Canadian Convulsions > Is Canada turning into the wild, wild west? This weekend voted 'yes'

 

— Colby Cosh

NP Platformed

The Opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre, newly restored to the House of Commons by the voters of Battle River—Crowfoot, Alberta, made some public remarks defending the use of force against burglars by homeowners. The Justice Minister Sean Fraser, sensing an opportunity but perhaps failing to read the proverbial room, replied indignantly on social media:  

 

“This isn’t the Wild West..."

His quip was followed by a weekend of appalling crimes across the country, some of them in fact having a disturbing Wild West flavour, darn the luck. 

In Vaughan, Ont., a homeowner died from “trauma to his body” (?) after armed burglars broke into his house and threatened his child. This incident is not to be confused with the four armed and masked men storming a house in Markham, Ont. And in Welland, Ont., an enterprising solo practitioner broke into a home and allegedly sexually assaulted a toddler. (A neighbour told the National Post that the accused had previously been convicted of a similar sex offence against her son, had received an 18-month prison sentence and had been turned loose in 12. Real solutions!) 

 

In London, Ont., which isn’t the Wild West, there was nonetheless a gunfight downtown that involved at least 11 rounds being fired. Guelph, Ont., which also isn’t the Wild West, got off easy, although the 80-year-old woman beaten unconscious in broad daylight didn’t. Renfrew, Ont., isn’t the Wild West, but two people allegedly broke into a hotel room to bear-spray the occupants and steal stuff. In west-but-not-wild Abbotsford, B.C., a house was riddled with bullets while its occupants slept. There have been a few apparent arsons, possibly involving homicidal intent — Richmond Hill, Ont.; Windsor, Ont.; and a fatal one in Edmonton in which a shouting match may have been ended, unanswerably, with a Molotov cocktail. Of course, I don’t know whether you could really say Edmonton isn’t the Wild West. A woman here was shot to death in her SUV over the weekend on the city’s historic main drag, Jasper Avenue. 

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