Officially Sanctioned Extortion

Canadians feel complacent that our security is assured, that illicit attempts to force any of us to part with our hard-earned cash will bring the law to our side, protectively. We live in a free and fair society, one where each of us is protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that guarantees us equal treatment under the law. Providing us the choice of religion, ideology, gender orientation.

Our right to free speech and free association is guaranteed under the Charter. To a certain point.

Unless any of us utter hurtful slander geared to cause pain and suffering and danger to others. And then the law steps in, for there are anti-hate laws that protect society. Of course if someone is not being utterly hateful and dangerous to your well-being, but being provocative and causes you distress you can get your own back by claiming hurt feelings. Take those hurt feelings to a human rights tribunal and you're away to the races.

If there is a criticism that impacts on you personally, if someone who offers specialized services to the public, but declines to provide those services to you, become affronted; it is your due. For the human rights tribunals are there to look to your peace of mind. You can trample on someone else's peace and security and values by imposing your own on them, and that's a lesson learned, isn't it?

And psst! it won't cost you a red dime. Designed and paid for on taxpayer funding. And through the process of impressing on the tribunal just how hurt your feelings are and how unfair it is that a religious group refuses to honour your orientation because it offends their value system, take the opportunity to give them a come-uppance, courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer.

In the process you can bleed them of their assets as compensation for hurt feelings.

Cry racism, or homophobia or any other manner of phobia to impress the human rights tribunals and presto! Your case is made for you. Because that's what their raison d'etre is, after all; to defend those who are bleating and to offend those who claim innocence. There is no neutrality, no balancing of opposite and apposite standards and opinions, there is your tragic story that must be pursued to your satisfaction.

Make your story compelling enough, describe your grief over the insult, the assault on your human dignity and watch the tribunal excoriate the offender, and see them empty their pockets to satisfy the fine that will go directly into yours. These are shakedown tribunals under a human rights guise. The complaint whatever the issue is the issue.

The outcome is a settlement agreed upon by a harassed and discombobulated individual or group who never in their wildest nightmares imagined themselves as human rights defilers.

For The Greater Good

"We will always reserve the right to defend ourselves. We will never tolerate our security being threatened, nor stand idly by when our people have been killed. Tonight, we give thanks to the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals who've worked tirelessly to achieve this outcome."

Another little-reported interview with Benjamin Netanyahu, after yet another successful IDF exploit? Responding to another attempt to breach the protective wall between the Palestinian Territories and Israel with murderous intent? The successful Iron Dome shielding Israel from Hamas-propelled rocket attacks? The apprehension of another group of terrorists entering Jerusalem to blow up civilians?

Not Netanyahu? Ah, Barack Obama, of course.

This is not Hamas being referred to, or Fatah-associated militias on a murder spree caught before their mission could be completed. This is Osama bin Laden caught asleep in his bedroom in his luxurious, well guarded villa in the scenic mountains of Pakistan. He sleeps now in perpetuity, released from his mortal coil. His cold flesh food for carnivorous fish, his bones settling on the ocean floor.

If he had the time to recognize what was occurring when the Navy SEALS burst into his compound and through to the second floor, to understand that his long and successful career in instilling fear and terror in the hearts of Western civilian populations was coming to a close, it would be interesting to know whether he felt fear and terror. He was resolute in his determination to sever life from innocents; how resolute was he finally on his own behalf?

The highly successful targeted operation, in the planning stages for a long time, and for which a rehearsal was staged on a purpose-built set comprised of a look-alike compound in the United States went off flawlessly. The man who pioneered the strategic art of confounding his chosen enemies with a series of impeccably organized and executed attacks claiming thousands of innocent lives no longer exists.

His legacy does, unfortunately; those countless hate-mongers who inspired by his cunning and bold example, do their utmost to emulate him, devising new and sometimes successful pursuits in establishing new standards for mass murder. Recruits range from the mentally retarded to adventurously vulnerable adolescents, along with the seasoned warriors who value their own lives, and exploit those of the gullible.

A mere 30 miles distant from Islamabad, that secret, guarded compound. A veritable stone's throw from an elite military base of the Pakistan military. In a town where the wealthy and the entitled live, and where the ISI and the military must make it a common practise to know who goes there. The presence of Osama bin Laden and his family quite unknown to the Pakistan government.

What an amazing surprise. Who knew? Well, no one. The United States is jubilant, the operation the first of its kind in precision perfection. The Israeli raid on Entebbe, foiling the PLO and Idi Amin's guard not representing a template? Is it legal, is it moral for a country to order its specially trained militias to embark on high-stakes missions like this or to use predator drones to 'take out' high-value targets?

After all, the bad guys don't care who they kill in the pursuit of their agenda. The good guys do care, take especial steps to ensure civilians are not caught in cross-fire. Sigh, those predator drones striking the wrong target; civilian deaths. And the raid on bin Laden's compound that saw him shot in the head, twice, and the chest, once, to ensure the job was done ... an estimated 22 unidentified men and a woman also died.

So there are sacrifices ... for the greater good. The greater good representing the avoidance, through acting thus, of further civilian deaths on the good guys' side. Somewhat like the aerial bombing of Dresden. Like Little Boy hitting Hiroshima. Like seven dead Turks aboard the Mavi Marmora? Like dead Palestinian Gazans whom Hamas used as human shields during the IDF invasion responding to rocket attacks?

Depends. The international community does not invest too heavily in criticizing a power like the United States, taking its inspiration from another country that responds as it must to deadly provocations from a determined enemy. But the international community does respond with vigour and passion to a tiny country encircled by deadly antagonists, decrying "disproportional" or "inhumane" responses.

Funny how things play out.

Aiding and Abetting Murder

Is there no insistence of responsibility on the part of Correctional Service of Canada or the authorities at Mountain Institution in Agassiz, British Columbia, over the murder of one of its inmates? That murder was one that should have been foreseen. The cellmate of the murdered man had stated flat out time and again, even in newspaper interviews, that nothing would stop him from murdering again.

Murder was a pleasurable indulgence to Michael McGray. He made no secret of it.

And he and his cellmate disliked one another. The cellmate, Jeremy Phillips, feared Michael McGray, a man notorious for having killed repeatedly. And whose psychopathic temper and utter lack of conscience was well known by other prisoners in the institution.

Jeremy Phillips had begged to be separated from Michael McGray. For that matter, Michael McGray made it well known that he was dissatisfied with having a cellmate. He had demanded, in fact, time and again, that he be given a single cell.

