Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Harper's 20% Policy...Another Embarrassment

Stephen Harper continues to embarrass this country on the world stage. His recent hiccup? The abolishment of Canada's long-standing commitment to the UN's anti-death penalty resolution for a global moratorium on the issue.

The Conservatives must firmly believe that the 20% of Canadians who agreed with the implementation of the death penalty in a recent survey must know more than the other 80% of us that disagree.

Let me ask you a question. Do you think that our Canadian in Montana's family has a possible lawsuit over the government's inaction on an appeal for him? Shouldn't the rest of Canada been notified that we now believe in the death penalty being applied to our citizens convicted abroad?

A few names come to mind when I think of what might have been if we supported the death penalty. Milgard. Truscott. Hurricane Carter. All three convicted of crimes they didn't commit. All three may have been wrongfully put to death. Of course, there is a much longer list of names of wrongfully convicted people, but I'd be hear all night typing the names.

I think we should have been notified of the apparent shift to the total right-wing agenda. An agenda 80% of us don't support. My point is that this is a backassward direction that the CONS are taking this country and they are reversing decades of great diplomacy we have enjoyed in the eyes of the world.

4 comments:

Johnathon said...

What survey you talking about?

James Curran said...

This one http://www.thestar.com/News/article/273531

Feynman and Coulter's Love Child said...

Let me ask you a question. Do you think that our Canadian in Montana's family has a possible lawsuit over the government's inaction on an appeal for him?

Besides the fact that you don't have a legal right for your government to appeal on your behalf in the event of committing a crime in a foreign country, shouldn't this Canadian in Montana be more worried about proving his innocence in court?

Milgard. Truscott. Hurricane Carter. All three convicted of crimes they didn't commit.

Of these three, not a one of them had the body of evidence (and in Milgard's case, even the proper charge) required for executions in any U.S. State. Texas, for example, has executed 400 people in 25 years. Now if you want to believe that Texas only has some 16 murderers per year (or even 16 murders) then go ahead and do so -- though if it were true in a state of 21 million people, there would be no arguments against capital punishment at all. The fact remains that there are a lot of people, even in the most capital-punishment-loving state, who are convicted of murder but never once see Death Row. Each of your Red Herrings would have been amoung them.

James Curran said...

An eye for an eye and we're all blind.