Ghomeshi Trial - Conclusion #2

My Facebook news feed has been full of mostly critical, perhaps even outraged comments as to the outcome of the Jian Ghomeshi trail. That is not surprising. A lot of people had invested a lot of emotional energy in their conviction of his absolute  guilt. For Judge Horkins to rule that Ghomeshi was not guilty of the charges feels, to many people, as if the justice system had betrayed them. I can understand people feeling that way - but I think they are wrong.

In my blog of February 15/16, I suggested that there were two trials happening: one as to whether or not the victims were telling the truth and (2) whether or not Ghomeshi was guilty. The judge's ruling was quite clear. He did not believe all of the stories that the women told. In fact in his judgement he stated  "Each complainant demonstrated, to some degree, a willingness to ignore their oath to tell the truth on more than one occasion"( Horkins as quoted by Macdonald of the CBC). That does not mean that Ghomeshi was innocent of the charges - just that the it was clear that the victims had not been truthful all of the time while giving evidence either to the police or to the court. It is, I would suggest, a fundamental truth of any legal system that if you get caught in a lie - your credibility drops down to zero. If they lied in court about one thing, how could the judge believe them on what else they said? 

So what happened? How did this guy, who by all accounts is an arrogant SOB and who may act as if it is his god-given right to dominate any environment or any person, get to be walking around as if he had done nothing wrong? We expect our judges to make their rulings based upon the law and what they hear. Judge Horkins had no choice but to rule as he did (read his judgement). Did someone else mess up?

I think two separate groups could have acted differently. In our holy and righteous anger at the news of Ghomeshi's behaviours both at home and at work (and perhaps our sense of being betrayed by a newly minted cultural icon),  we all felt as if the resolution to the case was obvious.  Our total acceptance of one truth and our inability to see that there might be another side to the multi-faceted story that was leaking from every conceivable source allowed the players involved to assume a greater importance than perhaps was merited. I would never suggest that my condemnation of Ghomeshi's behaviour allowed or encouraged the women to embellish or ignore parts of the narrative. On the other hand, no one did anything to slow down the bandwagon as it sped down the hill. In hindsight one should wonder if our immersion into this case had anything to do with North America's fascination with the failings of its celebrities.  Did this enthusiasm to watch on the sidelines, like a modern Madam Lafarge, in the taking down of another icon lead the criminal/court systems to do less than a stellar job?

Did the police recommend charges because of public pressure and expectations? Did  they investigate thoroughly? Why did the Crown Attorney appear to be lost when it became clear that the victims had changed their story or at the very least left out some of the interactions?  Why did they not know all of the facts before putting these women on the stand? Why was there no testimony presented  to the court that would have provided some explanation for the women's behaviours after the incidents? All of us who have spent time supporting women who have been abused by their partners know that sometimes their behaviours appear to be counter intuitive. We all know that the relationship between the abuser and their victims can become extraordinarily complex as the victim struggles to understand what has happened and why. The judge in his judgement alluded to this possibility but the Crown appears to have done little to provide testimony that would explain the inconsistencies. The victims appeared to have not been adequately prepared to give testimony. Given the trauma that they had faced, it is clear that the Crown's office needed to do more.

At the end of the day nothing has changed. There are so many negative lessons to learn from this case. Women who have been abused have once again been reminded that even if they do come forward, they may not be believed. Nothing has happened to suggest to those who abuse or at the very least believe that they can bully or dominate others around them that it is both morally and legally wrong to so. It has been confirmed once again that if you have money you get a good lawyer.....if you are the victim you may get nothing.  But the outcome of the trial does NOT suggest that the system is broken or that abusers automatically get a free ride. Rather than blaming the judge - perhaps we should look deeper to see what could have been done, and still needs to do to ensure that that there is not a next time.

I ended my last blog on this issue by stating that " For the life of me - I cannot see any real winners in the process". I still don't.

Federal Budget #2

One of the problems of predicting the future is that there is a better than fair chance that you will be wrong as often as being right. In my previous blog I suggested that the Finance Minister "would thump down on his lectern a rather thick, newly printed tome". It was in fact a surprisingly thin book as compared to other budget presentations. It is not clear whether this means that this government is more succinct than other previous governments, that it is less inclined to pad the facts or if it just had less to say.

I however, was quite right in suggesting that the speech would be boring (he is not a great communicator) and that  the Minister would be "frequently interrupted by members of his political party as they cheer and thump their desk tops on cue". I didn't use a stop watch but it did feel at times as if there was more desk thumping than talking - which I suppose could be seen as a blessing. I was also right in assuming that  the opposition " will sit there practicing their looks of boredom and/or disgust." It was not a particularly entertaining bit of television.

