MEDIA MISADVENTURE REGARDING ELECTION ACT & MAYOR SHANTZ

I really think that the Woolwich Observer need to do a little more editing prior to publishing. They have an overall pretty good "2016 Year In Review" covering three or four pages in this week's Observer. That said I've found the February 2016 review of the Shantz case titled "Shantz case moves ahead" completely at odds with their own March 2016 review titled "Crown drops case against Shantz".

The February review states "Prosecutors opted to go ahead with a case against Woolwich Mayor Sandy Shantz related to election expenses filed after the 2014 municipal vote.". Then it further states "prosecutor Alexander Andres told the court there is sufficient cause to continue.". Wow as much as I wish that was 100% true and accurate I have to say that that absolutely was not my takeaway from the February 2016 court appearance. My takeaway was that the Crown were simply requesting an Adjournment while they continued looking at the evidence. In other words no decision had been made as yet.

The March review however went the other way to the extreme. It stated "Finding no grounds to proceed, the Crown has closed the file on Woolwich Mayor Sandy Shantz.". Really from one court appearance in February absolutely stating that prosecutors were proceeding with charges against Sandy Shantz to the very next month stating that there were no grounds to proceed; it is my opinion that the Observer got it wrong both times. In March 2016 prosecutor Fraser Kelly did not say that there were no grounds to proceed. He stated that a couple of the private charges laid by myself, accepted by a Justice of the Peace and then examined by two different prosecutors were laid incorrectly. Geez thanks J.P., and two prosecutors for giving me a non-timely heads up on that one. He also stated that the other correctly laid charges were (allegedly) not in the public interest to proceed. That again is not what the Observer story states.

Come on guys, you can do better.