If Jerome was still in private practice, Percy Barrett could have hired him to deal with what is evidently a very serious mess in the justice and finance departments.
As it is, Jerome is now The Man dropping the hammer, so Barrett will have to get someone else to fling the hammer back and see if it lands on any government lawyer toes.
Enough is enough.
Mr. Barrett needs to stop dealing with these claims from the House scandal all by himself. Find a good lawyer.
Barrett should have found one a long time ago, especially when the government continued to press its claim for repayment before the police investigation was done and now persists in the Barrett case, long after Crown prosecutors opted not to lay charges against him.
Not police, incidentally.
This was an RNC case.
A major case like this one would typically have been decided by the Crowns - the prosecution lawyers - not by the police alone and may well have gone to the very highest end of the Crown prosecution service for sign off.
Heck, didn't the FPI thing go to cabinet?
Aside: where is that Great Prosecution by the Great Public Counsel (recently departed) of the Great Crime against the Great People by the Great Foreign Enemy of the Moment?
But to go back to the story, if the Crowns didn't want to take it to court, then Barrett should know they didn't have a leg to stand on.
Getting a lawyer will be far less costly both to Barrett's pocket and to his reputation in the long run. A good lawyer should also put a stop to what appears to be a monstrous abuse of the province's legal system.
Get a lawyer, Percy. it's not an admission of guilt in any way. This thing won't be over any faster just by settling up. In fact, Barrett's probably just given them more excuse to keep coming since they figure he's a soft touch.
Heck Percy, you might even have grounds to sue them.
And speaking of missing things and monstrous abuses, where is the infamous John Hickey defamation suit against Roger Grimes?
Any sign of it at all?
Blue paper?
White paper?
Toilet paper?
Deposition?
Anything?
And how about that law suit against Quebec over Churchill Falls?
Sacre bleu.
What's this?
A story in the Grand Falls Advertiser - take note, Ryan, they likely have job openings - in which a reporter for one of the weeklies updates the province on the lawsuit.
Turns out there won't be one, as even anyone who learned all they know about lawyering from watching reruns of Night Court could have told you when natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale blundered it up a few weeks ago.
Jerome didn't get his schooling that way, of course, and he likely knew from the start this idea of finding a legal basis for suing Quebec Hydro over the Churchill Falls contract - as bad a deal as it is - was a time-waster. It's the stuff for amateurs and blowhards who know nothing about the law or about Churchill Falls.
Well, at least we hope Jerome knew that smarter legal minds than his - and that's saying something - have battered themselves bloody trying to figure a legal means to resolve the problem.
There isn't one.
There is a political solution, if there is one at all.
And if you are a politician who doesn't have a political solution, then best to shut your pie hole and move along. Blaming Ottawa is not merely an excuse for, it's a gigantic public admission of, your own failure.
The story's not online but labradore has a copy from which he quotes sparingly but sufficiently enough for you to get the point.
-srbp-