Den Tandt: Canada’s collective rights must be applied with collective sanity

BY MICHAEL DEN TANDT, POSTMEDIA NEWS MAY 6, 2012 3:04 PM

William Swinimer, 19, poses for a photo at Fox Point Beach near his Nova Scotia home on Thursday, May 3, 2012. Swinimer was suspended Forest Heights Community School in Chester Basin for wearing a T-shirt that says Life is Wasted Without Jesus.

Photograph by: Ryan Taplin, for National Post

Canada, we like to believe, is among the freest societies on Earth. It would offend many of us greatly to think that, for example, we are a bunch of whinny-babies who go snivelling off to mama — or the societal equivalents, a human-rights court, or the court of public opinion — whenever we hear or read something that bruises our feelings.

Facebook, God knows (I invoke His name intending no offence, overt or implied, to secular humanists, agnostics, atheists, Unitarians, communists, or believers who take His or Its name to be Allah, Yahweh, Atman, Odin, Zeus, Wicca, Manitou, the Tao or the Force) is an incubator for ideas of every kind, some outrageous and offensive, if not repulsive. On Twitter, otherwise respectable Canadians, including members of Parliament, curse like sailors and trash-talk each other in the basest of terms.

So how can it be that, in 2012, a 19-year-old high-school student from Nova Scotia was suspended from school, for wearing a “Life is wasted without Jesus” T-shirt, on grounds this was offensive? And how can it be that on the opposite coast Wally Oppal, whose life has recently been given over to heading the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry in Vancouver, has been called out for taking a bit part in a movie, produced by a friend, because some don’t like the storyline?

Google the young man, his name is William Swinimer. He appears just as you would expect him to: Clean-cut, fresh-faced, the kind of teenager every mother dreams she’ll have. He may as well have the words future solid citizen tattooed on his forehead. As young Swinimer himself pointed out last week: Kids at his school can sport Satanic motifs, a hip part of popular culture, without apparent difficulty. The Twilight books, which glorify vampirism? No doubt that’s OK. But an overt expression of Christianity? Tut, tut.

The reason for the fuss, ostensibly, was that another student or students complained. They took the T-shirt to mean “Your life is wasted without Jesus.” This was deemed judgmental. Local administrators then handed the matter to a “human rights expert,” who was to determine if the T-shirt could indeed have been offensive. Then, in the face of growing public criticism, the South Shore Regional School Board in Nova Scotia backed off. Young Swinimer is expected to return to school Monday, sporting his Jesus T-shirt. Hats off to him.

Here’s how the fuss might have been avoided: They could have told the kids who complained to stop being so damned sensitive.

Ah, I hear you say: What about enforcing secularity in education? Well, yes, public education must be secular. But it must also be respectful of individual freedoms. This was not about religious instruction, or the mass distribution of bibles, or allowances made for formal prayer. This was a T-shirt. What’s the next battleground — the ornamental crucifix? And if we go there, then mustn’t we also single out Islamic head scarves, and traditional Mennonite clothing as well? What about the Yarmulke? Perhaps while we’re at it we could reopen the 25-year-old debate about turbans in the RCMP.

In a free country, in which certain rights are inalienable, including freedom of religion, freedom of speech and protection from discrimination, it follows that these rights must be applied with common sense — or they will often be in conflict. Where did common sense disappear to, albeit temporarily, in the Swinimer case? And where did it go in the case of Oppal, criticized for taking a tiny part in a film, on his day off, because its plot features, gasp, murder?

Oppal’s critics have apparently forgotten that murder is a recurring theme in fiction, TV and film. Shakespeare even wrote about it sometimes. The critics are reported to be members of the families of victims of serial killer Robert Pickton. All reasonable people empathize with their pain. But being a victim does not give a private citizen the right to dictate the private habits of public officials. Or at least, it shouldn’t. Should it?

It was just two years ago that right-wing commentator Ann Coulter was hounded out of Canada, virtually, by ideological thugs at the University of Ottawa. Partly in response to that shameful episode, a movement emerged to have Section 13 of Canada’s Human Rights Act — a censorship provision — repealed. Conservative backbench MP Brian Storseth has a private member’s bill before the House of Commons now to effect this, and the Harper government is supporting him. His chances of success are good.

But none of that, worthy though it may be, means much of anything, unless there is a collective sanity — call it common sense, fairness, good old Canadian reasonableness — underlying the administration of such questions. Simply put, there are too many of us in this country, from too many different places, comprising too many different belief systems, to get our knickers in a twist over how people dress, or their choice of hobby, or their preference in films. Live and let live.

