VANCOUVER — A Crown lawyer is urging a B.C. Supreme Court judge to ignore the “geopolitical winds swirling around” Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou’s extradition case and focus instead on the legal context.
Robert Frater told Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes that Meng’s legal team is trying to bring the elephant into the room by introducing arguments centred on comments made by former U.S. president Donald Trump about the case.
“With respect, we urge you to focus on the facts and the law and leave the politics to the politicians,” Frater said Thursday.
He made the comments in response to claims from Meng’s legal team that Trump’s words 10 days after her arrest at Vancouver’s airport in December 2018 represented a threat and poisoned the Canadian proceedings.
Trump was asked by media if he would intervene in the case to get a better deal in trade talks with China, and he responded that he would “certainly intervene” if he thought it was necessary.
Meng is wanted in the United States on fraud charges that both she and Huawei deny.
Her lawyers allege Trump’s comments constitute an abuse of process and they are asking for a stay of proceedings.
It is the first of four branches of abuse of process arguments that the court will hear ahead of the actual extradition or committal hearing in May.
“Everyone in this courtroom knows that the elephant in the room in this case has always been the geopolitical winds that swirl around it,” Frater told the judge.
“We’re confident that when you look at the facts and apply the law, you will dismiss this motion.”
On Wednesday, Meng’s team sought to tie her case to a long-brewing technological race between the United States and China.
Huawei’s success in establishing 5G wireless technology worldwide represents an “existential threat” to the United States and Meng’s case is unfolding amid an effort by the U.S. government to “debilitate, if not destroy, Huawei,” her lawyer Richard Peck said.
Peck noted that in February 2020, then-U. S. attorney general William Barr said the stakes could not be higher and likened the race to the Cold War.
Democrat Nancy Pelosi has warned against doing business with Huawei and White House press secretary Jen Psaki has described Huawei as a “threat to the security of the U.S.,” Peck said.
“This campaign is bipartisan and continues in full vigour today,” he said.
Frater, representing Canada’s attorney general, sought to redirect the judge’s attention Thursday.
There is a rigorous test to meet the threshold of an abuse of process claim that warrants a stay of proceedings and Meng’s argument doesn’t pass it, he said.
The threshold outlined by the Supreme Court of Canada says there must be prejudice to the accused’s right to a fair trial or to the integrity of the justice system and there must be no alternative remedy. Where there is still uncertainty, the court must balance the interests of the accused and the societal interest in having the case heard, Frater said.
In the balancing act, he argued the court should consider that the fraud charges are serious and Meng, the chief financial officer of one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world, isn’t a “powerless” person.
Someone with “the resources to hire a battalion of lawyers, who has the full backing of a powerful state, is in a different position factually than an indigent or vulnerable individual,” Frater said.
Another lawyer for Meng, Eric Gottardi, countered that Meng’s celebrity makes her a “higher value target” for interference, adding that a person’s resources shouldn’t affect how they are treated by the court.
Frater told the court that comments by politicians about the case have not approached the level of threat required to compromise the legal process. And Trump’s failure to win re-election has only weakened the argument, he said.
“This application, in our submission, was based on the thinnest of evidence. That evidence only got worse over time, there’s been material changes in circumstance that have removed the basis for it,” Frater said.
The political commentary has in no way affected the proceedings, he said.
“They’ve had a hearing which has observed and continues to observe the highest standards of fairness.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 4, 2021.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
