When to Limit Union Control

Finally a government that’s upholding a law – B.C. Appoints Special Prosecutor in Strike

Excerpt:

"We apologize to the parents and the students for the inconveniences but we are doing this for improved learning conditions for our students," federation president Jinny Sims told CTV's Canada AM.

Yeah right lady. Removing a child’s or young person’s education is interfering with their future and is more than an “inconvenience”. When does personal greed and illegal actions justify improved learning conditions? The strikers are doing it for themselves. Since when were the interests of a non-union person’s future livelihood a concern for unions?

CBC reports on the strike and mentions two types of contempt: civil and criminal.

Since I'm sure most people, including myself, doesn't know what the difference is, I decided to post this definition of Contempt of Court from Barron's Canadian Law Dictionary.

Contempt of Court is an act or ommission tending to obstruct or interfere with the orderly administration of justice or to impair the dignity of the Court or respect for its authority. In Canada, two classifications of contempt exist. One is statutory [criminal] contempt, found in the Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46, and in other federal statutes containing express references to certain forms of contempt - notably, obstructioning justice, disobeying a court order and the offences covered by the sections beginning, with s. 118 of the Code.

The other classification is civil contempt, which consists largely of disobeying a judgement or court order. It includes disobeying an injunction, refusing to testify when ordered to do so or failing to appear as a witness. This, in civil matters, contempt has a primarily coercive dimension, in that it obliges one party to submit to a court order issued for the benefit of another.

Criminal contempt, on the other hand, results from words, acts or writings that constitute an obstruction or discredit to the administration of justice. Examples are bribing a witness or a juror, attempting to influence a judge, falsely accusing a judge of bias, or disobeying a court order in a criminal case.

So what's obstruction of justice?

It's acting to "obstruct, pervert or defeat the course of justice"; it is a criminal offence. Among acts that constitute an obstruction of justice are dissuading a person by threats from giving evidence; influencing a person in his or her capacity as a juror; or, being a peson who may give evidence or act as a juror, accepting bribes or threats in connection with those duties. Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46, s. 139.

Obstructing the course of justice has been interpreted broadly to include an attempt to interfere with the normal enforcement by police of the contravention of a municipal by-law. R v. Zeck (1980) 53 C.C.C (2d) 551 (Ont C.A.).

Also, an attempt to dissuade a person from reporting an incident to the police may constitute the offence. R. v. Whalen (1974), 17 C.C.C. (2d) 217 (Ont. Co. Ct.).