Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - June 9, 2000, Winnipeg, Manitoba A12 Winn Pic free junk 2000 editorials of Trade i Hartfi of religion Equality rights paradoxical travesty in then Winnipeg police chief Herb Stephen was certain Thomas soph now had strangled waitress Barbara Stoppel four years earlier and left her for dead in a doughnut shop he was certain soph now was a killer despite the failure of three trials to prove he was guilty of Mur he insisted that police had the right Man and a Patchwork of questionable evidence proved even if Appeal courts Stephen and a great Many other were that was finally and publicly established yesterday when both the Winnipeg police service and the Manitoba department of Justice apologized to soph now for All they had put him through Over the past 19 years three two 45 months in prison and 15 years of Public ostracism As the Man who got away with there can be no Ade quate compensation for although retired supreme court Justice Peter Cory has been asked to establish compensation As part of a commission of inquiry he will conduct into the police investigation and court proceedings that produced what can Only be described As a of but rather the Way in which it sometimes is Pur it was not a travesty of Justice because soph now was not wrongly his first trial resulted in a Hung his second and third were overturned on Appeal and a fourth trial was blocked by the supreme court of although it took about 14 years to reopen the police work finally established Sopho nows but to say soph now was cleared by police work and that he was not wrongfully convicted by the despite a seeming Lynch mob mentality ram Pant at the is not to say soph now was not of course he and of course he has suffered greatly for almost 20 he was wronged in the Way Justice was with it was wrong for the police to the close the Stoppel file simply because the courts would not convict on the basis of the Evi Dence they collected and believed sufficient when it clearly was it seems Clear in Hindsight that a form of Tunnel vision was in play at the time police and the Crown saw Only what they wanted to that soph now was his right to a pre sumption of innocence Justice Cory can usefully seek to find what creates Tunnel whether it still exists and How to prevent in it is Clear that when a Case fails in it should not be presumed that the Case is flawless and the court less that Only brings courts into Justice Cory could provide useful guidance As to the conditions under which files Are closed and perhaps in the future it could be that when evidence fails to establish con that reinvestigation be sitting on a file for 14 years at the very a disservice to the victim and the in Reliance on Jailhouse confessions and paid informants is questionable As was the crowns unwillingness to bring Forward Evi Dence that undermined its Justice Cory could shed Light on Why questionable tactics and Strate Gies Are part of it would be most if Justice Cory can unravel the seeming Paradox that soph now was both Well and badly treated by the Justice amnesty falters amnesty internationals record As a defender of the defenceless and an upholder of human rights won it the Nobel peace prize in More the Londo based organization has won the respect and the admiration of people around the world for its tireless efforts to speak out for people imprisoned for their ethnic Reli Gion or provided they have neither used nor advocated this amnesty accused nato of deliberately committing atrocities against civilians during last years War in considering these it is useful to remember Why this War was begun to Stop yugoslav serbs ethnic cleansing of driving ethnic albanians from their killing and raping on a systematic human rights were being violated in every imaginable Way in that phase of the the second phase of the which brought a halt to these was largely conducted from the there were civilian casualties there always Are it is a regrettable but inevitable fact of there remarkably few civilian this was recognized by the International criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia Only Days before amnesty levelled its the court found no evidence of atrocities committed by neither has amnesty produced none of this does anything for amnesty Credi Bil which has begun to crumble in recent years As it tries to spread its moral authority beyond its Natur Al if that process the world will be a poorer amnesty operating under its original mandate can make a the world does not need another hectoring but it does need a conscience that can speak with if Microsoft really Dio to about Canadian taxes applying the Walkerton test somebody should ask the contenders for the Canadian Alliance leadership just How the disaster at fits into their on dimension Al belief in eve smaller government and Ever bigger tax the truth about the debacle unfolding in Walkerton May never be entirely but recent news reports Indi Cate the magnitude of the tragedy May be far worse than at least seven As of its now estimated that Rural Ontario Coli Epi Demic has made up to people since taking Power in Ontario Premier Mike Harris tories have Cut million from the environment or 40 per cent of its and fired on third of its in the Harris government privatized All water downloading to municipalities the responsibility for finding commercial labs to conduct the water safety tests annually that had been the provinces the municipalities were Given exactly eight weeks to make the nothing in the new Law said the labs they used had to be accredit Here Are some questions that should be asked of the three main Alliance leadership candidates for Tom chief author of and backroom strategist for Ontario common sense Revo Lution do you continue to believe that it is appropriate to privatize Core services of government that ensure Public health and safety do you still think it is sound social and eco nomic policy for the level of government with the constitutional responsibility for Public health to download it onto Junior governments lacking the financial resources and accountability mechanisms appropriate to the task for Stockwell former Alberta Provin Cial treasurer whose biggest outside his social and religious is a Flat tax Are you still of the opinion that ensuring maximum private wealth accumulation Trumps All other responsibilities of government what further areas of vital Public concern Are you prepared to spin off to the for profit sector either for ideological purposes or to try to save Money for tax cuts for Preston founder and former Leader of the Reform party where is