Complicit in Evil

I'm so angry that I can hardly write a coherent sentence. In the name of public safety, Canada will no longer seek clemency for its citizens who are sentenced to death.

This is appalling. Canada has outlawed the death penalty, and rightly so. Killing a human being is barbaric, no matter what they may have done. Ronald Smith is no threat to anyone's public safety when he's sitting in a jail cell -- hell, I'm not even saying we should be bringing him back to a Canadian jail cell. But taking steps to prevent his execution is something Canada must try to do if it is to maintain any moral high ground where capital punishment is concerned.

I hate that this is now my country's position. It makes me complicit in the deaths of Canadian citizens. I am so angry that political considerations have left this government in power long enough to make this policy change.

Yes, Tories in the House, Ronald Smith is a murderer. I'm not denying that. But if we allow him to die without trying to prevent it, we too are murderers.

This is not just a political decision to help us suck up to the Americans. This is a moral decision, and it is breaking my heart, and it is breaking the moral fibre of my country. How proud can I be to be a Canadian when we are willing to stand by and let our citizens die, contingent only on a politcal evaluation of a country's "rule of law"?

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