A Grammy Award Perhaps?

Canada prides itself in civility, courtesy, and politeness, and often flaunts these attributes at their more brash and brazen southern neighbors. I remember, quite a few years ago, writing a fictional story about my hometown of Timmins, Ontario, and the vast criminal manhunt that occurred when some contemptible perpetrator had stolen a salt shaker from one of the Asian restaurants.

In the linked story, however, my Canadian hometown now clocks in as the most crime-ridden city in all of Ontario. While second in the nation, it is first in the violent crime rate in the entire country. Timmins, with 40,000 inhabitants has seen a decrease in population in the past number of years. Criminality and lawlessness all over Canada are generally on the rise. What has happened?

A lot of the blame can be placed on components of the United Nations’ Agenda 21, an early version of ‘woke’, as well as Canada’s federal bill C-75 which relaxes penalties, bail, and other acts of criminality and violence for all provinces. There are politicians twisting and contorting wokeist policy as a pretense for apocryphal care and concern. Crime in the United States is also on an intense, upward crescendo. Much of the blame in the United States is on the shoulders of soft-on-crime states attorneys general and district attorneys who receive campaign donations and policy demands from the same progressive source, as well as defund-the-police initiatives and ‘woke’ policies acting as buffers and shields for certain people.

Specific actions by certain groups, despite destruction and damage, are shoved aside as permissible protest under a component of the Bill of Rights that reads, “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Depending on the group, the term “peaceably” is often abandoned or purposely misinterpreted.

CNN writes the linked story on a climate activist Rosemary Penwarden, age 64, who lives near Dunedin, New Zealand. Penwarden thought she was “being creative” when she penned an email to speakers and attendees of a gas and oil conference stating that the conference had been canceled. Once the fraudulent email was discovered PEPANZ (the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand) organizers advised speakers and others that the conference would still be held.

As a self-serving excuse, Penwarden states, “It was a surprise. I’m reminded of the topsy-turvy world we’re in. It should not be the grandmothers on trial, it should be the oil industry, it should be those people who are making massive profits off the destruction of all of our futures.” This is what I call gratuitous and baseless self-righteousness – it is not grandmothers who were on trial it was a fraudster. Furthermore, her allegations are undoubtedly unscientific and unjustifiable, since her campaigns were initiated by the birth of a grandchild, not any studious attempts at investigating the authenticity of anthropogenic global warming.

While she was found guilty on two counts of creating and using a forged document, the story cites, “Sentencing is scheduled for September 8, according to Dunedin District Court. While the maximum jail sentence is 10 years, Penwarden said her lawyers are asking for “discharge without conviction.” In my opinion, she will walk away free - climate activism, irrespective of criminality and senseless intent seems to be a fairly permissive act unpunished by many authorities.

The ruling New Zealand Labor Party is described as a center-left political party and is quite active in the advancement of climate change and related mandates.