If the mood of the people in the room was any indication, Canadians are upset with the lax treatment handed out to criminals by courts, often, it seems, at the expense of innocent victims. While the judicial system of Canada was the primary topic and the reason the meeting took place, others issues of great concern to attendees were discussed. For instance, the education system, at least in the affluent West Vancouver region, was under attack. Other points of concern centred on what can best be called the mores of society, the media and parental guidance. One attendee illustrated to the group the frustration of society when a trio of youths [two of whom were classified as young offenders] laid a beating on a fourth male. When the accused appeared before a judge and the evidence was heard, the punishment handed out was probation for the young offenders and a modest sentence of jail time for the third youth. The upshot was that a civil action was launched against the trio in an attempt to inflict punishment - a punishment that the court seemed either incapable of or unwilling to mete out.
The catalyst for the gathering was retired British Columbia provincial court judge Wallace Craig and his fine book, Short Pants to Striped Trousers - the life and times of a judge in Skid Road Vancouver.
The affair took place in the Library's Philosophers' Café - deemed a suitable setting for the subject, "A discussion on law, justice and sentencing of criminals." After a short introduction, Judge Craig began with an 11-minute video that gave viewers a disturbing insight into the life of drug addicts that exist [to use the word 'live' in this context would be incorrect, as what was viewed could not in any stretch of the imagination be called living] on Skid Road. The video was made by two members of the Vancouver Police Department whose daily police duties are focussed on Skid Road and its unfortunate inhabitants. The thought crossed your servant's mind that this video ought to be required viewing in every BC school, from grade six to grade 12 and beyond to university/college. Additionally, it should be a 'must see' for all legislators in Victoria. Only by exposure to the horrors of drug addicts' lives on Skid Road will the message sink in to both legislators and educators - and by extension, parents/guardians - that the ever-increasing drug problem, starting with 'pot smoking,' is on the rise and with that rise, an upswing in the number of victims that the evil known as 'drug use' brings daily. Clearly, there can be no simple use of drugs of any kind. Those who claim that a little pot does no harm are speaking from sodden minds, probably made sodden by too much 'simple pot smoking.' Marijuana is a potent drug, and as was mentioned at the West Vancouver meeting, much more potent today than in a decade or so ago. The video must be seen by as many youth and adults as possible, sooner than later.
Following the video, Judge Craig was asked questions that ranged from why do courts not hand out stiffer sentences to the role of the media in the law, justice and sentencing of criminals.
Inasmuch as Canadians appear to be down on judges both at the provincial and federal level for their sentence leniency, not always is the culprit the judge. Judges are guided by statutes, both provincial and federal. Statutes are written by provincial or federal legislators. It is clear from observation and from reading letters-to-the-editor sections of Canadian newspapers that the country's citizenry are fed up with light or no punishment allotted to convicted persons. The dart of fault must be aimed at the politicians [and their bureaucrats] who write provincial/federal laws. That the country's political shade has shifted more to the left and thus pink away from the more stable and sensible right and blue, is a clear indication that the parliamentarians at both the provincial/territorial and federal levels are taking their marching orders from a socialist-inclined society. This point was touched on in the Philosophers' Café but not to any degree. The mood of the group appeared to be that a return to earlier times when the word punishment was acceptable language and punishment was real and not imagined, would right many of the wrongs that the group saw as the cause of many of the sores that fester the Canadian landscape. Capital punishment was not endorsed as a means to an end, but it was felt that much stiffer sentences were a start on the road to recovery.
Interestingly, the median age of the group was probably in the late 50s to the early 60s with several nudging the late 70s age line. That in and of itself is an indication that this group is from an earlier time when parents took responsibility for their offspring, when schools were not overrun with bullying and drugs and sex and goodness knows what else, when teachers did not face the almost daily horror of being sued if they speak harshly to a wayward pupil, when individuals look responsibility for their own actions/inactions, when neighbourhoods were a microcosm of society in general, and when mentoring was viewed as desirable and not as a ruse to lure youngsters into deviant sexual acts. In other words, a time when Canada was a civil country populated by citizens who cared for their fellow citizens and who took pride in their country's worth. A time when a video such as the one seen would not have been necessary because, while there might have been [there was] a sniff of drugs in society, mostly it was confined to a select group and not rampant throughout youth society as is the case today.
As an attendee and as a participant in the discussions, your servant's observation of the whole is tinged with a degree of personal attitude and concern. While those are personal, they were and are consistent with the majority who attended the session.
In a later column, a comment will be made on one particular piece of information that was given to your servant and that, in the giver's view, ought to alarm all Canadians.
We close with this from American novelist Thomas Wolfe [1900-1938] who wrote, You can't go home again. In the story, George Webber moves from a small town in South Carolina to New York City where he writes a novel. The time is 1929 and Webber uses his hometown as the setting of his story. At first, the folks back home are thrilled that Webber used them as the story's centrepiece; however, when they read the story and learn about their miscues and foibles, they turn on the author. It is then that Webber learns that his attempt to reveal the town's honest and realistic view of struggle to find a place in life, that he cannot go home again because nothing ever remains the same. Perhaps, the senior generation of Canadians are in a small measure in the same boat as Thomas Wolfe's character, George Webber; perhaps they cannot go home again.
Bob Orrick is a private tutor of English grammar, literature, poetry and Canadian history to off-shore youngsters. His pupils hail from such places as Taiwan, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Korea and Venezuela. He was previously in international marketing, was a ministerial assistant to a provincial cabinet minister, spent a few years as a reporter then editor of a community newspaper and enjoyed a career in the Royal Canadian Navy.
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