We’ve had the Charter of Rights for 30 years. Shouldn’t that much be obvious by now?

mdentandt(at)postmedia.com

Twitter.com/mdentandt

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Reward offered in 1975 killing of Matsqui girl

BY MIKE RAPTIS, THE PROVINCE MARCH 8, 2012

Kathryn-Mary Herbert was murdered in Matsqui in 1975 and the case is still unsolved. This is a photo her aged 11 (her age when she disappeared).

Photograph by: Handout, Submitted

It’s been over 36 years since her daughter’s unsolved murder, but Chilliwack’s Shari Greer still grieves — and refuses to give up hope.

On Thursday, Greer will make another appeal to the public to help find the killer of her 11-year-old daughter Kathryn-Mary Herbert, and offer a reward for the 1975 homicide: one of B.C.’s most infamous cold-case files.

Greer has done everything a mother would do after losing a child.

She reported Kathryn-Mary missing the same September night in 1975 her daughter was expected to return home from a friend’s house.

She has kept up with a police investigation that went cold decades ago, even accusing police of bungling the case at times.

She has turned to private detectives, politicians and the media.

When reached by The Province at her Chilliwack home Wednesday afternoon, Greer said she still doesn’t know what she’ll say when the cameras are on her Thursday afternoon at RCMP headquarters in Vancouver.

“I don’t know what to say, darling,” she said in a hushed, motherly tone. “Honey, I want the focus on my daughter, not on anything else,” said Greer.

Greer said she has been instructed by the RCMP to wait until Thursday before bringing her daughter’s cold case back onto the front burner.

Two rewards totalling $2,000 were also offered in November 1975.

On Sept. 24, 1975, Kathryn-Mary disappeared near her Matsui First Nation home — only to be found murdered two months later by a group of band members preparing an ancient burial rite.

An autopsy of the freckle-faced, brown curly-haired girl revealed a fractured skull and broken jaw.

A hunt for Kathryn-Mary’s killer turned up suspects, but no arrests were made. A convicted rapist who was dating a girl living in Greer’s house in 1975 was a suspect. He has since raped again, but is now a free man.

Less than a year after Kathryn-Mary was found, another girl — Theresa Hildebrandt of Matsqui — also disappeared.

Hildebrandt’s body was found four years later, also killed by a blow to the head and buried in a shallow grave.

The tragic story of Greer’s life doesn’t end with the loss of her daughter.

In 1974, her nine-year-old son Donnie drowned in a gravel pit.

In 1983, her son Butch, 21, committed suicide.

“He killed himself because he felt he’d failed his sister. He couldn’t solve her murder,” she told The Province in 2004.

Greer dedicated a web page to her three dead children, and began a “Garden of Tears” at her Chilliwack home in May 2003 as a memorial for her kids and others who have suffered the same unjust fate.

People have come from as far away as Australia to paint stones and dedicate them to lost loved ones.

Greer has dedicated her life to finding Kathryn-Mary’s killer, though she didn’t expect the hunt to last nearly four decades.

She ends a Nov. 23, 1975, poem she penned one week after her daughter’s body was found with the following lines:

“No matter what or who he is,

Nor, how much time has past (sic)

The Police will surely catch him

The man — who killed my Kath.”

mraptis@theprovince.com

twitter.com/mike_raptis

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Skirmish over Det. Const. Lori Shenher’s book: Reposted

MWCI: Skirmish over Shenher’s book

May 4, 2012 in Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, News, Opinion

Although the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry is not sitting this week (the courtroom is unavailable), things are happening behind the scenes. Other participants have objected to our attempts to have Det. Cst. Lori Shenher’s book marked as an exhibit and to our attempts to have the expert opinion of Dennis Murray, Q.C. admitted into evidence. The Commission has requested written submissions on these points and disagreed with our position that oral submissions should be made in the public hearings. As this Commission of Inquiry is intended to be public in nature, we are posting our brief reply submission below.

The Commission has advised us that there will be six more hearing days (May 9, 11, 14-17) before final submissions are delivered and has indicated that it will be putting 19 witnesses on the stand then.

Attorney General/Solicitor General/Minister of Justice Shirley Bond has advised our clients that the Commission has not requested an extension of time to deliver its report. We have pressed for an extension on the basis that there are a number of witnesses that need to be heard from and that the rush to get the hearings over with is unseemly, unfair and offensive.

