I don't know about this racist thing, but he is an asshole!

Dear Friends: A couple of semi-local matters that need to be addressed, and as usual I might as well be the one to do it!

The first is our local PC candidate in the upcoming provincial election...., Andrew Lawton.

The headline in the London Free Press will get things into 'Perspective!'

Ontario Liberal campaign chair Deb Matthews fired a salvo Wednesday at Doug Ford, demanding he replace by Thursday’s deadline a London candidate she says continued to make racist and sexist comments well after the period in which he says he suffered from mental illness.

By mental illness I would say it's safe to say the guy has a screw loose because I had some issues with him a few years ago and even though I don't remember the exact details of what it was all about, I do remember that I was left with the impression that the guy is a complete asshole!

Lawton continued to say hateful things after 2013, said Matthews, who pointed to several examples in 2015 and 2016 that were recorded during his time as a contributor to the Rebel Media, a right-wing online political and social commentary website:

• “I  know typically most minorities in the United States, and Hispanic minorities, have a higher arrest rate simply because the crime rate in those groups is higher.” (Dec. 17, 2015, Now he's right to a certain extent folks but Andrew's problem is that he can't seem to temper how he says it!)
• “I’m a Christian. I believe in Christian exceptionalism. I believe that Christianity is the only correct faith.” (April 30, 2015 This attitude is no better than those of a radical Muslim!)
• Speaking of which! “How many lives are lost because people cling to a radical Muslim ideology? Well, we can ban Islam — that’s gonna save a couple lives.”(January 7, 2016, This is typical 'holier than thou' from the Christian Right!)

Those comments can be heard in a YouTube video whose link was shared by the Liberals:



Now I'm not saying that this guy is as dangerous as most vegetarian, Left Wing, tree huggers say he is, and he isn't as reactionary as most Right Wing bible thumping ass-kickers would like him to be, but just the same, no matter what else: He's still an asshole!

As a matter of fact, there are a couple of articles in the paper today that sort of gives weight to some of the things he said so I will let you decide what's what!

If you drive drunk and kill someone in Canada, the punishment is prison.
But a London lawyer representing an Indigenous man who killed one of his best friends suggested Wednesday that long sentences haven’t stopped impaired driving in First Nations communities. Instead, he’s looking for an unusual break from jail time.
Prison for Timothy Summers, 50, of Oneida, his lawyer George Grant said, may not be the solution. More, not fewer, Indigenous people have been incarcerated, he said, since impaired driving sentences have become stiffer: “There’s something quite significant that has to be done,” he told Superior Court Justice Lynda, Templeton.
While assistant Crown attorney Roger Dietrich asked for four to six years in prison for killing one friend and injuring another, Grant asked Templeton to consider crafting a conditional sentence for Summers that would be served in the community with an emphasis on restorative justice. (Conditional sentences aren’t normally available under existing laws.)

 

But leaning on case law and recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (the Indian apologists) that call for “realistic alternatives to prison,” Grant said Summers’ background and the circumstances of Carl Doxtator’s death are an opportunity to try something different, especially since both Summers and Doxtator are from the same community.

It’s a sentence worth trying, said Jonathan Rudin, program director at Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto, because of the over-representation of First Nations people in the criminal justice system, especially in impaired driving cases.

Statistics from 2010 show impaired driving is the most common crime before the adult courts. While Indigenous people only represent three percent of the population, 16 percent of impaired driving correctional admissions were Indigenous.

Now, that was one...., here is the second one!

A Syrian refugee couple who threatened their adult daughter with an honour killing for dating a Canadian man has made a plea deal with New Brunswick prosecutors that will save them from possible deportation back to their war-ravaged homeland.

Ahmad Ayoub, 52, and his wife Faten, 48, were freed this week after 72 days in jail, after pleading guilty to uttering threats as a summary conviction offense and being sentenced to time served.

David Lutz, Ahmad’s lawyer said: “Their words were taken literally instead of figuratively, in my interaction with the entire family, I came to the conclusion that this is a manner of speech that they never really intend to carry any of this out, but they do it so to say, ‘You should mind me, because this is what I think’.”

According to reporting by Don MacPherson of The Fredericton Daily Gleaner, who was in court for the sentencing, the first threat was made in April 2016, soon after the family arrived in Canada. Ahmad was angry that his daughter won an iPad in a contest, and threatened to poison her food. He also said he wanted to limit her contact with local men.

The second threat came last summer when Bayan’s parents learned she was communicating with a Canadian man on social media, and her father said that “for his own dignity, it would be better to slaughter her,” the prosecutor said.

A third threat from Ahmad was prompted by her use of a smartphone, and his concern she was communicating with people she met at a work placement at a food bank.

Lutz said the more serious indictable offense of uttering threats is generally used in cases where there is evidence the offender had the ability or means to do it. In this case, he said their words were hyperbolic, exaggerated and non-literal. (Cough - cough)

He said the Ayoubs’ threats were “careless, bordering on reckless, and they have learned from this experience that his kind of language may be acceptable in Syria and Afghanistan, but now they know, better than most, that it’s not acceptable in Canada. And the entire Syrian community in New Brunswick knows it too.”

MacPherson’s report noted that the parents embraced their daughter outside court, and Ahmad shook her boyfriend’s hand. They will be on probation for a year.

I guess the whole point to this article is the fact that in spite of how Andrew Lawton voiced his racist, misogynistic and religious beliefs we can't just allow any sort of conduct to get a pass just because we  don't wish to offend anyone!" 

The way I see it anyway!

************************