OUR GOVERNMENT - WHOSE SIDE ARE THEY ON ANYWAYS?

Today's Waterloo Region Advocate carrys the following story "New employment insurance tribunal lopsided" and is written by Thomas Walkom. He refers to these plans as simply an extension of the Conservatives' war on wages. Decades ago I would have been hardpressed to believe that a Canadian government or any allegedly democratic government could be so blatantly partisan. By partisan I don't necessarily mean favouring one political party or another so much as favouring one class of people versus another. Store owners, businessmen, entrepreneurs, the wealthy, the self employed these are the folks I'm referring to. These are the backbone of the Conservative support and yet they still desperately need the votes of the rest of us to get and maintain political power. Perhaps if we are lucky it will be their us versus them ideology which will be their downfall.

In this specific case Mr. Walkom indicates the "juicy patronage" opportunities of the new social security tribunal. Its' connected members will be well paid and most are Conservatives including failed candidates, riding association chiefs, and Conservative donors. Wow just imagine how sympathetic this group will be to unemployment claims and or appeals regarding Old Age Security and the Canada Pension Plan. Mr. Walkom's point is that this new group are not remotely representative of society as the old one was. Labour in particular are being left out thus stacking the deck. This is mean spirited and come election time I hope voters remember who's been attacking (and postponing) old age pensions as well as umemployment insurance. The Tories are intentionally unravelling the social safety net and they are for the most part doing it quietly.

SHOOTING VICTIM CONVICTED OF ASSAULTING SHOOTER

Following is the first sentence in a story published last week (May 24/13) in the Waterloo Region Record. "A man who was almost killed in a police shooting outside his Waterloo apartment was found guilty Thursday of assaulting the officer who pulled the trigger." Now reread that sentence carefully. It's important to know that the shooting victim did not fire a gun nor have one on him. Also while the shooting victim did indeed have weapons they were fortunately not used against the officer. Finally the officer was uninjured albeit after pulling the trigger five times he may have built up a little callous on his forefinger.

I'm going to give a similar albeit hypothetical scenario for thought here. A 155 pound man who is drunk accosts a young, healthy vigorous 200 pound man outside a bar. The drunk is verbally abusive and then follows up by wildly swinging at and missing the younger, bigger man. The 200 pound man defends himself from any followup swings by knocking the drunk unconscious with three or four punches to the head. The drunk spends several days in hospital after sufferring a concussion. The young 200 pounder is completely uninjured in the fracas and exonerated of any wrongdoing as he was not the aggressor.

So here is my question. Under these circumstances would the drunk be charged with assault? If so would it require a complaint from the uninjured youner and bigger man? What judicial purpose does it serve charging and convicting the drunk of assault after he's already spent several days in the hospital as a direct consequence of his misbehaviour? Keep in mind the consequences to the shooting victim were 100 times more serious than those to the drunk although the principle is similar. I simply do not understand exactly what is being accomplished by prosecuting either the drunk or the threatening individual who was shot five times. They both received very rough street justice on the spot.

G20 POLICE FINALLY IN CRIMINAL COURT

Today's Waterloo Region Record carrys this story "Man claims he was blindsided at G20". A 32 year old man testified that he was peacefully taking photograhs of mounted officers at Queen's Park three years ago when he was beaten and arrested by Toronto police. He received a broken shoulder, bruises, sprains, cuts and scratches. To this day his shoulder is not back to 100% capability. The officer charged is Const. Glenn Weddell of the Toronto police. An independent witness came forward who had seen and partially filmed what he alleges was a completely unprovoked attack by Const. Weddell.

The eye witness and coroboration by the victim paint an extremely disturbing picture of some police behaviour at the G20. While this article refers to this as the first criminal trial of any police officers, in fact there have been both civil as well as Police Act charges heard already. To date a small number of police officers appear to have been out of control and nothing more than street bullies in their behaviour. Above and beyond civil and criminal penalties they must be removed after due process from their jobs as police officers. Anything less and we may as well admit that we are living in a police state that would condone unprovoked attacks upon citizens.

RED LIGHT CAMERAS - TO SERVE AND COLLECT

For decades it's been obvious to me that traffic enforcement entails a huge amount of money collection for our regional government. Police enforcement is not about traffic safety it's all about police hiding on roads that have speed limits lower than the roads, cars and weather are quite capable of handling safely. The better the road conditions and visibility the more money the region makes. Again for decades I was appalled as drunk driving accident statistics were being cheerfully ignored by our police every Friday and Saturday night outside our local hotels. All they had to do was sit and watch patrons stumble and shuffle their way to their cars in various hotel parking lots and accost them BEFORE they had an accident on their way home. Apparently that didin't go over to well with legitimate business owners of these fine establishments.

