(Canadian) Opposition MPs take up Montana death row case

Source: CTV

Stephane Dion has taken up the case of a Canadian man sitting on death row in Montana.

The Liberal leader has written the state's governor asking him to commute Ronald Allen Smith's death sentence.

Smith was convicted of murdering two people in 1982.

Dion says he wrote the letter because the Tory government has decided to ignore Canadian policy by refusing to officially appeal Smith's death sentence, which is outlawed in Canada.

"Canada abolished the death penalty 31 years ago," Dion said in question period on Thursday.

Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071122/death_sentence_071122/20071122?hub=TopStories

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It's shameful that our current government, led by rightwing neo-con Stephen Harper, has decided to discontinue the long tradition of seeking clemency for Canadians on death row in foreign countries.

Stephane Dion, the Liberal Opposition leader, made a winning move here.

I read today another guy got killed with a police taser in Canada, this time in Nova Scotia. Maybe before the Canadians start shouting about other people's laws and America killing foreign murderers, they should stop their own police frying foreigners in their own country first. Rotten hypocrites.

And I am sure there are Canadians picking up the cause of taser deaths.

Can only one issue be handled until that issue is solved?

is "Canada" being hypocitril to ask for clemency in a death penalty case in light of a taser incident?

The logic is non-existent, and the poster took it beyond respectful.ue

And you seem to be equating taser use with the death penalty. That is a faulty comparison.

In any event, taser use is a law enforcement issue, whereas the death penalty is a justice policy issue.

to criticize a "death penalty" when their own troops are doling out the "death penalties" in Afghanistan!

On edit: just read that the police in the Vancouver incident aren't being charged with anything, just being reassigned to different posts. Sounds like Canadian government approved death penalty to me!

into the death at Vancouver Airport. The RCMP officers have been re-assigned to desk jobs until the investigations are complete. Criminal charges, etc, may well result from the investigation. Gosh, I would have thought you would understand that the punishment comes after being found guilty of something, guilt being determined AFTER an investigation.

As to Afghanistan, we should be doing what we were doing in the beginning, that being peacekeeping and security, but, thanks to bush's rush to illegally invade and occupy Iraq, he left Afghanistan before the "job" was done forcing NATO forces to finish it.

NATO should have told bush to shove it up his ass but it didn't and so here we are.

Khadr should be tried on American soil: Dion
Last Updated: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 | 1:24 PM ET
CBC News

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion is calling on the federal government to intervene in the case of Omar Khadr.

Khadr, 21, is a Canadian citizen and the only remaining Westerner detained at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"It's a matter of rights," Dion said after meeting with Khadr's lawyers Wednesday in Toronto, where Khadr's family lives.

"When you have the last Western citizen in Guantanamo and the government is not intervening, then you have the question in our mind: why the other countries did and not Canada," Dion said.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/09/19/national-khadr.html

What a ridiculous thing to say. Clearly you have no qualms telling Canadian pols how they should spend their time. What were you saying about hypocrisy?

Locking them up for life is not an option. Taking their life is so much more gratifying in this country. It's what we do. We love to take life here. It gives us such a feeling of "one-ups-manship".

So wrong in so many ways.