Sorry, Canada ... it's time to grow up

Nobody likes hearing it, but sometimes it's got to be said: Canada, it's time to grow up.

It's time to face the fact that there are bad people in society. Irredeemable people. People who, pathologically, cannot play well with others.

Hamilton rapist, Christopher DeCosta, has been given a 42 month sentence for a brutal assault he perpetrated on a 17 year old unconscious girl, lovingly filmed on a cellphone by one of the rapists admirers.

The prosecutor in the case asked for -- and got -- a seven year sentence for the rapist: a woefully light sentence for what everyone agrees was a heinous crime.

But Superior Court Justice Stephen Glithero gave the rapist two-for-one credit for pretrial custody.

What on earth is up with this "two-for-one" horseshit? Is justice Glithero concerned he may be dropped from DeCosta's Xmas card list?

No, I fear it's worse.

Canadian judges clearly come from an alternate reality, one in which their grave words and dour disappointment carries with it the weight of liens against one's soul.

In this case, justice Glithero said he had difficulty mustering the words to "adequately describe the seriousness of the crime and the 'breach of human values and human dignity.'"

And: "I don't understand, Mr. DeCosta, how you could do these things — no matter how drunk you were. There are just some things that are so depraved in terms of the actions you performed on another human being that it just defies understanding . . ."

Then the judge handed this monster a two-for-one deal on an already egregiously light sentence.

What. A. Fucking. Joke.

Canadian judges believe their words carry the force of Thor, the fearsomeness of Zeus. I'm sure in the funhouse-mirror of their minds, they do. In the real world, these judges are viewed as daft, arcane uppercrust gobshites tut-tutting rapists and robbers and miscreants of all stripes.

I'm sure DeCosta, beneath his lawyer-advised-contrite expression, was laughing in justice Glithero's face.

I recently caught an epside of TVO's The Agenda that dealt with the sentencing of criminals in Canada. One veal calf academic from Kingston assured viewers that Canadian judges "know how to deal with bad guys."

You think so? You honestly, swear on the Complete Coronation Street collection believe Canadian judges know how to deal with bad guys?

Point of order, sir!

There is a vast and increasingly troubling disconnect between Canadian judges, who frolick on their country estates, fox hunting, building model ships within bottles, breeding show dogs and polishing their sterling silver tea sets, and the reality of hardcore violent criminals.

I'm sure Cecil or Dalton or Hiram or Leicester -- or whatever these judge's names are -- would have been mortified to the point of coma by a "tongue-lashing" when they were adolescents in Upper Canada College.

I would have no doubt, they would cower and question their very existence when the headmaster said he could not understand why they had done whatever they'd done to break the rules -- you know, like reading Proust after "lights out," smoking a cigarette behind the horse barn at the polo club, or for having an overdue library book.

There's no question in my mind that these future justices would have wilted in the wingback chair in the headmaster's office, hearing they'd caused DISAPPOINTMENT in an AUTHORITY FIGURE.

But, it's time to grow up, justices.

Not everyone shares your reverence for the rules, for authority, or for laaaw.

Justice Glithero may find it equally difficult to concieve that DeCosta probably wasn't even listening to the "pranging" he was given in court. DeCosta was surely too busy silently thanking whatever malevolent deity to whom he owes allegiance for being born in a country that offers rapists who film their crimes two-for-one deals.