The Lawyers Weekly - September 17, 2010

OFF THE RECORD
JEFFREY
MILLER

Reflexive opponents of the long-gun registry have a new mantra: they say those who support the registry confuse gun registration with gun licensing. Reflective registry proponents reply: But you, sirs and madams, confuse freedom with licence.

All rights include limits set for the common good. Sometimes, and particularly with things that have unusual potential to destroy life, the common good requires that we keep particular track of something. A doctor, for example, is licensed to dispense Oxycontin, but for the greater welfare we keep track of drug inventories, and regulate dispensing. The licensing regulates the doctor — his professional abilities and behaviour, throughout his career. The registry keeps track of drug distribution.

It’s easy to multiply examples—a farmer might have a license to use certain poisons or explosives, but we still want to regulate their manufacture, mar-

keting, distribution, and use—without resorting to the common one that drives reflexive gun-registry haters loopy, probably because they have no convincing argument against the comparison: the registration of motor vehicles.

It doesn’t matter how often
you point out that, unlike any
other potential weapon, from
knives, to baseball bats, to
hockey sticks, to the sedan in
the driveway, guns are manufac-
tured for the express purpose of
killing, with utmost efficiency,
from a relatively great distance.
It doesn’t matter how often you
politely ask, Well, if you have to
register your dog and your car in
the public interest, why wouldn’t
you agree to register something
that’s designed specifically to
kill, and so often does, dispro-
portionately in family crises and
suicides? By just asking, by their
robotic logic you infringe a free-

dom they would never assert regarding poisons, explosives, or, even the old pick-up that has no first gear and can’t run over 40 clicks.

It doesn’t matter how often you point out that the Canada Revenue Agency, the Canada Pension Plan, our health, social insurance, and assistance programs are much more intrusive, and like the registry are justified if we want a functioning society, not to say civilization.

The popular press has spread the notion that this is an urban versus rural dispute, a characterization so simplistic, so intellectually lazy, it insults country- and city-dwellers both. Wherever you live, you are responding viscerally, not intelligently, if your answer to the problems and expense of registry—or with any regulatory instrument regarding the lethal—is to ban it rather than reform it.

At heart, this is a failure of imagination. Imagine you are a police officer. The dispatcher tells you someone on Main Street heard loud, unusual noises coming from the house next door. Wouldn’t you like to know what firearms are on site? A woman is

See Miller Page 7

Manitoba Bar slams CBC for ‘salacious’ coverage affecting judge

CRISTIN SCHMITZ OTTAWA

The Manitoba Bar Association is demanding “a groveling apology” from the CBC for its “salacious” coverage of a recent complaint to the judicial council about Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench (Family Division) Associate Chief Justice Lori Douglas.

“The interest of the CBC was more prurient and salacious than newsworthy — they are going after the sex angle, plain and simple,” Manitoba Bar Association president Ken Mandzuik told The Lawyers Weekly.

Mandzuik was referring to a
sensational, almost 2,000-word
story posted Aug. 31 on the
CBC’s website that led off with:
“Naked photographs of a senior
Manitoba judge engaged in
bondage are part of a man’s
complaints to legal watchdogs
about the judge’s past and that
of her husband, CBC News has
learned.”
The CBC reported that a
complaint against the judge to
the Canadian Judicial Council
(CJC) was made in July by Alex-
ander Chapman, an ex-client of
the judge’s husband, Winnipeg
family law lawyer Jack King.

Chapman also complained about King to the Manitoba Law Society. Chapman alleges that King harassed him in 2003 to have sex with his wife, who was practising as a lawyer at that time. Chapman alleges King showed him about 30 sexually explicit photos of his wife.

“The interest of the CBC
was more prurient and
salacious than
newsworthy — they
are going after the sex
angle, plain and simple.
Judicial Council and…really
before an official body decides
that something that Justice
Douglas did was wrong, her
name shouldn’t be splashed in
the media before all the facts
are out.”
Mandzuik said the associate
chief justice is considered by
the Bar to be an “outstanding”
jurist. He argued the CBC’s
“justification for running with
the story was that it was about
how judges are appointed. But
then the reporting goes into the
graphic depictions of what
these photographs apparently
contain. You don’t need to get
into that kind of base detail to
address the story they say they
were addressing.”
Mandzuik said the Bar is
standing up for the judge
“because judges can’t stand up
for themselves.” In a Sept. 2 let-
ter on the association’s behalf to
the CBC’s president and
ombudsman, Mandzuik con-
demned “not only the decision
to run with the story, but the
way in which it was reported. It
beggars belief that this
reporting was seen as worthy of
the CBC.”
In an explanation accom-
panying the story, the CBC said
on its website “we believe this
story about the judge whose
lawyer-husband had published
nude photos of her on the Inter-
net has important implications
for the public. The issues here
deal with a lawyer’s duty to a
client; the duty of other legal
professionals to report matters
of concern to the relevant pro-
fessional associations; the duty
of a potential judge to disclose
pertinent matters in advance of
his or her selection; and the
responsibilities of judicial selec-
tion committees as they make
their choices. Also of concern
here is what the public is entitled
to know about all these things.”
After news of Chapman’s
CJC complaint of sexual harass-
ment and discrimination
emerged, Associate Chief Jus-
tice Douglas stopped hearing
cases pending the CJC’s deter-
mination whether the com-
plaint should be dismissed or
further considered.

We want to hear from you!
E-mail us at: tlw@lexisnexis.ca 

The CBC quoted King’s lawyer stating that King was suffering from depression at the time and didn’t tell his wife (who was not appointed to the Bench until 2005) that he had shown the pictures to anyone or that he had posted some of the photos on a pornographic website.

Mandzuik argues “the problem here is these are things that don’t affect her ability to be a judge, and they are also things that are before the Canadian

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