I was partially wrong about whether or not anyone would feel that the budget was a good one. Not surprisingly both of the mainstream opposition parties were completely opposed to it. More surprisingly, some of the special interest groups such as university students were pleased as were big city mayors. I think for the most part representatives of First Nation communities were pleased although there was a feeling, quite rightly, that there was not enough money. Lower and middle class families got  a bit more money if they have children, people who have lost their jobs in certain parts of Canada will get a bit more money from Employment Insurance  and people can now retire at 65 instead of 67. All of which are good news for those people. Whether or not that will do anything to stimulate the economy is less clear. Many of the changes announced will take months if not years before any real impact is noticed; most Canadians will not notice anything, ever. But this budget may have a side effect that while not provable, may have the longest term impact. I suspect (and all of the commentators said so) that the budget fulfilled many of the Liberal government's promises. That will make us feel good. That may makes us feel more confident about the future, That confidence may in turn, stimulate the economy.

Personally I don't think so. That is not the way modern economies work.  While my neighbours may feel a bit more confident and in fact may spend a bit more, the multi-national companies that control so much of our economy are not going to be buoyed by the promise of sunny days. They are going to invest their money where ever it will return the greatest profit. There are no obvious reasons as to why they should invest in Canada. Even a Canadian company,  Bombardier, who are asking for a large federal bailout, have announced plans to ship jobs to another country because the cost are lower there.

The down side of the budge is that a rather large deficit has been projected. We have been given some promises today that will be paid for tomorrow. Or even worse those promises will be paid for by the young people who are just starting to work. People who are comfortably off will continue to be able to plan for a nice retirement. Young people may have less to look forward to. And that is a shame.

Federal Budget

Tomorrow our new federal government will present its first budget. Many  of us who are political junkies will spend a few hours glued to our television screens/computer monitors mesmerized by the excitement of it all. For those who have better things to do or more likely can think of few things more boring than listening to a never ending speech, full of meaningless numbers - let me tell you what will happen.

He (the finance minister) will thump down on his lectern a rather thick, newly printed tome. He might, on occasion, wave it around but it will really be too heavy to lift. He will present the highlights of the budget, interspersed with the aforementioned meaningless numbers that are, at best, guesses of what may happen; the minister will be frequently interrupted by members of his political party as they cheer and thump their desk tops on cue. The opposition, if it is feeling particularly feisty, may occasional mumble "shame, shame" - but probably not. They, in general, will sit there practicing their looks of boredom and/or disgust.

After the speech, the leaders of the various political parties will talk to reporters. They will all say that they are disappointed, that the government missed an opportunity, that it ignored a specific group, that it either spent too little money, too much money, raised the taxes too much or not enough. In other words the budget will be universally condemned as being the worst possible budget. The leaders of various groups ( First Nations, small business federation etc) will then be interviewed for their three minute interpretations and they too will express their disappointment. The highest praise any interviewee will give the new budget will be to say that they will have to wait and see.

Later on the evening news, the pundits who have spent the day in the " lock-up" (they get to see the budget before anyone else but can't talk about it until after the finance minister's speech) will, depending upon their political orientation, pontificate as to the errors, omissions and the occasional good point .However, the next day when we get up, the world will not have come to an end as suggested by the opposition nor will the world be a forever sunny place as promised by the  government.  For the vast majority of Canadians nothing will have changed.  Nothing will have changed because neither the present party in power or any of the opposition parties are prepared to risk the ire of the voting public or the big companies by proposing fundamental changes as to how we provide for or pay for those changes.

It should be obvious that we as a society cannot, on one hand reduce the cost of being a Canadian while at the same time expect that the quality and level of services will increase. We need to accept that if we think that such things as supporting First Nations communities, making sure that seniors can age in place and that all people have access to safe and affordable housing etc. etc. are part of our critical value system - that those things in part define who and what we are as a country - then we need to be ready to pay for it.

Physician Assisted Suicide

Sometimes as I read my morning news - a potential blog topic just pops up. The first few sentences are there in my mind before I am even aware that I am thinking about  writing. But for most topics I need to think about them longer than that - sometimes for a day or two, sometimes for a week before I start to write.  But every once in awhile a topic that I had discarded as not being interesting enough to write or to read about starts (unknown to my conscious mind) to simmer, germinate - some might even say fester in the deep recesses of my brain. Then some morning I wake up and realize that I do have something I want to say about that topic. Physician assisted suicide was a topic that I thought I was done with. I have been clear in the past that I believe that we should all have the right to say" I am ready to go". There was not much else for me to say. But.......

In my mind any law governing my right to die needed to be as simple as possible given society's need to ensure that there is capacity and consent. I was surprised therefore when the Parliamentary committee' report wandered (I thought) somewhat off track and made the conversation needlessly more complicated. They proposed that minors and people living with a significant mental illness should also have the right to say that they were ready to die. Whenever I had thought about  physician assisted suicide, I thought it would apply to those individuals who had some sort of terminal condition that was causing them pain or anguish.  To "allow" those with a mental illness - surely by definition people who do not have the capacity to make such a decision, to decide to request assistance would be absurd and open to allegations of abuse.

