RESPONSE TO ASHLEY SMITH INQUEST IS DISRESPECTFUL AND ARROGANT

This is but one more piece of wood to throw on the fires of radicalism and violence. When will our self serving, pompous bureaucrats, politicians and administrators ever learn? They want their cake and eat it to. They demand due process, respectful communications and condemn vandalism, violent protests and even disrespectful comments about themselves, all the while disrespecting those very same people who play by the rules in the Canadian way.

Last Saturday's Waterloo Region Record carrys this article "Tories blasted over Ashley Smith". Both Correctional Services Canada (CSC) and the federal government are used interchangeably in this article criticizing the rejection of some of the most significant recommendations which arose from the Ashley Smith Inquest. In particular recommendations meant to deter the ongoing use of solitary confinement as punishment have been rejected by the CSC and apparently their political masters. Other issues such as "institutional charges" which can ridiculously magnify the jail time for inmates who entered the system with as little as 30 day sentences need to be reexamined.

The CSC report is outrageous. It is the CSC and the government essentially saying the same things as they did during the iquest namely that there is nothing wrong with how they operate. This is the problem with giving respect to either a government or a federal prison system which has long ago proven they do not deserve respect much less consideration. May the Steven Harper Conservative government reform the federal prison system before Canadian citizens do it for them. May I live long enough to see that day.