Doug Ford again, I'm afraid. I'm getting tired of complaining about him, but he seems to have been opening his mouth without engaging his brain more and more just recently, as I have reported here several times in the last month or two.
Yesterday, in addition to his controversial comments about a trigger-happy homeowner, he parroted the Toronto Police Association's and Chief of Police's (dubious) assertion that veteran Ontario Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy should apologize to three Toronto Police officers after an Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) investigation found no evidence of perjury or collusion in their evidence at the trial of Umar Zameer, a man accused of fatally running over one of their colleagues. (For the record, Zameer was found not guilty - that part at least is not at issue.)
In his usual over-the-top, overwrought way, Ford stated that the judge "should apologize for accusing them of everything under the sun". The OPP report did indeed exonerate the three police officers, despite the fact that their testimonies were remarkably similar to each other, and totally at odds with the security video and the testimony of two expert witnesses.
It was this inconsistency with the other evidence, and the similarity of their own contributions, that led Justice Molloy to suggest that there was some collusion and perhaps even some untruths, in what was a case that was very close to home for them. Her comments were a reasonable conclusion, as many legal experts have averred. In fact, the OPP's report conclusions came as a surprise to many, and some have alleged a possible cover-up, particularly as the publicly-available report was severely redacted and, it is argued, the OPP is not the right body anyway to be reviewing the actions of its own membership. There have been calls for a public inquiry into the matter, or at the very least the release of the full report.
Either way, it is entirely inappropriate for Doug Ford to be commenting publicly on the report, and especially inappropriate for him to be questioning the competence and independence of a senior Ontario judge, just because he happens to disagree with them. But then, "inappropriate" is Ford's middle name these days. I'm sure he see what is happening south of the border, and concludes that he can get away with such nonsense too.
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