It wasn't that there were no single cells available. Even if conditions were crowded at the prison, so that it would be difficult to find a single cell for this man, his isolation from other prisoners should have represented a high priority. But even that wasn't the case; there were cells available.

Prison authorities were simply disinterested in separating the men, in ensuring that McGray did not represent a dire and present threat to other inmates. All of whom, other than the cellmate, whose direct proximity to his nemesis was unavoidable, gave the psychotic murderer wide berth. And anticipated that trouble would follow.

Jeremy Phillips' fear was realized when he was murdered on November 22, 2010 in the cell he shared with McGray. Who confessed to having assaulted Phillips with a ligature he fashioned from a sheet, then flushed down the toilet. Despite the evidence of the confession that simply confirmed what everyone already knew, and the following investigation, no charges have been laid.

A $11-million lawsuit has been filed with the claim that prison staff demonstrated "reckless indifference" and negligence that led directly to the death of Jeremy Phillips. His constant pleas to be removed from the shared cell were steadfastly ignored, despite his obvious fears, well founded and ultimately realized.

Society should care, but we don't seem to.

The Vulnerability of Pakistani Women

A Pakistani woman whom village elders in southern Punjab ordered gang-raped as punishment has, since that event 9 years ago, become a passionate and assertive spokesperson on the plight of women in Pakistan. She wrote her autobiography, and European readers made it a bestseller. She took it upon herself to open schools for Pakistani boys and girls in her home village of Meerwala, and initiated a shelter for battered women in her village.

From the desolation of personal suffering inflicted upon a young woman was born the desire for courage to enable her to do what few other Pakistani women might, after having been horribly assaulted. The village council, on the orders of their wise and elderly studying the precepts of the Koran, determined that Mukhtar Mai, who was 30 years old at the time, be punished because of her young brother's alleged liaison with a woman from a wealthy family.

The social infliction of a grievously ruinous retaliatory sexual assault in that society is tantamount to social death. Many such victims who have been subjected to the scorn and derision and isolation that results from such an occurrence prefer to take their lives rather than live them out in their villages thereafter. They are viewed as 'unclean' and unfit for civil company.

The stigma is such that it never leaves them. They are considered ineligible for marriage, for no self-respecting Muslim man would love, let alone take under his wing and into his home to be the mother of his children, any woman who had been raped. She is persona non grata anywhere she goes.

But Mukhtar Mai decided this would not be her fate. And when she publicly revealed what had occurred to her the world's attention was turned on Pakistan for its atrocious treatment of women. Notoriously, in Pakistan few men accused of rape or domestic violence are ever convicted of their crimes.

There were no fewer than fourteen men involved in Ms. Mai's rape, six of whom were charged and convicted and sentenced to death, while the remaining eight were acquitted. In 2005, the high court in Lahore acquitted five of the convicted men, then commuted the death sentence of the remaining man to life imprisonment, citing lack of evidence.

Now, Pakistan's Supreme Court has freed the five men, and a shocked Ms. Mai calls the ruling "a sad day for Pakistani women". "I wasn't expecting this. I've been struggling for nine years for women's rights and was expecting the Supreme Court to give me justice. And it hasn't." She has new concerns, now. Fearing her safety and that of her family.

The freed accused, she feels may yet exact vengeance against her for daring to make public the gang rape she suffered, and inflicting a prison term on her rapists, while looking for justice for herself and by extension other women in Pakistan. "Absolutely, I feel threatened, and my family feels threatened. The government of Pakistan and the Supreme Court will be responsible for any kind of violence that occurs against me or my family."

One has the impression that they couldn't care less. One can only wonder why the village elders were not also held responsible. And why the death penalty is seen as a just sentence for rape. And whether the country ever considers the potential good to society of educating its males against institutionalized violence.

Accessories To The Crime

The Islamic Republic of Iran gleefully noted the street-murder of 16-year-old Yazdan Ghiasvand Ghiasi last year, shot in Ottawa as he was sitting in a vehicle, and then tossed out of the car as it sped off. Purportedly a drug deal that went wrong. What kind of country is Canada, that such dreadful things occur in the street, a young boy of Iranian extraction so heartlessly murdered, Iran thundered, sanctimoniously scandalized.

Well, it would seem to ordinary Canadians that there might be something awry with the seeming inclination of immigrants with a Muslim background, who seem to turn, disproportionate to their numbers in society, to crime. This is obviously a response that would never pass the lips of Canadian diplomats, nor for that matter anyone who respects the dictionary of political correctness.

Yet Muslim youth appear drawn to the easy pickings and the adventurous excitement of crime on a micro- and macro-level, from drug dealing to murder, in greater numbers than their demographic seems to warrant. Young Ghiasi was shot in the heart by Mohamed Webbe; the dispute evidently occasioned over a bag of drugs, on a residential downtown street.

One shot killed the boy, hitting him directly in the heart; the other went skyward, shattering the sunroof of the blue Nissan Maxima involved in the tragedy. Two others, Abdulhamid Wehbe and Mohamed Webbe are also charged, with 2nd-degree murder, while Mohamed fled Canada; all in the family, as it were.

The trial of 18-year-old Zakaria Dourhnou has just concluded. He is a young man, previously in trouble with authorities and on probation, which included the court-ordered condition that he was meant to live with his mother who would monitor his activities. His mother, evidently having little respect for such conditions, allowed her son to live elsewhere, and paid for his apartment.

And it was in the parking lot of that apartment that the murder vehicle ended up. Mr. Dourhnou was instructed to clean up the incriminating evidence, as a gesture of friendship. And he was not averse to doing just that; police watched as Dourhnou and another teen, Khaled Webbe, obligingly set about cleaning up gunshot residue and blood.

"Mr. Dourhnou was acting for a friend in order to defeat a criminal investigation, by destroying evidence. the relevance of DNA evidence is well known ... It was obvious by the state of the vehicle that a serious altercation had taken place", stated Ontario Court Justice Celynne Dorval, in arriving at her decision.

A year in prison, over the 135 days already spent behind bars awaiting trial, a ban from possession of any weapons for five years, probation for three years. And his lawyer is outraged.

"The Notion of Justice"

The absurd conceit that there is a special absolution for thespians and artists who engage in hugely destructive acts of violence against others is nonsensical.

If a celebrity figure behaves in a socially egregious manner, let alone a violently aggressive one, that person is as guilty of criminal transgression as any other member of society. Their artistic talent does not in any way, shape or form exclude them from being judged under the law as any one else might be.

