurenberg Trials to deal with Abella and all those who have carried out the alleged “solution”.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Dr. Martin Loney’s book, “The Pursuit of Division : Race, Gender and Preferential Hiring” documents in great detail the origins and results of Rosalie Abella’s work. In the following article, he summarizes the origins.

Dan Murray,
Immigration Watch Canada
www.ImmigrationWatchCanada.org

Judging Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella By Dr. Martin Loney
Written in 2004, following Rosalie Abella’s appointment to Canada’s Supreme Court

The appointment of Rosalie Abella to the Supreme Court has precipitated much celebration among the progressive chattering classes. Globe and Mail correspondent, Michael Valpy, enthused that Abella would bring ‘an unassailable and much needed expertise and vision on equality law’ to the court.

Well, not quite “unassailable”. I have spent many years researching and writing on employment equity, the subject of Abella’s 1984 Royal Commission Report. What stands out is how much Abella’s work is driven by feminist ideology and how little it is concerned with evidence.

2018 02 08: Public dispute among New Brunswick judges is ‘extraordinary,’ professor says by Kevin Bissett, The Canadian Press in National Post

FREDERICTON — A New Brunswick law professor says a disagreement between judges that’s playing out in public is “extraordinary” and does little to promote public confidence in the administration of justice.

“This is an unprecedented situation,” said Nicole O’Byrne, of the University of New Brunswick.

Justice George Rideout of the Court of Queen’s Bench wrote a letter to Chief Justice David Smith in December accusing him of breaking the law and calling on him to resign.

At issue is a change made by the provincial government last year to the Judicature Act requiring the chief justice to get Attorney General Denis Landry’s approval before moving judges from one place of residence to another.

Smith has argued that clause is unconstitutional and interferes with the independence of the judiciary.

It became a flashpoint between the judges when Smith approved Justice Thomas Christie’s move from Saint John to Fredericton, even though the province had temporarily blocked the move.

In his letter, obtained by the CBC, Rideout says Smith is disregarding the law, and in doing so setting a bad example. [A common problem in Canada’s rogue legal system?]

But Christie has said he didn’t change his place of residence — he was already living in Fredericton and commuting to Saint John to hear cases.

The dispute has had other impacts. Christie recused himself from hearing a case last November in which the province was a litigant, expressing his concerns that government was interfering with the judiciary.

“I find that the minister’s current involvement in my reassignment places me in an actual conflict of interest position as he is purporting to exercise control over a decision that affects me at the same time I am seized with the present matter,” Christie wrote in his ruling recusing himself.

“Any judge must, at all times, be seen as being beyond any potential influence from any party to the litigation.” [But the law violations by judges that the public never sees or finds out about is fine?]

O’Byrne said the division of power between the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government has been a cornerstone of Westminster constitutional democracies since the 18th century.

She said the situation faced by Christie is the exact kind of thing that the separation of powers is meant to avoid.

“It was designed to prevent potential or real political interference with the independence of the judges to make decisions without being influenced by any kind of potential favour by executives of the legislative branch,” she said.

O’Byrne said she believes that, if Christie was already living in Fredericton, then Smith was following the letter of the law and did nothing wrong.

The Canadian Press posed a number of questions to Smith but did not get a reply.

The provincial government said in an email it continues to “review options in response to Chief Justice Smith’s decision to move a judge without Minister Landry’s consent.”

It added: “The government has no comment on communications between two judges.”

The debate spilled onto the floor of the legislature Tuesday, with Ted Flemming, a former attorney general in the previous Progressive Conservative government, scolding the governing Liberals by saying “I told you so.”

“Now we see what happens when politicians go where they shouldn’t, when they get involved with the judiciary when they shouldn’t. A regrettable situation has now entered the public domain and the responsibility lies solely with the premier,” Flemming said. [Does it seem they are only concerned about it being in the public domain? If it had remained secret, no problem with a judge breaking the law?]

“The changes allowing the Gallant government to interfere with the judicial branch of government was condemned almost universally by members of the bar, academic experts and most of the judiciary. I raised this issue in the house several times prior to its passing. I take no pleasure in saying this, but I warned you. I told you this would happen,” he said.

2017 01 25: Jessica Ernst Open Letter to Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin Regarding False and Seriously Damaging Statements in Justice Rosalie Abella’s Supreme Court of Canada Ruling, Ernst v AER

2004 08 30: Canadian Justice Review Board on Justice Rosalie Abella: Judging the new judge by Mike Sporer, Burnaby Now

The nomination of Ontario Court of Appeal Justice Rosalie Abella to the Supreme Court of Canada is not a surprise.