…..

MISSING WOMEN COMMISSION OF INQUIRY

REPLY SUBMISSIONS OF THE FAMILIES: ADMISSIBILITY OF EXHIBIT “BB”

These submissions are made on behalf of the families of Dianne Rock, Georgina Papin, Marnie Frey, Cynthia Dawn Feliks, Cara Ellis, Mona Wilson, Helen May Hallmark, Dawn Crey, Angela Hazel Williams, Jacqueline Murdock, Brenda Wolfe, Andrea Joesbury, Elsie Sebastian, Heather Bottomley, Andrea Borhaven, Tiffany Drew, Angela Jardine, Stephanie Lane, Tanya Holyk, Olivia Williams, Debra Jones, Janet Henry, Maria Laura Laliberte, Serena Abotsway, and Diana Melnick (the “Families”) in reply to the submissions of the participants who have objected to marking Exhibit “BB”, a written manuscript prepared for publication by Det. Cst. Shenher in 2002-2003, as an exhibit.

Exhibit “BB” is indistinguishable from at least 34 other witness statements that have already been adduced in evidence and marked as exhibits. In fact, it is better evidence, because it was prepared earlier than most of those exhibits were.

It is respectfully submitted that there is no principled reason why the Commission should not mark Exhibit “BB” with a number and consider it as part of the body of evidence to be weighed in fulfilling its fact-finding mandate.

It is trite that the strict evidentiary rules of evidence do not apply to this Commission. The Commissioner has asserted that the test of admissibility is whether the evidence may be of assistance to him.

E.g., Transcript, April 10, 2012, p. 10, ll. 19-21

Lori Shenher, a former journalist who became the lead VPD investigator in the missing women investigation, wrote a nearly three hundred page first person account of her experience on the investigation with the intention of publishing it as a book. Read as a whole, it is a candid, unvarnished description of the sexist, male-dominated dysfunctional culture within the ranks of the VPD that prevented her and her female supervisor from adequately investigating Robert William Pickton’s role in the disappearances. Her observation that her male VPD colleagues “wouldn’t have pissed on these women if they were on fire” speaks volumes. Det. Cst. Shenher’s account stands in marked contrast to Deputy Chief LePard’s selective, revisionist historical account released for public consumption eight years after the fact.

Shenher’s manuscript will assist us in making final submissions to the Commission on behalf of the Families and in framing suggested recommendations so future cases are handled differently. More importantly, it will be of great assistance to the Commission, with counsel’s input, in understanding why the investigations were handled so poorly by the VPD. It meets this Commission’s test for admissibility.

It is understandable that the objections to marking Exhibit “BB” as an exhibit are so vociferous. After all, the damning document’s very existence was denied or covered up for some eight years and Shenher’s counsel, VPD counsel and Commission counsel inexplicably failed to disclose the manuscript despite our November, 2011 request for records relating to it. It only surfaced after we put questions to Shenher when she was on the witness stand in January of this year.

The Families submit that Shenher’s account, in its entirety, finally be made part of the public record respecting this tragic and scandalous case. The public interest demands it.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED THIS 4^TH DAY OF MAY, 2012

_____________________________

Cameron Ward

posted by Cameron Ward

http://www.cameronward.com/2012/05/mwci-skirmish-over-shenhers-book/

Missing Women commissioner Wally Oppal gets cameo role in movie about serial killer

BY ELAINE O'CONNOR AND SUZANNE FOURNIER, THE PROVINCE MAY 3, 2012 4:42 PM

Missing Women Commission of Inquiry head Wally Oppal arrives at the forum in Vancouver on Thursday, May 3, 2012. Oppal has a cameo role in a slasher movie being produced by a man who is called the worst filmmaker in the world.

Photograph by: Glenn Baglo, PNG

Wally Oppal, lead commissioner at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, which is investigating the circumstances surrounding serial-killer Robert Pickton’s murder of vulnerable women from the Downtown Eastside, has taken a role as a gunshot victim in a film about a serial killer.

But the former B.C. Attorney General is unapologetic about his involvement in a movie about a man hunting down and killing victims — at a time when the Commission has undergone administrative upheaval and faces criticism for inadequate attention to the voices of poor and Aboriginal women in the Downtown Eastside.

