Repost from the National Post with an Erroneous Headline

‘Your God is wrong’: Anti-abortion Prolife activist to appeal conviction, saying judge attacked religion

  Jun 7, 2012 – 6:00 AM ET | Last Updated: Jun 7, 2012 10:23 AM ET

Steve Jalsevac/LifeSiteNews.com

Steve Jalsevac/LifeSiteNews.com

Mary Wagner (R) with fellow anti-abortion protester Linda Gibbons. Both have lengthy criminal records and jail time due to abortion clinic protests.

The lawyer for an anti-abortion activist jailed for entering a Toronto abortion clinic last fall is appealing her conviction, saying he thinks the judge may have left the impression of bias during a verbal skirmish in which the judge told his client: “Your God’s wrong.”

Justice S. F. Clements launched a “conditional attack on the Christian God” during the March 21 hearing at the Ontario Court of Justice, in which Mary Wagner was convicted of mischief and breach of probation, apellate lawyer Peter Boushy plans to argue during the forthcoming appeal hearing.

“I think it could be certainly argued on appeal that the justice’s conditional attack on the Christian God, along with the tenor and content of his other comments that day, gives rise to a reasonable apprehension — and I stress the word ‘apprehension’— of bias by [the judge],” Mr. Boushy said in a statement to the Post.

Court transcripts reveal a tense exchange, first between Judge Clements and one of Ms. Wagner’s supporters in court and then between the judge and Ms. Wagner.

After the man was ordered out of the court by Judge Clements, the judge turned to Ms. Wagner and said “Ms. Wagner is smiling. You don’t get it, do you Ms. Wagner?” before saying she does not know what the law means.

She asked him to explain it.

“If you think that you have some higher moral authority that allows you to break [the] rule of law, that allows you to go to that clinic, to allow you to disregard the rights of other people to use that clinic, to disrespect those people, then you are wrong, and your God is wrong, because no God would tolerate that,” Judge Clements said.

Later in their exchange she said she would not stay away from abortion clinics in the future.

“You are going to go to jail,” the judge said.

He found Ms. Wagner guilty of entering Bloor West Village Women’s Clinic the morning of Nov. 8, 2011, approaching patients in the waiting room, refusing to leave and pushing on a door being closed on her by staff to prevent her entry into a secure area of the clinic. Ms. Wagner was already on probation for a previous mischief charge and was barred from contacting clinic staff or being at least 500 metres from its doors when she appeared that day.

In her victim impact statement, clinic co-owner Patricia Hasen said Ms. Wagner returns to the clinic despite her legal restrictions, adding that it puts employees in an “emotional tailspin when a staff member says ‘Mary is here.’”

A devout Catholic, Ms. Wagner’s pro-life activism has earned her a lengthy criminal record made up of mischief charges and jail time connected to her abortion clinic protests in Toronto and Vancouver. She is friends with Linda Gibbons, a well-known anti-abortion activist who will hear from the Supreme Court this week if she had been appropriately dealt with in the courts. In fact, Ms. Wagner and Ms. Gibbons encountered one another in prison shortly after the November incident, friend Leeda Crawford said.

‘If you think that you have some higher moral authority that allows you to break [the] rule of law … then you are wrong, and your God is wrong, because no God would tolerate that’

In his sentencing, Judge Clements dismissed a joint submission from Crown counsel Derek Ishak and defence lawyer Russell Browne that took time served into account, saying it was “not substantial enough if she is not going to abide by court orders.”

“You know, get a grip. She sure wouldn’t like it if somebody was standing on her doorstep everyday pushing her around. If I had the power to do that, that is what I would do. I would have somebody in her face every day, go and rattle her door. How would she like that?” Judge Clements went on to say.

Mr. Boushy said he will raise concerns about that comment as well as the judge’s exchange with Ms. Wagner over what is meant by the rule of law.

“There is simply no authority under the criminal code for a judge to so engage an accused during the sentencing process since all accused have the time honoured right to remain silent,” Mr. Boushy’s statement went on to say. “And this is for good reason. Because soon after this engagement, a fairly extensive debate ensued between Mary Wagner and the judge, the fruits of which the judge then used as an aggravating factor on sentence.”

Judge Clements sentenced Ms. Wagner to an extra three months in jail. She was released May 21st, and is now in Illinois taking a religious course, Ms. Crawford said.

Mr. Boushy will get the date for the appeal hearing later this month and doesn’t expect it to take place until fall.

Judge Clements did not respond to requests for comment.