Nor will the content of her future decisions be any surprise. For while there is no reason to believe that Justice Abella will bring anything less than her very best efforts to her judicial decisions, she is arguably the most left-wing jurist ever appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada.

In the mid-1980’s she headed the Royal Commission on Equality in Employment. What became known as the Abella Royal Commission considered employment opportunities for women, the disabled, and visible minorities in Canada.

Her final report, though well intentioned, was fraught with methodological errors.

And while equality of opportunity and fairness are laudable goals, some wondered about the hiring practices of the Royal Commission itself. Thirty of the 35 commission employees were women. Of the 40 authors who were contracted by the commission to provide research papers and whose gender could be determined from the author’s name, one critic noted that 27 of the authors were women and only 13 were men.

Now it is not fair to take bald statistics and conclude discriminatory, anti-male, hiring practices on the part of the Royal Commission. There were dozens of possibilities other than discrimination that may account for the statistical anomaly. For example, it may be that female academics were more interested in the subject matter of the commission and disproportionately sought to participate by providing papers. It may be discrimination, but it may not be.

But the Abella Royal Commission did take bald statistics and found discrimination on the part of employers in Canada, without rigorous analysis and careful consideration of the dozens of possibilities other than discrimination that might have accounted for the statistical anomalies that existed.

Some of Justice Abella’s judicial decisions have given rise to comment. In 1997 she sat with two other appellate judges in a family law appeal in which the appellate court overturned a well-reasoned decision of the trial judge. The trial judge had dismissed the petition of a longtime girlfriend of a deceased married man. The girlfriend had sought compensation from the man’s estate. The appellate court instead awarded the girlfriend $300,000.00 from the man’s estate.

Ontario family law lawyer Karen Selick wrote: “Although virtually no evidence had been led to quantify the sacrifices [the girlfriend] claimed to have made in terms of time or dollars, the court plucked the figure of $300,000 out of the air and awarded it to Ms. Nowell.”

Selick continued: “One can only hope that the Supreme Court of Canada overturns this decision…”

The Supreme Court of Canada did not overturn it because the case never made it to the Supreme Court of Canada. But Justice Rosalie Abella has.

Mike Sporer was born and raised in Burnaby. He now practises law in New Westminster with the firm of Sporer, Mah and Company.

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November 2014 – 2017: Did the Supreme Court of Canada excessively delay releasing their ruling in Ernst vs AER to punish Ernst, and publish lies in their ruling to discredit Ernst’s frac lawsuit to enable Israel’s violation of international law and theft of Gaza’s Offshore Gas Fields (that require hydraulic fracturing), setting up Israel to steal all of Palestine’s gas fields?

2014 08 10: The Israeli Invasion and Gaza’s Offshore Gas Fields by Prof Michel ChossudovskyGlobal Research

More than five years ago, Israel invaded Gaza under “Operation Cast Lead”.

The following article was first published by Global Research in January 2009 at the height of the Israeli bombing and invasion under Operation Cast Lead.

In the wake of the invasion, Palestinian gas fields were de facto confiscated by Israel in derogation of international law

A year following “Operation Cast Lead”,  Tel Aviv announced the discovery of  the Leviathan natural gas field in the Eastern Mediterranean “off the coast of Israel.”

At the time the gas field was: “ … the most prominent field ever found in the sub-explored area of the Levantine Basin, which covers about 83,000 square kilometres of the eastern Mediterranean region.” (i)

Coupled with Tamar field, in the same location, discovered in 2009, the prospects are for an energy bonanza for Israel, for Houston, Texas based Noble Energy and partners Delek Drilling, Avner Oil Exploration and Ratio Oil Exploration. (See Felicity Arbuthnot, Israel: Gas, Oil and Trouble in the Levant, Global Research, December 30, 2013

The Gazan gas fields are part of the broader Levant assessment area.

What is now unfolding is the integration of these adjoining gas fields including those belonging to Palestine into the orbit of Israel. (see map below).

It should be noted that the entire Eastern Mediterranean coastline extending from Egypt’s Sinai to Syria constitutes an area encompassing large gas as well as oil reserves.

War and Natural Gas: The Israeli Invasion and Gaza’s Offshore Gas Fields by Michel Chossudovsky, January 8, 2009, Global Research

The December 2008 military invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves. 

