When will the rights of innocent families transcend those of criminals?
To the Expositor:
I note with both dismay and anger that convicted murderer and rapist Paul Bernardo has applied for day parole and that forces me to ask whether we will ever get our priorities in the right order? Why are we spending public time, money and effort to hold a bail hearing for an evil, malevolent man who has done incalculable harm when there are so many folk out there who desperately need urgent and immediate help? There are hundreds, nay, probably thousands of needy Canadian citizens who are homeless, who don’t have enough to eat, who suffer mental illnesses or live with a host of other daily tribulations. There is the crying need for an inquiry into the loss of so many Native women across the country. There are First Nations communities where people are living in third-world conditions–and the list goes on! These are the innocent folk who need assistance and surely their needs should be our priority.
And there are other crucial questions; why is the system apparently more concerned with the rights of criminals than with the suffering of the innocent families they have harmed? Why should victims be forced to relive their agonizing experiences—the inevitable result of the Bernardo case being, so to speak, reopened? Why can we not enact legislation to prevent such travesties from happening? Surely, when sentenced, Paul Bernardo should have been told that he would never leave jail alive!
Sincerely,
Eric Balkind
Gore Bay
