Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Most would move to Canada, if they could: Poll



There's no doubt this is true: Most would move to Canada, if they could: Poll. Canadians live well.

What often goes unreported, and which so many Canadians are in complete denial about, is the underbelly to our amiable national character: our shrug-of-the-shoulders culture; our pathological passive-aggression; the flaccid tyranny of official do-nothing-ness.

Example: B.C. mom Judith Jarabek-Gray died because provincial government caregivers let the battery run out on her ventilator:
On Jan. 21, after she'd spent 16 days in the $6,000-per-month facility, staff took her off her bed ventilator -- which was supplied with continuous power by a wall socket -- and moved to a chair ventilator, attached to a battery with a six-hour life span.

Returned to the bed one hour later, she remained attached to the chair unit.

Jarabek said staff visited "eight or nine" times in the next several hours, but "not one picked up on the fact" she was on the wrong ventilator.
. . .

Jarabek has discovered in the past several months that Fraser Health can't be held accountable under the law; the Family Compensation Act in B.C. does not permit people to seek justice for pain and suffering in cases like her mother's.

"The law allows for people to be negligently killed and there's no recourse," she said. "There is no culpability. I'm not OK with that."
Official response: shrug of the shoulders.

. . . the Family Compensation Act in B.C. does not permit people to seek justice for pain and suffering in cases like her mother's.

There's no way this can exist, yet it does.

As for the unconscionable "pardon system" in Canada by which convicted criminals can apply to have their records wiped of all taint or stain if they manage to live five years crime-free, it's an outrage to reason, to civilization, a slap in the face to any notions of right and wrong.

For non-violent crimes -- I can go along with it. In fact, I advocate creative sentencing when it comes to non-violent offenders, rather than simple incarceration. So long as the punishment -- and yes, the justice system should exist to punish offenders, not merely to rehabilitate them, as though our penal system were some kind of personality spa -- drives home to offenders that it's not worth their while to break the law.

But the Canadian pardon system is an equal opportunity affront.

If it were not for the preternaturally fast action of MPs, infamous sex murderer Karla Homolka would be eligible to apply for a pardon, and the hopelessly myopic, out-of-touch, incompetent, insensate National Parole Board, would surely grant it to her.

Convicted child molester James Graham was granted a pardon. Crimes don't get much more heinous than harming, scarring, morbidly sexually abusing, and traumatizing children for the rest of their lives.

National Parole Board of Canada's response to his petition for a pardon? A shrug of the shoulders and use of the only rubber stamp they have: Yes.

The national police in Canada, the once vaunted Royal Canadian Mounted Police have run amok like a band drunken fraternity boys for years. Response of those in authority: shrug.

In a perfect world, Canada would be the perfect place to live.

Unfortunately, there are things in this world such as crime and sickness that befall us. Once a person goes down one of those chutes, they're at the mercy of the most proficient shoulder shruggers in the nation.

Why?

Because Canada is a place where there is no accountability for poor actions by those in positions of responsibility.

Those who previously occupied those positions of responsibility ground off all the rough edges of accountability over a period of decades so that their shiftless, incompetent, sometimes malevolent future-cestors.

The underbelly of the Canadian national character can be described as flaccid tyranny. Maybe it's simple passive-aggression. Trouble is, nobody cares enough to look into the problem, much less rectify it.

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