A week ago, a story appeared in The Province about a rather innocuous sign of the times - thefts of bags from unsuspecting visitors at Vancouver International Airport.
But, what was glossed over was the identification of an arrested suspect in the spate of thefts. Ramon Rafael Montesinos Chavoro, 36, was arrested, charged with Theft over $5000 - an indictable offence in Canada - and released on $5,000 bail. And that’s not posted bail as in real dollars. No, indeed, that means “promised” dollars. Or, in more simple terms, nothing.
But, hang on a second, Chavoro is a Mexican national. Is he in Canada legally? And even if he is, why would we allow a foreign national to come here, allegedly commit a series of crimes and allow him to be freed on minor bail conditions?
Does he have a previous criminal history in Canada? What about in his home country?
This is ridiculous at any level. Made especially moreso since we learned this week, courtesy of the federal Auditor General Shelia Fraser, that the Canadian Border Services Agency had lost track of 41,000 illegal immigrants, most of whom are failed refugee claimants.
It seems that in this country it matters not whether you are a failed refugee claimant or a serial criminal, what passes for a justice system in Canada will let you go with little or no restrictions on your freedoms.
I must confess I am at a loss here to try and understand whatever logic exists to pretend that such a system is somehow tolerable or that this system “works” by any definition.
Who are these 41,000 failed refugee claimants? I don’t know and the government won’t tell us. We don’t know if they are gypsy thieves, Russian strippers or al Qaeda terrorist. And the sad part is that the government hasn’t a clue either to go along with where they might be.
But they do know who Chavoro is and what he’s all about. And yet the system still let him go instead of holding him in custody pending trial. And if, as is most likely, he is found guilty he should be deported after serving whatever sentence the court might impose. Which, of course would be nothing more than time served. But, at least the government could have packed him aboard a plane and sent him back to his homeland and in doing so, lived up to their responsibility to protect the public.
But sadly, that is not what happened in this case. Or in the thousands and thousands of others like this.
Leo Knight
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2 comments:
Leo, I may like to believe I agree with you. However, after reviewing freedom of speech laws, it may exist that your apparent "incitement of discontent to lawful authority" could be construed as an act of sedition. I like to think we can criticize decisions made by any quarter of government, but that isn't the case, is it? Perhaps the upper-echelon are entitled to such rantings without fear of persecution, however this would indicate that the universal declaration of human rights have been denied, pursuant to Article 1, "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." And since Canada has ratified the U.N. Charter, this appears to indicate a systemic hypocrisy.
In fact, there are a number of U.N. Charter violations which would indicate we are not as free as we may believe. Such as, indicated by some of your posted links, Article 17 Section 2, "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property."
Or Article 21 Section 3, "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government." We are an outraged nation, but tolerant to an absurd extreme. Some people are so upset that they'll just stew about it, won't they? But nobody really cares.
Which brings me back to Article 1, ".. and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."
Well, I don't know what part of "brotherhood" is involved when I'm threatened on the street and called a cracker, and that isn't considered racism because "you can't be racist to white people," purportedly. Maybe its tough love.
In any case, somebody sought to give this guy a break and show some humanity, while ignoring the rest of the country's rights to have "the right to live, have liberty, and security of person." (Article 3)
There appear to be so many things wrong, such as rampant discrimination, that most people take your liberties for granted as something that can be swept aside, because we are a tolerant nation, by design.
The word is "Roma"
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