Families Protest Canada’s Legal Failure

It is a terrible torch to have to pass.

Arianna’s parents reached out to me about a month before the final sentencing date. I had communicated with other Goberdhan family members in the previous two years, but this was the first time I spoke to her mom and dad directly. They asked if I could be there on the 2^nd of May. I told them I would be.

I got the time off work and travelled from Windsor to Oshawa by planes trains and automobiles.

I made it just in time that morning to see them exiting the Durham Courthouse and swallowed into a crowd of people carrying protest signs.

I took of my jacket off so my Molly Matters shirt would be visible. I made my way into the group.

I located Sherry Goberdhan, Arianna’s mother, by the media attention around her. I confirmed it was her by her voice. She was giving a statement about the sentence that had just been handed down to Tyler Baig. She was expressing her disappointment.

He would be ineligible for full parole for 17 years. One year for every time he stabbed Arianna and no years for killing his daughter Asaara. It was a longer sentence than what was typical for murdering a pregnant woman in Canada. But not much.

I stood a few feet away making sure I was in her periphery. When she noticed, she started pointing to me and telling reporters who I was and why I was there. They didn’t seem concerned and continued pressing her for the sound bites they had come for.

There is a tendency in the media to portray these as isolated incidents. I had hoped my being there would have done more to penetrate that misconception.

At one point a local reporter from Oshawa This Week sought me out for questions. I rambled and apologized for being nervous. She kindly told me she was new to the business and could relate to the anxiety. Maybe it was her newness that allowed her to consider my presence as a pertinent part of what was going on. I was just glad at least one reporter documented the connection.

The protest went on for a couple hours. Every so often the crowd started chanting, “End domestic violence now, break the silence now.” There were a few times it was interrupted by a loud “No!” shouted at the end of the chant. I was told later that it was members of the offender’s family.

I spoke to people in the crowd. Many were relatives of Arianna and Asaara. I felt like I was two years further down the same road that they were setting out on. Yet somehow, I was right there with them.

They all seemed to know about Molly Matters. They offered condolences and thanks for our voice. They told me stories about Arianna and lamented the ones of Asaara that would never be told. I told them about Cassie and Molly.

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We shared in the damp grey afternoon sadness and anger and the madness that, by any logic, this was somehow an accepted status quo in Canada.

It was not lost on me that if only something had been done three years ago when Cassie and Molly’s Law was tabled, it would have made for a very different day for them. Instead legislators chose to continue to treat this as if some part of the crime was the murdered woman’s choosing.

Sunny ways were not for people like us.

After the protest I was invited back to Arianna’s parents house with the rest of the family. It was a full house. I met so many people I don’t remember all their names. We spent the afternoon talking and sharing ideas and eating from a big spread that was put out in the kitchen.

These extraordinary circumstances could not hide the fact that this was a typical loving Canadian family.

Arianna’s white cat navigated through the legs of those in attendance.

Out in the garage was a car with a licence plate that read “Asaara”.

Every relic carried with it something of the taint of injustice. I know it well. It’s on the things at my house too. It doesn’t fade or dissipate in time. You don’t get used to it.

Its like graffiti on a tombstone except you can’t scrub it away. But it wasn’t the product of an inconsiderate vandal, nor the direct consequence of a murderous lunatic…

It was put there by the justice system in the legal aftermath.

Please help us change this for other families by signing the petition in the link below:

https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-2154

Post Script

A few weeks after the court’s decision, Tyler Baig’s lawyer announced he was appealing his sentence. He stated that 17 years was too “harsh” for the “youthful” offender who murdered his wife and child.

The news came only days before what would have been Arianna’s 29^th birthday.

The terrible irony here is that his daughter’s youth was the very reason why he wasn’t held accountable for killing her. He killed her days before she was due to be born. She would have turned two about a month ago.

The appeal, no doubt, promises to drag the family through the nightmare of more court proceedings – the same court they feel failed to represent them accurately in the first place.

It is hard to imagine a more poignant example of how the Justice System is slanted to benefit offenders and re-victimize the survivors.

Then again, this is Canada. It is not that shocking at all.