Today at 12:30 p.m., Globe and Mail columnists Sarah Hampson and Christie Blatchford will take online questions about the recent controversy surrounding comments made about a witness by Ontario Associate Chief Justice Douglas Cunningham as part of his ruling in the case of Ottawa Mayor Larry O’Brien. You can submit your question to the columnists now, in advance of this afternoon’s discussion.
To recap: Justice Cunningham declared that he assigned “little weight” to the testimony of MPP Lisa MacLeod (PC, Nepean-Carleton), in part because, when she gave a statement to the police about O’Brien in May 2007, MacLeod “was commuting regularly to Toronto for her work, leaving her husband and child in Ottawa.” This (along with her father’s battle with cancer) was something that O’Brien’s defense team raised during cross-examination of MacLeod.
The Globe ran a front-page story on Tuesday decrying the judgement as a slap in the face to working mothers, and quoted MacLeod as saying “I didn’t know truth had a gender or a family.” Blatchford’s and Hampson’s columns appear in today’s paper, but they went online on Tuesday evening.
In her column, Blatchford decries the blow-up about the judge’s comments as a “load of hooey,” and points out that the focus has been placed on a mere seven of the 700 words Justice Cunningham devoted to MacLeod in his judgement. This is true, though it’s also worth noting that these are the most inflammatory (aka interesting) seven of those 700 words. One thing, though, is clear: the judge neither said nor implied that MacLeod’s gender or family was the cause of his concern. It was the distance she was travelling for work that Justice Cunningham cited first, followed by what MacLeod was missing when she was away from home. If anything, then, it seems that this justice is a raging anti-commutite.
You can view a PDF scan of Cunningham’s judgement here.