of some young people who are driven to isolation and despair. We must not tolerate such disparities.
She talks about Canada having the financial resources to address these problems, but unfortunately ignored any suggestion that young people, or old, have a responsibility to make every attempt to rise above circumstance. Also lacking, in my opinion, was a reminder to all that, no matter what marginalization may or may not have occurred, there is never any excuse for committing criminal acts.
Her message, it seems to me, is one we hear only too frequently in this country—that the young people shooting each other in Toronto, the ones mugging, stealing, swarming, and raping aren’t really responsible for their own actions. It’s society’s fault, a message that is pounded into our heads from birth these days in this country.
Many members of our society, and not just the youth in Toronto, are of the firm belief that they are entitled to the good life, and if they do not obtain it, it’s everyone else’s fault. Furthermore, it’s their “right” to go out and get their piece of the pie even if it belongs to someone else. If you listened closely to the testimony at the Gomery inquiry, you heard variations of that theme repeatedly. And what was it that David Dingwall had to say about being “entitled to his entitlements?”
Small wonder, I suppose, that there are some who honestly believe that if someone happens to have a jacket they want or looks at them the wrong way, they deserve to get shot. Besides which, the shooters were driven to it. Haven’t you been listening to all those smart people out there claiming that young people are getting the shaft these days, not being treated fairly? You can almost hear the thugs saying, “Right on. The man’s got it right. It ain’t our fault we shooting people. We marginalized! We despairin’! That’s why we shootin’!”
The thugs are by no means alone in holding society responsible for their failed aspirations. With some notable exceptions, most Canadians still believe the government should create highly paid, secure-for-life jobs and then find them for us. Even more serious than that, it has created a huge subculture that believes it has no responsibility for itself.
Not only no responsibility for ourselves, for goodness’ sake. How about no responsibility to raise our own children? Right across Ontario, and for all I know in other provinces as well, we are feeding thousands of children breakfast in our schools. In some cases, we’re even providing high school students with free breakfasts in our schools! What’s next? Free drugs? (Actually, in some cities we do provide free drugs, free needles and condoms too). All of this is done, as usual, with the best of intentions.
We are told that many of these young people would go hungry otherwise, but the fact is, by feeding students at school we are absolving their parents of that responsibility. And let me tell you something. If, in fact, these kids really are so poor that they come to school starving, we had better have a much closer look at what is going on in the home. No matter what the family income, there is absolutely no excuse for sending a child off to school with an empty stomach. With all the social programs, social workers, food banks, and church organizations, the only reason a child doesn’t get breakfast in this country is because his or her parents just can’t be bothered. And, of course, if the school is going to feed your child for you, as far as some parents are concerned, “hey, why should I bother?”
All we are doing with programs such as this is making it easier for parents and their children to abdicate their responsibility. Lovely message we are sending!
Some communities take a much more responsible position. In Laval, Quebec, for example, a committee of parents has been established to work in concert with the teachers. If a teacher in Laval spots a child they don’t believe is being fed properly, they alert the committee. Someone on the committee then phones the parents to ask if there is a problem. Nine times out of ten the parents didn’t even realize the kid was hiking off to school without breakfast and the problem is solved immediately. If it is discovered that there is a real problem, someone on the committee puts the parent in touch with an organization that can help. All very quietly so as not to embarrass, but all intended to illustrate to both parent and child that they have personal responsibilities which at the very least require them to put some food in empty stomachs!
Which approach do you think is the best? Surely the answer is obvious. Why then do we insist in most of the rest of the country on doing something that at best is applying a temporary bandage to what could very well be a life-threatening hemorrhage? Is it because we are just too afraid to tackle the real problem? That we ourselves have fallen victim to the concept that personal responsibility is an outmoded concept?
Maybe this is why we now have people suing McDonald’s if they spill hot coffee on themselves. Today even the law agrees that if you get drunk at your friendly neighbourhood bar, sneak away and crash your car, it’s the poor beggar who served you the beer who runs the risk of being held responsible.
Could this be why those commuters in Toronto stepped over a dying man rather than stopping or calling for help? Do you suppose they truly believed it just wasn’t their responsibility?
One of my father’s most delightful stories was about growing up in a village of chimney watchers. On cold mornings everyone checked his or her neighbour’s chimney to make sure smoke was rising. No smoke meant possible trouble.
It has truly been a long, long trail a winding from a time when we watched each other’s chimneys. And of this I am certain: All the state-run, unionized daycare programs, all the school breakfast programs, all the social programs, all the free needles and crack pipes in the world aren’t going to convince many amongst us to start looking out for each other’s chimneys, or anything else except, of course, ourselves.
FIVE
The Thug Huggers
“Holy, old mouldy, look at that!” My brother Paul, at the time a sergeant with the Brantford Police Service, doesn’t talk to himself all that often, but then again he doesn’t see a guy stealing a television set in broad daylight that often either. Paul has just pulled his cruiser around a corner in one of Brantford’s ritzier neighbourhoods when what should appear before his amazed eyes but a guy balancing a brand new TV on his shoulder trying to look casual as he strolls across a well-manicured front lawn.
There’s been a rash of break-ins in the district so there’s no chance this guy is just out for a bit of afternoon exercise. Besides which, Paul has arrested our TV-carting friend a couple of times previously and knows him very well. Not a person you would want to invite in to have a look at your new silverware, believe me!
The television is hurled to the ground and the foot race is on! My brother, having just completed another of his sporadic diet and exercise programs is gaining when the thief jumps into a brand new fire-red Mustang and peels away. Now it’s one of your Hollywood favourites—a car chase! Instead of up and down San Francisco’s famous hills, this time it’s confined to the very ordinary Brantford streets, siren blaring, tires screeching, the Mustang staying well ahead.
It ends suddenly when the Mustang wheels into one of Brantford’s seedier low-rent housing complexes. The chasee darts out, romps around the corner and disappears. Several neighbours come running out pointing to a house, which in cop jargon is “well-known to police.” “He’s in there, he ran in there,” they shout. My brother, who once took part in a drug raid on the house, has no doubts whatsoever that the friendly neighbours are correct, but he’s got a dilemma. He didn’t see our thief-friend go in. Which means Paul can’t enter that house, even though he knows full well the crook is inside. He’s got to have a warrant.
By this time a couple more cruisers are on the scene. They stand guard while my brother tracks down a friendly judge he knows. It’s Saturday afternoon. Finding the judge
