(updated below)
If you're looking for further evidence of how corrosive to public discourse is the format of the standard newspaper op-ed column, you could do worse than Christie Blatchford's latest. Having written a handful (literally, you could hold the accumulated words in one hand) myself, the basic formula for op-ed column writing goes like this: (1) take a recent event or set of commentary on a recent event; (2) say "nuh-uhhh!"; (3) stretch that out into about 800 words; (4) remove any context or nuance; (5) submit. Here's the nub of Blatchford's column:
All this is by way of saying that the federal Conservatives have the trees firmly in their elephant-gun sights, but remain steadfastly oblivious to the forest.
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson was yesterday talking up the Tory plan to end the notorious "two-for-one" practice; the government will introduce legislation to this effect tomorrow.
But the problem isn't the double-time - or triple time - credits, or even the judges who dispense them like bonbons.
The extra-credits practice is just a symptom of what everyone who works in the courts knows very well is the real problem - the egregiously glacial pace of Canadian justice - but which no one much wants to discuss, let alone fix.
Event: Announcement of legislation to remove the two-for-one sentencing credits which, as Blatchford memorably describes, are handed out by judges "like bonbons". Columnist response: nuh-uhhh! Context and nuance, and, hell, basic factual information? Missing.
The "real problem", pace Blatchford, is the slow pace of trials (especially criminal ones). Let unexplained is quite why both the sentencing credit and slow trials can be real problems. Are we only allowed one "real" problem when discussing anything as complex as the administration of criminal justice? Why? Sez who? And by means of what bizarre moral calculus does Blatchford conclude that according convicted criminals a two-for-one credit is not a problem?
Most egregious of all, however, is the collosally incorrect statement that "no one much wants to discuss, let alone fix" the problem of slow trials. Really? Really? So when, say, the Attorney-General of Ontario announces measures which are intended to "reduce the time to trial and number of appearances by 30 per cent over the next four years", does that mean that the AG is "no one", or that this does not qualify as "much" or is it a failure to constitute "discussion" or "fix"ing? Heck, when the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General has an entire project devoted solely and exclusively to "reduc[ing] delay in Ontario's criminal courts", how is it possible that neither Blatchford (whose beat is crime) nor her editors (who beat is correcting Blatchford) know nothing about it?
(update: The "entire project" referred to in the last paragraph above is the Justice on Target initiative)
Oh it's great to see you're blogging again, my first time here in a while.
Sometimes the kids come up with le meme juste, and fail works so beautifully here. The first line of the article takes it one step further. We're all Dadaists now.
Posted by: JP | March 28, 2009 at 08:17 PM