by Dugald E Christie

Extract from an account of a journey across Canada
This summer I bicycled with tent and gear from Vancouver to Ottawa and burned my lawyer’s robe on the Supreme Court House steps in protest of the failure of the courts to provide access to justice for my clients and in particular the poor and the handicapped.

After I had crossed the Rockies I was somewhat over-confident and fancied it would be a simple matter to pedal across the Prairies. However, I had not reckoned on the East wind, a cruel fitfull wind, blasting in my face, that reduced progress from my average of 100 kilometres per day to 50 kilometres or less. The East wind on the Prairies brings stormy weather and so it not only reduced my progress but inevitably the clouds would gather themselves together for a ferocious Prairie rain storm and I would be drenched. Happily the East wind had within it the seeds of its own destruction. Once the storm front was passed the wind would change and I could get on with my trip without fear of another imminent storm.

I met a fellow cyclist on the same route and we discussed the inane things one tends to do when cycling across the country. He would curse the East wind and swear at it as loud as he could. I used a different tactic. Every now and then I would stop my bike and write down a few lines of vilification against the East wind. However, in my overworked mind there were two parallel issues tumbling around together. While I was battling the East wind I was also tormented by a more esoteric matter, to do with justice.

I wanted to arrange an appointment with the Minister of Justice on the delicate subject of patronage and I knew that, given the rather controversial nature of my mission, a meeting was unlikely unless I was introduced by someone who had access to the minister’s ear. A lawyer friend in Vancouver had some previous contact with the Minister and might have some influence. He said he would send a fax to her to propose she meet with me. However, a couple of weeks passed and no letter was sent. I called my friend every day from telephone boxes on the prairie but each time he was either unavailable or had been too busy to write the letter. I began to wonder if the reason my friend was backsliding was that he was reluctant to lose whatever credibility he had with the Minister by pleading the cause of a person with all the outward appearance of a hobo burning his robes on the Supreme Court steps. I knew my friend would not be adverse to a judicial appointment! This whole matter of patronage was no longer a distant evil phantom. It was affecting my trip!

There are points of comparison between the East wind and that time honoured yet somewhat dishonourable practice of “patronage”. Both eminate fitfully from the direction from which the wind blows, namely Ottawa. From time to time the wind of patronage blows up a storm of protest and the Government’s prevailing wind becomes one of clear-sightedness. For a while judges are appointed for the noblest reasons, such as ability. However, eventually the East wind returns and politics again becomes more important than talent.

In my mind, there was also a comparison between the way in which the East wind robbed me of energy and the way patronage was undermining the cause of justice. Here is not the place to outline the many insidious hidden effects of patronage. However, I do know that a good friend would not speak out for fear that the much coveted call to the bench would never come. When I returned to Vancouver, my fears were confirmed and my friend candidly told me he had not written the Minister because he thought it might reduce his chances of ever becoming a Supreme Court justice. The irony was that I knew that if he were appointed, he would make a very fine judge indeed!

On the Saskatchewan Prairie I wrote a summary of the foregoing thoughts with clenched teeth on a pad over the handlebars of my bicycle while pausing for rest from battling the East wind.

The East Wind
The wind is against me
It comes from the East.
It deters all progress
Like a remorseless beast.

The powers are against me
And against clients back West,
Too poor to fight back
And too meek to protest.

Their masters in Ottawa
Appoint friends as judges
In their foul East wind
Of favours and grudges.
But there is in the wind
As it whines in my ears
The seeds of its undoing
After many sad tears.

Tears from the heavens
In the coming Prairie storm
And tears from the poor
With patronage the norm.

I do hate this wind
It wastes all energy
It cheats honest toil
And snuffs out synergy.

So what should I do
If it gets me down?
I shall keep pedalling on
And burn my gown!

Dugald E Christie is the Coordinator of the Salvation Army’s Pro Bono Lawyer Consultant Program.

This article was published in the December 1998 issue of BarTalk. © 1998 The Canadian Bar Association. All rights reserved.