Truly Abhorrent
How much better can it get, than to live in peace and comfort in a country like Canada. Where all of the citizens of this great country are guaranteed the freedom to live their lives free of persecution, in an egalitarian and truly humane society, concerned with the well-being of all its people. We are all, despite our differences as a hugely immigrant-based population, equally endowed under the laws of this land, regardless of ideology, religion, ethnicity, gender, culture, traditions, heritage and age. And not to forget inclusive of sexual preferences.
That would pretty much cover it, one should imagine. We are free, as Canadians, to value the culture and traditions of other countries from which our parents departed in favour of a new life, migrating for that purpose to Canada. Whose wide open spaces and employment opportunities, whose natural geological and geographical resources make this country one of the most wealthy nations on earth. From the magnificence of our boreal forests, to the great swaths of arable land, the Arctic reaches and the Rocky Mountains, and our Maritime provinces.
The beauty of the land, the vastness of its opportunities and its wealth make us proud to be Canadians. The assurances of safety and security of person given us through our Charter of Rights and Freedoms ensure that we are all - wherever we live, however we make our living, whatever we worship - valued as citizens of this great country. We have our disagreements to be certain; from province to province, and sometimes between ethnic groups.
But the larger picture is one of comfort and opportunities. Unless, that is, you are somehow an individual who manages to fall between the cracks. And that does happen. Unbelievably so, since as Canadians we are also phlegmatically smug about ourselves. To the point that, when we read about some dreadful miscarriage of justice happening in other countries whose human rights records leaves much to be desired, we feel how abhorrent it must be to live in such a country.
So how does this sound ... a 19-year-old girl, a young woman held in solitary confinement in a federal prison. In Canada. No physical or emotional comforts permitted this young woman. She was stripped of anything remotely personal or to which she could become attached. Wearing only a prison gown. No mattress, no blankets in her stark cell. No writing or reading materials to relieve the fearful tedium of her comfortless hours.
Her crime merited this dreadful punishment. At the age of 16 she was imprisoned, where she then lived, in New Brunswick for the unsupportable crime of throwing crabapples at a postal worker. That was her crime. She was found to be unco-operative while incarcerated. What thinking, feeling individual would not be, under those circumstances? Since when is it a crime, much less a truly serious incident to lob crabapples at someone? It's a public nuisance, worth a lecture, perhaps, on sociability.
And throughout the three years of her imprisonment - neither at the correctional institutes in New Brunswick, nor the federal prison in Ontario, no assistance was ever offered to her, this teen-age girl. No concern was ever evinced about her, no care given, treatment of any kind, or support. This kind of situation, this horrible fate, can somehow be imagined taking place in socially backward, politically unstable, poverty-ridden countries. But yet, perhaps not. It's more likely that in some of those countries a spark of humanity would arrest such a travesty.
But in Canada? Our Canada, the country that encourages and stimulates and offers us our bright futures? The young woman, Ashley Smith, would most certainly have been in utter despair. No one, it seems, cared about her. No one intervened, made any attempt to assist her. While in custody she was deemed to have committed additional offences. One can readily imagine what they might conceivably have been; expressing contempt for her jailers, her tormentors.
We, Canadians, the Canadian system of justice, stealthily and remorselessly, took away this girl child's life. We failed this young woman in the most spectacular, human-rights-abusing way. We simply did not care to care about her. And we would have to ask ourselves how it could possibly be that we proud Canadians have built penal institutions and a judicial system that could fail to this degree.
Nineteen-year-old Ashley Smith suffered the most perniciously atrocious treatment possible at the hands of Canadian authorities. She might have been one of the most obnoxious young people in the world, but she needed help, and no one saw to the necessity of offering her that help. Instead punishment was meted out to her. Finally, in complete solitude and completely abandoned by the outside world, she took herself out of her misery.
And left us with the lingering question of why we would have been so blind to her need.
That would pretty much cover it, one should imagine. We are free, as Canadians, to value the culture and traditions of other countries from which our parents departed in favour of a new life, migrating for that purpose to Canada. Whose wide open spaces and employment opportunities, whose natural geological and geographical resources make this country one of the most wealthy nations on earth. From the magnificence of our boreal forests, to the great swaths of arable land, the Arctic reaches and the Rocky Mountains, and our Maritime provinces.
The beauty of the land, the vastness of its opportunities and its wealth make us proud to be Canadians. The assurances of safety and security of person given us through our Charter of Rights and Freedoms ensure that we are all - wherever we live, however we make our living, whatever we worship - valued as citizens of this great country. We have our disagreements to be certain; from province to province, and sometimes between ethnic groups.
But the larger picture is one of comfort and opportunities. Unless, that is, you are somehow an individual who manages to fall between the cracks. And that does happen. Unbelievably so, since as Canadians we are also phlegmatically smug about ourselves. To the point that, when we read about some dreadful miscarriage of justice happening in other countries whose human rights records leaves much to be desired, we feel how abhorrent it must be to live in such a country.
So how does this sound ... a 19-year-old girl, a young woman held in solitary confinement in a federal prison. In Canada. No physical or emotional comforts permitted this young woman. She was stripped of anything remotely personal or to which she could become attached. Wearing only a prison gown. No mattress, no blankets in her stark cell. No writing or reading materials to relieve the fearful tedium of her comfortless hours.
Her crime merited this dreadful punishment. At the age of 16 she was imprisoned, where she then lived, in New Brunswick for the unsupportable crime of throwing crabapples at a postal worker. That was her crime. She was found to be unco-operative while incarcerated. What thinking, feeling individual would not be, under those circumstances? Since when is it a crime, much less a truly serious incident to lob crabapples at someone? It's a public nuisance, worth a lecture, perhaps, on sociability.
And throughout the three years of her imprisonment - neither at the correctional institutes in New Brunswick, nor the federal prison in Ontario, no assistance was ever offered to her, this teen-age girl. No concern was ever evinced about her, no care given, treatment of any kind, or support. This kind of situation, this horrible fate, can somehow be imagined taking place in socially backward, politically unstable, poverty-ridden countries. But yet, perhaps not. It's more likely that in some of those countries a spark of humanity would arrest such a travesty.
But in Canada? Our Canada, the country that encourages and stimulates and offers us our bright futures? The young woman, Ashley Smith, would most certainly have been in utter despair. No one, it seems, cared about her. No one intervened, made any attempt to assist her. While in custody she was deemed to have committed additional offences. One can readily imagine what they might conceivably have been; expressing contempt for her jailers, her tormentors.
We, Canadians, the Canadian system of justice, stealthily and remorselessly, took away this girl child's life. We failed this young woman in the most spectacular, human-rights-abusing way. We simply did not care to care about her. And we would have to ask ourselves how it could possibly be that we proud Canadians have built penal institutions and a judicial system that could fail to this degree.
Nineteen-year-old Ashley Smith suffered the most perniciously atrocious treatment possible at the hands of Canadian authorities. She might have been one of the most obnoxious young people in the world, but she needed help, and no one saw to the necessity of offering her that help. Instead punishment was meted out to her. Finally, in complete solitude and completely abandoned by the outside world, she took herself out of her misery.
And left us with the lingering question of why we would have been so blind to her need.
Labels: Particularities, Realities, Social-Cultural Deviations
posted by Pieface @ 6:08 PM
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