Western Standard - January 04, 2023


The Gladue Principles are costing lives

Mentioned
Randall McKenzie Leonard Smith Jamie Tannis Gladue Manassee Ipealy Miles Sanderson Bobby Crane Gladue
MPC Daily Market Update Jan 3, 2023 MPC Daily Market Update Jan 5, 2023

Episode Stats


Length

5 minutes

Words per minute

184.7

Word count

1,006

Sentence count

64

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In the wake of the recent murder of a police officer, many are asking why Randall McKenzie was released from prison despite a long history of violent crimes. Why was he released? What role did the "Gladue Principles" play in his release, and why did Canada allow him to re-offend?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 So, I mean, Canadians were horrified with the murder of 28-year-old OPP Constable Greg Przala last December.
00:00:06.980 I mean, they were horrified then, and they were outraged to discover that one of the murderers had a long history of violent crimes, including charges for assault against a peace officer, yet he'd been released on bail.
00:00:18.520 Randall McKenzie, he'd been in and out of prison for violent crimes, he was banned from possessing firearms, and of course, despite all that, he was given bail after being arrested for violent crimes, and was in possession of a firearm.
00:00:30.680 Due to Canada's lax criminal justice system, an innocent young police officer was murdered by a man who never should have been free to commit the crime.
00:00:37.980 But why was Randall McKenzie repeatedly released, despite the clear danger he presented to the public at large?
00:00:44.220 Well, it all comes down to something called the Gladue Principles.
00:00:46.960 Those principles were created through a Supreme Court case in 1999.
00:00:51.640 Jamie Tanis-Gladu stabbed her common-law husband to death, and it was ruled that her Indigenous background should be taken into consideration upon sentencing.
00:01:00.160 The precedent and principles set were that lighter sentences should be given to Indigenous offenders by the courts whenever possible.
00:01:06.780 I mean, the Canadian government just recently, in 2020, spent $49.3 million to support the further implementation of those principles in the system, spreading it through prosecutors and judges.
00:01:16.960 During one of McKenzie's parole hearings, it was stated that he had suffered the negative impacts of colonialism, and he believed his grandfather might even have attended a residential school.
00:01:26.060 Yes, might have attended.
00:01:27.580 These things may or may not be true, but they don't have much bearing on whether or not McKenzie would be safe to release.
00:01:33.800 But that doesn't matter when it comes to the Gladue Principles.
00:01:35.960 In a 2012 court case, another case went to the Supreme Court with a man named Manassee Ipealy.
00:01:42.420 Ipealy? I could be mispronouncing it.
00:01:44.780 He was a repeat violent sex offender, though.
00:01:47.120 And the court reaffirmed, it went all the way to the Supreme Court, reaffirmed the Gladue Principles.
00:01:51.520 Well, he'd been released, re-arrested, and released and re-arrested several times since then.
00:01:56.020 A violent sexual offender.
00:01:57.520 Now, last May, in Calgary, a visually impaired senior citizen named Leonard Smith was randomly attacked while waiting for a train to go to work.
00:02:04.100 His throat was cut ear to ear, and he was lucky to survive.
00:02:07.180 The man who tried to kill Smith was a violent repeat offender named Bobby Crane.
00:02:11.040 Crane's going to be free in about 14 months.
00:02:13.620 In the judge world, we must take into account the history of colonialism.
00:02:18.320 Sound familiar?
00:02:18.720 Last September, Miles Sanderson, I hate to even say that man's name, he murdered 11 people on the James Smith Cree Nation in Saskatchewan.
00:02:27.240 He had 59 criminal convictions behind him, many of them violent.
00:02:31.780 And still, he got nothing but short sentences.
00:02:34.800 He was released, and it led to the deaths of 11 people.
00:02:38.000 Studying the impacts of Indigenous policies and history is important when we're trying to find ways to prevent crime.
00:02:42.400 Absolutely.
00:02:43.400 Indigenous people are definitely very overrepresented in the prison system.
00:02:46.860 The reason for that, though, is that Indigenous people are overrepresented when it comes to committing crimes.
00:02:52.640 The system's failing them, and we need to understand why.
00:02:55.500 But with all that said, it doesn't mean that Indigenous people convicted of violent crimes will be any less likely to re-offend upon release.
00:03:03.140 And when we're going to consider bail and sentencing or parole of violent offenders, the safety of the public has to come first,
00:03:09.260 no matter what the history might have been for the offender.
00:03:12.040 Most sex offenders of any race experienced abuse themselves as children, and this is tragic, but it doesn't mean the offender is any less dangerous.
00:03:19.360 The supposed intent of the Gladue Principles was to reduce the number of Indigenous people incarcerated.
00:03:24.460 Well, it's been 20 years, more than 20 years, since the Gladue ruling, and Indigenous people are as overrepresented in the system as ever, if not actually more.
00:03:31.560 So how long is it going to take to admit the principles have been a failure?
00:03:35.220 How many more people have to die?
00:03:37.360 Race-based policies in Canada created a terrible situation, and they created the situation that Indigenous people are living in.
00:03:43.880 More race-based policies, though, aren't going to solve the problem. 0.51
00:03:46.580 If we want to get to the root of why Indigenous people are disproportionately committing and being victims of crime, 1.00
00:03:51.360 we should be looking at repealing the Indian Act and working away from our system of apartheid called reserves. 0.93
00:03:55.980 There's clearly a problem in Canada as Indigenous people are the ones who are suffering from it.
00:03:59.820 In the meantime, though, we need to put public safety first.
00:04:03.320 We need to ensure dangerous offenders remain incarcerated no matter what their race and background are.
00:04:08.440 The Gladue Principles have to go.
00:04:11.820 Here's a quick look at commodity prices in Lethbridge today.
00:04:16.000 Cash barley is down another $4 at $4.43.
00:04:18.960 Feed wheat is down $3 at $4.45.
00:04:22.100 And corn is down $7 at $4.44 per metric tonne.
00:04:25.320 In the milling wheat markets, March Minneapolis futures drop $0.12.75 to $9.06.50 per bushel,
00:04:32.920 with local hard red spring bid for Jan-Feb movement at $1.155 per bushel.
00:04:37.640 Looking at canola, nearby futures are lower $1.40 at $8.70.20 per tonne,
00:04:43.560 with delivered values for February movement at $19.50 per bushel.
00:04:46.880 In the pulse markets, nearby red lentils are trading at $0.32.50 per pound,
00:04:52.480 and yellow peas are higher at $0.25 at $13 per bushel.
00:04:57.260 And in the cattle markets, February live cattle added $0.62.50 at $1.57.48 per 100 weight.
00:05:04.160 For more information on pricing or picked-up options,
00:05:07.700 give me a call at 403-394-1711.
00:05:12.720 I'm Matt Busicum at Marketplace Commodities.
00:05:15.360 Accurate, real-time marketing information and pricing options.
00:05:18.720 You can become a Western Standard member for just $10 a month,
00:05:21.500 or $99 a year for unlimited access.
00:05:24.100 Scottish coseans.
00:05:25.540 八者数 forú've been aolled program for aiez茎,