An artistic genius who surrenders to the incredible impulse to murder someone is still a murderer. A trial has just recently concluded where a film producer in Western Canada entrapped a stranger by enticing him to a meeting at a remote and isolated place where he could be murdered.

It would appear that the experience of having killed someone was undertaken to satisfy curiosity, artistic curiosity. So that the murderer could satisfy his theatrical muse by writing about the experience with the full benefit of first-hand knowledge of the emotions, the struggle, the passion, and the evil deed done.

In the case of the French musical rock star Bertrand Cantat who beat his French girlfriend actress to death, the Lebanese-Canadian playwright, Wajdi Mouawad, Cantat's friend, argues extenuation through artistic genius. French film star Marie Trintignant was ferociously beaten around the head in a Lithuanian hotel, dying later of swelling of the brain.

A Lithuanian court had sentenced Cantat to an eight-year prison term for murder, and he had served half that time due to "good behaviour". All now must be forgiven; he has paid his due to society, as the famous phrase and sentiment goes. And, having done so, he should be admitted to Canada through a special Minister's permit to grace a Canadian stage in a theatrical performance.

Decency decrees otherwise, however, considering it an outrage that someone who murdered can be so cavalierly excused and re-assume his former role as a popular entertainer. The absurdity of the man being engaged to compose music for a series of plays based on Greek tragedy on the brutalization of women, and to act in the play as well, to emphasize the dichotomy of one who kills and who later repents, is in itself rather unpalatably theatrical.

Unfortunately, it appears to be a prevailing condition among the arts-and-theatrical set that one so talented should be excused any excesses. Much like the French director Roman Polanski, having raped a young underage girl being excused on the basis of his artistic directing genius from legal prosecution for his crime.

The artists involved at the NAC in the theatrical production of Des Femmes are prepared to stage a "unified show of support" for Cantat as "one of their own". A display of arrogant entitlement to special considerations not reflected in the public's opinion of celebrating and elevating a man who surrendered to the impulse to beat a woman to death.

But this is theatre, cutting edge and forgivingly avant garde as exemplified by the highly respected and wonderfully talented National Arts Centre's French artistic director Wajdi Mouawad. Who finds it most inconvenient that women's groups have raised a protest over his friend's involvement in the production of Des Femmes.

When all is said and done, Mr. Mouawad denies the logic of the protests, defends his friend's artistic talent and his "right to climb on stage", for he is not a criminal, since he has paid his due through his prison sentence. He is a murderer, yes, but his artistry surmounts and overshadows his status as one who had taken the life of another.

And he feels confident that the controversy will serve to clear peoples' minds, that it will be the pivot around which an important social discussion on "the notion of justice" and "what an artist is".

Three Years Later

Good grief, where is the common sense, the decency, the moral fortitude and intelligence when it comes to releasing from custody the most disgusting murderers whose crimes are unfathomable and beyond the pale. A man whose mental instability is well known. Who planned the murder of his three young children.

That he was responsible for murdering them is a known, but he is excused because he has a mental disorder.

Does that mental disorder make him less responsible for having planned to murder them in the expected and temporary absence of their mother? Does releasing this man from custody in a psychiatric ward back into the community equate with the dreadful crime he committed?

Does the community, let alone the country and its system of justice gain something of value knowing that this man who stabbed, strangled and suffocated his 10 year old daughter and 8 and 5 year old sons has been excused from full responsibility because of a mental disorder?

Allen Schoenborn, father of three, killer of those same three, not to be found responsible for his heinous act because of mental impairment. To release him from custody, theorizing that he represents no further threat to anyone in the community sounds rather cavalier. For one thing, it trivializes the dreadful act he committed.

There are three bright, beautiful children whose lives were viciously stolen. Their mother left bereft of their living presence, free to grieve their absence for the rest of her life. And the rest of her life may be briefer than imagined, since her husband, the father of their children, murdered those children to exercise his power over his wife.

Darcie Clarke, the children's mother was living in Coquitlam, British Columbia when the B.C. Review Board made their determination to have her former husband released. Into the local municipality. Her sorrow is still raw, her children dead three years. The man is as he was, and now he is free to live out his life as he will.

And that may very well include murdering his wife now as well. And then he can be found not criminally responsible for that act, due to mental incapacitation.

Upon which the board members who had him released should volunteer to invite this man to live with their own families on a rotating basis, as a generous act of compassion.

Excessive Judgement

It is, without doubt, a transgression of a high moral order that represents what Denise (Dee) Harvey of Florida did to complicate her life and that of the 16-year-old boy whom she had sexual relations with. Herself a mother of a boy the same age who was a friend of the boy she had sex with on a number of occasions, this woman exercised extremely poor judgement.

That her marriage and her relationship with her son, let alone that with her husband, was not completely destroyed is a testament to their forgiveness of her absurdly unforgivable folly. Why on Earth would the mother of a 16-year-old boy succumb to the temptation (itself inexplicable) to have sex with a friend of her son, to begin with?

Obviously what we might consider to be normal inhibitions, a repugnance toward the very thought of something so morally wrong, did not constrain this woman. There can be little doubt that the people living in the community of Vero Beach, Florida, would not have thought very highly of this woman.

She was convicted by a Florida court in 2008 of the offence of having sex repeatedly with a minor. A personal shame and a public disgrace. Difficult for both families involved to live with. Her sentence was an egregious over-reaction, however. She was given the maximum penalty for the offence; 30 years in prison.

She chose to flee the sentence, as who might not? Compounding her original social offence. She and her family fled to a small town in Saskatchewan, and a cross-border hunt was mounted for the convicted sex offender. In the interim, the family lived for a year in Pike Lake, Saskatchewan. Where they seemed like any other compact little family.

It is not a crime in Canada for a 45-year-old woman to sleep with a 16-year-old boy, unless she was abusing a position of trust. This woman lived with her family in a bungalow next to the local Anglican Church, where she was a volunteer. People liked her, as a friendly neighbour. And, when she was arrested by the RCMP last week, they rallied to her support.

Her bizarre sentence was an over-reaction, the punishment did not fit the crime. A similar case that occurred in West Virgina where the age of consent is 16 and the boy involved was 15, ended with the woman who was the sexual predator being given a 30-day sentence. Quite a difference between a 30-day prison sentence, and a 30-year sentence.

