Month: July 2016

Poll: Detective Sergeant Jim Van Allen should resign or be stripped of the Order of Merit of the Police Forces

Jim Van Allen Police-private

A one day reader poll at DonaldBest.CA asked: Should Jim Van Allen resign from the Order of Merit of the Police Forces?

The result was a tsunami of votes that James (Jim) Arthur Van Allen (twitter @JimVanAllen1 ) should either resign from the Order voluntarily or that the Governor General should terminate his award.

Of the 258 participants, 96 voted to allow Van Allen to resign, while 161 voted that the Governor General should not wait for his resignation. Only 1 person voted that Van Allan should be allowed to remain a Member of the Order.

The now retired Ontario Provincial Police Detective Sergeant was invested into the Order by Governor General Michaëlle Jean on May 26, 2010.

What the then Governor General of Canada did not know was that during the nomination and selection period over the Fall and Winter of 2009-2010, Van Allen was illegally working ‘on the side’ as an unlicensed private investigator for the Toronto law office of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP.

Fasken Martineau lawyer Gerald Ranking (left) illegally hired OPP Sergeant Jim Van Allen to perform an illegal investigation to benefit Ranking’s clients. Section 120 (1)(a)(i) & (ii) of the Criminal Code calls that ‘Bribery of a Peace Officer’

Fasken Martineau lawyer Gerald Ranking (left) illegally hired OPP Sergeant Jim Van Allen to perform an illegal investigation to benefit Ranking’s clients. Section 120 (1)(a)(i) & (ii) of the Criminal Code calls that ‘Bribery of a Peace Officer’

Van Allen broke several provincial and federal laws including the Police Services Act, the Ontario Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005, S.0. 2005, c. 34, and the Criminal Code, Section 120 (Bribery of Officers) and/or Section 122 (Breach of Trust).    Read more

Vote in our Poll: Should Jim Van Allen resign from the Order of Merit of the Police Forces?

Fasken Martineau lawyer Gerald Ranking (left) illegally hired OPP Sergeant Jim Van Allen to perform an illegal investigation to benefit Ranking’s clients. Section 120 (1)(a)(i) & (ii) of the Criminal Code calls that ‘Bribery of a Peace Officer’

Fasken Martineau lawyer Gerald Ranking (left) illegally hired OPP Sergeant Jim Van Allen to perform an illegal investigation to benefit Ranking’s clients. The Criminal Code calls that ‘Bribery of a Peace Officer’

What Canada’s Governor General wasn’t told.

NOTICE: Poll closed after 24 hours. Analysis tomorrow!

by Donald Best, former Sergeant, Detective, Toronto Police

by Donald Best, former Sergeant, Detective, Toronto Police

On May 26, 2010, Ontario Provincial Police Detective Sergeant James ‘Jim’ Arthur Van Allen stood proudly as Governor General Michaëlle Jean invested him as a Member of the Order of Merit of the Police Forces.

What neither the Governor General nor her nominating committee knew though, was that during the selection period Detective Sergeant Van Allen actively violated Provincial and Federal laws. He illegally took money ‘on the side’ to work as an unlicensed private investigator for one of Canada’s largest law firms.

We now know that in 2009 and 2010 Van Allen was a Detective Sergeant in charge of the elite Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Criminal Profiling Unit when lawyer Gerald Ranking of Fasken, Martineau DuMoulin LLP illegally paid him $2,699.93 to illegally investigate me and provide the results for use in a civil dispute.

Evidence of Van Allen’s corrupt actions is public

The evidence is filed in Ontario courts. You can download the court documents via the links at the end of this article and make up your own mind. You can examine Van Allen’s invoices and read his deceptive sworn affidavit where Van Allen and the lawyers deliberately conceal his law breaking from the courts.

You can even listen to a secretly made telephone recording of Van Allen that, with the other evidence, proves Van Allen and his fellow senior OPP officers lied and concealed his law breaking.

Should Jim Van Allen do the honourable thing? (A 24 hour poll)


Only one police officer in history has been stripped of the Order of Merit. In 2010 the Governor General ousted RCMP Sergeant Warren S. Gherasim after the officer crashed his private auto while drinking and driving.

The rules of The Order state that members can resign voluntarily in writing. Termination is automatic when a person has been convicted of a criminal offense or has been subject to official / formal / serious sanction by the police service.

The Governor General can also terminate a person’s membership as His Excellency sees fit.

To my knowledge, Governor General David Johnston does not yet know about Jim Van Allen’s law breaking during the time when the officer was invested in the Order.

Now that everything is known, should Jim Van Allen resign from the Order of Merit of the Police Forces?

Evidence and Background Articles  Read more

Karin Litzcke on Canadian Judicial Council’s judicial independence public relations campaign

Karin Litzcke

“So, judicial independence. The core idea is that judges cannot be pushed around by governments, even back in the days when governments were kings. This was a great idea, I’m sure, until – in Canada at least – the print dried on the Charter. It’s my belief that that was when institutional power soared, and relative individual power shrank to the point where individuals have become comparatively invisible to the law.

And that is when the problem with judicial independence began. Not problems with independence from government – judges have always been on top of protecting themselves from governments. No, the problems with judicial independence now are about whether judges can keep themselves independent from other powerful agencies in the economic, social, and, above all, legal superstructure.”

by Karin Litzcke

Read the whole thing at Karin’s Court Jester blog. Well worth your time: The doomed campaign to promote the perception of judicial independence

Photo of Karin Litzcke courtesy CBC

Lawyer Andreas Kalogiannides talks about lawyers wearing suits

Lawyer Andreas Kalogiannides

Conformity.

by Donald Best, former Sergeant, Detective, Toronto Police

by Donald Best, former Sergeant, Detective, Toronto Police

Lawyers wear suits because that article of clothing is as much a uniform to them as my hat, badge and red-striped trousers were to me as a Patrol Sergeant with the Toronto Police.

Our friend Andreas Kalogiannides (photo above) has just discovered that he is a lawyer even without wearing a tie. Oh joy!

But as Andreas and his lawyer friends at TheRedline.ca will surely be informed by their more senior colleagues and the members of the Bay Street Cabal, such thoughts are dangerous and heretical.

Here’s what Andreas has to say:

The other week, I was putting on a suit for work; I had a client meeting in the afternoon and I was speaking on a legal panel that evening, and I wanted to look sharp.

But on this morning, I observed a new feeling that I hadn’t ever experienced: putting it on just didn’t feel right. This was a suit that I’d worn many times before; as I looked in the mirror to put on my tie, I felt that something was “off”. Like many feelings, it was hard to pin down at first. All I knew was that this was a new feeling and something wasn’t right. The feeling was of contradiction; conflict, even. After sitting with it for a while, I narrowed it down: I no longer needed to wear a suit in order to feel like, well…me.

… read the entire article at TheRedline.ca Suit of Armour: My Defence Against Judgement