This is a war of conquest. Discovered in 2000, there are extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline. 

British Gas (BG Group) and its partner, the Athens based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC) owned by Lebanon’s Sabbagh and Koury families, were granted oil and gas exploration rights in a 25 year agreement signed in November 1999 with the Palestinian Authority.

The rights to the offshore gas field are respectively British Gas (60 percent); Consolidated Contractors (CCC) (30 percent); and the Investment Fund of the Palestinian Authority (10 percent). (Haaretz, October 21,  2007).

The PA-BG-CCC agreement includes field development and the construction of a gas pipeline.(Middle East Economic Digest, Jan 5, 2001).

The BG licence covers the entire Gazan offshore marine area, which is contiguous to several Israeli offshore gas facilities. (See Map below). It should be noted that 60 percent of the gas reserves along the Gaza-Israel coastline belong to Palestine.

The BG Group drilled two wells in 2000: Gaza Marine-1 and Gaza Marine-2. Reserves are estimated by British Gas to be of the order of 1.4 trillion cubic feet, valued at approximately 4 billion dollars. These are the figures made public by British Gas. The size of Palestine’s gas reserves could be much larger.


Map 1

Map 2

Who Owns the Gas Fields

The issue of sovereignty over Gaza’s gas fields is crucial. From a legal standpoint, the gas reserves belong to Palestine.

The death of Yasser Arafat, the election of the Hamas government and the ruin of the Palestinian Authority have enabled Israel to establish de facto control over Gaza’s offshore gas reserves.

British Gas (BG Group) has been dealing with the Tel Aviv government. In turn, the Hamas government has been bypassed in regards to exploration and development rights over the gas fields.

The election of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001 was a major turning point. Palestine’s sovereignty over the offshore gas fields was challenged in the Israeli Supreme Court. Sharon stated unequivocally that “Israel would never buy gas from Palestine” intimating that Gaza’s offshore gas reserves belong to Israel.

In 2003, Ariel Sharon, vetoed an initial deal, which would allow British Gas to supply Israel with natural gas from Gaza’s offshore wells. (The Independent, August 19, 2003)

The election victory of Hamas in 2006 was conducive to the demise of the Palestinian Authority, which became confined to the West Bank, under the proxy regime of Mahmoud Abbas.

In 2006, British Gas “was close to signing a deal to pump the gas to Egypt.” (Times, May, 23, 2007). According to reports, British Prime Minister Tony Blair intervened on behalf of Israel with a view to shunting the agreement with Egypt.

The following year, in May 2007, the Israeli Cabinet approved a proposal by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert  “to buy gas from the Palestinian Authority.”

The proposed contract was for $4 billion, with profits of the order of $2 billion of which one billion was to go the Palestinians.

Tel Aviv, however, had no intention on sharing the revenues with Palestine. An Israeli team of negotiators was set up by the Israeli Cabinet to thrash out a deal with the BG Group, bypassing both the Hamas government and the Palestinian Authority:

Israeli defence authorities want the Palestinians to be paid in goods and services and insist that no money go to the Hamas-controlled Government.” (Ibid, emphasis added)

The objective was essentially to nullify the contract signed in 1999 between the BG Group and the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat.

Under the proposed 2007 agreement with BG, Palestinian gas from Gaza’s offshore wells was to be channeled by an undersea pipeline to the Israeli seaport of Ashkelon, thereby transferring control over the sale of the natural gas to Israel.

The deal fell through. The negotiations were suspended:

 “Mossad Chief Meir Dagan opposed the transaction on security grounds, that the proceeds would fund terror”. (Member of Knesset Gilad Erdan, Address to the Knesset on “The Intention of Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Purchase Gas from the Palestinians When Payment Will Serve Hamas,” March 1, 2006, quoted in Lt. Gen. (ret.) Moshe Yaalon, Does the Prospective Purchase of British Gas from Gaza’s Coastal Waters Threaten Israel’s National Security?  Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, October 2007)

Israel’s intent was to foreclose the possibility that royalties be paid to the Palestinians. In December 2007, The BG Group withdrew from the negotiations with Israel and in January 2008 they closed their office in Israel.(BG website).

