Tuesday, July 13, 2010

The Harper Conservatives: Soft on murder?

In a bold and courageous move yesterday, Conservative minister Rona Ambrose ended years of ambiguity in the government’s position on this key issue by making it clear: the Conservative Party thinks murder is wrong:

"Killing or mutilating anyone, least of all a family member, is utterly unacceptable under all circumstances," Rona Ambrose, Minister of Public Works and Government Services and Minister for the Status of Women, said Monday.

Ambrose went on to announce bold legislative action would be forthcoming to make murder a crime under the law:

She also said the government is “looking at” adding honour killing as a separate charge to the Criminal Code.

Except Ambrose immediately had the rug pulled out from her by a spokesperson for the justice minister:

But Justice Department spokeswoman Pamela Stephens said that the government has no plans to add honour killings to the Criminal Code.

“An intentional killing is murder, regardless of the motive,” she said late Monday evening.

“The expression ‘honour killing’ is not listed in the Criminal Code nor is ‘domestic violence. Rather, the two are addressed through the existing offences in the code such as assault, criminal harassment, murder, and related aggravating factors.”

Well thank goodness that’s settled: murder is already illegal. Good to know. Let's get the word out.

Meanwhile, in related crime news, the government that with great fanfare made street racing illegal (well, even more illegal than it already was, like Rona wants to do with murder) is spending tax dollars advertising with video games that glorify street racing:

The online description of one of the games reads, “Compete at the highest level of street racing with Need for Speed ProStreet. It’s no longer good enough to simply rule your local neighborhood; you need to dominate on a global stage.”

The government placed ads in a number of video games during February and March of this year. The ads were part of an attempt to encourage young people to complete their apprenticeship training and alert them to grants of up to $4,000.

A spokesperson for the department of whimsy and caprice confirmed that, thankfully, irony is not (yet) a crime.

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2 comments:

JimBobby said...

What about murderin' when yer on the cell phone? We oughta have a special law fer that one, dontcha reckon?

We oughtn't be takin' any chances. The more laws, the better.

What about shootin' abortion doctors? What about Mounties shootin' their wives with gummint-issued firearms?

Mark Richard Francis said...

So motives of power, jealousy, envy and/or greed may become less bad than honour? Huh?