While we bear witness to the Liberal government rationalizing the questionable and possibly criminal tactics of the Prime Minister to protect and defend the well-being of a multi-billion dollar company internationally known for its criminal corruption, it should be pointed out that little effort has ever been made by him or his party to consider or protect the innocent, everyday Canadians, whose tragic circumstances have revealed profound shortcomings in the criminal justice system.
In fact, on more than one occasion, Justin Trudeau has boldly and unapologetically referred to colleagues who gave voice to these victims/survivors of crime as “ambulance chasers” – a professional slur suggestive of a lawyer that solicits business from vulnerable people who have experienced an accident.
There is no equivalent slur (that I know of) to describe a criminal defense lawyer who actively solicits business from those who are guilty of committing crimes. But what has been defined are the attributes that Justin Trudeau takes on as a leader in this context and which end of the legal spectrum he can be found.
So where does that leave non-billionaires who have a basic expectation of justice that has not been met? And how much must one donate to the government in power to have their plight considered in this two tiered system that openly places far greater importance on privilege than it does on merit?
Where are the “tools” that serve Canada’s victims/survivors of crime in their unmet expectations of justice?
Justice 4 Tori
On Monday April 8th, 2019 – ten years to the day that 8 year old Victoria Stafford was raped, tortured and murdered – her father Rodney Stafford has planned a protest on parliament hill. The objective is to, “promote change within Canada’s judicial and corrections system.”
In 2018 it came to light that his daughter’s killers were not where Mr. Stafford had been led to believe, but rather, one was in a medium security prison, and the other an unfenced healing lodge. Both had been sentenced less than a decade before to 25 years before they were eligible fore parole.
He was naturally outraged at the discovery and spoke up.
When his efforts reached parliament the Prime Minister said he didn’t have the tools to do anything about it and the Liberal party in turn voted unanimously against a motion introduced by Conservative MP Candice Bergen which would have corrected the situation.
Trudeau went on to call the Conservatives “ambulance chasers” simply because they gave voice to Stafford. Apparently, it is the Prime Minister’s view that parliament is no place to air the plight of the victims/survivors of crime who’ve become disaffected by the system that they pay for with their taxes.
Ironically and quite hypocritically considering the SNC-Lavalin scandal, his excuse for doing nothing was that his party unwaveringly, “respects the independence of our judicial system.”
In the end, under increasing public pressure that threatened to damage the Trudeau/Liberal brand, an order for Correctional Service Canada to review the decision was put forth and an announcement was made that Tori’s killer would be returned to a federal prison.
There was no apology to Mr. Stafford for having to go to such lengths before demonstrable action was taken.
The Justice for Tori demonstration on Parliament Hill will go from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Monday, April 8th.
Arianna Goberdhan and Molly Matters
Arianna Goberdhan was nine months pregnant with a little girl she named Asaara when they were murdered together on April 7th in 2017.
Even though Asaara was only days from being born, there is nothing in Canadian law that recognizes her as a victim of the crime. Families writing victim impact statements aren’t even allowed to say what happened to her was a crime. The Crown edits it out if they do. A woman’s choice to have a baby is first erased by a murderer, and then erased again by the institution that is supposed to represent her.
As a matter of fact, there are no laws to protect vulnerable Canadian women like Arianna from violent crimes during their pregnancy. This is what Trudeau’s calls feminism.
In 2016, Conservative MP Cathay Wagantall introduced a bill to close this loophole. It would have created a tool for the prosecution to use in these cases. The Liberal’s voted against that unanimously as well.
Trudeau is willing to use every resource to create a tool to bail out Liberal donor corporations riddled with criminal corruption, he’s even willing to risk breaking the law to get it done, but when it comes to creating a tool to differentiate between a woman’s choice and her killer’s? The self-proclaimed feminist doesn’t see any difference between the two.
I guess Trudeau “experiences it differently” than woman like Arianna…
The Goberdhan family has vowed to have this profound injustice addressed and together with Molly Matters we will continue fighting for that change.