In either case, the women involved were guilty of high stupidity and of disgracing themselves through offending the social compact, let alone the moral turpitude of older women preying on young boys for sexual adventures. When men do such things they are considered to be completely debauched, threats to society, detested pedophiles.

But the sentence handed out to this woman in this particular case offends reason and the equability of justice.

Risk for Flight?

Evidently there are no concerns in that area. Otherwise why consider bail for three men whom the RCMP closely watched for a year before finally moving in to make an arrest, even though it was believed that the men - along with their three out-of-country foreign accomplices were not yet close to acting on their "terrorist activity" plans.

That presumed - presumably on the authority of evidence gathered to that point in August of 2010 - "terrorist activity" was planned, it would appear, to take place in Canada, Iran, Afghanistan, Dubai and Pakistan. The peculiar stand-out in the geographies mentioned is Iran, but then details have not been released to the public.

The ringleader of the jihadist group, Hiva Alizadeh, remains in custody, not yet having applied for bail. Which his two helpmates in jihad did with great speed, directly after their arrest. Misbahuddin Ahmed, 26, who enjoyed trusted employment as an Ottawa X-ray technologist, and Khurram Syed Sher, 28, a London, Ontario doctor, wasted no time in accessing their freedom.

Seven months later, Hiva Alizadeh, the purported ringleader in whose apartment police found and took possession of some 60 circuit boards presumably to remotely aid in the activation of bomb detonators in the manufacture of explosives - for which criminal offence he and Ahmed were charged, remains incarcerated.

The plot they were engaged in, after all, included plans to bomb Ottawa. Along with plans to finance the purchase of weapons to be used by the mujaheddin otherwise known as the Taliban and their al-Qaeda cohorts, to battle Canadian and coalition troops in Afghanistan.

A rather peculiar and wayward occupation for Canadians to be involved in; conspiring and plotting to bomb the seat of government of a country of which they are citizens, and to engage in conflict with Canadian military personnel stationed in a Muslim country in the defence of its jihad-embattled Muslim population.

Evidence presented at the bail hearings for Ahmed and Sher is under a publication ban. Leaving ample room for speculation. Despite which, how is it seen to be even remotely feasible that three Canadian citizens engaged in plots to commit terrorist acts within Canada and with their foreign contacts aid in attacks abroad, are considered eligible to remain at loose in society, even with strict conditions?

The country we live in and of which we are so very fond and toward which security is uppermost in most minds, is obviously not recognized as a sterling place in which to live by these three and others of their kind recruited into violent jihad, whose aims to punish the country, its government, its institutions and its population, present a dire threat to our security.

It remains a mystery to the enquiring public mind how the justice system can regard violence-prone fanatical ideologues leaning heavily on traditions within Islam for their motivation can be seen as worthy of consideration of permission to be free under conditions however strict they may be, rather than maintained firmly incarcerated until such time as a trial reveals the details leading either to their conviction or of their release as innocent of the charges brought against them.

Conclusions Faulted

Judge Richard Goldstone was the right man to be appointed by the United Nations to hold an enquiry into the decision by Israel to dispatch the IDF into Gaza to put an end to the incessant rocket attacks across the border. Judge Goldstone, after all, a South African judge, knew all about apartheid, could recognize it when he saw it. He would be neutral, he would discover, through assiduous research, what occurred, and then apportion blame.

Could the United Nations conceivably have found a more impressive candidate for this mission than Judge Goldstone? A Jew, a seasoned jurist, an avowed Zionist. He loved Israel, he once said, which was why he felt it was his mission to point out, honestly and without favour, where she had diverted from her social conscience to commit a historical moral blot. That kind of 'tough love' is sometimes needed to enable those who should know better, that they have behaved badly.

This kind of sanctimonious righteousness does not however, fully explain why Judge Goldstone barely made mention of the provocations that Israel suffered well in advance of finally deciding it could no longer countenance them. Deciding to act in the very same manner in which other sovereign nations would, to protect their territory, their people, their integrity. For it took integrity to acknowledge that Hamas was using its own dense-neighbourhood centres as covers from which to attack Israel.

Judge Goldstone's characterization of Hamas as a non-state entity which must nonetheless be held to the same standard of moral and ethical behaviour as a state actor does not quite stand upto close scrutiny since effectively Hamas thinks of itself and seeks to comports itself as the political head of a state, governing Gaza with its 'political' wing and imposing its standards, values and priorities upon the population as such.

But Judge Goldstone has had a change of heart. He now expresses reservations and some remorse at his conclusions that have had the effect of casting Israel and its population and its government as an outcast in world opinion. Thanks to the infamous Goldstone Report, those who consider Israel to be a human-rights-denier for the Palestinian people, feel fully vindicated in continuing to portray Israel as an apartheid state.

Thanks to the Goldstone Report, those who passionately espouse the views of the Palestinians as victims to the heartless Israelis, will evermore point at the conclusions that Judge Goldstone reached and was obliged and felt obligated to present as truth incarnate. This will support the schemes to continue de-legitimizing Israel, to boycott its academics, its products, investment in the country, and the constant barrage of left-wing and union-led criticisms.

It will inspire greater efforts at slandering Israel, it will continue to support the left-leaning academic and student movements that make common cause with the Palestinians with their yearly "Israeli Apartheid Week", and the intentions of groups to lease ships and fill them with "humanitarian" supplies and passionate volunteers to make more well-advertised runs to challenge the blockade of Gaza.

It will empower the world's anti-Semites who owe Judge Goldstone a huge hug of appreciation for his complicity in their agenda. For it was he and he alone who is responsible for tarnishing Israel with the brush of deliberately targeting innocent Palestinian civilians. When he should have known and likely did know that Israel's military went to great lengths to attempt to avoid such civilian disasters.

And that when civilians did die under suspicious circumstances those events were investigated and those held responsible lawfully penalized.

"If I had known then what I know now, The Goldstone Report would have been a different document" may soothe the conscience of Judge Goldstone as he now laments what is history. But we know all too well that the charges as originally laid are the ones that stick. Remediation and reconsideration after the fact have never been known to invalidate the original charges.

His mea culpa is not without some self-exculpation. He holds Israel to blame for not fully co-operating with his mission to discover it to be lop-sidedly to blame for the defensive attack on Gaza, for the deaths of Palestinian civilians. His own slender references to terrorist attacks from Gaza on Israel, the stricken Jewish population, the proclivity of Hamas to seek shelter behind the shields of their own population, all given short shrift.

