Huron Expositor, 2016-04-27, Page 44 Huron Expositor • Wednesday, April 27, 2016
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Canada
Spring brings new life
For Such A
Time As This
Pastor Laurie Morris
Ilove this season of the
year and especially out
on back country roads
and through the bush. On
Saturday we went from
Woodstock to Listowel, and
on Sunday out to Seaforth.
Several days a week I drive
along the wooded areas of
the 402 west of London, and
in all of those places the
signs of new life are creeping
up.
While winter wasn't all that
severe at the start, spring has
taken its time showing its
milder temperatures and
sunshine. But on the week-
end you could see signs of a
break out.
The trees are full of buds,
just waiting for the right
combination of rain and sun
to burst forth into the kalei-
doscope of green leaves. I am
fully expecting that by the
time you read this article we
will all be looking at leaf cov-
ered branches instead of the
barren ones we see now.
And on Saturday we saw
numerous farmers working
late on the fields. Last week
you could smell the neces-
sary odours that come with
the `natural' fertilizing of the
fields. But we also began to
see the concentrated move-
ment of getting fields pre-
pared and seeded for the
hardiest crops that can go in
early.
Then we will watch and
over the next few weeks
fields that looked barren and
forlorn will begin to show
row upon row of little sprouts
which will then begin to
shoot up quickly once there
are enough heating units giv-
ing them the natural energy
that they need to push out
and up.
With all this new growth I
am reminded again of the
miracle of new life which
springs forth from the
ground or energizes a tree or
brings a perennial back to
active life that we see year
upon year, in our cold cli-
mate in the springtime.
While the seeds become
increasingly more focused
on greater yield, and fighting
off disease, and creating a
new variety of whatever crop
it is - the technology of that
which changes the resulting
plant's variables and quality
and stamina, etc., doesn't
provide the miracle of the
seed coming to life in the
ground and the plant actu-
ally starting.
And while we are able to
Mandatory minimum sentences don't add up
Wen it comes to
Canada's criminal
justice system, the
popular political play in
recent years has been to fol-
low our American neigh-
bours and mimic their
embrace of "tough on crime"
laws with hard and fast rules
for mandatory minimum
punishments.
The election of Justin
Trudeau's Liberals signalled
Canadians may be ready to
rethink the wide array of
ironclad minimum sen-
tences. That's a good thing in
light of a recent Supreme
Court of Canada ruling.
A majority of the high
court ruled in a decision
recently that the mandatory
one-year prison sentence
prescribed for drug traffick-
ing
rafficking for someone with a previ-
ous trafficking conviction
amounted to cruel and unu-
sual punishment under the
Charter of Rights and
Freedoms.
Chief Justice Beverley
McLachlin, writing for the
majority, said the minimum
sentence cast too wide a net,
snagging not just serious
drug traffickers but also
those involved in conduct
"much less blame worthy."
Canadians would be
shocked by its potentially
broad application, she
wrote.
The ruling does not mean
that all mandatory mini-
mums in Canadian law vio-
late the Charter. Some past
decisions found mandatory
minimums are not by
themselves
unconstitutional.
The majority advised,
though, that Parliament
should consider narrowing
the reach of mandatory min-
imums. That -- combined
with a 2015 ruling that
quashed the three-year man-
datory minimum sentence
for some gun -related crimes
-- means the Liberals are on
the right track with a review
of recent changes in the jus-
tice system.
Mandatory minimum sen-
tences sound like a good
idea in theory, but Canadi-
ans know that the applica-
tion of justice can be uneven.
One need only look at the
disproportionate number of
First Nations people in the
system to know that all is not
right.
Statistics Canada reported
violent crime continued to
drop across the country in
2014 and that serious crime
was at its lowest level since
breed animals in each spe-
cies to produce more milk,
or have less fat in their meat
or whatever other variable
one might consider - and
while we may very well arti-
ficially inseminate such ani-
mals to get the intended
result - the life that springs
forth still happens without a
human's ability to make it
happen.
For me I love springtime
because it is the yearly
reminder that it is Almighty
God who created something
out of nothing to begin this
world, and who is always in
the creating business. He is
not some absentee landlord
having His world tick away
like a wound up clock but He
has hands off - no - He is
actively involved in the crea-
tion of new life of every type
and in the providential care
of this world.
1969. Yet the federal prison
population grew by 10 per
cent between 2005 and
2015, according to correc-
tional investigator Howard
Sapers 2014-15 annual
report.
Nobody wants someone
found guilty of a serious
crime such as murder to
walls away consequence free.
That's not justice.
But the problem with
applying mandatory mini-
mum sentences to a wide
range of minor crimes is that
it sets up a straightforward
equation with no room for
variables. Commit crime X
and face the obligatory pun-
ishment of Y number of years
in jail or prison. That makes
for easy sound bites, but that
calculation does not auto-
matically add up to justice
either.
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