But I have thought about it and it now seems to me that there are clearly times when living with a mental illness, specifically those conditions  that are related to a chemical imbalance and living with a physical ailment are perhaps more analogous than I originally thought. It is well documented that while the effects of such mental illnesses as schizophrenia or clinical depression can be ameliorated with medications, individuals frequently complain that the side effects are so uncomfortable that they would rather not take them. The medications can cause a deadening  of emotions and a lessening  awareness of the world around the individual. They can make it impossible for the individual to participate  effectively in their environment . For some the medications are only effective when their emotions are so deadened that it feels as if they are living in a cotton batten lined cocoon.  The choices as to whether or not to take medication is not really a choice.  The individual can either live with the symptoms of the mental illness - a lifelong condition that will limit their effectiveness and participation, caused them great anguish and at the very least will keep them marginalize from much of society, or they can take medication that will limit their effectiveness and participation, caused them great frustration and at the very least will keep them marginalize from much of society. It doesn't seem to be much of a choice. Is being in great physical pain the only reason as to why we, as a society would allow physician assisted suicide?

I am not in any way suggesting that those individuals who live with a profound, incurable mental illness should have easy access to physician assisted death. But I am wondering, for the first time, if we need to have a conversation about it. I think for example that the issue of capacity and consent is far more complex than when talking about terminal physical ailments. We may need to change the definitions of those terms.  I think that we need to have a conversation about what  is suffering and when is it too much, I think we need to have a discussion as to when is the patient in control of their treatment. For example if I decide that I will not have treatment (with all of it side effects)  for a cancer - am I a suitable candidate for physician assisted suicide? If so, why can't an individual living with a lifelong and debilitating mental illness reject treatment and all of its side effects and request physician assisted suicide?

So perhaps the parliamentary committee did not get off track.......perhaps they went exactly where they needed to go.

Let Us Speaks Of Dog And Cat Fur

As reported on CTV's Vancouver News, a MP is proposing legislation to prevent the importation of dog and cat fur. Good for him! It is important to keep one's priorities straight. There are millions of refuges wandering around Europe and the Middle East- desperate to find a safe place to exist, in developing countries an even larger number of children do not have access to even the most basic levels of education and in more countries than I can count, women are denied the right to make choices. Closer to home - women still have to fight to gain equal access to all opportunities, in some regions of the country women don't have access to the full complement of health care needed that will allow them to remain in full control of their bodies, thousands of Canadian children go to bed hungry every night, our mental health system is woefully inadequate in the south and even more so in the north, and our economy in some parts of the country is in serious trouble. But yes - let us protect the dogs and cats of the world.

Forgive me if I sound harsh but the hypocritical, sanctimonious  and disingenuous attitude around animals and their rights is more than a little bit irritating. I understand that people who are cat and dog lovers (or know someone who is) feel that some cute little things should be treated differently than other animals. North Americans also think that eating horse meat or cute little Bambi (a fawn for those not up on old Walt Disney cartoons) is proof that such a person must be something just the other side of a barbarian. Of course it is okay to eat a calf (veal) or to wear fur coats made from animals either painfully trapped or raised on what are called farms but are really just out door factories. As a general rule we have no problem eating eggs that come from chickens who are raised in either cages that isolate the hens from each other or in such crowded conditions that they can barely move. It is perfectly acceptable to eat bacon that comes from pigs that have been raised in crates that fairly mimic anyone's worse definition of hell  or to munch away on some fish stick manufactured from whatever species was dragged from the ocean floor, potentially destroying coral reefs and fish habitat as well as killing and throwing away fish that are caught up in the drag lines or huge nets and are not wanted. 

I fully understand that the thought of some animal that one can relate to (e.g. a dog or cat) being hurt, confined or abused is offensive. It should be.  We need to have laws in place in our country that ensure that these animals are protected from people who seem to take some delight from either inflicting pain or having an overwhelming need to being in control of something. If  people need to eat meat or to wear fur - that is up to them. It is none of my business . However if they choose to do so, and knowingly ignore the suffering their desires cause then I wish they would explain to me how their moral stance as to the sanctity of animal life is any better than those who kill dogs and cats for their fur or their meat.

For those who argue that they only eat ethically raised meat and are therefore free to criticize others, let me just say that their argument reminds me of some slave owners from the American South (or for that matter British, Dutch, or Spanish slave owners). Those owners would argue that they were "good" slave owners because they avoided punishing their slaves too much. They also would praise themselves for providing adequate accommodation, clothing  and food before sending them out the fields to work. I am not too sure if there is an ethical continuum.  You can't be a little bit ethical around an issue.

We need to stop judging others before we judge ourselves. If you want to stop the importation of items that use cat and dog fur - just stop buying it.