Canada has issues too……
I’m going to send you a link to a story from the Toronto Star. Be prepared to first shout “WTF?”, then be immensely angry, then shout “No, Srsly……WTF?”
The story is here.
A Kitchener father is angry at police after he was arrested at his child’s school and later strip-searched at the police station, all because his 4-year-old daughter drew a picture of a gun in class.
“I’m picking up my kids and then, next thing you know, I’m locked up,” Jessie Sansone, 26, said of his ordeal on Wednesday. “I was in shock. This is completely insane.”
The school principal, police and child welfare officials, however, all stand by their actions. They say they had to investigate to determine whether there was a gun in Sansone’s house that children had access to.
My favorite line in the whole article?
After he was released, Sansone was asked to sign a paper authorizing a search of his home. He signed, even though he didn’t have to, he said.
So yeah, they got him to sign a paper authorizing the search they had already performed. You know, so that he can’t sue them. This is monumentally ridiculous. I wish I had Ed Brayton on my Facebook. He’d get a kick out of this.
In the same local newspaper I found this news story, there was a great piece on the front page interviewing our Chief of Police about Bill C-30 (A Canadian Bill that would force ISP’s to keep data on their customers internet usage that police could access on request). He made it clear that he supports the initiative.
You know, because police would never overreach their authority or abuse their power.
That’s just nuts!
Maya Fitz
February 28, 2012
Utterly insane. So now you can get arrested and molested by the police just on the vaguest wiff of a possibility that there might be a firearm somewhere in the vicinity???
banzaibob
February 29, 2012
If you’re not doing anything illegal, then you have nothing to hide!
Besides, it’s not just the police – it isn’t like we have the most secretive, authoritarian government in the history of Canada – one that is willing to use almost any tactic against its political opponents in order to obtain and maintain their grip on power in this country. What could possibly go wrong if we relent as they grant themselves carte blanche to monitor the Canadian populace?
sinned34
February 29, 2012
That is pretty messed up.
Who planted this seed of insanity? Is this a growing paranoia in Canada or just an isolated incident?
zqtx
February 29, 2012
To the best of my knowledge it is an isolated incident. Here is what I think happened- In Ontario, Children’s Aid has a virtually carte blanche mandate. They can do things that would be illegal for police to do. We do this, of course, to “protect the children”. So I think that a overreacting teacher thought that it might be good to call CA to report a suspicion, CA called the police and asked them if they would like to subvert a citizens Charter rights on their authority and the police said “You Betcha!!” This incident, if it gets some legs, will hopefully make people realize why you cannot give extraordinary powers to any agency- abuse is inevitable.
The fact that police made the guy consent to a search they had already done is obscene to me. In Canada, you must have a search warrant, permission, or reasonable and probable grounds to believe that the person is harboring something illegal. Anybodies kids could have drawn their parents with a gun. My kids could have drawn me with a gun. Kids also draw Unicorns, and monsters, and aquamarine two headed cows. Should we take it on authority that parents are harboring any of these things?
George W.
March 1, 2012
Thus is the problem with zero-tolerance policies. They tie people’s hands preventing them from using common sense. “Well, it’s written on the paper, I know it’s ridiculous, but, it’s in ink. What can I do?”
John Barron
February 29, 2012