And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Date: Tue, 06 Apr 1999 23:18:09 -0400
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Eric Brunner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: Bruce Clark disbarred
Mime-Version: 1.0
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Oki all,
I got Catherine Abel of the Law Society of Upper Canada
to fax me their 13 pager on the subject. To my surprise
the particulars of conduct complained of are a single
finding of contempt (02/20/97), and a single and oddly
contemporanious conviction (02/21/97) for resisting an
arrest in 1995.
These particulars take up two paras of a 13 page text.
I'm not impressed. Clearly actions not part of the set
of particulars of conduct, even were a defense offered,
are the basis for the recommendation made by the three
member committee, and now made a finding and penalty by
the society. Even the guilty deserve a proper lynching.
Peter Makay's odd bit of writing made it into the Vancouver
Sun, less the bits from Stu Rush, and was responded to by
Dr. Tony Hall (Associate Chair, Native American Studies,
University of Lethbridge). Dr. Hall's response was forwarded
to me with the express permission to forward, so here it
is.
I'll quote one little bit ...
>Moreover, in my view the remedies put in place by Queen Anne in
>the Mohegan case do have relevance to the kind of third party
>adjudication, that genuinely is lacking in the current setup in
>Canada.
... this is why I've been pursuing the DNS WIPO issue, to
get one issue popped out of the CA and US jurisdictions.
Kitakitamatsinopowaw,
Eric
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Tue, 06 Apr 1999 12:49:44 +0000
>From: Anthony Hall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
> [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: McKay's grossly unprofessional reporting
>
>To the editors of The Ottawa Citizen. Below is a slightly revised
>version of the letter I sent last night to Mr. McKay. Please see that
>some appropriately edited version of my allegations are published in
>your paper. Also note that last night I telephoned Mr. Di Gangi, who is
>quoted at length in the offending article, which I understand was not
>even presented as an opinion piece but was rathered conveyed as news.
>Mr. Di Gangi denied to me that he gave any characterization of the
>situation at Long Lake 58 to Mr. McKay. So then, I think it fair to
>question Mr. McKay's sources on Long Lake 58. Is it conceivable that
>your paper would report on the internal politics of a Euro-Canadian town
>or community without even attempting to interview anyone in the
>community? I think not and I leave it to you to consider how itr was
>that this piece got by without even the most elementary rules of
>journalistic ethics being adhered to. Your Sincerely, Tony Hall
>
>
>On Mon, 5 Apr 1999, Anthony Hall wrote:
>
>Dear Mr. McKay. Your report on Dr Clark leaves me somewhat breathless
>with dismay. You will recall that in the trial of the Gustafsen
>"mavericks," police tape was aired where an RCMP official declared that
>"the prick Clark" should be the subject of a media "smear" campaign.
>Apparently that instruction is still operative. Or perhaps your little
>biography was animated not by some dark conspiracy but only by your own
>misguided, ill-informed and prejudiced enthusiasms.
>
>In any case wouldn't you do better at credibly "smearing" Dr. Clark-- if
>that was your intent-- if you had allowed just one friendly observer to
>speak with his or her own words rather than only quoting directly the
>detractors of the controversial lawyer. And what is your rationale for
>not interviewing Dr. Clark himself, who is presently residing in Ottawa.
>
> As far as your report of Long Lake 58, you've really got it painfully,
>gruesomely wrong. The Long Lake elders' protest against chief and
>council was already long
>developed before Dr. Clark was hired as the lawyer for the group ,which
>you choose to describe as "militant." As I as understand it, this group
>
>recently got two-thirds of the band's voting members to sign a petition
>of grievances, so in Long Lake 58 terms, they�re actually quite
>mainstream.
>
>The position of this group is quite typical of many similar stances
>taken throughout Indian Country. Basically the argument is that DIAND is
>so deeply implicated in a history of thinly disguised indirect rule of
>Indian
>reserves, that the whole system needs some scrutiny from third-party
>auditors.
>
>That view is hardly radical. It is one, for instance, that I
>have seen argued in Southam papers and The Globe and Mail. What basis
>do have to characterize Dr. Clark's clients as "militant?" Is the
>Reform Party "militant" when it criticizes the government of Canada and
>asks for accountability. What is it other than thinly disguised racism,
>that makes it "militant" for Indian people to question their own
>governments, especially when it comes to issues concerning the spending
>of money ear marked for whole communities. Why are Indian people
>somehow less entitled to engage in democratic debate among themselves
>without being tagged with the discrediting label of �militant.�
>
>Mr. Di Gangi, who you quote at length as chief demonizer of Dr. Clark
>and his Indian clients, is hardly a neutral party in this situation. He
>has worked
>as far as I know for about two decades one way or another for the
>Assembly of First Nations, a lobbying organ for the country's 600 or so
>Indian Act chiefs and councils. So his perspective is understandable,
>given what side his bread is buttered on. And how come he is qualified
>by you as the expert on Long Lake 58. To understand what is going on
>there, maybe you might leave Ottawa and visit the people whose opinions
>you have deemed yourself qualified to interpret for the world.
>Otherwise you might give Bernard Abraham, whose brother is the elected
>chief and whose mother is one of Dr. Clark's clients, a call. His
>number is (807) 876-4233. Say I suggested you call him.
>
>Dr. Clark did not �discover� the case of Mohegan v Connecticut. There
>is
>an extensive literature on the case and its very complex outcome. Where
>
>did you get your information on it? How qualified are you really to sum
>
>up what came out of it? How many expert opinions did you seek? Why
>does your own personal opinion of this complex issue of law qualify as
>news?
>
>I would seriously suggest that your credibility as a journalist would be
>
>well served by your doing some follow up work based on deeper and more
>thoughtful research demonstrating even a semblance of balance. Seek
>informants beyond Ottawa, where all your sources are based. At the very
>least
>you must correct the disinformation you have disseminated on Long
>Lake 58. The so-called split you describe is hardly unique to that
>community and, to reiterate, that split was already well developed long
>before Dr. Clark had any involvement with the effort of all the Long
>Lake 58 people to draw
>attention to the land theft to which they have been subjected by virtue
>of their Aboriginal title going unacknowledged.
>
>Since the whole community participated in the blockade of the CNR line
>in 1990 to make this case[See my article in Louis Knafla, ed., Law,
>Society and the State: Essays in Modern Legal History, U of Toronto
>Press, 1995], nothing of substance has been done to address their land
>issue. The government of Canada has not shown good faith and the next
>step is to establish the groundwork for internationalizing the issue.
>Agree or disagree with that approach, but it is well within the
>protected liberties of a free and democratic society to pursue this
>option. Moreover, in my view the remedies put in place by Queen Anne in
>
>the Mohegan case do have relevance to the kind of third party
>adjudication, that genuinely is lacking in the current setup in
>Canada.
>
>Conflict of interest really does permeate the involvement of the
>judiciary in a mattter that has frequently attracted the attention
>United Nations personnel. Concerned observers in the international
>community are slowly becoming aware that even Canada can be a place
>where officialdom is sometimes blind to systematic human rights
>violations in our midst, a blindness which careless, unprofessional or
>outright malevolent reporting like that practiced by Paul McKay serves
>to compound.
>
>Yours Sincerely,
>Tony Hall, Associate Chair, Native American Studies, University of
>Lethbridge
>
>
>
>
>
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