the Point at which the rights of private individuals and private capital must give Way to Public and Community interest and Well being How much smaller can government safely be made this Era of so called Turbo capitalism has turned upside Down longstanding and hard won principles of civil and democratic Sci in the Blind worship of Market All sight has been lost of the common a new god Baal has been mounted onto a Pedestal government is inherently either malevolent or stupid and the profit motive the ultimate solution to All billions have been slashed from government budgets and hundreds of thousands of Public servants have been let then the same politicians who demanded these cuts and believe More must still be made Rise daily in parliament or in provincial Legislatures to decry inadequate supervision of government breakdowns in communication Between governments and Cit Lack of poor equipment and shoddy a cynic might say it is All deliberate to maintain Public tolerance for the ongoing dismemberment of Public ins Titu but the Walkerton disaster has the potential to change All for the first there is a Clear link Between the abandonment of the concept of Public guardianship and sickness and even in a recent Michael pres ident of the Public interest advocacy said that after the contractions of the it is time for a hard look at How govern ment is fulfilling its unique and necessary role As the provider and watchdog of Broad Public governments run into trouble when they Force regulation of fundamental services into the ideology that the private sector is always he Blind adherence to Dogma leads to governments that Are too Small to do the Job and systems that Are failing to protect the what do messers Day and Manning have to say about that prances Russell is a Winnipeg political her column appears on Only mom could resolve Microsoft Bill and Thomas Penfield did not hit it off at the younger a new technology showed nothing but impatience for the older mans the older a judge of the District court in didst like the younger mans they could be father and unfolding events made them judge and accused in a Trust busting Case of epic pro this judge Jack son ordered Gates to break up the company he established at age who knows things about information technology that judge Jackson can not even guess built Microsoft into the worlds most powerful and most creative software develop ment so powerful that smaller companies were desperate to Market their products in Bill Gates software judge Jackson May not know a whole lot about software development but he knows a thing or two about Law and about scofflaws he was the judge who sent Washington mayor Marion Barry to prison for pos session of throughout the Microsoft Gates and his lawyers showed a defiant attitude toward the Justice department and toward the Gates never appeared in judge Jacksons he never showed the least sign that he considered his company had done anything even while the jus Tice department lawyers were proving that Gates had used his Market Power to injure Gates was sending messages within his company suggesting changes that could be made in Microsoft products that would present an obstacle to Market acceptance of Palm a competitors this after judge Jackson ordered the breakup of Gates once again said he had done nothing he told his employees this ruling says to creators of intellectual property that the government can take away what youve created if it turns out to be too his convinced that judge Jackson was biased against were confident of overturning the judgment on from the Vantage Point of an editorial chair in Winnipeg Inkster Industrial the Jacksonyates clash looks like More than an anti Trust it looks like a collision of Bill Gates belongs to the Genera Tion that created the internet and thinks the old rules dont apply any Thomas Jack son belongs to the generation that ordered the dismantling of and thinks technical Wiz Ards Are getting too big for their in the software development it is taken As axiomatic that police officers and lawyers and people Over the age of 50 know nothing and understand less about the Amaz ing new world that information technology and the internet have the people in that Large subculture have created vocabulary and styles of dress and patterns of life by which they try to set themselves apart from the likes of Thomas they take it for granted that there is no Point in even talking to someone like Thomas Jackson because he would it recognize a web browser if v i it tapped him on Jackson above and Gates the two did not hit it off Winnipeg free press Winnipeg press est 1872 Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 vol128n0177 2000 Winnipeg free a division of newspapers division of Thomson Canada limited published seven Days a week at 1355 Mountain Manitoba r2x pm 6977000 a member go the Manitoba press Council the shoulder and introduced Why would Bill Gates bother appearing in judge Jacksons court and trying to explain to him the stupendous gift of human liberation that the Caber world offers to All Mankind he Doest get it and he never by the same highly Learned people of judge Jacksons age Are convinced that they understand things that escape the grasp of the they believe they in postwar a society of unprecedented wealth and Freedom within the Law that made Bill Gates allowed him to play with his toys and achieve commercial the Bill Gatses feel fully ready to push the Thomas Jacksons aside and Lead the world for Ward into a condition of Universal literacy and free flowing communication that will make the the Dis ease and pain things of the dimly remembered the Thomas Are in no mood to be pushed they still hold the sceptre and the they still enforce the and if the Bill Gatses want to change the Laws they had better go to Law school or run for Congress and Start learning some fundamentals about the real world outside their in their present the Jacksons and the Gatses should not try to talk to each they will just get on each others nerves and say things they will later what they need is a mom who will Tell Young Billie to sit still and listen respectfully to the old mom is then supposed to whisper quietly to dad not to be so hard on the Young then the two men Are supposed to go fishing together and recognize the deep Bonds that unite there Doest seem to be a mom in the Microsoft those two worlds will just have to go on misunderstanding each other and the rest of Mankind will have to put up with their noisy Terence Moore is a free Iress editorial his column appears on Lri Rudy publisher email Ca Nicholas Patrick Flynn Deputy ;