“I don’t see anything inappropriate about it,” Oppal said Thursday, before appearing at a policy forum on vulnerable and intimidated witnesses at the downtown Vancouver Public Library branch.

“Listen, nobody has been more passionate about what has gone on here [at the Inquiry] than me,” he said. “So on a Sunday morning between 9 and 1, I go and do a bit part in this movie on my own time. And there is certainly no intent to show any disrespect to anything here. And the balance of the day I go work on what we are doing.

“So absolutely I make no apologies for that,” Oppal added. “I am entitled to have a life. I am working day and night on this and there is hardly a day I don’t go into the office.”

However, family members of some of Pickton’s victims expressed surprise over his choice to participate in the film.

Ernie Crey, whose sister Dawn Crey was murdered by Pickton, is one of the few family members who remains supportive, although often critical, of Oppal in his role as the inquiry’s commissioner.

But Crey said Thursday he is “surprised Mr. Oppal would take part in a movie shot while labouring under a tight deadline to complete his work as the head of the Missing Women’s Inquiry.

“While he does have a right to a private life, he should have taken a pass on his debut as a film star,” said Crey, who took the stand as a witness for more than two days at the start of the inquiry’s formal hearings.

The film, titled The Bailout, is a fictional tale of a man who lost everything in the 2008 crash and is exacting revenge by systematically killing investment bankers. It’s the creation of director Uwe Boll, perhaps best known for work on campy films like Postal, BloodRayne and House of the Dead.

Oppal has a cameo as one of the marked-for-death stockbrokers, alongside developer Bruce Langereis.

This week, pictures of the pair cropped up showing Oppal costumed in a bloodied dress shirt.

He said that he was invited to do the bit part as an extra because “a friend of mine is the producer.”

Scenes were shot on location in Vancouver last week.

B.C. Civil Liberties Association president Robert Holmes said although Oppal had a long record of public service and his integrity wasn’t in question, his choice to participate presented bad optics.

“I don’t think anyone can question his integrity and at this point if he wants to go off and be a movie actor that’s his choice,” he said.

“The problem is, the optics of this right now are problematic because the public I think . . . has at the very least assumed that this Inquiry is being dealt with on a full-time basis.”

As for the subject matter of the film, Holmes said, “it is fiction. but at the same time, I think it doesn’t show the sensitivity that is required in that position. I think frankly, it adds to the perception that the Missing Women’s Inquiry has not been handled in as deft a manner as it should have been.”

Oppal shot back that if the BCCLA “spent less time complaining about what I did on a Sunday and more taking part in this inquiry, it might be more fruitful.”

The Inquiry is set to wrap up on June 30.

eoconnor@theprovince.com

sfournier@theprovince.com.

© Copyright (c) The Province

Missing women's commissioner shot! Well, in movie

BY NEAL HALL, POSTMEDIA NEWS MAY 3, 2012

VANCOUVER - Wally Oppal, who heads the Missing Women inquiry, was shot and killed last weekend, but he was only playing a bit part in a Hollywood movie.

"It was a lot of fun," Oppal said Thursday during a break from an inquiry public policy forum session.

"I had three lines. I played a New York stockbroker shot by an outraged investor."

He said his scene only took the morning to shoot last Sunday.

After that, he resumed working on the inquiry, he said.

Oppal, a former B.C. attorney general and appeal court judge, pointed out he usually takes Sunday mornings off from working on his final report, which must be submitted to government by June 30.

He said the offer to take on a small acting role in the film, The Bailout, directed by German director Uwe Boll, came from a friend, Shawn Williamson, a producer with Burnaby-based Brightlight Pictures.

"We were having dinner together and he said, how would you like to be in this movie," Oppal explained.

The movie is expected to be released in the fall, he said.

He pointed out that he is working weekends, trying to complete his report and draft recommendations to government.

"I met with the families two Saturdays and they gave us great recommendations," Oppal said. "We had a good 3 and 1/2 hour meeting."

The families of the victims of serial killer Robert Pickton also got to see Oppal wearing a sweatshirt that day, rather than the usual suit and tie he wears at the inquiry sessions.

The public policy forums will continue Friday and next week.

Formal hearings of the Missing Women inquiry will resume May 9. The inquiry, which still has 13 witnesses to testify, is probing why police didn't catch Pickton sooner.

Pickton was convicted of six murders in 2007 but once confided that he killed 49 women. Police found the remains and DNA of 33 women on Pickton's farm.

Vancouver Sun

nhall(at)vancouversun.com

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