Blue Jays, Supreme Court goes crazy time to rein them in, Trump on Carney, and Ford still talking...

And we settle the election speculation debate.

Tomorrow, unless the Blue Jays win and I’m up all night, I will have a piece out for paid subscribers on media bias.

I woke up this morning having no clue what to write about for my column for the Sun. People always ask who decides what I write and most days that’s me, which works out well since I’m generally simpatico with my bosses.

The problem on Friday morning is that there wasn’t much in the way of political news that would break through Blue Jays mania with Game 6 approaching.

Then the Supreme Court handed me a putrid gift on a platter.

In an utterly bizarre 5-4 ruling the Supreme Court ruled that a one-year mandatory minimum for possessing child pornography was a violation of section 12 of the Charter.

“Everyone has the right not to be subjected to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment,” the section reads.

I would argue that the cruel and unusual punishment is the abuse that the young children abused for the sexual gratification of perverts. This decision, written by Justice Mary Moreau, a Trudeau appointee from Alberta, was supported by Andromache Karakatsanis, Sheila Martin, Nicholas Kasirer and Mahmud Jamal - only Karakatsanis was appointed by Stephen Harper, the rest by Trudeau.

In the resulting Sun column that came after my editor JK alerted me to the ruling, I break down the problem with this ruling. Please read the column and share it on X, LinkedIn, email it to family members, people need to know how twisted this is.

How we got to this awful place…

The judges didn’t use the cases that we before them to arrive at their judgment, they invented a new case, not a real one, to arrive at the judgment and strike down the mandatory minimum. This is a practice that the courts have used for years but have escalated and in my view been abused since 2015 and a horrible decision known as Nur.

I’ll have an in-depth look at reasonable hypotheticals in the coming days, but here is a quick review of what you need to know.

When judges take a decision, such as whether a law can be struck down by a reasonable hypothetical there are some things they need to consider. Does the reasonable hypothetical have a factual and legal connection to the case is one example. Another factor to consider is whether a reasonable person could reasonably see the scenario the judges used to arrive at their decision.

I won’t gross you out with details about the cases before the court or the ridiculous scenario the judges used to strike down the law, it’s all in the column. Suffice to say that the decision released on Friday doesn’t meet any of the parameters - and more - and that’s something the four dissenting judges on the Supreme Court agree with me on.

What I will say is that we either need Parliament to pass legislation curtailing the ability of judges to use so-called reasonable hypotheticals or we need to have better judges start overruling these ridiculous decisions. Many of the decisions leading us to this point were split decisions that overturned previous precedent so overturning this via the courts or future judicial decisions is what should happen.

A few words on Nur…

Back in 2015, the Supreme Court threw out a three-year mandatory minimum for possession of an illegal gun. It dated back to the 2009 arrest of 19 year-old Hussein Jama Nur for carrying an illegal gun.

Nur was seen hanging outside a community centre in Toronto’s Jane and Finch neighbourhood. A different young man approached staff at the centre telling that someone was coming to get him and pointing to a group outside.

Police were called, Nur fled and threw away the handgun he was carrying. Here’s what the Supreme Court decision said about the gun.

“The gun was a working 22-calibre semi-automatic with an oversized ammunition clip. There were 23 bullets in the clip and one in the chamber. The gun is a prohibited firearm. When functioning properly, the gun can fire all 24 rounds in 3.5 seconds.”

He was facing three years in jail as part of his mandatory minimum, but he appealed the decision calling it cruel and unusual and a violation of the Charter. To overturn mandatory minimum, the court concocted a scenario where “a person who has a valid licence for an unloaded restricted firearm at one residence, safely stores it with ammunition in another residence.”

As I will explain at a later date, this decision, a 6-3 split, also overturned previous precedent on the use of reasonable hypotheticals and really opened the floodgates.

In his stinging dissenting judgment, then Justice Michael Moldaver, since retired, issued a stinging rebuke of the majority decision.

“With respect, this hypothetical scenario stretches the bounds of credulity. It is not, in my view, a sound basis on which to nullify Parliament’s considered response to a serious and complex issue,” Moldaver wrote.

We need to get this under control.

Ford’s ad continues to make waves…

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Donald Trump said that Mark Carney apologized for Doug Ford’s ad against tariffs featuring Ronald Reagan.

Thanks to CBC Watcher on X for posting this one.

So, Mark Carney apologized, maybe that was the right thing to do, we all apologize at times when we aren’t at fault to smooth over a relationship. That said, Trump is going on again about how Reagan loved tariffs which he didn’t and how the ad was fake which it wasn’t.

As I’ve said before, whether it was a smart move is open for debate.

The Americans are noticing and talking about our protectionist measures in the cultural space. While in this clip Kevin Hassett mentions the Digital Services Tax, which is now gone, that was a big fight.

He’s also mentioning things that sound like they come from the Online Streaming Act and some insane CRTC decisions.

Doug Ford has an op-ed in the Washington Post tying the Blue Jays in the World Series to the Canada-U.S. trading relationship.

Election speculation continues…

Liberals are trying to blame the Conservatives for forcing an election over a budget no one has ever seen. In this week’s Batra’s Burning Question, we set the record straight with myself, Adrienne Batra and Lorrie Goldstein.

Now….Let’s Go Blue Jays!!!