Pubdate: Wed, 26 Apr 2017 Source: Toronto Sun (CN ON) Copyright: 2017 Canoe Limited Partnership Contact: http://www.torontosun.com/letter-to-editor Website: http://torontosun.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/457 Author: Mark Bonokoski Page: 7 TALE OF TWO DRUG BUSTS "My father had a couple of connections," said Justin Trudeau. "No s---!" cried the peasants. These would be the same peasants, by the way, with no connections whatsoever, whose father was not a former prime minister still worshipped by the progressives and the elites, who wouldn't know a good lawyer from an ambulance chaser (and could not afford either), and who have no strings to pull in either law enforcement or the judiciary because they are just another sad face in a teeming court system overflowing with sad faces. This is the reality of ordinary Canadians. Michel Trudeau, however, like his prime minister father and future prime minister brother, did not live in this world. He lived in a world of privilege and entitlement where troubles could be made to disappear. When Pierre Trudeau, the iconic Philosopher King, snapped his fingers, few would not bolt to their feet and offer to put in the fix. Justin Trudeau has now admitted as much. Six months before Michel Trudeau's death 20 years ago during an avalanche in the Kokanee Mountain range of British Columbia, he was apparently in a serious car accident on his way home to Montreal. As the investigating cops helped the 23-year-old Trudeau gather up his belongings that had been scattered along the roadside, they came across a couple of marijuana joints in a Sucrets can. This would have been in 1998. Simple pot possession back then was still severely frowned upon by law enforcement, and so young Michel Trudeau, like hundreds of others on any given day in 1998, was busted. No worries, as they say. "(My father Pierre) was very confident that we were able to make those charges go away," our PM told a small town hall organized by Vice Media. "We were able to do that because we had the resources, my dad had a couple of connections and we were confident that my little brother was not going to be saddled with a criminal record for life." And, poof, just like that, the charges disappeared and the catalyst for Trudeau to legalize marijuana was supposedly born. Justin Trudeau seems proud of this, proud that his father interfered with justice, which is a criminal act in itself. If this had come out at the time, it would have been a scandal of major proportions because of Pierre Trudeau's status as a former prime minister, a justice minister and a highly-respected lawyer would have shaken the political establishment to as great a degree as Brian Mulroney accepting envelopes stuffed with cash. But, to Justin Trudeau, there was no outrageousness in this. Seeing his brother beat the rap because of family interference and connections was just another day in the life of the Trudeaus. Now my father had no such "connections" when similar circumstances had me busted during my college days in Toronto, arrested at gunpoint, tossed in jail, fingerprinted and mug shot, and hauled off to court in handcuffs because of a modicum of marijuana found in a rooming house shared with three other students. My father also had no money after raising five kids on what amounted to a blue-collar salary, so it was legal aid for me. My father also knew no cops to influence, not that he would try. He believed in sleeping in the bed you made. In the end, however, my charges were dropped because I was the only one of the four indicted who was wise enough not to cop to any guilt during the interrogation process. In other words, I got lucky. My prime minister back then was Pierre Trudeau. Different folk; disparate strokes. - --- MAP posted-by: Matt