Invasion Plan on The Drawing Board

The invasion plan of the Gaza Strip under “Operation Cast Lead” was set in motion in June 2008, according to Israeli military sources:

“Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago [June or before June] , even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.”(Barak Ravid, Operation “Cast Lead”: Israeli Air Force strike followed months of planning, Haaretz, December 27, 2008)

That very same month, the Israeli authorities contacted British Gas, with a view to resuming crucial negotiations pertaining to the purchase of Gaza’s natural gas:

“Both Ministry of Finance director general Yarom Ariav and Ministry of National Infrastructures director general Hezi Kugler agreed to inform BG of Israel’s wish to renew the talks.

The sources added that BG has not yet officially responded to Israel’s request, but that company executives would probably come to Israel in a few weeks to hold talks with government officials.” (Globes online- Israel’s Business Arena, June 23, 2008)

The decision to speed up negotiations with British Gas (BG Group) coincided, chronologically, with the planning of the invasion of Gaza initiated in June. It would appear that Israel was anxious to reach an agreement with the BG Group prior to the invasion, which was already in an advanced planning stage.

Moreover, these negotiations with British Gas were conducted by the Ehud Olmert government with the knowledge that a military invasion was on the drawing board. In all likelihood, a new “post war” political-territorial arrangement for the Gaza strip was also being contemplated by the Israeli government.

In fact, negotiations between British Gas and Israeli officials were ongoing in October 2008, 2-3 months prior to the commencement of the bombings on December 27th.

In November 2008, the Israeli Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of National Infrastructures instructed Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) to enter into negotiations with British Gas, on the purchase of natural gas from the BG’s offshore concession in Gaza. (Globes, November 13, 2008)

“Ministry of Finance director general Yarom Ariav and Ministry of National Infrastructures director general Hezi Kugler wrote to IEC CEO Amos Lasker recently, informing him of the government’s decision to allow negotiations to go forward, in line with the framework proposal it approved earlier this year.

The IEC board, headed by chairman Moti Friedman, approved the principles of the framework proposal a few weeks ago. The talks with BG Group will begin once the board approves the exemption from a tender.” (Globes Nov. 13, 2008)

Gaza and Energy Geopolitics 

The military occupation of Gaza is intent upon transferring the sovereignty of the gas fields to Israel in violation of international law.

What can we expect in the wake of the invasion?

What is the intent of Israel with regard to Palestine’s Natural Gas reserves?

A new territorial arrangement, with the stationing of Israeli and/or “peacekeeping” troops?

The militarization of the entire Gaza coastline, which is strategic for Israel?

The outright confiscation of Palestinian gas fields and the unilateral declaration of Israeli sovereignty over Gaza’s maritime areas?

If this were to occur, the Gaza gas fields would be integrated into Israel’s offshore installations, which are contiguous to those of the Gaza Strip. (See Map 1 above).

These various offshore installations are also linked up to Israel’s energy transport corridor, extending from the port of Eilat, which is an oil pipeline terminal, on the Red Sea to the seaport – pipeline terminal at Ashkelon, and northwards to Haifa, and eventually linking up through a proposed Israeli-Turkish pipeline with the Turkish port of Ceyhan.

Ceyhan is the terminal of the Baku, Tblisi Ceyhan Trans Caspian pipeline. “What is envisaged is to link the BTC pipeline to the Trans-Israel Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline, also known as Israel’s Tipline.” (See Michel Chossudovsky, The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil, Global Research, July 23, 2006) [Emphasis added]


Map 3

UN Official Slammed for Urging Sanctions against Israel by Middle East Monitor, Global Research, October 30, 2017

Theme: Crimes against HumanityLaw and JusticeUnited Nations

Featured image: Michael Lynk, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied Michael Lynk [Alhadath24/Facebook]

Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian territories Michael Lynk has been slammed by Israeli ambassador to the UN after he urged for economic and travel sanctions to be enforced on the occupying state to force it to withdraw from the West Bank, according to the Times of Israel.

During a press briefing at the UN Human Rights Council yesterday, Lynk cited a report he released on the situation of the Palestinians earlier this week, calling for the international community to increase pressure on Israel

“Israel is very dependent upon trade with the outside world,” he said in response to a question on whether sanctions could affect Israel.

If there was an understanding that all of a sudden Israelis wanting to travel abroad needed to have visas, if all of a sudden there was an understanding that Israel wasn’t going to get preferential trading agreements with the EU. If all of a sudden, the many and multitude forms of military or economic cooperation or academic cooperation with Israel were now going to come to an end … I think you’d begin to see a sea-change in the attitude of ordinary Israelis and in the attitude of the Israeli government.

