“Law and Order”

We live in one hell of a chaotic nanny state in Canada.

On Tuesday, moments after reading an official city email warning New Westminster residents that their friendly dogs must be licensed, leashed and kept far away from others to ensure that everyone “feels safe,” I saw the news that an Ontario man caught on video trying to stab someone during a road rage incident had been arrested and released in a span of two days. He was in breach of two court conditions when he was arrested, too. But now he’s out on bail. We can’t allow a chihuahua to lunge at someone, but a knife-wielding man gets a pass. So much for that feeling of safety.

In January, the Federal Court found that the Trudeau government’s use of the Emergencies Act to respond to the protests of the self-styled freedom convoy in 2022 was not properly justified — a decision the federal government is now appealing.

At the time, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre celebrated that ruling.

“Today, in a landmark victory for the freedoms of Canadians, the Federal Court ruled that Trudeau broke the highest law in the land,” he said in a prepared statement, apparently referring to the Charter of Rights and Freedom.

CBC is getting more like Rachel Gilmore every day.

Non-citizens who commit crimes in Canada shouldn’t get discounted sentences simply so they can avoid deportation. But in the Canadian justice system, that’s exactly what happens. We are beholden to judges who believe the rules apply differently to everyone.

Pulling someone over for driving while Black — indefensible. Suspecting someone of being a shoplifter by virtue of their skin colour — unconscionable.

Toronto police chief Myron Demkiw has walked back the controversial comment that he’d been “hoping for a different outcome” in the trial of Umar Zameer, the man acquitted over the weekend of deliberately police Const. Jeffrey Northrup in the line of duty.

But he stopped short of criticizing his predecessor, former police chief James Ramer, who in the hours after the July 2, 2021, fatal collision dubbed Zameer’s actions in the plainclothes officer’s death “intentional” and “deliberate” — a position that was eventually rejected by Zameer’s jury and criticized by the judges who oversaw his case.

A jury has acquitted Umar Zameer in the death of Toronto police Const. Jeffrey Northrup, accepting that what happened in the parking garage below Nathan Phillips Square early July 2, 2021 was a horrible, tragic accident and not a crime.

On Sunday, after two days of deliberations, jurors found the 34-year-old accountant not guilty of all charges including first- and second-degree murder and manslaughter. Zameer was on trial for first-degree murder because Northrup was a police officer killed in the execution of his duties.

Four Years and Counting…

As a former police officer I’ve personally witnessed an abhorrent amount of suffering from those who lost their businesses, homes, and careers in the last four years. While a small minority of ultra wealthy gamed the system to the tune of billions, the vast majority of Canadians have not done well financially or otherwise – the result of tyrannical government decisions and those who supported the decisions by remaining silent.

The family of a woman shot by an officer in Edmonton during a wellness check says her death was unnecessary, as the number of police shootings across Canada show little sign of relenting over the past four years.

Across America, the social fabric looks increasingly threadbare.

Whatever else it may be, crime is mostly neither glamorous nor mysterious. A quotient of antisocial behavior has figured in every known society. In the Denmark of the human soul there is something eternally rotten. Some have peered into the dark heart of criminality and found, not inscrutable evil or anguished reaction to an oppressive system, but untrammeled self-interest. “All the lofty talk about the ‘root causes’ of crime,” writes social thinker Thomas Sowell, “fail[s] to notice the obvious: People commit crimes because they are people—because they are innately selfish and do not care how their behavior affects other people, unless they have been raised to behave otherwise or unless they fear the criminal justice system.”

Reflections on the impact that lawlessness—and an inescapable awareness of it—has on society and the psyche

The man in the green hoodie wanted to show off his knife. The weapon he flicked open was a large foldaway with a curved blade, illegal in New York City, no matter its length; the setting for his performance was the uptown D train, going express from Columbus Circle to 125th Street. There was a full moon in the sky, and underground, as so often now, there were disturbances: fights broke out, insults were hurled, the air was thick with barely suppressed violence. Protests earlier that day had brought part of the metropolis to a standstill. A group of demonstrators, riled by the accidental death of a mentally ill homeless man with an outstanding arrest warrant and a history of violence, had shut down the subway at East 63rd Street and Lexington Avenue for nearly an hour, blocking doors and occupying the tracks to prevent trains from entering or leaving the station. Now, a late Saturday night was bleeding into predawn Sunday, a fragile metal shell was hurtling through a lighted tunnel under the earth, and in the conductor’s car, a show of prowess was being put on. “My arm doesn’t move, bro.” Holding the knife at his side, the man in the green hoodie opened the blade discreetly, with a small movement of his hand. “If my arm doesn’t move and you’re making eye contact with me, you won’t see shit until it’s too late.” Several times he opened and closed the blade before his friend’s eyes, feinting with it, brandishing it in full view of half a dozen riders. His dreadlocks swung heavily as he moved. He explained with gusto how he might stab someone to death.

Americans must become confident again that their government will enforce the law, without fear or favor.

The summer of 2020 resembled a political revolution. Militants associated with Black Lives Matter and Antifa led the most destructive riots in American history. Radicals burned down city blocks, perpetrated acts of violence, and briefly established an “autonomous zone” in Seattle characterized by a police-free political order and a homicide rate 50 times higher than that of Chicago.