"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone," it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master -- that's all."
Through the Looking Glass: and what Alice found there
Tom Marshall must have received his law degree from the University of Wonderland.
You know.
The place Alice went.
She ran into Tom's old law prof, Humpty Dumpty, who first taught him that the words on the page are meaningless plastic things.
Humpty Dumpty's lessons took.
Last week, education minister Joan Burke said that, in picking a new president for MUN, the university board of regents would send over a list of names and cabinet would make the appointment since - as the law provides, according to Burke - the president's job is a cabinet appointment.
Hang on there, said a number of people including Grenfell professor Dr. Paul Wilson who insist that the words in the law - 'the board of regents shall appoint a president" - doesn't mean that cabinet does the job.
Marshall, a former attorney general, insists that Wilson is being a stick-in-the-mud, and that Wilson is "not helping" the university.
There's that favourite government phrase "not helping" or "being unhelpful".
In this case, it would mean pointing out the obvious bankruptcy of the government position, but that's really a separate issue.
Marshall, sounding a bit like a 1960s hold-over, insisted that the professor was being square, Man.
What's interesting is the way Marshall (LLB, U Wonder) described Wilson's view:
Everyone is entitled to their view. He’s given his analysis. I consider his analysis a literal interpretation — a strict, constructionist interpretation. A proper interpretation of the legislation would have to consider the wording in context. When you consider the wording in context, the minister of Education plays a very important role.
"Strict, constructionist interpretation".
You will note of course, that no where in Marshall's comment does he say that Wilson is actually wrong. Not at all.
Not if you actually read what Marshall said: according to Marshall, the legislation properly read with all the words in their context means that the education minister plays an important role in the process.
Marshall - clever fellow - didn't define that role, however. The role envisaged in the legislation is that the education minister takes the name of the appointed person to cabinet for approval. That's the role. it's largely administrative in nature.
And no where does it say cabinet picks, which is what Burke insisted she and her colleagues will be doing.
But still, according to Marshall, Wilson is wrong because he is using a "strict, constructionist interpretation"?
Here's a simple solution.
Let's put this before a judge.
They are easy to find down on Duckworth Street. Odds are, we could find one of them with a few spare minutes in between trips to the neighbourhood Timmies to hear the learned former attorney general appear on behalf of the Crown to argue the matter. Now we'd be doing this no just to resolve the dispute between Marshall and Wilson, but to settle on the legality of the cabinet's move in this extremely important crisis.
The justices would likely fight over the chance to hear this one.
And they get paid to resolve disputes.
After all, government has been extremely successful in this Mad Hatter, March Hare approach to the things before.
There was the now famous October 2004 interview Danny Williams gave to the CBC's Carole MacNeil. According to Williams, once the province didn't qualification for Equalization, clawbacks wouldn't be 100 per cent but zero., even though when the province qualified for just a fraction of a penny of federal handout, the clawback was 99.9999999 per cent.
Then there was Tom Rideout's classic time travel episode:
Consider Rideout's efforts to explain that while today might well have been June 14 when the bill was passed, tomorrow did not actually mean June 15. Rather it meant some date four months hence:
"Since Green didn't say the act comes into effect today, we, in consultation with him, said what can come into effect today comes into effect today, what needs time to come into effect tomorrow comes into effect tomorrow, and tomorrow is Oct. 9, 2007"
Or Marshall gamely trying to criticise Brian Peckford and in the process fibbing royally about the province's finances.
Or on legal matters, just ask Don Burridge, the current deputy attorney general and, odds are, the poor sod who would carry this threadbare Stanfield's of an argument downtown to see what others made of it.
Burridge is the extremely talented lawyer who was in the unfortunate position of having to carry forward government's argument in Ruelokke. The government argument, one suspects, was dictated to him by the learned barristers in cabinet but he gamely laid it out.
They tried the argument that a clause in the 1985 Atlantic Accord which said the hiring tribunal's decision was binding on both the federal and provincial, governments really meant that the courts couldn't intervene in the matter.
Mr. Justice Halley loved that one, one suspects, so much so that he likely had to stab himself repeatedly with a fork under his robes so that the pain would keep him from rolling on the floor in laughter.
We all know the outcome of that foray into the courts.
All of this just goes to show just exactly how desperate the cabinet is to try and escape the Memorial mess they've created. Tom Marshall is trotting out all sorts of verbiage to try and obscure things.
The problem for Marshall in this little drama is that he is stuffed in the role played before by Burridge. He is carrying a preposterous argument and he knows it.
But if he is game, there are a few people wearing black robes in the later summer heat who will gladly sit and enjoy the government's revival of Through the Looking Glass or Alice in Wonderland.
We'd all enjoy the play immensely even if the outcome is predictable.
-srbp-