Get the inside scoop on applying to our JD program directly from the Faculty of Law Admissions Office and hear from current law students. Truthiness refers to “the quality of stating concepts or facts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.” It is an idea coined and popularized by political satirist Stephen Colbert on the first episode of The Colbert Report. The American Dialect Society named in the 2005 Word of the Year, and the New York Times declared it one of nine words that captured the spirit of 2005.
Its spirit is surviving well into 2006.
Just look at debates about judicial activism. Just look at the recent tempest in a teapot around Saskatchewan Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott's criticism of Chief Justice Beverly MacLaughlin.
Let’s start with some facts (even though they may be of dubious value in a world of truthiness). Here’s what Vellacott said to CBC reporter Christina Lawand:
“I don't think it is the role, whether left or right, conservative or whatever stripe it happens to be, to actually figure that they play the position of God."
"Beverley McLachlin herself said actually that when they step into this role all of a sudden there's some mystical kind of power comes over them by which everything that they ever decree then is not to be questioned."