Random Access

It’s funny how lives and paths cross on the road of political protest.
If you look up the results of the 1997 municipal election on the City of Mississauga’s web site, you’ll see that Mayor Hazel McCallion collected 65,678 votes or 94.34 per cent of the popular vote.
Donald Barber was second with 2,084 votes, or 2.99 per cent of the vote. Third was James Girvin, the Malton resident activist (and long-time passionate basketball player) who collected 1.53 per cent of the ballots.
Girvin, then a policy analyst for the Ontario government was a guy who always liked tilting at windmills and liked to point out that policy and planning vision weren’t exactly the mayor’s strongest suit.
Fast forward to this morning in a Brampton courtroom almost exactly a decade later, where a rather beleaguered, very wan-looking Donald Barber — self-appointed current chief windmill-tilter of the municipal world in Mississauga — is about to face two criminal charges of assault.
Striding in to defend him comes the lanky, lean frame of one James Girvin, now a lawyer and willing to defend a difficult client like Barber, because, “Donald’s heart has always been in the right place.”
After a morning of mini-conferences, adjournments and deferrals about the possibility of Barber entering into a peace bond, (which he clearly does not want to do) Mr. Justice J.D. Wake cuts to the heart of the matter.
With Barber refusing to voluntarily enter into a peace bond, to provide a promise to keep the peace and not contact the female security officer at City Hall he is accused of assaulting, the judge says, “before Mr. Barber is asked to embark on what is essentially a civil proceeding, I think he should know the extent of his jeopardy. Are the Criminal Code charges going to be proceeded with by the Crown or withdrawn in any event?”
The moment of truth finally at hand. That’s when crown attorney Darylinn Allison reports that the charges — laid almost 17 months ago — are being withdrawn because there is no reasonable prospect of conviction.
Outside the court room, Barber insists there was never any case against him and, with the confirmation of the court that there is no publication ban in effect, you will be able to read all the intimate details in the coming days on his web site. The case obviously boiled down to his word versus the guards. He says the guards’ statements stories did not corroborate each other.
While Barber is hardly the innocent lamb of political witch hunts that he likes to paint himself, the capitulation by the crown without a fight raises a lot of questions.
Was it ever really the conviction that the City was after, or was it the the bail conditions that banned Barber from attending City Hall or contacting councillors? Those, in effect, created a comfortable Barber-free zone for the incumbents leading up to the municipal election.
Girvin says that a review of the tape of the council session — at which Barber and Roy Willis asked perfectly reasonable questions about a change in policy that restricted the rules of public question period under which the City had operated for years — included nothing that could be remotely considered “disturbing the peace.” That was the first charge laid, and the first withdrawn.
“I can’t speak to the intent,” of the bail conditions imposed on Barber said Girvin, but he did speak to their effect.
“Mr. Barber has been put through quite a bit of hardship,” said the Malton native. “He has been restricted from playing his usual role as a vigorous advocate of the community since June of 2006.”
Maybe that was the whole idea.