How about those mandatory minimums?

CP reports,

MONTREAL – After preying on 285 young girls, and getting them to remove their clothes in front of their computer, a convicted cyber-predator received his sentence Thursday: two years in prison.

Philippe Truchon, who used Facebook and chat sites to convince adolescent girls to take off their clothes, was handed that penalty at the Montreal courthouse.

The sentence was far more lenient than the five years Crown prosecutors has asked for.

In the 40th Parliament, Bill C-54 was in Senate committee when the opposition pulled down the government.

Bill C-54 sought, among other things,

to increase or impose mandatory minimum penalties for certain sexual offences with respect to children;

Currently, mandatory minimum sentences are not in place for luring a child. Bill C-54 would have put in place a mandatory minimum sentence for this offence. If the law had applied then, on indictment on four counts of cyber-luring (s. 172.1) to which Truchon plead guilty, he would have received a minimum of four years in prison. The judge in this case would have had no other option than to rule that this sentence be served. But, we then learned that this case was even worse after Truchon plead guilty.

During sentencing arguments last week, [the judge] Rheault was informed Truchon approached 285 teenage girls between March and July 2008 through social networks such as Facebook.

Four counts plead, 285 victims, 2 years in prison.

This is not justice.

It’s time to re-introduce and expeditiously pass C-54.

Lemon, lime and whine

In America, they sue when they aren’t warned that the McDonald’s coffee is hot. In Canada, they sue when they can’t get their Pepsi in French:

When Michel Thibodeau couldn’t order a 7-Up in French on an Air Canada flight in spring 2009, the federal-government worker didn’t just grumble about poor service. He and his wife Lynda sued the airline for more than half a million dollars.

They weren’t just upset about the can of pop. The soft-drink incident was one of half a dozen times the couple said they were denied service in French over the course of two trips they took with Air Canada and its contract carrier, Jazz, in 2009.

“If I take a flight and I’m not served in the language of my choice, and I don’t do anything about it, then my right is basically dead,” said Mr. Thibodeau, who is fluently bilingual. “I was not asking for anything other than what I was already entitled to. I have a right to be served in French.”

A Federal Court judge on Wednesday agreed, granting the couple $12,000 in compensation for four occasions when Air Canada failed to serve them in French. The judge also ordered the airline to apologize to the couple and introduce a system to track potential violations of its language duties.

A friend reminded me of a quote from Prime Minister Stephen Harper that might be related,

“After all, enforced national bilingualism in this country isn’t mere policy. It has attained the status of a religion. It’s a dogma which one is supposed to accept without question.” — Stephen Harper

Ahem. Nothing to see here folks…

Discriminatory hiring in the government

Here’s a good job that may interest you.

A Corrections Officer making $59,513 to $74,647 per year would be a great paying job for most Canadians. You must apply by July 24th to the Correctional Service of Canada.

However, under the Who Can Apply section we see the following restrictions. Surely these must be based upon learned skill, educational qualification, or the content of one’s character? No, some particular hiring restrictions are based on the colour of one’s skin.

Persons residing or employed in Moncton, NB and within a 400 kilometer radius* of Moncton, NB, within Canadian territory, extending to, amongst others, Miscou Centre, NB, Cape Tormentine, NB Seal Cove, NB, Forest City, NB, Connors, NB, North Cape and EastPoint, PE, Yarmouth, NS, Main-à-Dieu, NS, Leslie, QC, Cap-des-Rosiers, QC, Saint-Antonin, QC who are members of one of the following Employment Equity groups: Aboriginal persons** Visible minorities***

Those asterisks helpfully let us know what these terms mean,

**An Aboriginal person is a North American Indian or a member of a First Nation, Métis or Inuit. North American Indians or members of a First Nation include treaty, status or registered Indians, as well as non-status and non-registered Indians. Effective January 1, 2010, all departments and agencies under the Public Service Employment Act are required to use an Affirmation of Aboriginal Affiliation Form (AAAF)for appointment processes in which the area of selection is restricted to Aboriginal peoples only or to employment equity groups that include Aboriginal peoples. The AAAF is a condition of appointment: it must be completed and signed by the candidate before or at the same time as the Letter of Offer. For more information, consult the Public Service Commission’s Web site on AAAF.

***A person in a visible minority group is someone (other than an Aboriginal person as defined above) who is non-white in colour/race, regardless of place of birth. The visible minority group includes: Black, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, South Asian-East Indian (including Indian from India; Bangladeshi; Pakistani; East Indian from Guyana, Trinidad, East Africa; etc.), Southeast Asian (including Burmese; Cambodian; Laotian; Thai; Vietnamese; etc.) non-white West Asian, North African or Arab (including Egyptian; Libyan; Lebanese; etc.), non-white Latin American (including indigenous persons from Central and South America, etc.), person of mixed origin (with one parent in one of the visible minority groups listed above), other visible minority group.

This issue has come up before and a review was promised by Stockwell Day, then Minister of the Treasury Board.

“While we support diversity in the public service, we want to ensure that no Canadian is barred from opportunities in the public service based on race or ethnicity,” Day said in a statement.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, who was also involved in the decision to review the government’s hiring practices, which give priority to qualified applicants from minority groups, said everyone should be considered for federal jobs.

“We are in favour of appropriate diversity in the public service and reasonable efforts to achieve it, but we don’t think any Canadians should be excluded from applying within their government,” he told CBC News. “It’s OK to encourage people from different backgrounds to apply but in our judgment it goes too far to tell people that if they are not of a particular race or ethnicity they cannot apply [for a job] that is actually funded by their tax dollars.”

A representative workplace that doesn’t discriminate is an ideal that should be held by everyone. What is the progress of this review?