MR. RICHARD DARRAH
Richard is my lawyer.
Incredibly enough, he is honest, unheard of for a lawyer. We met because the Legal Aid computer picked him for my free half hour consultancy. It so happened that I had both employment problems and criminal fraud problems, and Richard was one of the few lawyers who had expertise in both areas.
I liked Richard because I thought he would look good on television. As it turned out, Richard has been a faithful, direct and honest supporter, and life would have been a lot harder without him.
At a very early stage, Richard told me all the things that could happen:
Management could fall apart
The company could go bankrupt
People would go to unbelievable lengths to stop this case
The union lawyers would lie to me, and so on.
The only prediction that hasn’t come through is the one we haven’t tested yet: "If you go back into Ontario Hydro, you will end up running it." Horrible thought for the Old Boys’ Club.
Frankly, I took this with a pinch of salt. Weren’t we dealing with a big, internationally known player (Maurice Strong), intelligent people (Al Kupcis)? Couldn’t they make a rational decision? History says "obviously not". For any student of Hydro, the recent disasters have made big press … I would like to suggest that Hydro-gate has been behind several of them, even though this is based on circumstantial evidence.
In a similar vein, Richard advised me to get a criminal case against Jim Brown, not a "one step short" case. I over-ruled him because I thought that would do too much damage. In hindsight, my altruistic views were not the best.
The main problem with Richard is he is only a one-man band, and has no weight. Sure, I could have hired a big name law firm, but that would have cost bundles. This whole game is too expensive, and somebody else should have stepped in a long time ago (Management, the Fraud Squad, the Minister, the press, …)