His statements were subsequently denounced by Israeli envoyDanny Danon who claimed that Lynk was advocating for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

“Mr Lynk is exploiting his position to spread hateful incitement against the State of Israel and is acting as a BDS activist under the auspices of the UN,” Danon insisted.

Lynk also spoke of the Israeli blockade on Gaza, insisting that the Strip “remains occupied”; another statement that was condemned by the Israeli delegation

“The UN Human Rights Council has lost its legitimacy as it focuses obsessively on attacking Israel instead of working on resolving the real human rights problems plaguing the world,” Danon claimed.

Israel and the UN have been at loggerheads in recent months, as the global institution has criticised the actions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government for international law violations in the occupied territories and the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Yesterday it was also revealed that up to 190 companies could find themselves on the UN blacklist after the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Bin Ra’ad Al-Hussein, sent warning letters to the corporations for operating in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley; areas occupied under international law. Israel and the US have previously threatened to cut funding to the UN Human Rights Council if it goes ahead with its plan to publish the list.

Earlier this month, the US and Israel announced their planned departure from the UN’s cultural branch UNESCO over perceived anti-Israel resolutions. UNESCO head Irina Bokova responded to the news saying that the withdrawal was a matter of “profound regret”. [Emphasis added]

Europe Must Not Buy What Israel Is Selling to Combat Terror, Israel has managed to turn 50 years of Palestinian resistance to occupation into a cottage industry,and is now selling the concept of a police state to the world by Jeff Halper, Aug 20, 2017, Haaretz

Whenever a terrorist attack happens such as the one last week in Barcelona, Israel politicians and security “experts” get on TV to criticize European naïvité. If only they understood terrorism as we do and took the preventive measures we do, they say, they would suffer far less attacks. Most infamous in this regard were the remarks of Israeli Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz after the Brussels bombing in March 2016, in which 34 people died.

Rather than convey his condolences in the name of the Israeli government, he scolded the Belgians in the most patronizing way possible. “If in Belgium they continue to eat chocolate, enjoy life and parade as great liberals and democrats while not taking account of the fact that some of the Muslims who are there are organizing acts of terror,” he pronounced, “they will not be able to fight against them.”

The Belgians reacted angrily, and asserted the position of most European governments: While we will continue to be vigilant and take the necessary precautions, we are not going to forsake our freedoms and political openness to become copies of Israel. For they understand that Netanyahu’s government is peddling something far more insidious than mere precautions – even more than the weapons, surveillance and security systems and models of population control that is the bread-and-butter of Israeli exports.

What Israel is urging onto the Europeans – and Americans, Canadians, Indians, Mexicans, Australians and anyone else who will listen – is nothing less than an entirely new concept of a state, the Security State. 

What is a Security State? Essentially, it is a state that places security above all else, certainly above democracy, due process of law and human rights, all of which it considers “liberal luxuries” in a world awash in terrorism.

Israel presents itself, no less, than the model for countries of the future. You Europeans and others should not be criticizing us, say Katz and Netanyahu, you should be imitating us. For look at what we have done. We have created a vibrant democracy from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River that provides its citizens with a flourishing economy and personal security – even though half the population of that country are terrorists (i.e., non-citizen Palestinians living in isolated enclaves of the country). If we can achieve that, imagine what we can offer those of you threatened by terrorist attacks?

In a brilliant shift in imaging, Israel has managed to turn 50 years of Palestinian resistance to occupation into a cottage industry. By labeling it “terrorism,” it has not only delegitimized the Palestinian struggle but has transformed the occupied territories in a laboratory of counterinsurgency and population control, the cutting edges of both foreign wars and domestic repression. It has transformed tactics of control and their accompanying weapons of surveillance systems into marketable products. No wonder, as Netanyahu constantly reminds us, “the world” loves Israel. From China to Saudi Arabia, from India to Mexico, from Eritrea to Kazakhstan, Israel supplies the means by which repressive regimes control their restless peoples. 

Israel’s vast military reach is well-documented. It extends to more than 130 countries and brought in $6.5 billion in sales in 2016. Less known but more corrosive to civil rights are Israel’s security exports. Three examples:

1. Israel harnesses foreign security agencies and police forces to lobby for Security State practices in their own countries. It scoffs at the unwillingness of Western democracies to employ ethnic and racial profiling, as Israel security and police do at Ben-Gurion International Airport and throughout the country. In specific contexts like airports profiling may indeed be efficient – Ben-Gurion is certainly one of the safest airports in the world – but it comes at the price of humiliating and delaying those targeted.When extended outward into society, however, it loses that effectiveness and almost invariably turns into a legalized method of intimidation against whatever populations a government seeks to control. 

