Somebody, somewhere has some explaining to do and the sooner the better. How can someone go to court charged with possession of cocaine and drunk driving and walk away with a $500 fine and probation for careless driving — period.
What happened to the other charges? That’s what most Canadians want to know.
Of course, the fact the person charged was Rahim Jaffer, a former Conservative member of Parliament and husband of current Conservative cabinet minister Helena Guergis, only muddies the waters more. But people would still want to know what happened to the more serious charges if Jaffer were a nobody from nowhere.
All prosecutor Marie Balogh would say outside the court in Orangeville, Ont., was, “The matter was carefully reviewed.” Inside court, she said there was no reasonable prospect of conviction on the more serious charges.
So who messed up? The cops who laid the original charges? The prosecutor who agreed to take the original charges to court in the first place? The prosecutor who now decided the charges were wrong?
Someone, somewhere needs to speak up. Right now, many Canadians are smelling a political cover-up. Whether that is the case remains to be seen because no one is talking. However, the likelihood of anyone ever admitting to that is pretty slim.
It wouldn’t be the first time a police force messed up an investigation, but it seems pretty suspicious that it would happen to such a high profile suspect.
Meanwhile, it makes one wonder again how honest politicians are when Jaffer was once known for his tough anti-drug stance. There might not have been a conviction, but one has to wonder why the charge was laid in the first place.
