LSO Bencher Brawl

The unfrozen caveman lawyers march once again upon the Law Society of Ontario.

I speak, of course, of the FullStop slate of loopy, far-right legalists running for bencher in their ongoing jihad against vaccines, wokeness, anything, and cheered on by the usual pasty gasbags (Tubby Black, Jon Kay, Jordan Peterson, et al.)

But this year the flecks seem to be off the foam, and they are opposed in the bencher elections next month by the grownups-are-talking-now Good Governance Coalition.

Readers will recall the insurgents, who then styled themselves StopSOP. They seized 22 of 40 bencher spots in 2019, running against the Law Society’s hugsy-wugsy Statement of Principles, which would have enjoined legalists to be nicer to ladies, gays, tinted chappies and who-knows-what-else,” acknowledging their obligation to promote equality, diversity and inclusion.”

No less a legal scholar than Peterkins issued a “call to rebellion” against these Marxist excesses of identity politics, thought-policing, compelled speech, woof, woof, quack, quack.

They successfully neutered the SOP, but the revolution stalled as the Fullstoppers busied themselves with time-squandering bullshit, from a walk-on motion to slash fees by 25 per cent (and blow a $25M hole in the law society’s budget) to a nuisance defamation suit against the LSO and Treasurer Jacqueline Horvat from Sam Goldstein, served live during a meeting by the Rebel News stunt legalist.

The joke, alas, has worn thin.  Goldstein is no longer on the FullStop slate, running for re-election instead as an independent lunatic.

FullStop has picked up sometime Peterson legalist Howard Levitt (Franks passim), but they’re still four clowns light for a full short bus in their Toronto-area slate.

A total of 14 of their candidates signed the anti-mandate True North Declaration, 15 are current or former droogs at the civil-rights-for-Christian-whites Justice Centre for Constitutional Affairs, who wet their beaks in the Adamson BBQ cirque du jerk, defending ribs merchant Adam Skelly’s constitutional right to infect consenting diners – and leverage the resulting media freakout to raise loadsadough.

But even without the lockstep MAGA orthodoxy and the monotonous honky hue, FullStop has plenty of assorted nutters.

Take Gerard Charette, Windsor tax lawyer and church deacon, much concerned with the LSO’s anti-money-laundering rules (far too stringent.)

Or Kanata bowtie boy Cecil Lyon (no relation to Cecil the Lion, peace be upon him). Hear him roar:

“I bet you know that the Society is too big. How bloated it is remains a mystery. Its ever-expanding scope of operations is funded with our money and we need to call the Law Society to account! Full stop!”

Other notables:

Geoff “Bollocks” Pollock:

Failed and re-failed Tory candidate and mover of that surprise 25 per cent fee cut, which was all too much for audit and finance chairthingy Joe Groia: “We are not a debating society. What we do matters to families and the public at large. If adopted, the proposed motion, without study or analysis by the audit and finance committee, would require the Law Society to find $25 million somewhere. I can assure you that selling Osgoode Hall, which has been suggested by some, is not a viable option.” (Motion spiked, from a height.)

Chi-Kun Shi:

Serial legalist for Holocaust denier and Jew-booer Ernst Zundel‘s various attempts to fight extradition to Germany.

Phil Horgan:

The very model of the anti-modern rightist drooler: president of the Catholic Civil Rights League, founder of the Faith and Freedom Alliance, executive member of the Thomas More Lawyer’s Guild, and tireless courtroom intervener during the struggles of Trinity Western’s No-Pooftahs Law School for law society recognition (Franks passim).

Jorge Pineda: Left his steady gig as legal counsel for the City of Brantford (2019 salary: $116,381) to join the JCCF cirque du jerque in 2020, last seen last spring, losing a legal challenge of McMaster University’s vaccine mandates through the masterstroke of abandoning nearly all his lengthy and undercooked arguments.

Lisa Bildy:

Another inmate of the JCCF until supremo John Carpay got caught tailing Court of King’s Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal with a private eye. John went on immediate leave, while Lisa did damage control: “Surveilling public officials is not what we do.”

But a mere six weeks later, Crappy returned from exile — and Bildy and two-thirds of the JCCF board abruptly walked the plank. (that’s enough losebags!!—ed.)