In a bizarre way, recent events on the Canadian political landscape may well be the greatest agent for change in decades.
It would seem unlikely that anything could surpass the uproar created by Public Safety Minister Vic Toews’ Bill C-30.The Bill. Mr. Toews attempt to bring Orwellian utopia to your home computer, otherwise known by the paranoia inducing title “Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act” caused such a public outcry that the dogmatic Harper government was forced to retreat and bring the Bill back to a Parliamentary committee for amendments. In other words, the current government has come the closest it has ever done to doing the unthinkable: admitting that they were wrong in matters of potential legislation.
In reaction to this, the now infamous “Vikileaks30” Twitter account emerged, and with it, sordid details of Mr. Toews rather ugly but also rather dated divorce came out. Originally blamed by the Conservatives for its existence on the NDP, Liberal Leader (can we drop “interim” finally?) Bob Rae later had to admit that he account was the creation of a Liberal staffer. This led to the pony-show round of apologies from all parties.
Potentially towering over both these events of course is the “robocall” scandal in which hundreds of phone calls were made to voters just ahead of last spring’s election advising them that their polling place had changed. Some of these calls were apparently made by an automatic dialing system, and misdirected many voters to the incorrect polling stations. Given that the targets were known Liberals, voter suppression, and potential outright election fraud seem to be looming over the Conservatives. Vikileaks30 was ugly; the legislation that provoked it is a horrendous expansion of unchecked power in the hands of non-elected officials. But if the allegations of fraud prove true, the other events may pale in comparison. The uproar over a fraudulent election will be a roar over in comparison to the current one regarding the events around Bill C-30.
But perhaps the greatest individual injustice, and the one that we should all share the greatest common concern over, didn’t happen in Ottawa, and wasn’t committed by an elected representative that needs to account for his actions on a daily basis to other elected members as well as the combined media. It happened in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, and under a circumstance that could possibly be seen in any community.
26 year-old Jessie Sansone, was arrested at his children's school, strip searched, held by police, and told he was being charged with illegal possession of a firearm after his four-year-old daughter drew a picture of a gun in school, claiming that her father shot monsters and bad guys with it. After hours spent searching the home—and producing a plastic toy that shoots balls and can likely be purchased at any toy store, Wal-Mart or even SuperStore to name a few—Mr. Sansone was released by police, who, instead of offering an apology, started an investigation, ostensibly on the basis that this was a “child safety issue” according to Chief Matt Torigian. Of course it is. Much like Toews Bill C-30, the easiest way to justify expansion of state power is to claim you are “protecting the children.” A Conservative minister declared as much by throwing down the gauntlet to “either stand with us or with the child pornographers.” Given their retreat on the legislation, it appears that the government is edging towards the child pornographer side. Or, perhaps they have just had a small tussle with public accountability and that in and of itself has forced them to backtrack.
It appears Mr. Sansone won’t be offered the same level of common sense or dignity. Just the opposite so it seems: Chief Torigian’s behaviour is mild in comparison to Alison Scott, executive director of Family and Child Services for the Waterloo Region. Not only is Ms. Scott unapologetic for her agency “for fulfilling our mandated responsibility,” unlike the police who have had the sense to drop all charges and review their own actions, Ms. Scott’s agency is continuing its “open investigation” into the matter.
With the exception of periods when Canada faced Quebec sovereignty issues, Canadians show a rather passionless attitude toward political events. Government grows, government takes away, Canadians shrug their shoulder and while a few may raise a hand in protest, generally the indifference that is all too common prevails.
It should be pointed out that Bill C-30 would have expanded the powers of a completely unelected body of government—the police—and that body would have little to nothing to answer for in a public forum. In other words, the people who hire them, who they are supposedly serving, have no way of knowing what their money is spent on, nor can they call them into account for any misdeeds. Ms. Scott’s behaviour typifies this; not only will an unelected official not hold her own department accountable, in an effort to justify their incompetence, they will continue to “openly investigate” a man guilty of doing nothing but fathering a child who drew a picture in school. She will help herself to the funds supplied by Mr. Sansone and others from her district to expand the witch hunt against them as she sees fit. This is a woman not to be stopped by something as trivial as a few facts.
The public outcry over Toews’ intrusive legislation was a step in the right direction. That Canadians felt enough anger to demand some accountability from an elected official was encouraging. But it was only a small step. Until we realize that every branch and level of government serves us—including school boards and police—and we start to demand accountability from them all, rather than allow them to infringe and limit us, we will continue to lose more and more freedom to them. Mr. Sansone’s ordeal should drive home to each of us how easily the state can steal liberty, and how little we can do about it.
But perhaps that will be the Harper government’s greatest legacy. As they seek to limit liberty, or engage in scandalous behaviour, they may well show that the real enemy we need to fight is not our elected or unelected officials; rather, it has been the collective apathy we have shown toward them that has cost us the freedoms we are supposed to enjoy.
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