Last Saturday's Waterloo Region Record carrys a story by Jeff Outhit entitled "Red-light cameras fall short". Clearly these too are all about the revenue and shockingly the increases in accidents at these camera intersections are of little significance to our regional officials. 31% more collisions and 51% more injuries AFTER red light cameras were installed is shocking but almost predictable. At $325 a pop drivers panic when the light turns caution and instead of proceeding through the intersection they slam on the brakes and then get clobbered by the guy behind them who doesn't have a chance. Afterall he sees the green light and the empty intersection and the last thing he's expecting is that the idiot in front of him will slam on the brakes a split second after the caution appears.

Now this is the reality today. Traffic enforcement isn't about traffic safety. It's all about speeding and collecting money with the corollary that yes drunken drivers will be stopped and charged as well. Short of that bad driving is virtually ignored. Failure to signal, failure to stay in the right lane unless passing, refusal to move over to let cars onto expressways are all ignored. Slow driving, inattention, stopping at empty roundabouts do not cause tickets to be issued. Are the idiots who hit the brakes as they are entering intersections just as the yellow light appears ever charged? Not a chance. It's the cars immediately behind them who get nailed. By the way talk about a double windfall for the region. They get the guys who are a split second late clearing the intersection AND they get the guys who rearend the brakeslammers who don't understand that yellow means you've got a couple of seconds to clear the intersection. No wonder our regional officials don't want to study the increase in accidents that they have caused based upon idiot drivers who probably have never gotten any tickets whatsoever because they don't speed.

MOUNTIES ARE REAPING WHAT THEY'VE SOWN

Imagine that. According to yesterday's Waterloo Region Record the RCMP are "disappointed" that a former female member of the Musical Ride would be suing them for their alleged illegal and disgusting behavior. Quite frankly I am disappointed in the RCMP. Between one scandal after another followed by many female members now suing them for their behaviour, they have lost all credibility. Perhaps it's time that new potential female recruits go for their interviews and instead of selling themselves as good candidates for the Mounties they should instead demand heartfelt apologies on behalf of all Canadians for the abject and dismal failure of Canada's once proud force. Their behaviour cannot be tolerated or covered up any longer. Maybe just maybe they've seen the light. If they have and are indeed treating recruits equally then good for them. Just don't expect people to believe in you for a very, very long time.

CAN OUR JUDICIAL SYSTEM NOT SEE THE FOREST FOR THE TREES?

O.K. you tell me what's wrong with this scenario. A man is high on drugs, hallucinating, paranoid and obviously mentally unstable by everyone's account. The police officer who shot him multiple times sucessfully escaped any blame whatsoever because he was able to prove that the victim (who nearly died) was irrational to the point of advancing on an armed police officer while holding two knives in his hands.

We have read previously in the Record that Ryan Arcon was only given a 1% chance of surviving the shooting. Obviously he spent months in hospital recovering from his life threatening injuries. Now that he has recovered he is facing five criminal charges including assaulting a police officer and assault with a weapon. The jury are currently deliberating. Deliberating what exactly? Are they deliberating the defendant's sanity at the time the police officer was forced to shoot him? Exactly how obviously mentally ill or incompetent do you have to be to advance on an armed with a gun, trained individual, while you are holding knives?

If Mr. Arcon has been treated for his mental instability and is capable of rentering society without putting others at risk, then that should happen. Why did this case ever go to trial? Does anyone believe that Mr. Arcon had calculated intent at any point in time to do physical injury to anyone? If you have to charge him for anything then charge him with drug possession. These other heavy duty criminal charges are massive overkill. Doesn't everyone think he's already paid an incredible price for doing drugs? The title of today's article in the Record is "Jury weighing evidence at trial of man shot by officer".

ONTARIO COLLEGE OF TEACHERS DECISION

Well I've already seen the Ontario College of Teachers behave inconsistently before, but this is downright weird. They have in their short history been hell on wheels for teachers after the fact. Long after the fact including stripping teachers of their teaching certificates after they were convicted on criminal charges for abusing students. The Ron Archer case certainly comes to mind.

This case is far weirder. According to today's Waterloo Region Record a former teacher at Kitchener's Cameron Heights Collegiate, now retired, has been found guilty of professional misconduct by the college. The College described a relationship he had with a male student as "disgraceful and dishonourable". Furthermore quoting the Record "In the written decision, the panel said (the teacher) failed to maintain the standards of the profession when he abused a student.". At first glance that kind of says everything until we read further and learn that the teacher was never charged criminally and indeed a charge by the College of engaging in sexual abuse of a student was dropped at the hearing.

The appearance is that the teacher maintained a relationship both at school and outside school expressly contrary to the orders of his Principal. Further complicating matters is that the student's parents were involved and except on one occasion seemed to be supportive of the relationship, whatever it may have been. So the teacher retired in 2011 and the College have stripped him of his teaching certificate in 2013. That's not very timely if indeed he was guilty of more than ignoring orders from his Principal. If he wasn't guilty of anything serious then this decision by the College is about a mile past problematic.