Blog de Juan Pardo

Coroner's inquest system is broken, say advocates

A Star analysis finds recommendations for preventing future deaths are often repeated from one inquest to the next, to little effect.

Carrie and Neika Pryce, whose mentally ill brother, Ian Pryce, was killed by police during a confrontation in 2013, found the inquest that eventually followed was unlikely to produce meaningful change in how police deal with people in crisis. (GEOFF ROBINS / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Carrie Pryce mourned her brother Ian Pryce three times.

The first time was when she learned he had been shot and killed by members of the Toronto Police Service. The second time was when the Special Investigation Unit cleared both the officers of any wrongdoing.

The third time was slower, and took place during the coroner’s inquest into Ian’s death.

“I had a sense a few days into the inquest that there was not going to be any change,” Pryce said.

Coroners’ inquests are called to do two main things: figure out how and why a person died, and whether anything can be done to prevent similar deaths in the future.

But whether these inquests effect any actual change is still in question.

A Toronto Star analysis of coroner’s inquests of police-involved shootings shows the recommendations in the Pryce inquest have been made before — often more than once, some as far back as 15 years ago.

Sometimes, the recommendations get responses from the organizations they’re addressed to. But even then, they reappear in subsequent inquests, raising questions as to whether anything really changes after a coroner’s inquest makes a recommendation.

Manitoba’s new Tory government faces weakened opposition after historic win

Both the NDP and the Liberals are on the search for new leaders following the Progressive Conservative’s historic election win last month.

Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister has already outlined initiatives for his first 100 days in office — a list that includes ending a public subsidy for political parties and reinstating a referendum requirement for major tax increases that was suspended by the NDP. (JOHN WOODS / THE CANADIAN PRESS file photo)

The Tories captured 40 of the 57 legislature seats in the April 19 election — the biggest majority in Manitoba in a century — and they face opposition New Democrats and Liberals that are both searching for new leaders.

“I think they’ve probably got an easy time of it for one to two years ... because these (opposition) parties have to replace leaders and until a permanent leader is found, the parties will have difficulty getting their act together in terms of focusing their attacks on and challenges to the new government,” said Paul Thomas, professor emeritus of political studies at the University of Manitoba.

Former NDP premier Greg Selinger announced on election night he would step down, and the party has appointed Flor Marcelino, a former cabinet minister who admits to having challenges in her ability to debate, as interim leader.

Marcelino underwent surgery for a brain tumour in 2002. Since then, she says, she processes questions and answers more slowly.

“I’m more comfortable writing. If I need to speak, I’m a little challenged and handicapped if you ask me to speak right away,” she said in a recent interview.

The Liberals are also looking for a new leader in the wake of Rana Bokhari’s decision to step down. Bokhari never held a legislature seat, and the three Liberals who won seats last month have said they are not going to seek the party helm.

The legislature session starts Monday with a throne speech that will outline the government’s plan for the coming year. Premier Brian Pallister has already outlined initiatives for his first 100 days in office — a list that includes ending a public subsidy for political parties and reinstating a referendum requirement for major tax increases that was suspended by the NDP.

A budget will follow near the end of May, and Pallister has indicated it will include measures to reduce ambulance fees across the province and boost funding for tourism.

The Tories also plan to join the New West Partnership trade agreement that Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia established in 2010. The Tories have also promised to improve the province’s troubled child-welfare system by ensuring government departments and service agencies share information.

“We asked for a mandate to act on three major, broad initiatives. Those being lower taxes ... better services and of course a stronger economy,” Pallister said last week.

Pallister has promised to work toward a balanced budget, following a string of NDP deficits that started in 2009, but has not committed to a deadline. He said last week his party was still trying to get a handle on the amount of red ink.

The NDP estimated the deficit at $773 million in March, but Pallister said it has grown since then.

Marc Emery.-Canada’s ‘Prince of Pot’ celebrates his long, strange trip of marijuana activism

Marc Emery, two years out of an American prison, sees change coming faster than government and authorities can keep up and plans to open two Toronto pot dispensaries this summer.

Often described as "The Prince of Pot," Marc Emery is a Canadian pot activistwho has been charged dozens of times in Canada and conicted twice for selling pot seeds. (Melissa Renwick / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Marc Emery, smokes a joint inside Planet Paradise, in Toronto. He plans to open two new dispensaries in the city. (Melissa Renwick / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

For all it’s cost him in money and liberty, Canada’s voluble “prince of pot,” Marc Emery, is still not about to hide his principles — or the light off the joints he sparks — under a bushel.

In fact these days, as the federal government prepares to liberalize marijuana laws, are hugely gratifying for the country’s best-known pot crusader and have him evangelizing at the same hectic pace.

For most of Emery’s quarter-century of activism, during which he saw the inside of 34 prisons, jails and institutions, it “looked like progress was moving awful slow for the price one has to pay,” he told the Star in a recent interview.

But thanks to civil disobedience, the rallying tools of social media, and greater awareness of the medical uses of cannabis, change is now coming “faster than government or authorities can keep up with,” he said.

Last month, Health Minister Jane Philpott told the UN the federal government’s promised legislation to legalize marijuana will be tabled next spring.

And if any Canadian can talk about the long, strange trip it’s been, it would be Emery — a natural-born entrepreneur and disturber just two years from a 4½-year prison stint. He visited Toronto recently to scout out two new outlets for his Cannabis Culture dispensaries.

Emery had been charged dozens of times in Canada, was convicted twice and paid small fines for selling pot seeds. Then came his 2005 arrest by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency where he was accused of selling to American clients from his Vancouver stores.

He was threatened with up to 40 years in prison, but a plea deal in 2010 earned him five. He was released and deported back to Canada in 2014.