Impressions are indelible when issued from respectable sources. That which has been accepted cannot readily be set aside and honour restored. Neither his nor those whom his conclusion slurred.

Mission Unaccomplished

Nor will it ever be. If the mission is to civilize a nation, to haul them out of the Dark Ages that their geography, their ethnic heritage and their religion has parked them in. Afghanistan is a country that the future passed by. Having looked deeply into the dark soul of the country's primitive determination to bypass social civility in favour of a degraded anti-humanism, the future simply went elsewhere.

The country's future, such as it is, and such as it will be, will remain mired in stark fundamentalist ignorance and brutal abuse along with tribal antipathies expressing themselves in anger and hatred and violence. The laws of the country permit a death sentence if an insult to Islam is perceived, or if an individual makes a personal decision to abandon Islam and adopt another religion.

Women are aware they have few rights and fewer privileges in that patriarchal society that demeans the very presence of women among men, holding them as personal possessions who dare not endanger themselves by resisting the will of men. Girls are destined to become old before their time, given in marriage to old men, carrying babies and sweeping the hearth.

And dare anyone, anywhere in the world deconsecrate what is sacred to Allah, by insulting the Prophet Mohammed, or defiling a Koran, they will be destined for death. If the offender cannot be reached physically to absorb his deserved mortal punishment, why then any substitute will do.

And so it is that yet again symbols of Western oppression and degradation of sacred Islam have been taught another lesson. That fervent Muslims who worship their divine maker and his beloved emissary are more than willing to slaughter the offenders to correct the insult to the honour of Islam.

In Afthanistan, in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, recognized by Western powers as a moderate place prepared to shoulder its self-protective responsibilities as well as its civic institutional responsibilities, a peaceful demonstration against the burning of a Koran by an ignorant U.S. preacher reflected the nature of passion-ravaged minds.

Where a passionately religion-inspired mob overran a United Nations compound under the protection of the Afghan army and Afghanistan's national police who were forewarned of trouble brewing, and managed to avenge themselves by killing seven international UN staffers. People sent there representing the compassion of the international community to tend to the needs of Afghans.

And the Afghans reciprocated as is their wont.

Forbidding Vulgarity

Really, it can be so annoying when a newspaper picks up a story say, from Agence-France Presse, and then doesn't bother to do a follow-up. In the sense that the story, as published, alerts the reader to a substantive issue, lays out in some detail what a certain country's lawmakers are grappling with in their attempts to serve the finer interests of their nation and their countrymen, and you're just left dangling.

There's no conclusion. There are no further stories, no updates, nothing to alert you to the reality that the issue has been resolved. Now, is that fair? Doesn't it make sense that if a story is worth news-time, if it's worth reporting on, of being published, and picked up by various newspapers in various countries of the world as an item of interest, then surely they and the reader have invested something in it?

Curiosity must be salved...

The issue becomes theirs too. They become curious. They want to know what occurred in that particular parliament. What on Earth happened to the issue? Doesn't the reading public have a right to know? Our interest has been aroused, and we're left dangling, as it were. That surely is not right.

This issue, for example: Malawi has a law that states:

"Any person who voluntarily vitiates the atmosphere in any place so as to make it noxious to the health of persons in general dwelling or carrying on business in the neighbourhood or passing along a public way, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor."

"Guilty of a misdemeanor", now that sounds impressive. And the delicacy of that wording: "Any person who voluntarily vitiates the atmosphere..." Forgive our ignorance, but what might that mean? Ah, here it is: vitiate: vitiated - corrupted: ruined in character or quality. Someone then, who corrupts the atmosphere. By cursing? By behaving badly?

Ah, now it becomes clear. Soiling the air by intemperate passing of gas.

The debate in Malawi was all about a farting ban. There, it is said. A farting ban. "The government has a right to ensure public decency. We are entitled to introduce order in the country", said Justice and Constititutional Affairs Minister George Chaponda. "Would you like to see people farting in public anywhere?", he further added.

Why, no, we would not, and yes Mr. Chaponda, you do have a serious issue there. And President Bingu wa Mutharika's government has a legitimate concern over Malawians' incapability or unwillingness to control their farting: "They should go to the toilet instead of farting in public. Nature can be controlled ... it becomes a nuisance if people fart anywhere."

No, this is serious business. This cannot be seen as acceptable behaviour, soiling the atmosphere in such a manner. One wonders, are Malawians great bean eaters? Regardless of which, the country's Democratic Progressive Party (thank heavens for progressives everywhere) has a majority in their parliament that means to pass an amendment to the law first passed in 1929.

The amendment would make farting in public an offence. And so it should; the penal code should reflect such egregious odiferous insults to the public weal. Let's hear it for the good people of Malawi; they deserve better. They most surely do.

Polite social convention will triumph!

The Reprehensible Dr. Charles Smith

"Your transgressions were egregious in nature, repulsive in result, caused irreparable harm to many innocent victims." Dr. Marc Gable, College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario

This was the opinion of a panel of five doctors acting on behalf of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, who sat to determine the College's response as a disciplinary measure to be levelled against Dr. Charles Smith whose professional misconduct as a highly respected paediatric coroner was found so lacking in professionalism and ethics as to declare him incompetent, strip his medical license to practise in Ontario and fine him a paltry $3,650.

This is the man considered during the 1980s and 1990s to be Canada's leading expert in the field of child pathology, who was trusted to give testimony at trials for hundreds of cases involving the premature deaths of children, many of which featured family members being held responsible for those deaths. Dr. Smith's highly respected testimony led to many wrongful convictions.

This medical professional had no formal accreditation in forensic pathology, nor did he ever experience any manner of formal forensic training. Yet he never undertook to excuse himself, never explained that he lacked credentials and knowledge, was not fit to give the testimony that judges and juries relied upon to help them form their opinions that occasionally led to guilty verdicts. He has since been held responsible for providing inaccurate evidence at child-murder trials.

Because of Dr. Smith's invention of himself as a forensic pathology expert and his masquerading as a reliable medical pathologist, more than a few innocent people spent too many years incarcerated, having been found guilty of the murder of their children. Some of those convictions have since been overturned by the Ontario Court of Appeal after the Ontario chief coroner launched a 2-year investigation into Dr. Smith's work.

The discovery was made that in at least 20 of 44 autopsies which Dr. Smith performed, 20 had major problems associated with them. And twelve of those cases had concluded with charges or convictions against family members or caregivers or parents who were then held to be the cause of the deaths of children which were in fact occasioned by accident or through natural causes.

