By Arthur Weinreb
Monday, February 19, 2007
Last summer, 23-year-old Stephen Fernandes of Montreal was filmed, smiling and laughing while urinating on the National War Memorial in Ottawa. The picture of Fernandes, who was subsequently charged with mischief, caused outrage across the country. There were calls to post guards around war monuments and to make the desecration of a war memorial a specific offence under the Criminal Code.
But that was then. Last week the mischief charge was withdrawn by the Crown. The withdrawal of the charge had nothing to do with the prosecutor's inability to seek a conviction. It was withdrawn because Stephen said he was sorry. He was very, very sorry. He was drunk. He donated $200 to a veterans' hospital and performed 50 hours of community service. Boo hoo. Case closed.
The dropping of the charge angered NDP MPP Peter Kormos who said, "The Crown Attorney should've asked for jail time. Instead, the attorney general's ministry gave this guy a free ticket out of jail. The attorney general should be ashamed of himself."
The call for jail was not without precedent. A man in Sudbury Ontario was given a 60-day jail sentence after being convicted of a similar desecration of a war memorial. The worst thing that happened regarding Fernandes was not that he escaped punishment but that the provincial government didn't deem that a criminal act against a war memorial was worthy of proceeding with. Fernandes would not have similarly lucked out had he chosen to urinate on Mrs. Smith's rose garden instead of a memorial that honours this country's military veterans.
Kormos called upon Attorney General Michael Bryant to apologize, but there's a better chance that Peter will end up the first NDP prime minister of Canada than an apology will come from Bryant or the Liberal government at Queen's Park. According to Bryant, the matter has been "resolved". Indeed it has and if there is any consolation to be taken it is in the fact that a statement came out of the McGuinty government that is actually the truth. Bryant's spokesman, Brendan Crawley was quoted as saying, "The accused took a number of actions on his own initiative to atone for his activity, including a public apology to the Royal Canadian Legion, to veterans and to the public". If Bryant won't apologize for withdrawing the charge he should at least apologize for his spokesman's reference to poor little Stephen as "the accused". It makes him sound so "criminal".
Kormos is quite correct when he says that being drunk is not the defense that the government seems to think it is. It could go to mitigation of sentence and there was nothing to suggest that the act of urinating on the National War Memorial was a planned act that Fernandes would have carried out if he was sober. Let's see the AG withdraw a sexual assault charge against a man who says he was drunk when the incident took place and besides, he donated a couple of hundred bucks to a rape crisis centre. The province bent over backwards in order to justify not proceeding with the criminal charge; he was drunk, he was sorry; he apologized, he performed community service, he paid $200 to a veterans' hospital.
The reality is that the provincial government couldn't care less about veterans or the military. This was a slap in the face to all those men and women who have served their country. They are simply not an important political force in the upcoming election. They may have sacrificed their lives or a portion of it to defend their country, but what have they done lately? The government bent over backwards so as not to "offend" those voters who are anti-military, anti-Afghanistan and are likely to show up in droves to vote for the McGuinty Liberals in the next election.
You also have to wonder that had Stephen Fernandes been a redneck from Alberta who slept with an autographed picture of Stephen Harper under his pillow instead of drunk hailing from La Belle Province, if the charge would have been withdrawn quite so fast.
Peter Kormos had every right to be outraged. And the silence from other politicians has been deadly. This incident is more proof of just how little veterans and those currently serving in the military are thought of in this country. It's a real disgrace.
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