George Baker is a Liberal Senator from Newfoundland blessed with the gift of oratory. Mischievous but serious about the work he does, Senator Baker is making life difficult for his leader, Michael Ignatieff. He is pushing amendments to a Conservative tough-on-crime bill aimed at drug traffickers.
Elected Liberals support the bill. Indeed, it passed through the House of Commons but its ride through the Senate chamber has not been as smooth. And that is because of Liberal senators, namely Mr. Baker.
The Senate is to vote on this legislation – Bill C-15 – later this afternoon; it is not clear how it will go although the Liberals do have a slight majority right now.
Senator Baker’s issue is with the mandatory minimum sentences in the original bill. He argued yesterday in a speech in the Red Chamber that they “take the discretion away from the judge in extreme cases. … We should not take away the discretion from the judge and place it in the hands of the Crown prosecutor.”
He also used Barack Obama’s reminiscences of his past drug use to back up his point, suggesting that the U.S. President, as a university student, could have landed himself in jail with mandatory minimum sentences.
Reading passages from President Obama’s biography, Senator Baker had to explain to his colleagues that “blow” meant cocaine and “reefer” meant marijuana and noted that the author now resides in the White House.
“It makes one wonder,” he said. And it makes one wonder where this could leave Mr. Ignatieff if the amendments to remove the mandatory minimum sentences for people convicted of growing fewer than 200 marijuana plants pass.
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson has said the Liberal Leader “should lean” on his Senators to pass the original bill.
But you can’t whip these Senators. Again, Mr. Ignatieff’s hold on his caucus will be in question.
(Photo: A B.C. pot farmer tends to his plants in Miracle Valley this spring. John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail)
