So if I understand Michael Nguyen's text correctly, then that's how it is The newspaper published yesterday about a woman convicted of extreme neglect of her children…
You can leave your three small children to fend for themselves.
Don't worry about it.
Don't feed them.
Leave them unattended for days.
Don't give them signs of affection.
Force her to eat her poop.
Force them to live in unsanitary conditions.
Give your babies non-alcoholic drinks.
Lock your children in their room with a bucket so they can go about their business.
Hit her.
Throw her in a two-story bed.
Let them sleep in a doghouse.
All of this has been going on for years.
And all you get as punishment is two years less per day… TO SERVE AT HOME??????
The sense of priorities
And after that we are told that crimes against children are the most terrible crimes that can be committed and patati et patata.
Text from the Journal de Québec from April 2014:
“Those responsible for cruelty to calves in Pont-Rouge face up to five years in prison if an ongoing criminal investigation proves their guilt.”
5 years.
For violence against CALVES.
Text from Radio-Canada from June 2022:
“In British Columbia, anyone who commits an offense under the province’s Animal Cruelty Act is punishable by a two-year prison sentence.”
Not two years less a day to serve at home. Two year prison sentence.
Text from the Sun from August 2022:
“More than 162,000 people have signed a petition to demand an exemplary sentence for a man who intentionally ran over two young moose with his car in Sept-Îles.”
We look forward to the petition calling for an exemplary punishment for this woman who treated her children like animals.
No, sorry: WORSE than animals!
What message are we sending to society when we impose such a light sentence for such a serious crime?
I feel like I've written this column a dozen times already.
And that I will rewrite it ten more times.
Last March, a Quebec woman was sentenced to three years in prison for defrauding the CPE where she worked of nearly $1.8 million.
She hadn't hit any children.
She did not force her children to eat her feces.
She hadn't endangered the lives of small, vulnerable people, no.
She stole money.
Penalty: three years!
Serve in prison! Behind bars!
Message: Cheating your employer is more serious than years of child abuse.
Spread the word.
This is what we call a sense of priorities.
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Sometimes I dream of starting all over again.
Let's review from A to Z the way we form sentences.
So that the severity of the punishments (finally) reflects the seriousness of the crimes.