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By Rick Bell, Sun Media

I will fight the charges strenuously.

Usually when you hear those words they’re coming out of the mouth of an accused before a big-time trial for a big-time crime.

Not this time. Not in Canada. Here a couple elected officials peeve off some unelected layabouts in the high-priced junkyard of political hacks known as the Senate of Canada and now face possible contempt beefs.

No, this isn’t The Sun’s Believe-It-Or-Not.

No, two justice ministers, Alberta’s Alison Redford and Manitoba’s Dave Chomiak, fly to Ottawa to fight for a new law. It’s already approved with one voice by the elected House of Commons and supported by provinces with elected governments from political parties of all types.

But it’s held up by some Liberals in the unelected Senate.

The law being stonewalled is also backed by the vast majority of Canadians. Those convicted would get a day off their sentence for every day spent behind bars awaiting trial. They wouldn’t get two days or three days for every day served before trial, as they do now, an incentive to rack up time in remand.

In an exceptional case, with the judge having to give reasons, a perp could get a day and a half for every day.

Alas, some senators don’t like the idea. They think not giving criminals a 2-for-1 deal is fair. They think it’s against Canadian values since spineless is in their dictionary of Canadian values.

Anyway, Redford and Chomiak go to a Senate committee to speak in favour of the new law. They believe they are scheduled for an hour. They are at the committee for an hour and ten minutes, minus seven seconds.

Then, Redford, Alberta’s justice minister, who has been pushing hard for Ottawa to get real on all kinds of crimes, apologizes. They’ve gone over the hour. They have to catch planes back home. They will answer any other questions in writing.

They go. But Redford and Chomiak don’t go straight to the airport. For some Senators, they commit a horrible outrage. On the way to their flights, they join Rob Nicholson, the federal justice boss, in a 10-minute news conference backing the 1-for-1 plan.

Scandal! Shame! Shocker! The head of the Senate gab group on crime, Sen. Joan Fraser, demands action. The discussion on what action takes up 19 pages. This, dear taxpayer, is the kind of stunt your tax dollars bankroll.

Fraser, a senator from Quebec, wants a “genuine remedy” to “correct a grave and serious breach.” She can’t believe Redford and Chomiak didn’t go straight to the airport. She can’t fathom how they stopped for a brief press conference.

This is real. I’ve got the transcript.

“Ms. Redford misled the committee about the reason for curtailing its hearings. She left the committee with the clear impression the reason why she and Mr. Chomiak were leaving ... was to catch planes west.”

“Misleading committees is a serious matter.” Fraser reminds senators it is “punishable as a contempt.”

“Haul her before the courts,” shouts a senator who actually possesses brain cells.

“Our privileges have been breached,” continues Fraser. She wants something done though not ... get this ... “arrest or any such extreme action.”

Another senator agrees Redford and Chomiak “violated parliamentary privilege.” We are clearly on board a hot-air balloon.

Yet another finds the situation “sad and tragic” and says “something wrong has happened.” Up, up we go.

Finally, Alberta Sen. Bert Brown of Alberta says the stunt is “getting out of hand.”

They stayed their time. They left.

“It does not matter whether they wanted to go to McDonald’s for a hamburger or they needed to go the restroom or whatever,” says Bert, injecting uncommon common sense.

The Senate Speaker now ponders the complaint and will rule on it. The committee didn’t back the 1-for-1 law. In Manitoba, Premier Gary Doer says this silliness shows why the Senate should be totalled.

Redford isn’t giving ground. Good.

“I’m at a loss. We see what goes on in jails and in the courts. People don’t have confidence in the system. The Senate is not in touch with the real world,” says Redford.

“I’m an elected official. People voted for me. The idea of the Senate holding a provincial minister in contempt. What can they do? We have a serious problem here. This is like Disneyland.”

Except this isn’t fun, costs a lot more and is goofy without Goofy.

http://www.edmontonsun.com/news/alberta/2009/10/09/11362131.html