With  Grey
 

I wish to commend the Suburban on your cogent and well articulated condemnation of Hampstead councillor David Sternthal’s resolution to fire attorney Julius Grey on account of his recent endorsement of Louise Harel as mayoralty candidate for the City of Montreal. This deplorable attempt by members of Hampstead council to terminate Me Grey’s mandate with their Town, not for any deficiency in his legal counsel but rather as a result of his political convictions, does indeed smack of the worst manifestations of the unenlightened dark days of McCarthyism. 

 While one may legitimately question Me Grey’s association with Madame Harel’s campaign, his unequivocal integrity, passionate sense of justice and exemplary legal skills are beyond reproach as evidenced by his long and illustrious career as a member of the Quebec Bar association.

 Moreover it is disingenuous and strikingly unfair for Mr. Sternthal to suggest that Me Grey’s support of Madame Harel signifies his approval of the municipal mergers when this is patently untrue.

Me. Howard Barza
Montreal West
 
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Bravo to Steinberg

Bravo! Bravo to Mayor Steinberg who had the guts to take a stand for what’s morally right. I am so disgusted that there was a motion to cease Julius Grey’s mandate because of who he associates with. The Charter states very clearly that one has a right to “freedom of association”, not to mention free speech.

Mr. Grey should not be reprimanded. This case represents an important issue in today’s society as the boundaries between public and private life become more and more blurred and major violations of the Charter are occurring daily in the workplace. Many ordinary workers are being reprimanded for things they may express on their lunch or break times. Freedom of expression is still a fundamental right in our society and we should fight strongly to uphold it. Julius Grey, like all employees, was hired for his experience, skills, and ability to get the job done. Discrimination against anybody’s values, thoughts, and associations should be as aggressively challenged as discrimination against anyone’s race, religion, sexual preference or age.

Mr. Grey should be dismissed as the town’s lawyer only if he was not doing his job properly and not because of his private associations. Mayor Steinberg understood and was prepared to uphold these principles.

Sharon Freedman
Montreal

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Ignore Harel

I must admit that I too was stunned by the article, whereby Mr. Julius Grey, a noted defender of public rights and fervent opponent of political myopia, endorsed Mme. Louise Harel.
Mr. Grey’s position and accomplishments deserve more than just a superficial glance at the comments and simply casting them aside with outrage.

[Hampstead mayor William] Steinberg makes an excellent point that if we simply discriminate on the basis of an opinion, we might as well all be lumped into the same “pot” of myopic, discriminatory and intolerance symbolic of the separatist/nationalist movement to which Mme. Harel belongs. Therefore, I took the time to really dwell into those comments, and realized that he has a point! We should ignore that Mme. Harel is oblivious to public consultations. We should ignore that Mme. Harel does not endorse the democratic process.

We should ignore that Mme. Harel “steamed-rolled” over the municipal mayors to “ram down their throats” the municipal mergers. We should ignore the long standing separatist/nationalist devotion of Mme. Harel to a political party that has subjected Montreal and the province to so much international embarrassment and humiliation with policies of intolerance and exclusion.

Simply, we should ignore Mme. Louise Harel as a candidate in the municipal elections.

Norbert A. Bedoucha
Montreal West

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Grey defense disingenuous

Your defense of Julius Grey in your Editorial of July 15, 2009 wherein you classify him as "among those who continue to seek to make law the shield of the honest and the staff of the innocent", while most poetic, is disingenuous in the context of Grey's political outing as a supporter of Louise Harel for Mayor of Montreal. Ms. Harel is hardly one of the "vulnerable and nearly vanquished" to whom you refer as worthy of Grey's support. She is, rather, the inflexible sovereignist; simplistic where economic realities are involved; incapable of listening to the public or even expert opinion to implement an idée fixe.

Ms. Harel, as Minister of Municipal Affairs, was the architect of the despised forced merger policy which she unilaterally pushed through the National Assembly contrary to all reason and expert opinion. That alone should not attract political support from legal counsel to the Town of Hampstead.

Mayor Steinberg's odious and unsupportable comparison of Counselor Sternthal's concerns as equivalent to McCarthyism is unacceptable. Of all the artists that were accused of being Communists during that era, very, very few were indeed Communists. Many professed their total ignorance of even why they had been summoned before his House of Un-American Activities Committee, and others admitted to attending one meeting of some organization as a teenager out of curiosity, only to find out many years later that such organization was being classified as a Communist front, often without justification or proof.

Daniel Miller
Independent Candidate for Councillor, Hampstead

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What’s up with radio?

What’s happening with radio? Radio stations in Montreal insist on playing the same old tired music. There’s nothing new and fresh. More importantly, radio announcers have a very bad habit of saying “yeah and um” in their daily conversation. What it comes down to is, it’s unprofessional and downright annoying. I would like to see change.

Glen Harper
Montreal