Jaffer gets a wrist slap...

Quoted from the Edmonton Journal Jaffer pleads guilty

Former Alberta MP Rahim Jaffer plead guilty on Tuesday to one count of careless driving and was fined $500 in an Orangeville, Ont., courtroom.
Jaffer, 37, was initially charged with cocaine possession, impaired driving and speeding stemming from an incident last September in Palgrave, Ont., about 60 kilometres north of Toronto. Those charges were withdrawn Tuesday by the Crown, who said that there was no reasonable prospect of conviction.
"I'm sure you can recognize a break when you see one," Judge Doug Maund told Jaffer before fining him.

Well, isn't this just wonderful news!  One has to wonder... if you were charged with cocaine possession, then certainly the officers making the arrest would have some form of "substance" that was found.  What was the quantity of that, and was it tested?  Will those "facts" ever be made public, or are they going to be buried as part of a political coverup?

Seems to me, the door is now open for everyone charged with this offence to qualify for exactly the same treatment given to Mr. Jaffer.  And he certainly has been one very lucky person too.

After all, who else can arrange for a friend to pretend to be him on an open-line radio talk show (630 CHED), and then claim that it was him and not an imposter, and then say "ya ok so it wasn't me... tell someone who cares" and not get charged with fraud?

Who else can retain their MP seat when fraud was clearly the intent of the deception?  Who else can be called "the laziest politician in Canada" and still get a pension of over $40,000 a year.

Methinks some extreme make-overs are needed within the political system... and it can't happen fast enough for me.