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BLACK-SHEEP COMMENTARIES by WE NEED OBAMA’S NEW ERA OF RESPONSIBILITY February 04, 2009 BEAR with me as I muse over the ironies of a life that spans the decades between the Great Depression of the 1930s and the first great depression of the 21st century. I was born on March 4, 1931, in a small shack at 7443 Clarendon St., in the midst of endless bush and trees in southeast Vancouver. I joined two brothers, two cats and a dog under the attentive guidance, sometimes strict, of loving parents. We got along just fine without a telephone and a car; and the outdoor privy was just one of those things that went with life in a country setting. In those dreamy times, the subtlety of good parenting was augmented by teachers who defined and emphasized the values of good citizenship. Too soon, I learned, first hand, about the ultimate cost of good citizenship. When I was eight or nine years old I would often watch a young man who lived nearby, as he and his friends worked on old motorcycles after they had raced them over muddy trails. They were happy young men, outgoing and seemingly indestructible. Bill Thomas went off to war, a volunteer in the Royal Canadian Air Force. His stint in combat was lengthy, and the anxiety of his parents must have been extreme. One day there was a knock on their door, Mrs. Thomas was home alone. She was handed a telegram: “We regret to inform you …” – her son, Bill, was dead. She rushed out of her house and came to my mother. I cannot imagine what words were spoken, what feelings were shared – her sorrow was beyond description and would never end. A pall of grief descended on our little neighbourhood. The war in Europe ended in May 1945. It was in my last year in elementary school and I was asked to write a farewell for our school annual, the Chatterbox. It revealed the thoughts of my parents and teachers, and what the sacrifice of Bill Thomas taught me. It expressed the way people were in those times. “What a year it has been! Never has a class graduated from Sir James Douglas in a year so momentous. We are happy in the thought of a great victory won – but that happiness is sobered by the thought that with victory comes responsibility – and duty. The world may not get a third chance to make peace a permanent thing. We, the students of Division 1, about to graduate into high school, or into life, feel this responsibility. We want to do our duty – to ourselves and to our fellow men.” Soon after I started my own law practice in 1954, I grudgingly accepted the reality that irresponsibility and greed were more than a match for my adolescent expectation of a world guided by patriotism and high principles. And as the decades flipped by to the end of the 20th century, particularly the tumultuous decades of the1960s and ’70s – with the rise of an its-all-about-me attitude – irresponsibility began to insinuate into personal behaviour and the behaviour of directors and executives in public companies and financial corporations in the United States and Canada. Last year, when the American financial colossus fell like Humpty Dumpty, it signalled the beginning of today’s disastrous world-wide depression. On Jan. 22, I sat transfixed by the inaugural speech of President Barack Obama. In referring to the financial market and whether it is a force for good or ill, Obama said that the American economy “is badly weakened, (as) a consequence of greed and irresponsibility … Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control – that a nation cannot prosper long when it favours only the prosperous. …What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility – (and) recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly …” On Jan. 29, lawyer Peter Ritchie, a man of integrity, published a statement concerning the settlement of a claim for damages against the BC Ferries arising out of the negligent operation of the Queen of the North, a consequence of which was the death of two passengers. As counsel for two girls whose father died in the sinking of the ferry, Ritchie explained why the case had to be ended with a negotiated settlement rather than by decision of a jury in the course of a full trial. “Unless you are wealthy, you won’t be able to afford court in B.C. The B.C. government has erected financial barriers so that non-wealthy folks are kept out of their own courts. To understand the B.C. government’s attitude toward court access, it would really be simpler if they put up signs on the courthouse door, reading Ordinary People Prohibited. “Our justice system favours the large institutions. Powerful and wealthy organizations like insurance companies, governments and multimillion dollar corporations can access courts any time they want. These two girls cannot. These two lovely girls loved their father. They were innocent to think we have courts for people like them. I cannot justify to them why we do not.” When you cast your ballot in the May provincial election, remember this callous denial of justice, an irresponsibility that will only become more oppressive as our provincial economy shrivels up and breadlines lengthen. * * * Published by the North Shore News on February 4, 2009.
Contact Judicial
Gadfly at:
wallace-gilby-craig@realjustice.ca |
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