The College was disappointed that Dr. Smith ignored their order to him to present himself at the reprimand hearing. One of the mothers who had been convicted in the death of her infant and who had served fourteen years in prison for her 'crime' of which she was latterly exonerated did show up at the hearing, in the hopes she could confront her tormentor.

She obviously did not take fully seriously Dr. Smith's apology for the 'errors' he had made, and his humble statement that they had been unintentional in nature. The man was the very picture of hubris when he testified in court as an expert pathologist, knowing full well that his testimony would be damning to the accused, but he feels he has acquitted himself of responsibility by his apology.

His apology does nothing to restore the lost years, the public shame, the misery in which he left families through their traumatic experiences, but he is free to resume his life unfettered by any further concerns.

It's a Joke, Right?

"The consequences of detonating the bombs would have been catastrophic. It is simply beyond question that, had the plan succeeded, many people, probably hundreds, would have perished. ...This country would have been dealt a massive blow, both physically and psychologically, and in all likelihood would never have been the same." Justice Fletcher Dawson, Toronto

Having said which, one can only wonder, despite mouthing those condemnatory and concerning words, does the sentence fit the crime? It is a crime of suspended but horrifying proportions. To deliberately work toward the goal of extinguishing the lives of people, to determinedly plan to destroy public institutions, to destabilize a country, to exact revenge on a nation that has given succour to oneself and one's parents. Incomprehensible.

Convicted former software engineer Shareef Abdelhaleem, one of the lead planners of the "Toronto 18" jihadis, was given an opportunity to plead pre-sentencing, for leniency. "I was mistaken in my conduct. I am unconditionally sorry." However, it would appear that his unconditional regret for his "mistaken conduct" was conditional on clemency. Odd that; one might consider the sentence meted out as brimming with kind consideration and a modicum of clemency.

A life sentence, after all, but one that is interpreted to offer the potential of seeking parole in just over five years. A ten-year life sentence. Why term this a 'life sentence'? That is quite the penalty, ten years, for planning to discharge jihadist rage by Canadians against Canadians. Who mightily resent and planned to 'resist' with all the opportunities at their disposal, the "Islamophobia" being displayed against their religious cohorts, and by extension, themselves.

"I am a brown Muslim, so I become a terrorist", Abdelhaleem seethingly, self-pityingly explained. Anticipate that, because I am a Muslim that I cannot be trusted, that I will do everything in my power to covertly plan a bloody disaster that will make you sit up and take notice. And because you consider me so likely to become a violent Islamist I shall become one. Well, he did, and he did his best, along with his co-conspirators, to exact revenge. We sat up and took notice.

Having done so, the plot was apprehended and the associates-in-murder arrested, and now the trials of those eleven members who were held by security authorities to be those who were most fully involved and held responsible for the planned carnage have been completed. Mr. Abdelhaleem not only shared a hateful ideological belief and dedication to political Islam's devotion to violent jihad, but he also shares his colleagues' belief in the "blatant injustice" that was meted out to them by Canada's legal system.

This time around, the Toronto stock exchange was spared destruction by disaffected Canadian Muslim plotters. This time around, the CSIS downtown Toronto premises were spared. This time, the Highway 401 military base near Toronto survived a threat. As did the Houses of Parliament in Ottawa, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's tender neck. In addition, this time around, quite a few Canadians were spared an early and gruesome death.

Perhaps those who might be bold enough to make another concerted attempt will exercise more caution, having closely witnessed the manner in which security agents scrutinized and kept watch over the clandestine activities of the Toronto 18. Surely they will weigh the chances of success and notoriety and Islamist celebrity and blessings as martyrs-for-the-cause against the paltry sentence that will be handed down in response to their dedication.

However, Crown attorney Iona Jaffe in praise of Judge Dawson's decision seems content. "This is exactly the kind of sentence or message that should be sent out to those people contemplating this type of terrorist activity in Canada", said she. Is it truly? There are many who would disagree, little doubt about that. The man's lawyer claims his client will likely appeal. He can do that, through the justice system of this country.

In the final analysis, it is likely the devastated father of the convicted man, Tariq Abdelhaleem, who represents the image of one who has been unfairly sentenced. His sentence is one of profound parental grief.

Moral Bankruptcy Extraordinaire

Where else could the degradation of the principle behind respect for universal human rights take place than in the very bastion of international support for the dignity and humanity and freedoms and entitlements of populations and individuals, the United Nations? The noble conceit of formulating a representative body of nations whose singular purpose would be to champion human rights, to extol the virtues of peace and compassion, and exert the soft pressure of the nobility of humanity was exemplified in the creation of that august body.

And what could be more natural than the election of member states representatives to sit on a special committee functioning under the aegis of the United Nations, as a group dedicated to the furtherance of human rights? They would call themselves the UN Human Rights Commission and then a few years on amend that to the UN Human Rights Council. For, unfortunately the group of the original name, championed by some of the world's worst human-rights abusers soiled the purpose of the group.

And now, the latterly-named Human Rights Council, similarly comprised of states representative of some of the most repressive, autocratic regimes in the world simply continues the culture and the dedication of the original one, focusing primarily on the slanderous and slanted view of one country alone on the international stage whom they have determined represents the ultimate in all that is to be shunned. Resolution after condemnation after citation is given dignity and purpose by this unashamedly corrupt group condemning the State of Israel.

One of the UN Human Rights Commission's most flamboyant and certainly highly respected members is currently embarked on a campaign to de-legitimize the concerns of a vast proportion of its citizenry. Citizens who have gathered in illegal protest in a country that brooks no criticism of its leader, long accustomed to using brutal force to tamp down protest. Libya, under Col. Moammar Gadhafi, has explained to the world how much his people adore him. He has raged against the perfidious Western media for suggesting he is waging war on his people.

Coinciding with the UN Human Rights Council being forced through outraged public opinion to suspend Libya's membership in its UN-sponsored body until such time as its leader ceases bludgeoning his people into early graves, the Council is also prepared to adopt a major report in recognition of Libya's human rights improvements. Various countries are seen to be applauding and commending Libya, noting "with appreciation the country's commitment to upholding human rights on the ground."

This truly hideous farce is set to play out applauding Libya for its "respect for human rights" before the Geneva-based, 47-member council on March 18. By that time much will have occurred. Many more thousands of Libyans may have met their maker. A full-blown civil war will have been in progress for a week or so, promising to stretch a little further into the future. Or, alternately, the international community might finally have got its outrage into a place where they could no longer simply fulminate futiley, and decide to do something practical.

