Kaycee Madu must face indictment over ticket matter
At the time of his disgraceful conduct, Kelechi (Kaycee) Madu was a law school graduate, a member of the Alberta bar licensed to practice in Alberta, a Queen’s Counsel, and Alberta’s Minister of Justice and Solicitor General, the chief law enforcement officer in the province.
As such, I am going to risk being labelled an Olympic conclusion jumper and suggest that Madu either does, or should have, a passing familiarity with the law. All of which means that he knows as well as the rest of us do that when he paid his distracted driving ticket, he legally entered a guilty plea to the offence.
Guilty, by his own admission. Period. Full stop. All of the drivel about why he could not possibly be at fault is irrelevant. He has admitted to the facts and pled guilty. Other than getting on his knees every morning and thanking God that he did not kill somebody’s child in the school zone where it happened, it should be over. Except….
Between the time that Madu was issued the ticket and when he legally admitted the facts and pled guilty he attempted to interfere with the administration of justice by violating his oath of office and abusing his position as a member of Executive Council to facilitate a phone call to the Edmonton Chief of Police.
This is not just my opinion, this is the conclusion reached by Justice Kent in a report commissioned by Premier Kenney on this matter. And that is a much more serious matter.
Madu continues to babble about the distracted driving ticket to take our focus off of the real criminal behaviour. Justice Kent indicates that the Attorney-General must be held to a higher standard when measuring their conduct.
Madu must, in the interests of justice, then face an indictment and Subsection 139(2) of the Criminal Code of Canada clearly indicates that any person who attempts to interfere in the administration of justice is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than ten years.
When Premier Kenney issued his Statement on the Kent Report to the people of Alberta, he neglected to mention that Justice Kent found that Madu had attempted to interfere in the administration of justice. Premier Kenney highlighted that Madu did not actually succeed in his attempt at interference but criminal incompetence is not a valid defense against Subsection 139(2). I do not know why our premier did not feel we should get the whole truth on this matter nor why he did not act on the very clear conclusion of this taxpayer funded report. The most serious question for Premier Kenney, after acknowledging that the conclusions of The Kent Report make Madu morally incompetent to be Minister of Justice, is that somehow this makes him the perfect candidate to be our new Minister of Labor and Immigration.
Charges under Canada’s Criminal Code in Alberta are laid by Alberta’s prosecution service which reports to the Minister of Justice and Solicitor General. So it would be understandably awkward for this to happen while Madu held that position.
Premier Kenney should have dismissed Madu from executive council and insisted that charges be laid as soon as the Kent Report was issued. With Mr. Shandro now holding the position, proceeding according to law should be somewhat less problematic. I do not know why this has not happened.
Alberta’s prosecution service is chronically underfunded, both in terms of personnel and in their pay scale. They sent a letter to premier detailing their issues on April 6 of this year with a warning that hundreds of cases were at risk of being dismissed and that they were considering strike action. Only two cabinet members were copied on the letter, Tyler Shandro, Minister of Justice and the Solicitor General, which is quite understandable, and Kelechi (Kaycee) Madu. This creates an appearance of impropriety. Regardless of whether or not the government properly funds Alberta’s prosecution service, if it does not charge Madu, it gives the impression that the issues might be inter-connected. The only way to avoid the appearance of impropriety is to indict Madu before a decision is made on funding for the prosecution service. This whole thing just stinks.
And finally, on the assumption that some sense of respect for the law still exists, when Madu is finally indicted for his actions we must insist that his defense costs not be paid by the taxpayer. He is defending a personal action, not one taken for government, and we should not be forced to pay. As to why he did it one can only surmise that Madu has a misguided sense of entitlement which he believes puts him above the law.