As we all know Andrew Scheer likes to pose as a nice guy with a glued on smile, who is always inviting Canadians to hear what he calls his "positive message." But let nobody be fooled, even some of his own Cons admiringly call him Andrew Smear. Some of his opponents claim that he gets a perverted kick out of smearing his opponents. And here he goes again.
As you may know, I have absolutely no respect for Rona Ambrose, the monstrous leader of the Harper Party. I can't forget how that cruel Con put her inhuman ideology before the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in this country. By trying to close down the Insite clinic in Vancouver, and making it almost impossible to set up others like it in the rest of Canada. Even though she knew they could have saved the lives of thousands of Canadians addicted to dangerous drugs like heroin and fentanyl. Well now the ghastly Ambrose is going after the mentally ill.
In one of my last posts I looked at the tragic case of Sammy Yatim who was killed on a Toronto streetcar by police officer James Forcillo. Who shot the troubled teenager barely a minute after arriving on the scene, rather than take the time to negotiate a peaceful resolution. And now I want to know why police officers in Ottawa killed this mentally ill man so quickly and so brutally.
It's been three years and one day since 18-year-old Sammy Yatim was shot to death on a Toronto streetcar by police officer James Forcillo. But yesterday his killer was finally sentenced. A Toronto police officer who gunned down a troubled teen on an empty streetcar three years ago abused his authority in a way that undermines public trust in law enforcement and the justice system, a judge said Thursday in sentencing him to six years in prison. And I couldn't be happier, because this was murder.
Because I know a lot about death, and I've seen a lot of people die, some of my friends have been coming up to me and asking the same question: Why is Justin Trudeau's government clinging so stubbornly to its assisted dying bill C14? My blogging friend Kirby Evans asks the same question here. And my answer to him and the others is, for a very good reason.
It's one of the most bizarre verdicts I've ever seen. A Toronto police officer is found guilty of attempted murder for shooting a troubled teenager on a streetcar. But not guilty of murder.
He was such a funny man, he made so many people laugh. Which only made his sad death even more shocking. Robin Williams, the versatile actor whose madcap comic style made him one of television and film's biggest stars, was found dead on Monday from an apparent suicide at his home in Northern California. He was 63. But as the Star's Peter Howell points out, he was a clown with a dark side.
When I went by Dundas Square this evening after work, a march had already departed heading for the place where Sammy Yatim was killed. All that was left was a chalk memorial that the rain will soon wash away. But I will not easily forget what happened to that troubled teenager. Not only because it strikes at the very heart of the kind of country I want to live in. But also because I know what it's like to be confronted by a disturbed man with a knife. I know that patience saves lives.
And what bothers me most of all is that none was shown to Sammy....
It has been said of Stephen Harper, by those who know him well, that he is a man incapable of feeling the pain of others. A man with no capacity for empathy, a man devoid of human warmth. In short, a clinical psychopath. So you can imagine how I felt today when I saw him sitting behind the pictures of three dead children, squeezing out a tear, and going after the mentally ill.
It is without a doubt one of the worst things I have ever seen. The slow death of Ashley Smith. While her guards watched. Read that and weep. Or watch the video here. If you can bear it.
I think this image will haunt me forever. The image of a bound, hooded, 18-year-old Ashley Smith being duct taped into a seat on a plane. Like she was some kind of dangerous terrorist on her way to Guantanamo. When she was just a poor mentally ill teenager on her way to one of the nine Canadian prisons she was held in during her short life. Before she choked herself to death while her guards watched, and did nothing.
I went for a walk the other day through the leafy lanes of The Shire, with a friend of mine who has suffered from severe depression from about this time last year. It was such a beautiful fall day. He was so happy, at having made so much progress on the road to recovery. And I was just so grateful that he's still here, and that I'm still standing.
I was trying to think about something to blog about on this cold, wet miserable night. Then I read about the death of Joe Bodolai, the American who nurtured so many great young comedians in Canada.
Who killed himself the other day by drinking a mixture of Gatorade and anti-freeze, but not before writing this last post.
And it stopped me in my tracks. Because what puny words could I write about anything compared to something so honest and so powerful that moved me so much?
I have always wondered why so many Canadians are so callous about the suffering of the homeless. Especially since so many homeless people are mentally ill. Now I know why.
Almost half of Canadians believe that a diagnosis of mental illness is merely an "excuse for poor behaviour and personal failings" and one in 10 thinks that people with mental illness could "just snap out of it if they wanted," according to the startling findings of a new opinion poll.
And I wish I didn't. Who are these ignorant brutish Canadians? And why are there so many of them?
They should meet the miserable old woman in the little park, with her supermarket cart and her humble possessions. Sitting there in the rain. Who never says anything. No matter how hard I try.
Or the poor frightened young guy under the expressway who talks to himself all night. Who runs away when I bring him something to eat. Then they might know what suffering is all about, shut their moron moralizing pie holes, and try to act like humans instead of beasts. What kind of country are we becoming when so many people would beat up the poorest and the most vulnerable of Canadians....instead of helping them? My guess is a coarse, ignorant, and self satisfied Oaf's Paradise that thinks it smells like roses. But actually smells like SKUNK...
