On Friday, November 2, 2012, British Columbia courts posted two interesting decisions.  In Carter et al. v. Attorney General of Canada et al., the judge awarded special costs to the legal team that successfully challenged the constitutionality of the prohibition against physician-assisted death.  If the lower court’s decision is upheld on appeal, federal and provincial taxpayers will pick up a legal tab estimated to exceed one million dollars (so far).

The same day, the Court of Appeal released the latest decision in a legal saga that began when a male lawyer collided with a female articling student at a firm gathering at a nightclub in 2001.  Poole v. Lombard General Insurance Company of Canada may be the last word in the litigation arising from the pratfall, which resulted in a judgment of just short of $6 million in favour of the student.  The various court decisions in this long running battle of insurance companies may not be legally significant, but they make very interesting reading.  Here’s the first paragraph of the latest:

“On the evening of April 5, 2001, the Vancouver law firm of Alexander Holburn Beaudin & Lang (“AHBL”) treated its associates and students to a dinner at a Vancouver restaurant, Rodney’s Oyster House. After the dinner, some of those attending decided to go to a nearby nightclub known as “Bar None”. There, events took a very unfortunate turn. The appellant Mr. Poole, a senior associate, became intoxicated and while dancing with an articling student, Ms. Danicek, fell backwards onto her. She fell to the floor and suffered a “mild traumatic brain injury” which has had a profound effect on her life. Her damages from this accident were assessed by the trial judge, Mr. Justice Kelleher, at $5,913,783. 54 and were found to be the result solely of Mr. Poole’s negligence. (See Supreme Court Docket S042714; reasons indexed as 2010 BCSC 1111.) No appeal has been taken from these findings.”

We have learned from media reports that the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry has requested and received a further extension for the delivery of its final report.  The Minister of Justice’s October 25th media release is set out below:

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Missing Women Commission of Inquiry deadline extended

VICTORIA – Government has granted a one-month extension to allow the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry adequate time to complete the final report.

The extension, from Oct. 31, 2012 to Nov. 30, 2012, follows a written request by commissioner Wally Oppal for additional time to finalize his report, which draws on a large amount of material including evidence from 94 days of public hearings, written submissions, evidence from public policy forums, and input from community engagement forums throughout the province.

The work of all public inquiries in B.C., including the steps leading to the release of the report, is guided by the terms of the Public Inquiry Act. The act requires government to review the report to ensure it complies with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

The public release date of the report will be determined in consultation with the commission, taking into consideration the information and privacy review and the time needed to print the report.

The commission was established in September 2010, to report on investigations into missing and murdered women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside between January 1997 and February 2002.

To date, government has invested $8.6 million to support the work of the commission.

The recent disaster at Johnson’s Landing, near Kaslo, BC, is reminiscent of a landslide that occurred at Mara, BC on July 11, 1997, almost fifteen years to the day before the Johnson’s Landing event.  Fortunately, no lives were lost in the Hummingbird Creek debris torrent, which destroyed five homes, although one nearby resident died of a heart attack.  A subsequent published report into the 1997 slide  concluded that it “originated as a debris avalanche below a forest road culvert.  Drainage area above the culvert had been artificially tripled.  It appears that concentrated runoff from the road culvert was a major contributing factor in initiating the debris avalanche.”  The authors concluded, “this study reemphasizes the need to carefully examine management of watersheds with high downstream consequences”.

The residents who lost their homes were unable to obtain adequate remedial action from the Provincial Emergency Program (PEP) and commenced civil litigation against the province and the forest company involved in the road construction and clearcut logging.  The cases were settled before trial.

While it is too early to come to any conclusions about the cause of this terrible event, it is imperative that all potentially hazardous sites be monitored carefully and that all full impartial investigation be conducted into this tragedy.

“The LePard and Evans reports tragically seem to have been used as a guide to this Commission. They are suspiciously similar…”  — Vanessa Christie, counsel for Terry Blythe and John Unger, June 6, 2012

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The Missing Women Commission of Inquiry received the report of Vancouver Police Department’s Deputy Chief Doug LePard as its very first exhibit.  Thereafter, the Commission’s Executive Director, a non-lawyer named John Boddie who was once LePard’s supervisor during Boddie’s 16 year tenure with the VPD, apparently worked with LePard and Peel Deputy Chief Constable Evans to assist them with managing the evidence presented to the public inquiry.  The Commission, directed by Boddie, apparently used LePard’s report as a template for the evidence it received.  This document, 408 pages in length, does not contain the phrase “Hells Angels”  at all and mentions the phrase “Piggy’s Palace” but once (at page 117).

Before the Commission hearings began, it was well known, and indeed well-publicized, that David and Willy Pickton hosted wild parties at Piggy’s Palace, 2552 Burns Rd., Port Coquitlam, that were attended by members of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club and drug-addicted sex trade workers from the downtown eastside of Vancouver.  It was also well known, and well-publicized, that from 1996 onwards the CFSEU and OCABC (Organized Crime Agency of BC and Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, respectively) conducted major investigations into the Hells Angels’ activities throughout the Lower Mainland that included the use of wiretaps, surveillance and undercover agents.

During these extensive operations, what did the OCABC and CFSEU investigators learn about the activities that were occurring at Piggy’s Palace and at the two residential properties around the corner, one occupied by the Hells Angels, and the other, across the street at 953 Dominion Ave., occupied by the Pickton brothers?   The OCABC and CFSEU records weren’t produced to the Commission and Peter Ditchfield, the supervisor of one of the major investigative efforts (Project Nova) who in 1999 declined a request to provide resources to investigate Willy Pickton, was not called as a witness.

Has the nexus between the Pickton brothers, organized crime and the police investigations thereof been studiously avoided by the expensive public inquiry struck to “to inquire into and make findings of fact respecting the conduct of the missing women investigations”?

Just asking….

According to Tim Dickson, counsel for the Vancouver Police Department and Vancouver Police Board, the RCMP’s handling of the investigation into Robert William Pickton after July of 1998, when he was a known murder suspect, was “a chronicle of inaction”. 

While this is hardly in dispute, the real question, the question that should have been answered in these hearings, is why?  Why did the RCMP allow their investigation to languish?

Just one example of the inadequate state of the evidence: on the last day of the Commission hearings, May 24, 2012, former RCMP S/Sgt. Keith Davidson testified about a meeting held on February 14, 2000 involving him and his colleagues Cst. John Cater, Cpl. Marg Kingsbury, Cpl. Nicole St. Mars, Cpl. Scott Filer and Cpl. Dave McCartney.  These members were tasked with various responsibilities; McCartney, for instance, was to obtain an authorization to intercept communications and to get a search warrant for Pickton’s property.  Nothing was apparently done…and 14 more women died between the date of that meeting, February 14, 2000, and February 5, 2002 when Pickton’s property was in fact searched by Cst. Nathan Wells.  Why didn’t Cpl. McCartney get the authorization and the search warrant two years before Cst. Wells did?

The Commission didn’t call Cpl. McCartney to the stand.  Nor did it call the other attendees at the meeting – Cater, Kingsbury, St. Mars or Filer – because of time constraints.