INCOMPETENCE, COMPLACENCY, CORRUPTION OR ALL THREE?

I found the Prosecutor's 20-30 minute speech to be self-serving and bizarre in Provincial Offences Court last Wednesday morning. As much as possible he went out of his way to say nice things about mayor Shantz. Things like she demonstrated good faith. Things like she remedied and corrected her errors when she was made aware of them. In my opinion both of those statements by Mr. Fraser Kelly of London, Ontario are inaccurate. Why did the Crown Prosecutor feel it necessary to buttress the credibility or honesty of the accused?

Mr. Kelly seemed to have little compunction against criticizing my actions. Some of the criticism was subtle. Things like Mr. Marshall again did not appeal the Compliance Audit Committee's (MECAC) decision to the Ontario Court of Justice (OCJ). Mr. Kelly knew exactly why I did not appeal those decisions to the OCJ because he asked me why in my two hour and five minute interview with him 45 hours before Wednesday's Court appearance. He failed in presenting a balanced, truthful scenario.

Fraser Kelly emphasized that several of the charges were "improper". How were they improper? Did Mr. Kelly give the impression to the court that these "improper" charges were due to a failure on my part? I came away from court feeling that way. Was there something obvious in the Municipal Elections Act that somewhere said that only evenly numbered Sections of the Act are chargeable offences and odd numbered Sections are merely filler? Is there a magic phrase in certain Sections such as "May" or "May not" that determine if a candidate can be charged for failing to comply with that Section but it's O.K. to not comply with other Sections? Finally why was I not given the courtesy of a copy of the Crown Prosecutor's decision?

These alleged "improper" charges are not remotely due to any failure on my part. I went to the courts in actual and real "good faith". I relied upon Superior Court in Kitchener to advise me as to what I had to do to properly lay an "Information" which didn't become charges until after a Justice of the Peace went over the "Information" slowly and carefully and in detail. Yes it took two different J.P.s to finally succeed at this. Was that my fault? Was it my fault that I had to attend Superior court six Fridays in a row to finally get these charges laid? Was it my fault that the process is stilted, awkward and agonizingly slow? I don't think so.

Two Justice's of the Peace over six weeks. Two Prosecutors (Andres & Kelly) over six months and approx. six court appearances. Two private meetings one on December 23/15 with Mr. Andres and one on March 21 with Mr. Kelly. And then on March 23/16 Fraser Kelly springs on me in open court that four or five of my ten charges are "improper"? When did either of these prosecutors actually figure that out? I mean each and every charge was a one sentence simple and brief statement. For example charge one "Sandra Shantz failed to record as Contributions all goods and services given to her municipal election campaign contrary to Section 66.(1) of the Municipal Elections Act (1996)ie. MEA on March 27, 2015." Similarily charge two was just as straightforward namely "Sandra Shantz failed to record as Expenses all goods and services used in her municipal election campaign contrary to Section 67.(1) of the Municipal Elections Act (1996) ie MEA".

If and I say IF there are flaws in these charges what are they? I've doublechecked the Section numbers. Did I make a spelling error? Maybe a grammatical error? The date (March 27/15) preceeded all the charges but I added it anyways for some of them. Was this a failure?

And now the final kicker. Could my alleged "improper" charges have been amended or corrected at any point in time? Could they have been corrected three months ago? Two days before court? How about now? The silence from the court is both deafening and sickening. Is this just one more example of the courts doing in an unrepresented litigant (URL)? I am left with the impression that the courts have just played a big joke on me. They exploited some minor flaw that was their responsibility in the first place, not mine, in order to withdraw all the charges.

What exactly is the definition of "withdraw" charges? Is this the same as "stayed" the charges? Again for incredibly more time and money I could hire a lawyer to answer some of these questions. Silly me I thought I was already paying through the nose via taxes to have the courts work for me. Clearly not and clearly the courts have just behaved in a manner to have brought themselves into disrepute. A lot of disrepute.


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