Which criminal and anti-social activity is important to Albertans, and which isn’t?
It’s a good question, one regional and provincial elected leaders should be paying attention to. On Oct. 12 capital region news outlets were abuzz with information about how seriously the parking situation for an NHL game was being taken. Apparently 10 police were being assigned to the parking lot at the Edmonton Oilers home opener. Someone, somewhere didn’t want any trouble in that parking lot.
Obviously, the parking situation at a sporting event, which charges fees for parking and should be handled by the businessowners associated with the team, is a deep concern for the taxpayers.
The Capital region is crawling with photo radar despite the fact there’s no evidence photo radar affects driving habits, but plenty that photo radar revenue makes politicians look better by boosting municipal revenue. The City of Edmonton alone makes millions of dollars in revenue off photo radar, and every Edmonton representative who discusses it desperately defends photo radar as monumentally important. City of Edmonton representatives have been quoted in the past as saying photo radar might be sharpened to a razor’s edge to write tickets for people driving as little as a couple of kilometers over the speed limit. The practice affects every regional citizen who goes into the city and makes lawbreakers out of people who are not lawbreakers.
Is photo radar so effective it can’t be legitimately questioned?
Any reader paying attention to provincial and national news last week must have been alarmed to watch a murder suspect pretty much walk away from the criminal charges.
A fellow named Lance Regan, accused of murdering a fellow inmate at the Edmonton Institution in 2011, had his charges stayed Oct. 11 by Judge S.D. Hillier. Hillier said the accused murderer’s rights were violated because the court system is too slow. In all fairness, it’s been five years since the murder. An accused murderer walks free.
Within a few minutes, convicted murderer Travis Vader’s lawyer Brian Beresh was being quoted as saying Vader’s conviction for murdering seniors Lyle and Marie McCann should be thrown out on the same grounds. Of course, everyone has heard Vader’s trial Judge Denny Thomas’s verdict was messed up because his judgment included relying on a law that doesn’t exist anymore. A lawyer wants a convicted murderer to walk free. Great moments in the criminal justice system.
Elected officials, including the Liberal government ion Ottawa and the NDP government in Edmonton, need to start taking criminal justice seriously; the elected officials run the government, and the government appoints judges and is supposed to ensure justice is done. Right now, 10 police officers are guarding the Oilers’ parking lot, the court system is full of “lawbreakers” driving 61 kilometers an hour in a 60 zone, and an accused murderer got the win of a lifetime. A three-ring circus with clowns in charge.