SASKATOON – Andy McMechan had another bad day in court last week.
Not only was the Lyleton, Man. farmer sentenced to 61 more days in jail, but he received a stern lecture from the judge about the rule of law.
“Andy McMechan has no business taking it upon himself to decide which laws are to be followed and which are to be broken,” said associate chief justice B.D. Giesbrecht. “He has exactly the same rights as every citizen and no more.”
On Oct. 9 in Brandon provincial court, the judge found McMechan guilty on two counts of breaching recognizance orders and sentenced him to 61 more days in jail.
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The convictions stem from actions taken by McMechan following a March incident in which he delivered grain to the United States without proper documentation. He refused to turn over a tractor seized by Canada Customs following the illegal border runs.
The judge sentenced McMechan to one day on one of the charges, taking into account time served prior to trial. On the second count he was sentenced to 60 days, to be served consecutively to a four-month sentence he is now serving for failing to keep the peace.
In delivering sentence, Giesbrecht delivered a stinging rebuke to McMechan and his legal advisor, saying that the fact he doesn’t like the Canadian Wheat Board doesn’t give McMechan the right to break the law.
“He can do everything allowable in a democratic society to convince the others of the rightness of his cause,” he said. “But unless and until he succeeds in changing the law, he must obey it along with everyone else.”
Giesbrecht said he had no opinion about whether the wheat board is good or bad. The issue is irrelevant to the court, he added, with the only issue being whether McMechan has broken the law as it is written.
McMechan and his supporters can organize rallies, lobby politicians, hold demonstrations and talk to the media, but they can’t be allowed to deliberately flout the law, the judge told a packed courtroom.
“A democracy depends upon the rule of law,” he said. “It is vital that once a law is passed people obey it.”
Civil disobedience compared
And the judge scornfully dismissed suggestions made by some of McMechan’s supporters that their fight can be likened to the kind of civil disobedience exercised by people like Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela.
“That is patent nonsense,” said the judge. “To liken a grain marketing arrangement put in place at the request of a majority of farmers to a system of apartheid or government sanctioned segregation is an insult to the Mandelas of this world and trivializes the nobility of their struggles.”
