Finally - justice for Latimer

A whole lot of nonsense has been spouted about Robert Latimer, the Saskatchewan farmer who took the life of his severely disabled daughter.

In spite of the clamor of misguided disability rights activists, the original jury strongly recommended clemency and a sentence of no more than a year. The judge agreed but was hamstrung by a law which compelled him to hand down a minimum sentence of 10 years. He did but he strongly recommended Latimer be paroled within a year.

The judge and the jury who heard all of the testimony in the trial were, and surely are, the ones in the best position to deliver society's judgement in this case. They, more than any others, know all of the facts, heard all of the evidence, and had the benefit of seeing the prosecution and defense evidence subjected to rigorous cross examination.

However, instead of heeding the judge and jury, the disability rights and the national parole board zealots have demonstrated appalling behaviour and attitudes. Both have been hell bent on punitive retribution synonymous with mob mentality rather than the judicious, reasoned opinions Canadians expect from those given special standing to reach judgements on behalf of all of us.

The disability rights people are the easier to forgive. Obviously driven by a terror that disabled people have somehow been landed with a bulls eye squarely on their backs, they rattled the sabres trying to convince all Canadians that every disabled man, woman and child was somehow now more likely to be murdered.

Applying that same thinking, every woman ought to live in terror that the men in her life will rape or beat her because some men do rape and beat the women in their lives. All mounties in northern Alberta should fear all other men in their 40s who live on farms because four mounties were shot and killed by a man in his 40s living on a farm. It is fatuous thinking. Much worse, it must have been extremely unsettling to disabled people to hear their friends and family saying that because Robert Latimer believed in euthanasia, suddenly they were at risk of their own family doing the same thing.

What lunacy and shame on them all, well-meaning though they may be. Robert Latimer killed his own daughter because, he said, of the circumstances that young Tracy was in and because as her father, he felt she faced years of incredible suffering before she would die of natural causes some 10 or 15 years in the future. After seven years in jail, and with three more to go on close supervision before his sentence is completed, he has hardly "gotten away with it". Seven years in jail is not what I would call an attractive model people are likely to replicate.

It is interesting that in all of the nonsense spouted about the Latimer case, no one has brought up the fact that every day in every city in this country people make decisions to turn off machines, to withhold possible treatments and drugs that can sustain and prolong life in order to let people die. We do it because it is humane and we do it to prevent needless suffering and we do it because there appears to be no hope. We do it in the hospital or in a home and with a doctor's agreement and the assistance of the medical professions.

The doctors looking after Tracy Latimer held out no hope to her family that she would ever be cured, would ever be able to live without intense and increasing pain, or would likely live much past her teen years. In the face of all the information, and in the face of the suffering he was witness to every day, her father decided to end her life painlessly. It is a judgement we do not believe he is entitled to make and he's been jailed because of it.

While the disabled rights folk are perhaps more forgiveable for withholding from Latimer the mercy and consideration we give to cold blooded killers who take innocent lives in public shootings, by drunk driving or through other, many forms of negligence, there is no forgiving or excusing the national parole board.

Their job is two-fold. They are to assess the risk to the public if an offender is released and they are to judge whether being released will assist the inmate in reintegrating into society. They are not there to act as avenging angels. They are not there to act like some prissy teacher from a bygone era, keeping recalcitrant students in after school because their attitude didn't please or because an apology was judged to be insufficiently grovelling.

The sanctimonious bullshit spouted by Kelly-Ann Speck, Maryam Majedi and Ben Andersen, the three twits who sat on the parole panel, was enough to call for their immediate dismissal. In the face of the very strong recommendations of the judge and jury, and in spite of the recommendation of a parole officer to release Latimer on parole because he represented no risk to society or himself, these three clowns decided otherwise.

When asked if he thought he was above the law, Latimer said "the laws are not as important as Tracy was." Which seems consistent with a man who did what he did out of love, however misguided.

When they started to delve into psycho babble, Latimer refused to go along, saying his thoughts and feelings were private and his case had been exploited by the whole damn country - and it has been.

Speck was quoted as saying "We are left with the feeling you have not developed the kind of sufficient insight and understanding of your actions," that would presumably have led to parole if he had folded and given them the answers they were determined to get before releasing him.

Thankfully, yesterday smarter heads applied themselves to Latimer's case and reversed the decision, saying the original three stooges were unreasonable and unsupported in their statements and did not give fair consideration to the fact Latimer is no risk.

In another bizarre statement, after the appeal panel ordered Latimer's release, Jim Derksen of the Council for Canadians with Disabilities said he had no problem with the parole but worried that Latimer will spend his time in Ottawa lobbying MPs to change the law to eliminate minimum sentences for murder.

Is there something in the water these people drink? Seven years behind bars and Latimer will now jump into a lobbying campaign? As the poet said, no one ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the vast majority of the public. Too bad the stupidity is overly represented on the parole board and in the disability activist groups.

Can we expect Harpoon to fire the three parole board members? He hasn't hesitated to fire senior public servants for a whole lot less stupidity than these three have shown. But I won't hold my breath.