To assist the people of Libya to free themselves finally, from the intolerable burden of living under a psychopathic criminal. By taking it upon themselves to protect Libyans and to assist them in unseating their tyrant. Meanwhile, in the annals of infamy it will have been recorded that Iran, Sudan and Cuba, among other countries fulsomely praised Libya's human rights record. They in particular should know all the fine points about human rights, since they honour and practise to the letter the diplomacy the offering of dignity and freedom to their own.

Long live the United Nations! Long live the UN Human Rights Council!

Mind-Boggled Homicide

Unforgivable, yet we find excuses for such people. That they are victims of their own cravings. That they cannot control their needs. We fail to view them as the threats that they really are. They are living, breathing time bombs. And from time to time one of them creates an explosion that maims or kills an innocent among us.

A woman out drinking, determined to do what she has always done, satisfy her need by intoxicating herself beyond physical and mental normalcy. When the bar owner, recognizing her state of intoxication takes it personally and offers to drive her to her destination, she spurns the offer and drives off on her own.

Beside her another bottle of wine. She is a repeat offender. Her license was suspended. But Samira Daoud felt entitled to drink herself close to insensibility, to clamber into her pickup truck, more drinks surrounding her which she would pick up at her leisure, while careening in the dark around the rural stretches of roadways within the City of Ottawa.

Truly bad fortune had a young man of sixteen cycling as he always did, back home from work. Where this woman who had already caused other drivers on the road to swerve out of her way, and who had crashed over a median, decided to do a U-turn and slammed into the back of Alex Hayes' bicycle with such violence that he was thrown 39 metres into an adjoining ditch.

Where he remained, his lifeless body discovered three hours later. His bicycle sitting on the roadway, utterly mangled. Alex Hayes' parents would wait for him to arrive home, as usual. And they would wait in vain. They will never again hear their boy's laughter, watch him grow, have the pleasure of his company.

Police were alerted to reports of someone driving haphazardly, repeatedly crossing over onto the opposite lane, and the truck, now heavily damaged, was forced to a stop, hitting the front bumper of a police cruiser. The police officer noted her reeking breath and witnessed empty beer cans littered in the truck cab.

She offered sex to him in exchange for her release. Of the three breath samples taken at the police station, the first registered three times the legal limit of 80, at 259 milligrams alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. She insisted she hadn't hit anyone on the road. She did admit to being drunk.

Her criminal record lists various alcohol-and-driving offences. That all occurred last fall. The Crown prosecutor during her trial is asking for up to 10 years in prison on the charge of impaired driving causing death, to which she has pleaded guilty. But she did apologize. For what that is worth.

"I did not know your son", she told Alex Hayes' mother. "But I know Alexander will be carried in my heart, just as he will be in yours." Well, not quite. Not nearly in the same way. And her expression of remorse, understandably, means nothing whatever to Alex Hayes' mother. She is bereft of her child.

Her child's killer may serve a few years' sentence in prison, and then she will be free to resume her life. One that she has horribly mangled, just as she did the boy's bicycle. Ironically, according to Daoud's sister, another sister had been killed by a drunk driver in Ethiopia.

How much sense does that make?

It's The Youth, Stupid

Those who have invested their faith in religious fundamentalism know well that they are directed to "go forth and multiply". Not necessarily through indoctrinating others in the fine points of their religious beliefs. But by having babies, lots of them. In religious communities women are invariably kept fairly confined; their job is to bear the young and raise them. The greater the number of children the prouder they can be that they have heeded the covenant obeying God's will.

Woman's value is seen in her breeding capacity. In Islam, as in any other fundamentalist form of religion, women are urged to understand their respected place within the community. As a faithful adherent to her religious belief, as a dutiful and fecund wife, as a nurturing mother. The perfect formula to ensure that the world will not run out of a youth demographic. Which goes a long way to explaining just how and why it is that in those countries of the world that are majority Muslim there's a lot of kids.

In a country like Canada, a wealthy democracy with a population of 33.8-million, women are forgetting about the fundamentals of child-bearing. The population is barely replacing itself. Population growth is highly dependent on immigration to ensure a large enough workforce exists to fill all the employment needs of that vast country. And, in Canada, the under-30 population stands at 36% of the entire population. Conversely, there is unemployment, but it is still manageable.

In contrast, in countries of the Middle East and North Africa which are majority-Muslim, that percentage of the population in each country representing the under-30s demographic ranges from a relative low of 48% to 73%. Egypt's youth, that is, those under 30 years of age stands at 61%. Egypt absorbs as many of its educated youth as it can manage into its bureaucracy. Leaving a whole whack of other, unemployed youth to fidget and worry about their future.

It was that large group of unemployed youth that formed the backbone of their still-simmering revolutionary protest against the status quo. In Tunisia, a country with a population one-eighth of Egypt's 80.5-million, there exists 51% under-30. It has a higher literacy rate, and a better-educated population. And large unemployment. Fuelling much discontent among the youth; fuelling one to protest in the only way he knew how, by becoming a human fireball.

That unemployed young man's self-sacrifice in protest against a heartless bureaucracy and utter lack of opportunity to make a decent living to support his family, caused a firestorm of protest that has lit up the Middle East and North Africa.

Problematic But Admissible

Dreadfully, no doubt bitterly disappointed . But the extradition defence team working for justice on behalf of former (part-time) university lecturer Hassan Diab, will not let matters rest there. There will be appeals. And plans to take the matter all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. Which august body, given the nature of the appeal; an extradition hearing, a rather routine matter, will likely refuse to entertain.

It does strike one as odd that France, confident in issuing to signatory countries extradition requests, will not herself accede to such requests from external sources. On the other hand, in this instance an exceptional case of sinister outside sources intent on conducting an assault on France's security of its citizens with a view to committing mass murder has impinged on the country's honour and respect of its citizens' rights to liberty, equality and above all, life.

The case against Mr. Diab may seem to his defenders to be a tenuous one. In which case the prosecutor has his work cut out for him. No one could honestly argue that a country like France which takes justice seriously and its reputation for meting out justice far more seriously, will not conduct a fair trial. If there exists, when the prosecution has completed his evidential work, a hint of doubt, one trusts there will be an acquittal.

