Lyle Howe and the bar society’s Plan B

(This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner on April 24, 2017) If you fear you might not succeed on your first try, you should have a Plan B already neatly tucked in your back pocket. In advance. Just in case. That would seem to be the way the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society is now approaching […]

The judge and the child abuse registry case: common sense among the Catch-22s

(This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner April 10, 2017) During a week filled with chemical attacks and cruise missile strikes in Syria, and a government’s cynical, Saul-like conversion to compassion on the way to an election closer to home, we must savour any small spark of common sense where we can find it. […]

The Lyle Howe case: ‘If you look hard enough…’

(Originally published in the Halifax Examiner, March 6, 2017.) When I was a young CBC reporter back in the 1970s, I got a tip from a source inside the department of health the RCMP was investigating a Shubenacadie doctor named Ross McInnis for MSI fraud. I didn’t realize it at first, but I would later […]

Who is Lyle Howe? And why are so many people saying such nasty things about him? (Part II)

PART II: The un-making of Lyle Howe “I have gained some valuable wisdom from this matter, and all young men should benefit from the things I have learned without going through what I have gone through. Being innocent isn’t enough. Having legal education and a good lawyer is sometimes not enough.” Lyle Howe Post to […]

Who is Lyle Howe? And why are so many people saying such nasty things about him? (Part I)

PART I: The Making of Lyle Howe “High school taught me what to think. Philosophy taught me how to think. Law school will teach me why all this thinking is necessary.” Lyle Howe Dalhousie University “Discover the Unexpected” marketing campaign 2006 “The Complaints Investigation Committee of the NOVA SCOTIA BARRISTERS’ SOCIETY gives notice that the practising […]

Justice and the sad brutishness of real life

Too often, our criminal justice system is ill-equipped to deal with the sad brutishness of real life. Consider the recent case of the 43-year-old Dartmouth man convicted of an incestuous relationship with his then-17-year-old daughter. The facts are relatively straightforward. In September 2012, the young woman — who’d been living on the streets in Ontario, […]

Trinity Law School: ‘discomforting’ our comfortable bar society

The Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society is pondering appealing July’s Nova Scotia Court of Appeals decision green-lighting graduates of Trinity Western University Law School to ply their trade in Nova Scotia. But, in a post-decision interview, the society’s president almost seemed to be making the case for the conservative Christian university, which requires students to sign […]

Ghomeshi not guilty? How about “not proven”?

The courts need another option. On Thursday, Ontario Justice William Horkins found former CBC host Jian Ghomeshi “not guilty” of five sexual-assault-related charges involving three different women. Legally, it was the right decision. But it isn’t the right conclusion. As Judge Horkins acknowledged, not guilty “is not the same as deciding in any positive way […]

Jian Ghomeshi: Justice, the courts and the court of public opinion

Did he do it? Of course. Did the crown prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, Jian Ghomeshi sexually assaulted three women? That’s more complicated. Let’s start with what we know. Three women went to police alleging Ghomeshi sexually assaulted them, each story strikingly similar: Ghomeshi punched and choked them without consent, without warning, and with no […]

Is that any way to start a discussion?

The United Way’s report on what it takes to live in Halifax, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business’s knee-jerk response to the report and the need for an open, honest debate… So what’s the difference between minimum wage and a living wage? In Halifax, about $10 an hour. That was the recent surprise-but-no-surprise conclusion […]