Whistling on Death Row

Let's make no mistake: the 1982 execution-style murders of Harvey Mad Man and Thomas Running Rabbit by Ronald Smith of Red Deer Alberta are an atrocity. However, there's no difference between marching someone into the woods and murdering them and marching someone down death row and murdering them on behalf of the state. There's a reason why Canada does not have Capital Punishment, and in reversing Canada's long-standing policy of pleading for clemency in death row cases, the Harper government has either forgotten that reason, or they're willfully ignoring it.

Perhaps it's yet another cynical ploy to shore up the Tories reactionary base, perhaps it's an another attempt to show the Bush administration that Ottawa is willing to 'play ball', unlike the Liberals who criticized Bush when in 1999, as Governor of Texas, committed the state-sponsored murder of Canadian Stanley Faulder. Maybe our government just gets off on watching people get killed, which would explain a lot of other Conservative policies, like the occupation of Afghanistan and closing safe injection sites. Will somebody get these people a copy of Faces of Death so they can stop playing their dirty little political games with the lives of Canadians?

If our government doesn't stand up for Canada's disdain for state-sponsored murder, what other fundamentals of Canadian society will they refuse to stand up for next?