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goldstein
lorrie.goldstein@sunmedia.ca @sunlorrie
lorrie
Crackdown on criminals
Were advocating a crackdown on criminals, regardless of race, creed or colour. Further, as well as advocating for a crackdown on violent urban street crime, its equally important to call for tougher laws against whitecollar crime. Especially since not one senior Wall Street executive has gone to jail for the massive financial fraud they committed leading up to the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis and global economic crash. Thats to say nothing of the fact our laws in Canada against white-collar crime are even more lax than in the U.S. Most of those perpetrators, by the way, are white. Which doesnt mean all white people share the stigma for what they did, either.
dents ... Canadians understand that the only community placed under a shadow by the perpetrators of these crimes is the community of criminals. People who came from Jamaica to Canada have come in search of a better life, and to contribute positively to our country, not to live in fear of street gangs and criminals. Ideally, this should go without saying. But it needed saying. During last summers crime wave in Toronto, for example, Mayor Rob Ford said he wanted the feds to use immigration laws to deport anyone convicted of gun and gangrelated crimes from the city.
duhaime
eric.duhaime@sunmedia.ca @ericduhaime
eric
1.5 million Quebecers watching that parents at his kids school salute and applaud him when he drops his young ones off every morning. Or on an absurd note, Gilles Surprenant, the former top engineer of the city of Montreal, recently revealed that although he received over $600,000 in kickbacks to approve inflated invoices of road construction crooks, he gave some of this money back to the community by gambling away over $250,000 at the Montreal casino.
He said he felt relieved that the police seized over $125,000 in zip-loc bags in his basement. Are we all collectively going nuts or what? How could such criminals become role models in Quebec today? Last time I checked at the Vatican, neither Saint Zambito nor Saint Suprenant were on the verge of being canonized by the Pope. It re m i n d s m e o f Je a n Braults testimony a few years ago before the Gomery inquiry that gave us all the details about the scheme to funnel taxpayer dollars to the Liberal Party of Canada through the now-famous sponsorship program.
Applauded
In the public eye, he went overnight from being a Liberal swindler to a man who speaks the truth. At the end of his confession, when Brault came out of the
courtroom, people lined up of on the sidewalks to applaud and thank him. Do we think that these witnesses have gone Hollywood? Is reality so much stranger than fiction we cannot differentiate them anymore? Lets all remember if those crooks agree to reveal a lot about their scams, its also because they could face an extra 15 years of jail if theyre found lying and that everything said in such a public inquiry cannot be used against them when they face actual criminal charges. Is it our Catholic past that makes us idolize someone who sins but confesses? Why do we treat them better than someone whos been honest his whole life? I just dont get it. Its more than time that artists of all sorts, politicians of all stripes and athletes of all sports inspire us again. We are desperate for new heroes it seems!
Maybe it is time to roll up the streets, turn off the lights and forget about trying to solve challenges facing Winnipeg because if this is what gets people up-in-arms and angry, then all the prayer in the world likely wont help.
Darryl Mills is publisher of the airdrie (alta.) Echo and a proud former Winnipegger.
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