It was a revealing day last week for Canada's justice system. While in Vancouver, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Duncan Shaw deliberated that “morally repugnant” stories about child pornography written by John Robin Sharpe have "some artistic merit," and in Windsor, Ontario Court Justice Micheline Rawlins, asked defence lawyer Laura Joy to leave the courtroom, saying she wouldn't hear her case until she changed into a more conservative outfit

            So here's the message from Canada's legal system: too much cleavage is not okay, but child pornography is okay

            Those two events prove more than anything else that our laws are much too vague and that the Canadian courts are not administering the justice system, but making laws and in doing so are replacing the neutered role of our federally-elected legislators, the politicians. The federal political system, especially after the introduction of the Charter of Rights, has been deprived of any real power and all deliberations can be challenged by whoever has a million dollars to spend

            I was making this point last week to a lawyer friend of mine and, of course, his first observation was that because I wasn't a lawyer myself, I didn't have the legal background to substantiate my statements

            Lawyers have convinced us that only lawyers can talk about the law

            They are the only people who can understand the Criminal Code it seems

            But in fact, they don’t. Did you ever see two lawyers in a courtroom agreeing on what they're saying? But lawyers not only believe that they are the only ones who “understand” the law, they also believe they understand everything. Have you ever asked yourself why only lawyers can be ministers of Justice, but can also be ministers of Health, Defence and Revenue? So you need to be a lawyer to be a Minister of Justice, why do we have Defence Ministers who don’t know the difference between a fridge and a tank? Or Transport Ministers who don’t know the difference between a trick and a track? Or Health Ministers who confuse pills and suppositories? Does this mean the legal system is so important that it's left in the hands of incompetents and health care is not? I'm no lawyer, but one of the problems is that we have people more interested in finding the proper definition of art than respecting the safety of our children. Freedom of expression is not a concept without boundaries; in fact, my freedom stops when I infringe on other peoples' rights which is why I can't write what I really thing about Mr. Sharpe

            Or, does this mean, according to Canadian law, that if I want to tell Mr. Sharpe the truth, I don’t have to write a story but a poem? Does it mean that in Canada, in order to be free we have all to be artists? What Mr. Sharpe has written is, of course, a product of his imagination, but, as soon as it is on paper and available to other people for a price, it remains a “product” and is no longer in his “imagination." It's a product available to consumers and it's a product I consider a threat to the safety of my children

            "I didn't do this just for selfish reasons," Mr. Sharpe said last week after the deliberation. "I look at it as something I have done for my fellow Canadians.” Well, Mr. Sharpe, thanks but I am not interested in your gifts, as a Canadian and as a father

            Mr. Justice Shaw, in his deliberations, has amply proven that there is a loophole in the Canadian system, a loophole that allows a judge to put William Shakespeare and Mr. Sharpe in the same category. It is time for the political system to repatriate the right to legislate and put the judicial system back in the proper place, which is to apply the law, not make it

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