I feel like I'm taking crazy pills some days..I concede its entirely possible I — in fact — could be the crazy one. But for the moment, let me make the case it's the Canadian political-legal establishment that has flown over the cuckoo's nest. .In a split decision, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down a 2011 Harper-era law that made it mandatory for rapists, pedophiles and other dregs of that ilk be added to the National Sex Offender Registry, and those with two or more more offences would remain on that list for life. .The ruling follows the case of Eugen Ndhlovu, charged with two counts of sexual assault in 2015 after he admitted to sexually assaulting two women at a house party in 2011. At the time, he was 19 years old. Ndhlovu was sentenced to six months in prison and three years of probation. .Now, your friendly neighbourhood pedo can apply to have his status changed, thanks to the compassion of Canada's Supreme Court..The Trudeau government has been remarkably silent on the ruling, deferring — as Liberals tend to do — to the wisdom of the Supreme Court as infallible as the Pope..This would be textbook case for applying the Charter's "Notwithstanding Clause" to override the top court's decision. It's a constitutional sledgehammer that should be used sparingly, and never casually. The courts get it wrong all the time — creating fake rights where none exist, and failing to protect real rights that have long existed — but the sledgehammer should be swung only when the court is so obviously wrong and detached from reality that no precedent of causality would be set. .Keeping the names of repeat pedophiles and rapists on a publicly disclosed list is clearly one such case. When I hire a new reporter, I'd like to know if an applicant pops up on such a list when I Google them. .But, it would seem in the post-national dominion in which we now live, this would be unfair and cruel. .What is fair and not cruel is to preemptively treat law-abiding citizens as criminals, so the logic goes. .While invoking the "Notwithstanding Clause" to keep rapists and pedos on a list would constitute a gross violation of our rights, invoking the Emergences [War Measures] Act to put down a protest of bouncy castles and hot tubs, is not. .In 2022, a repeat pedophile can move into our neighbourhoods or land a job at your office free from public knowledge. But an Alberta Metis grandmother can be jailed without bail for months and legally stopped from speaking publicly before her trial for the crime of organizing a protest against a federal government that nakedly stripped people of real rights. .Crazy pills. .Law-abiding firearms owners are regularly subjected to pre-crime harassment by the federal government. .On the thoroughly discredited Liberal belief that stopping hunters and sport-shooters from owning firearms will stop criminals from hurting people, the Liberals used a combination of legislation and cabinet decrees to ban wide swaths of guns. This came in the cabinet decree of May 2020 that banned 1,500 different firearms, mostly because they looked scary in the eyes of people who know nothing about guns. Or in the June 2022 announcement that all sales of handguns in Canada would be banned, which police say will do nothing to reduce crime. .Of course, it's unlikely the Liberals and Supreme Court would see much wrong with a National Gun-Clingers Registry, to keep track of Canadians convicted of not handing in their otherwise lawful property. They are doing everything they can to quietly reintroduce the infamous long-gun registry, the national plan that wasted billions of tax dollars without doing anything to stop real crimes. .It's one registry the Liberals and Supreme Court seem to have no program with. .Repeat, convicted sexual predators are protected from having their names added to a registry while protestors against authoritarian overreach and lawful gun owners are treated like criminals. .Maybe I am taking crazy pills, or maybe I've just become a curmudgeonly old man before my time, but I suspect the internal contradictions of moral relativism has finally become too obvious to ignore.
