Stabbing incidents in Winnipeg are on the rise.

In Winnipeg violent crime is reaching an all time high. With good reason, many people are citing gang violence as the culprit for the recent spike in shockingly brutal activity. Citizens are turning with raised eyebrows to a provincial government that has been fighting a ‘war on gang violence’ for ten years with little success. In fact the number of serious trauma cases in the city is growing by as much as 10% a year. One 13 year-old boy who, along with his nine year-old sister witnessed a violent altercation between gang members in his neighbourhood said, “…I just wear black or something. If I wear red around here I’ll get shot or something.” Some officials are attributing the recent increase to the availability of weapons on the street, as gun crime is on the rise.

However, it would appear that gang violence is not the cause for the bulk of the full morgue slabs and hospital beds. Only 26% of homicides in Manitoba are gang related. (more…)

Should polygamy be legal in Canada?

It was our first prime minister Sir John A. Macdonald who told Mormon settlers that their polygamous lifestyle would not be welcome in this country. In fact, until the 1950’s Mormons were mentioned specifically in Canada’s anti-polygamy law. Today a much more generalized version can be found in Section 293 of the criminal code. For the last 60 years or so not a single prosecution had been made but suddenly members of a polygamist Mormon sect in Bountiful, B.C. are being targeted and brought before the court. British Columbia’s attorney general, Wally Oppal, decided that perhaps, before prosecuting these two gentlemen, we should ask the supreme court whether Section 293 (from now on referred to as the anti-polygamy law) is even constitutional.

Now, I did a little research and from what I can tell the anti-polygamy law pretty clearly violates section’s 2. ( a ) and 2. ( d ) of the Canadian charter of rights and freedoms.( a ) Being the freedom of conscience and religion and ( d ) being the freedom of association. Why ( d ) you might ask. Well, under section 293 it states that if you celebrate a polygamous marriage ceremony you’re a criminal.
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Relaxing with what little spare time I’ve have of recent, I sat down to watch a movie. Captivated by the previews (yes, a rarity in this day and age), I couldn’t help but feel the powerful emotions from Denis Villeneuve’s short preview of his movie, Polytechnique. While the silence of the actors in complement with the black and white film was emotionally captivating, I cannot help but feel that Canada’s most horrific massacre does not deserve Hollywood treatment.

I am strongly against the glorification of violence in this case, in an all too familiar setting: school. The massacre, which cost 14 women their lives at the hands of gunman Marc Lepine in 1989, was a senseless act of violence specifically against women in a forbidden school setting. The resurrection of this event is inappropriate and disrespectful because of its disregard for the victims and the nature of the crime. This movie is clearly going for shock value and is being billed as one of Canada’s most controversial films yet. However, shock value does nothing to help the state of school related violence or even violence in general, rather this movie looks to feed the masses a form of entertainment based on the sacrifice of innocent individuals. This is a movie designed to profit off of controversy and because it hits so close to home, I cannot support it.

Here is a preview of the movie:

Polytechnique Trailer

A confused and frustrated immigrant flew into Vancouver from Poland and spent 10 hours waiting to see his mother. During the course of his frustration, he was approached by RCMP Officers, tasered, handcuffed, jumped on and eventually died.

This incident was fortunately caught on someone’s cell phone. The cell phone footage caught the RCMP in a myriad of lies.


The media has since played the footage quite frequently when analyzing every different angle that this story has to offer. It is footage that is hard to watch as it records the last minutes of a man’s life before he was assaulted by the officers. It is hard not to be affected by the man’s cries of pain after being tasered a number of times.
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