Freeman’s Fight to Address Illusions of Justice
Being caught off guard by the inaccurate and misleading language of the Justice System seems to be par for the course when navigating it from a non-offenders perspective. The media echoes false notions, and why wouldn’t it? Their information came straight from a judge’s mouth. It’s been enshrined systemically. The result is that the general public remains largely unaware of the official inconsistencies they hide.
When the media says, “Life in prison,” many Canadians know that “life” in this context is being used in a nuanced way that has little to do with the dictionary definition we learned as children.
What most don’t realize though is that “parole ineligibility” is the same in that it does not literally mean ineligible for parole. So when you read, “so and so is ineligible for parole for such and such a time,” you should know that in Canada it doesn’t mean that they won’t get parole before that. In fact, a convict can be out of jail years before what the headlines led you to believe.
But by then public interests wane and so it does not promise the media any sales by writing about it. It becomes just another burden that the victims/survivors must carry alone.
Lisa Freeman’s father, Roland Slingerland, was murdered in Oshawa, Ontario in 1991. She has become an outspoken advocate for victim’s rights in Canada. She wrote a book about her experience with the system and has hosted workshops focused on helping people write stronger victim impact statements.
In 2016 Freeman petitioned the government to clarify their language in regards to these issues of parole. The online petition did not get the required amount of signatures so it did not receive an official governmental response. The thousands of written signatures were essentially ignored.
But really, when it comes to the Justice System of Canada, in a country that systemically enshrines misinformation for its victims/survivors of crime, what is an official response worth anyways?
The appeal for accurate information is such a basic and unequivocally reasonable request that when the government resists creating a tool to bridge that gap, one should strongly question their underlying stance on such matters.
This indignity and disrespect must end.
Fighting for Victims/Survivors rights in Canada
Time and time again, for one specific reason or another, those who have experienced the Criminal Justice System from a non-offender standpoint are forced into action. This is no easy task. What adds to the difficulty is swimming upstream in a landscape of lawmakers who behave more like a criminal defense lawyers than ones who prosecute crimes.
Healing lodges, faint hope clauses, rehabilitation, and reintegration – these words are reserved for murderers and rapists. There are no equivalent terms or treatments for us – the victims and survivors of crime. All we have is our basic expectation of justice, and it’s not being met.
In trying to participate in a conversation, we are offered platitudes and then quickly ushered to the back of the bus. Those who echo our voices are subjected to ad hominid attacks on the House of Commons floor. It has become clear our experiences will not be considered by this government, and the blood of our loved ones means less to their policies than the soft landings of the violent criminals that took them from us in the first place.
It’s time to recognize that “Inclusion” does not include us, and those “different perspectives” advertised will not been ours. In any other context this treatment would be called bigoted and discriminatory.
We are a minority that must become visible.
It is time to stop fostering a culture that is ambivalent to issues of justice and contemptuous of those who stand to address them.
The Flagrant Hypocrisy
Whether sneaking the change into the criminal code designed specifically to benefit Trudeau’s crooked billionaire buddies is right or wrong is not for us to argue here.
What I point to is the expedience with which the legal change took place. It is something that should be highlighted by every victim’s rights advocacy group in the country. The fact that that it isn’t being emphasized in such a context starkly illustrates that Canada has no real organized advocacy for its victims of crime.
Where are the op-eds in the media? Where is the Federal Ombudsman for Canada’s victims of crime? Where are the specific articulations from the opposition government?
There has been nothing of the sort.
The inherent chaos of our tragedies is a nightmare that cannot be changed. The ladder with which we climb back into a world that can make sense to us again is our only way out of the chaos.
Justice is our only tool and we point to the rungs that are missing.
None of us chose this. The next won’t either. The ladder should be for every Canadian. Why is it exclusive?
I fully agree that perpetrators of violent cime should remain in prison for the full length of their sentence. Also the lives of unborn children should be protected by law.