It is horribly inconvenient and dauntingly disturbing for anyone to have their life upended to such a degree. Honest and innocent people are often enough accused of crimes whose commission they had no part in. In Canada, just as in other countries, justice has on occasion gone astray. Which is one very good reason why the death penalty is no longer used in most civilized countries.

Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger did perceive the French handwriting evidence as "very problematic" and "very confusing", after having been subjected to the arguments of the defence and the opinions of their three hand-writing experts, despite a claim of prior collusion by government prosecutors.

However, as a judge he has very little option but to honour and respect Canadian law. To do otherwise in this case would have been tantamount to violating the Extradition Act. If Mr. Diab is, as he claims, innocent of all charges brought against him by the French justice authorities, he will have ample opportunity to express that innocence in a French court of law.

Diplomatic Immunity

"I want to come here to express our deepest regret for those tragic events and to express the sorrow of the American people for the loss of life that has taken place. We are deeply, deeply sorry for that tragic incident." U.S. Senator John Kerry

When countries exchange diplomatic envoys there is a certain measure of respect and protection given under international treaties on behalf of the diplomatic corps. That old adage, 'don't shoot the messenger' has application here. Of course diplomats dispatched to foreign countries to represent their own countries' interests are expected to obey the laws of the country to which they have been assigned. When in Rome certainly applies.

It is a sign of respect to the host country, for no country likes to see their laws and customs given short shrift by foreigners. Among the diplomatic community it is common enough for minor infractions to occur say, in traffic laws, and for those infractions, though irritating to the host country, forgiven. The diplomatic corps are supposed to be composed of people especially trained in the niceties and formalities of diplomacy.

It is not very diplomatic or courteous, to say the least, when diplomats assigned to represent their countries behave in a manner seen to be insulting to the host country; when that happens their usefulness is destroyed. Yet, again, diplomats are notorious for flaunting minor laws, and they are also, as a group within host countries, resented for that flaw in diplomatic behaviour.

Another common enough failure in diplomacy is the tendency of some diplomatic representatives to drink too much alcohol and disport themselves in a manner not conducive to earning the respect either of their colleagues or their counterparts in the host country. It does happen that drunk driving charges are set aside, but the offending diplomat is relieved of his duty. As happened to a Russian diplomat who ran down and killed a pedestrian, in Ottawa.

Very bad feelings can result between the two countries when such incidents occur. And when two countries come to loggerheads about a truly egregious lapse in behaviour it quite defeats the purpose of diplomatic relations. Pakistan is outraged that a man whom the U.S. claims has diplomatic immunity killed two Pakistanis.

Who were, it is true, thieves, and attempting to rob the man as he sat in his vehicle at a busy intersection in Lahore, but Raymond Davis, the man whose role with the U.S. Embassy has not been made quite clear, shot to kill, even shooting one of the men attempting to escape, in the back. These were not warning shots.

To compound the horror, another diplomatic car ostensibly coming to the aid of Mr. Davis, ran over and killed a third Pakistani. Now the United States is invoking diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention. However, in the clear-cut case of such reckless abandonment of restraint in the disproportionate response of Mr. Davis to the thieving aspirations of two men, does immunity apply?

Very few countries would agree that they would not prosecute such a criminal act on their soil. And an already tension-fraught relationship between the United States and Pakistan has been exacerbated by this incident. With Pakistan insisting the case must be dealt with by its courts, awaiting its foreign ministry response to whether it agrees that the man has diplomatic immunity.

And the United States insisting that the man is a legitimate diplomat with immunity, and that while what occurred was most unfortunate and regrettable, he should be turned over to U.S. authorities to enable them to deal with the matter. Insisting that they will institute their own investigation into the incident.

"We're going to be continuing to work with the Pakistani government to get this person released", insisted U.S. President Barack Obama. Diplomatic immunity was critical to ensure that there are no vulnerabilities in the protection of diplomats delivering tough messages not well taken by a host country, he claims.

"That's untenable. It means they can't do their job", he explained. Not much of an argument, nor an explanation for what occurred. Which was that an American was trigger-happy and dispatched two minor crooks. Were that to have happened in the United States with a foreign diplomat killing two Americans, we can be assured the U.S. would insist on revoking immunity.

In the United States, even a domestic incident is handled in a manner as to support the right to life of people, regardless of provocation. Had such an incident happened in any American state, with an armed man protecting his home from invaders by shooting them to death, it would have resulted in a criminal trial not favourable to the shooter.

That's Justice...

Ontario's disgraced former chief pathologist, Dr.Charles Smith, has officially had his license to practise medicine removed. It is amazing that someone so incompetent, who was very well aware of his lack of competence as a pathologist, was permitted to continue in a post that was so important. His supposedly expert testimony, supported by the trust placed in him as a provincial pathologist, ruined too many lives.

In the course of his professional activities he was responsible for the wrongful conviction of men and women whom he led judge and jury to believe had acted criminally in the deaths of young children. He effectively took away peoples' lives, branded them, through his uncompromising brand of pathological certainty (no pun here) that he had the uncorrupted answers to vexing questions of responsibility for unexplained deaths.

The province continues to pick up the pieces representing the disasters he brought to families. With convictions overturned after innocent people spent years in jail through their wrongful convictions, the province has paid out millions in compensation. As though money could somehow compensate for shame, grief and loss of liberty.

Dr. Smith was decidedly not the leading expert on pediatric forensic pathology he presented himself as, encouraged by his superiors who simply could not be bothered to ensure they had the right professional in the right place. Working out of the Chief Coroner's office he was responsible for inaccurate and often accusatory testimony in 20 investigations of death, which led to criminal charges against parents or other family members.

He believed implicitly in himself, despite his later admissions of insecurity. These professed misgivings never gave him pause to consider what kind of dreadful damage he was doing to other peoples' lives. In this he was horribly irresponsible, arrogant and deliberately oblivious to the harm he was imposing upon others.

He gave misleading evidence under oath. And now has been found guilty of professional misconduct and incompetence by the College of Physicians and Surgeons' disciplinary committee. Took long enough. The committee reached a deliberation that Dr. Smith was deserving of the "most severe" penalty possible, in officially revoking his license.

That will be the extent of the penalties imposed upon this disgusting caricature of a practising medical professional. "It's pretty difficult to charge someone for being incompetent", was the casual reflection of a lawyer. He has been and will continue to be sued in civil court by those whom his testimony caused such grief.

Any findings in favour of those who have sued this dreadful man have been settled by the Government of Ontario, the co-defendant in the suits.