Understanding Canada 101
In what feels like another life time ago I was a law clerk in a criminal practice in downtown Toronto. There are only a small number of cases which I worked on which have remained paused in my memory. One of them concerned an accused father who had chained his 16 year old daughter to a poll in the basement of the family home for weeks. She was given a bucket and a bottle of water daily. In a testament to her father’s love and concern a small plate of food was brought to her in the evening. She had to sleep on the concrete floor of the basement chained to the poll.
The father was genuinely outraged when police charged him with a variety of offences. He considered this the ultimate infringement of his parental rights and for the life of him he simply could not grasp the nature of the crimes he stood accused of. Why this case stuck so seriously in my memory was the father’s outrage.
He really had no idea the extreme measures he took to discipline his ‘wayward’ daughter was never allowable or justified under Canadian law. I have no idea how the case was ultimately resolved and for my purposes – it doesn’t much matter. Although, what does matter is that immigrants to this country fully realize we are a wide, diverse place and while there are obviously similarities in civil or criminal code offences between Canada and the so-called ‘motherland’ (think theft/robbery) there are also potentially a number of what may be unique rights granted in Canada to children, women, wives, minorities and gays/lesbians.
And yes, I do think it’s of paramount importance to mention rights granted to gays and lesbians in any documents prepared for immigrants to understand and discover Canada. Considering the vast majority of the world’s countries do not extend or grant the most basic legal protection to homosexuals. In fact, as long as there are countries which still consider homosexuality to be a criminal violation punishable by death; I’d say it is of the utmost importance to emphasize this potential difference between an immigrant’s ‘motherland’ and his adopted land. All of which makes me emphasize another reason why I feel Stephen Harper’s government is still not ready for prime time nor able to adequately safeguard and protect the rights of all citizens of Canada.
