Dion accuses Tories of having hidden agenda on death penalty

Is Canada headed toward implementing the death penalty?
I’m not sure I agree with the above statement or necessarily agree with Doin’s accusations that the Tories have a hidden agenda on the death penalty. Yes, in Canada there is no death penalty and there is a lot of crime and hateful crimes happening here. I am not claiming to be a fan of capital punishment especially since in the past few years there have been more than a few cases that proved authorities had the wrong person for crimes committed long ago. These people lost a majority of their lives in jail serving time for something they did not do. If you are deemed guilty in this country, you could spend up to a life sentence in a jail. This is a cost paid for by the taxpayer and it doesn’t come cheap. I just heard that the government spends more money on sustaining the jail system than they do for native programs. The numbers seem higher for the native programs but almost half of the money goes to administrative costs and fees, lawyers etc. Ronald Smith is a Canadian charged with 2 counts of murder because he killed 2 Montana men. He was hitch hiking and the men picked him up. He ended up kidnapping them and wanted their car so he took them both behind bushes and shot them execution style.

Respecting the law of the land….
Countries have laws that even if you don’t agree with must be respected. If you don’t respect another country for their laws, you should pay the price. If visiting another country that has capital punishment, you as a visitor should not be doing anything that can put you in death row position. This doesn’t mean we are headed towards reinstating the death penalty here in Canada. It really tells me that the government feels that Smith is guilty of his crime. It is also true that we are multicultural and we respect other traditions and laws. We practice our own here and others practice their own elsewhere.

Where do you draw the line?
Not reaching out for a fellow Canadian confined to another country in a prison is unfortunate but we would be defending someone who committed an indefensible crime. He would end up coming back to Canada and spending the rest of his life in prison for his crime, a crime he committed while in a foreign land that allows capital punishment. I think that if the government reaches out and helps Smith then that would set precedence for the future. Given the details of this case it is best to let the American authorities deal with this Canadian man.

Spin Doctors doing their thing...
I also think this is just a spin put together by Dion's people. There is an election looming so this is just the beginning of putdowns and shakeups from the opposition parties.

Read this story and decide yourself.