We noted last month that Supreme Court Justice Russell Brown had been on leave from the court over misconduct allegations in a Scottsdale (AZ) area resort in late January.
Russell Brown has resigned from the court. The resignation means a halt to the Canadian Judicial Council (CJC) investigation into the matter since the council can only investigate complaints against federally appointed judges.
Brown's resignation came just before the CJC could have launched an inquiry. In a statement, Brown said the CJC probe "may continue well into 2024." That would be a delay in "nobody's interests — the Court's, the public's, my family's or my own."
"I have therefore decided that the common good is best served by my retirement, so that a replacement judge can join the court in time for its busy fall term," Brown said.
Justin Trudeau will pick his replacement, who must be from Western Canada. That definition could include British Columbia.
Brown had been a controversial pick by Stephen Harper in 2015 close to election time. He served on the high court from August 31, 2015 until June 12, 2023.
Once Brown's successor is picked, Justin Trudeau will have 6 out of 9 appointees to the bench. Stephen Harper ended up with 8 appointees before losing the 2015 election. Andromache Karakatsanis (retirement date: October 3, 2030) and Suzanne Côté (retirement date: September 21, 2033) are the only Harper appointees remaining as puisine justices, though Trudeau promoted Richard Wagner, a Harper appointee, to chief justice in 2017. Harper appointed Wagner to the court in 2012.
2023 Victoria Day notebook: Alberta wildfires starting early
Blaine Higgs wins a majority government for Progressive Conservatives in New Brunswick
CanadianCrossing.com New Brunswick coverage
New Brunswick had one of those pandemic elections where the party in power got a larger majority. Blaine Higgs of the Progressive Conservatives (PC) called a snap election that was held on September 14, 2020.
We figured things were rather quiet in a normally sleepy (sorry) New Brunswick. Well, that changed quickly.
Policy 713, designed to protect LGBTQ students, allows for students to be called by names and pronouns that they choose. Premier Blaine Higgs wants to change that policy to require students under 16 to ask parents permission to make those changes.
Higgs has said if students are fearful or object to informing their parents of their change in preferred name and pronouns, they can work with guidance counsellors or school social workers and psychologists.
4 PC ministers and 2 PC backbenchers voted with the opposition for a Liberal motion for more consultations. The motion passed 26-20. Afterward, Dorothy Shephard, minister of healthy and inclusive communities, resigned from cabinet. Shephard got up and left the chamber after the premier said in the legislature that gender dysphoria has become "trendy." She noted his leadership issues in her resignation, not just with Policy 713.
Shephard is the third minister to resign from cabinet: former education minister Dominic Cardy resigned in October 2022 and is now an independent, and former deputy premier Robert Gauvin resigned in February 2020 and now sits as a Liberal.
The current Policy 713 is effective and protects children in those circumstances. We can't imagine New Brunswick has a setup where guidance counsellors, school social workers, and psychologists have that many billable hours to spend with kids on this concern.
We watched the interview (above) with Higgs and Rosemary Barton on Rosemary Barton Live. Barton talks about how Higgs is talking about his personal beliefs as policy. While Higgs denies this, the interview tells us something else entirely.
2023 Canadian politics preview
The Liberals and Conservatives retained 2 seats each in 4 byelections Monday night.
The Conservatives did retain the seat in the Oxford riding in Ontario. The path to get there was a bit unusual. Arpan Khanna won the seat to replace Dave MacKenzie. MacKenzie's daughter Deb Tait ran and lost the nomination to Khanna. There were allegations of wrongdoing and being a "parachute candidate" against Khanna.
MacKenzie and Tait endorsed Liberal candidate David Hilderley in the byelection. Hilderley got a lot more votes than Liberals usually do in the riding.
Anna Gainey kept the seat Liberal in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce–Westmount riding in the Montréal area. Gainey replaces the retired Marc Garneau, who was minister of transport from November 2015 to January 2021 and then shifted to the minister of foreign affairs from January to October 2021.
Gainey defeated federal Green Party co-leader Jonathan Pedneault in the byelection.
Conservative Branden Leslie won the byelection in the Portage-Lisgar riding in Manitoba. Leslie succeeds Candice Bergen, who had been the MP from the riding since 2008. Bergen served as the interim opposition leader in 2022.
People's Party leader Maxime Bernier ran in that riding, hoping to get enough far right-wing votes.
Ben Carr will take over for his father, the late Jim Carr, as the MP from the Winnipeg South Centre riding. Jim Carr died of cancer in December.
Dennis King, PCs get strong majority in Prince Edward Island election
CanadianCrossing.com Prince Edward Island coverage
Peter Bevan-Baker has been the greatest provincial Green Party leader ever. The party formed the Official Opposition in the 2019 election. Now the Prince Edward Island Green Party needs a new leader.
Bevan-Baker will stay on as leader until a new leader is selected and will remain a MLA. Bevan-Baker said his decision to retire was largely due to personal reasons, how his life has been very unbalanced in recent years.
"This party has a really bright future if we don't panic," Bevan-Baker told Island Morning (CBC Radio) host Mitch Cormier.
I remember the night Bevan-Baker became the first Green to be elected to the assembly in 2015. He was a dentist before becoming a politician. Bevan-Baker ran in 7 federal or provincial elections before being elected to an office. Peter Bevan-Baker will be missed among the party leaders in Prince Edward Island.
CanadianCrossing.com Canadian politics coverage
The Toronto mayor race will be June 26. There are too many people to mention, except that Doug Ford has a candidate (Mark Saunders) and Olivia Chow, widow of Jack Layton, is one of the top contenders. The winner replaces John Tory, who resigned over an affair with a staffer. If we don't get a write-up next week, we will include this in our Canada Day notebook on July 1.
photo and video credit: CBC News
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.