THE ADVOCATE 769
VOL. 79 PART 5 SEPTEMBER 2021
FROM OUR
BACK PAGES
By D. Michael Bain,Q.C.
F or a bit of frivolity (and advice) from 1984—the year,* not the
book—see below!
This also occurred in Provincial Court recently. “Court: after reading s. 484
of the Criminal Code to the accused. How do you elect to be tried?” The
accused: “County Court without a Judge”
His Honour Judge Tom Meager was the Provincial Court judge. He considered
this to have been the most creative piece of counsel work on the
part of an accused appearing by himself that he had ever heard.
This month’s prize for confusion in the courtroom goes to the Provincial
Court judge who presided over a recent preliminary hearing in Victoria in
which it was alleged that the accused had sold a small amount of “green
plant-life material” to a plain-clothed officer in the men’s washroom at the
Bastion Inn in Victoria.
The Court: This wasn’t a bathroom was it, were there baths in there?
A Well like, where you go to the bathroom. Like a –
The Court: It is a toilet. It is a toilet.
A Okay, toilet, Your Honour.
The Court: Yes?
A Yes.
The Court: Men’s toilet.
* Reprinted from “Bench and Bar”, (1984) 42 Advocate 333 and (1984) 42 Advocate 723.