Jeff Burgar
So just exactly when do things get so bad, people start saying “Enough is enough?”
I understand that last week, Facebook kabillionaire Mark Zuckerberg lost maybe $10 billion, on paper, when tech stocks tanked. I guess that means he won’t be able to hand out that $3 per hour wage increase I heard he promised his volunteer army of moderators. Or no 60 more rooms to his getaway on Maui. Both will have to wait another year or two.
Maybe that’s not quite the amount of time it will take another 50 or so court judges across Canada to follow in the footsteps of an Ontario judge.
The significance of 50? Well, it’s one of those things some people call a “critical mass.” You know, when you have enough of something, like uranium or pasta, it reaches a critical mass. With enough, you can have an atomic bomb or maybe open a restaurant.
Got that? So, I’m thinking if you get a critical mass of judges, something might happen. In a good way, not the bad way things are going now.
The bad way? Well, if you haven’t been living under a rock the past 40 or so years, you might have noticed crime is a growth industry. In fact, everything about crime is growing. People are making money from crime. Lots of money. It isn’t just criminals.
We need more cops. We need prosecutors. We need clerks to push all the paper. Detectives to investigate criminals. Lawyers to defend them. Politicians to tell us they are going to get tough on crime. Then, behind the scenes, say it is too expensive to keep people in jail, so they have ways to let them out or not put them there in the first place.
We haven’t even started to talk about chemists cooking up drugs, bankers laundering money, fences dealing with stolen goods. Dealers and enforcers. More cops to investigate. Even the ‘oh, the poor criminals need help’ people are a booming industry. Heck, are any of these people even interested in fixing problems?
Is Zuckerberg interested in making less money? Or 28 rooms instead of 60?
Despite a bit of an uprising in places like Cold Lake and Peace River, it might be really, really hard to get a critical mass of anything to solve crime problems.
Yet, here is a judge in Ontario. Says he, “I’m tired of the same old song and dance.”
“Every drug addict that comes before me saying, ‘Oh, your honour, I’m so sorry I beat the snot out of that person’ or ‘I’m so sorry I drove into that person’ or ‘I’m so sorry I robbed those two pharmacies with a handgun.’”
Of course, the perp’s lawyer brought up the mandatory “difficult life, disruptive childhood, witness to abuse and the usual litany of bad schools and drugs.”
Kleenexes are always handy to dab at tears, a little side hustle all by itself perhaps.
The judge finally rose to the occasion. Eight years in jail!
In some places, which also curiously have little crime, punishment is as minor as having an arm cut off, or as drastic as being beheaded.
We, of course, in the West, are so much more civilized. “Here’s the keys. Smile for the camera. Please leave my family alone.”
So, good for this judge! One down! Forty-nine to go!