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The judge who ordered barricades taken down has told the Provincial Government to stop negotiations until the occupation is over. He also told the Provincial Attorney General to arrest anyone continuing to occupy the disputed site.

Dalton McGuinty's response? "It's the kind of thing that we're going to want take some time to carefully consider." Of course this marks a first. It is likely the first time a Liberal politican hasn't bowed to the courts when a potentially unpopular decision needed to be avoided. Usually the Liberal Party falls all over themselves to proclaim, "The court told us to do it, so we have no choice."

Now I believe in the rule of law, but it is the elected officials who make the laws, not the judges. But now I have a dilemma. For once a Liberal politican, faced with a court order, has realized that elected officials have a responsibility to determine whether a court is within its rights (for example, does the court have the right to order the government to halt negotiations, or is this a power a court has arrogated to itself). Perhaps I am assuming too much, and this is not some finer point of legal interpretation. Perhaps Dalton just doesn't like what the judge is saying. On the other side of my dilemma, I know what the press would be doing right now if a Conservative politican stood up and declared that he was in no hurry to obey a court order.