If You Prick a Tory Prime Minister, Does He Not Bleed?

For theatrical sport, some Canadian legal types have retried the character of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, which was performed at last year's Stratford Festival. In a ruling that will likely come as no surprise, the judge in the case has decided that, had Shylock lived in Canada today, he would have been covered by our much-vaunted (not the least by legal types of the leftish persuasion) Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Quel relief, eh?

Of course, during the course of the faux trial, at least one legal type couldn't resist sticking it to a man who, in our time, is even more reviled than Shylock was in his--Canada's Conservative prime minister:

Shylock, argued [defense attorney Sheila] Block, was simply seeking good old-fashioned, Old Testament revenge. 

Justice Binnie counter-punched. “The abuse of the system to wreak revenge is not what a court of law is supposed to be about.” 

The contract that called for a pound of flesh is clearly contrary to the Charter of Rights, Binnie argued. 

Block conceded the point. But Shylock, she argued, had no idea of the penalties that were round the corner - the threat of death, loss of his religion, his property. As for the death penalty, “That is just not on. Even a government that likes to build lots and lots of prisons cannot reopen that debate.”  

At that, the Festival theatre burst into applause. 

Block waved her copy of the play for emphasis, chided Justice Binnie, curried favour with the chief Justice, and as the laughter built she finally sat down...

Sounds to me as though Stephen Harper (who is building new prisons to replace old and crumbling ones, but who in so doing has sparked the loopiest leftist hysteria as embodied, for one, by Canucki eco-icon David Suzuki) was really the one on trial here.