2. The Israeli national police holds dozens of training programs and conferences with police forces from around the world, with an emphasis not on domestic police tactics but rather on “internal counterinsurgency” and the pacification of troublesome populations. The Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange Center in the U.S. claims to have had 24,000 American police trained by their Israeli counterparts. Unlike other Western countries that erect a wall between their militaries that conduct operations abroad and their domestic security and police agencies charged with ensuring the security but also the civil rights of their citizens, Israel has no such internal constraints. The IDF and the police are one interlocked unit, with paramilitary forces – the Shin Beit, the Border Police, Homefront Command, Yasam and others – further connecting them. Thus in Israel the distinction between citizens with civil rights and non-citizen “suspects” and targets gets lost, and that is a distinction Israeli police try to erase in their training of foreign police as well. 

3. Israel is a world leader in securing cities, mega-events and “non-governable” zones. There is a direct link between its lock-down of Palestinian neighborhoods, villages and refugee camps and the marketing of such tactics to local police to create sanitized “security zones” and “perimeter defenses” around financial cores, government districts, embassies, venues where the G-8 and NATO hold their summits meetings, oil platforms and fuel depots, conference centers in “insecure” Third World settings, tourist destinations, malls, airports and seaports, sites of mega events and the homes and travel routes of the wealthy. So involved is Israel in Trump’s border wall that is nicknamed the “Palestine-Mexico border.”

There the Israeli firm Magna BSP, which provides surveillance systems surrounding Gaza, has partnered with U.S. firms to enter the lucrative “border security” market. NICE Systems, whose technicians are graduates of the DF’s 8200 surveillance unit. Privacy International investigated how the autocratic governments of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan managed to monitor human rights activists, journalists and other citizens within and outside their countries, revealing the most intimate details of their personal lives. “The biggest players,” concluded Human Rights Watch, “are multinationals with offices in Israel – NICE Systems and Verint.” 

In its ultimate form the Security State peddled by Netanyahu and Katz is merely a form of police state whose populace is easily manipulated by an obsession with security.

Israel’s model is especially invidious because it works; witness the pacification of the Palestinians. That seems like a potent selling point indeed. The problem is that that it turns a country’s own people into Palestinians without rights. It would seem that the Security State can be reconciled with democracy – after all, Israel markets itself as “the only democracy in the Middle East.” But only the world’s privileged few will enjoy the democratic protections of the Security State, as do Israeli Jews.

The masses, those who resist repression and exclusion from the capitalist system, those who struggle for genuine democracy, are doomed to be global Palestinians.

The Israelization of governments, militaries and security forces means the Palestinianization of most of the rest of us.

Jeff Halper is an Israeli anthropologist, the head of the Israel Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and the author of War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification (London, Pluto Books, 2015). [Emphasis added]

2017 08 20: A Room Full of Liars & Fascism in Action in Canada: Ever get frac’d? Listen to Steve Harper? Rebel Media? Read Supreme Court of Canada rulings? Minister Public Safety & Emergency Preparedness Ralph Goodale affirms “The Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s (RCMP) use of the major crime technique. [AN ISRAELI SECURITY EXPORT?]

2013 10 18 Stephen Harper says Canadian families deserve the cleanest water

2013 10 18: 200 RCMP? Snipers descend on Mi’kmaq-led camp, children and Elders on site, Rexton, New Brunswick, Canada

“These so called trouble makers are trying to protect your water. … What happened to Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Where people have the freedom of speech. … Aboriginal people in Canada as a whole, don’t have freedom of speech.  …

“Nobody is listening.  You don’t care.  You only care about money. You don’t even know how this shale gas is going to affect you. … You are going to have polluted water. …

Everything is going to be destroyed and you guys are there supporting the RCMP and Stephen Harper for what he’s doing.  Are you insane? They are showing up with guns!  They’re showing up with guns! …

***

If the label says Made in Israel, or contains items made in Israel, Ernst will not buy it.

Ernst opposes the apartheid state of Israel’s “settlements” and daily torture of Palestinians.

Ernst opposes greed, corruption, violence, and crimes against humanity, and opposes bullies (country, corporation or court) stealing rights, lands and resources from the weak.

How does that make one anti-semite?

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