National Post

Repost From NP | Barbara Kay

Barbara Kay: If this is war, the millennials don’t have a chance

  May 30, 2012 – 6:30 AM ET | Last Updated: May 30, 2012 10:34 AM ET

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

An Occupy protester pours lighter fluid on a garbage can fire during a May Day demonstration in Oakland, Calif. And these guys wonder why they can’t find jobs.

We were dining at a good bistro. The waiter — early 20s — accidentally knocked a glass of water onto my lap. Suppressing annoyance, I was summoning a gracious smile to acknowledge his forthcoming apology when instead he chirped, “It’s okay, stuff happens.” Stung, I responded, “You’re unclear on the concept. You’re supposed to say ‘I’m sorry,’ and I’m supposed to say ‘It’s okay, stuff happens.’ ”

Our narrowed eyes locked: the Senior and the Millennial (a.k.a Gen Y or Echo Boomers). I was thinking: Your teflon complacency comes from a lifetime of helicopter parents and teachers ensuring you were failure-proofed to protect your precious self-esteem. He was probably thinking: Why aren’t you dead yet so I can get a decent job and afford the meal I’m serving you.

He would have a point.

We’re witnessing an unprecedented generational social tussle. In 1950, people my age were doddering retirees. Today, we’re healthier longer, enjoying still-productive lives. By clinging to our jobs, or starting new ones, we’re blocking the natural economic pipeline. Yet we’re also hanging on to our untenably expensive government benefits, because politicians genuflect before our massive voting numbers, not to mention our tendency to vote in higher proportions than the already far less numerous 18-34s.

But I have a point too. Cossetted, self-satisfied millennials lack humility and competitive drive. They think real life will echo their easy ride through high school and the artificially inflated grades they got for their dumbed-down university courses. An October 2011 National Report Card on Youth Financial Literacy polled 3,000 recent high school grads on their expectations. More than 70% erroneously assumed they’d own their own home in 10 years. The average respondent over-estimated his future earnings by 300%.

In his new book, Beyond Age Rage: How the boomers and seniors are solving the war of the generations, marketing maven and ZoomerMedia vice-president David Cravit deconstructs our unique demographic moment, as the culturally dominant boomers continue to re-order the world millennials are inheriting.

If this were a real war, millennials wouldn’t have a prayer. Oldies’ greatest fear — realistically — is outliving their money, because many boomers didn’t save for their retirement as previous generations did. They won’t cede their entitlements willingly. Almost a third have no savings, almost a quarter are $50,000 in debt upon retirement. Some are supporting aged parents. Many have to work, many more who are financially secure just want to work, and most are surprisingly adaptive. The number of self-employed Canadian 55-plus “BoomerPreneurs” doubled between 1990-2008.

Millennials — unrealistic, under-adaptive, often debt-burdened and, unlike the Boomers in 1967 (when the median age was 27, not 42, as today), are coming of age in hard economic times. They’re mad as hell, venting on websites. “Why won’t the Baby Boomers step aside?” rants one. Response: “Because many of us are too busy supporting our college graduate kids who won’t shop at Walmart … and BTW, you are NOT getting my job, Crybaby.”

Cravit’s evenhanded analysis is evidence-based, but one occasionally senses his irritation with millennials’ immaturity. In one chapter, for example, he compares the goals-focused sobriety of the Tea Party movement (70% boomers and seniors) with the feelings-drenched, violence-prone Occupy movement (70% under 39).

To illustrate his point — and to hilarious effect — Cravit contrasts the Tea Party website, a model of on-message clarity detailing principles and practical strategies, with the inchoate, juvenile Toronto Occupy website: “[We are] fed up with the current political and economic systems in this nation and all over the world. … We have not yet put out a unified message but be sure it will come.”

Cravit attributes the Tea Party’s success to boomer perseverance and a strong work ethic. He attributes Occupy’s failure to their education, which “put[s] a premium on rewards detached from results.” He recognizes that because of boomer guilt amongst cultural elites, “the meme of boomer selfishness and greed will likely overcome the meme of millennial immaturity and dysfunction” in the media. Indeed, we’ve witnessed exactly this joust played out in these pages over Quebec’s endless street protests. But Cravit also predicts that boomers will win in the marketplace.

The book concludes optimistically. It’s an unusual war where the victors refuse to let the losers lose, offering generous shelter, sustenance and mentorship to the vanquished. But that’s what is happening. Cravit’s elaboration on the boomers’ “Marshall plan” for their vulnerable progeny shows that it isn’t the nanny state, but spontaneous kinship altruism — plus, hopefully, a practical revamp of a superannuated university system — that will ensure that Canada’s presently unlucky millennials land on their feet.

National Post