TORONTO – HATE is “le mot du jour”. The vocabulary of the woke tars those in disagreement with “practitioners” of that nebulous ideology as haters. A recent province-wide election concerning the governance structure of more than 57,000 lawyers and 10,000 paralegals practicing in Ontario produced some interesting results. 

It was a “hotly contested” election in which one issue dominated attention: to be or not to be woke and maintain integrity in the execution of the Law. A former Federal Minister of Justice and a woke professor engaged, with the professor being less than genteel in his language.

Results were tabulated and subsequently published on May 1. The “pro-woke” slate of candidates swept all positions.

There are a total of 40 elected benchers from the ranks of the lawyer members, five (5) paralegal benchers and a further eight (8) lay benchers appointed by the Provincial government. If you are counting, that is one bencher for every 1,488 lawyers/paralegals.

It did not have any Italian Canadian representatives among its ranks.  Interestingly, The LSO is consulted on the selection of judges.

One wonders if the LSO is “a serious” organization.  According to its own website, it regulates lawyers and paralegals in Ontario in the public interest. Yet its governing council excludes representation from 1,000,000 of the province’s 14,000,000 residents – 7% of Ontario’s citizens are left out.

I think I understand the concept of “majority votes win”.  But the woke slate indicating the 51 victorious names did not include Italians (save for one last name for which a case might be made). Is it possible that Italian Canadians would express no interest in their own governing structure?

We asked the LSO via email whether this would be plausible or whether their absence from that list (the only one published on the LSO website) is an indication of that institution’s aversion towards residents of Italian Canadian background. As of today, no response.

Additionally, we asked for an explanation of the totals and percentages of the ballots cast. For example, LSO’ results report “total ballots all regions” as 22, 535 (presumably of the 67,000 eligible voters).  The highest vote getter received only 12,609 votes. Not very many others on the slate were able to match that total.

Again, no answer. Yesterday, the National Post reported that the LSO appointed two non-woke Lawyers as benchers. And the elections?

They must have taken advice from Education Minister Lecce, who recently “learned” that his denigration of Catholic schools (and Catholic values) was an indirect way of calling his parents and relatives “haters”.

Maybe the LSO is not a society of haters. They are just more efficient: elections in North Korea are won with margins approaching 90%, in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq by 85% different, etc. The LSO wins with 100% of the votes [it selects].  Does that invalidate the entire election?