Covering Estevan Provincial Court on July 30 had me shaking my head.
There was the usual round of impaired driving convictions; specifically, with a blood alcohol level over .08. This day, there were four of them. Three were run-of-the-mill, and the fourth had a little flavour to it. As several had prior convictions, albeit a very long time ago, they ended up getting $1,500 fines and one year driving prohibitions.
To that end, I basically write that story every week. Not much changes except the names and the faces.
But towards the end of the morning this docket day, something came up that shook me out of my doodling of coffee cups and my body鈥檚 withdrawal from caffeine. With Saskatchewan鈥檚 major port to the United States, North Portal, nearby, Estevan courts end up hosting some customs cases.
This one seemed ordinary enough, until the prosecutor started describing what was found on two electronic devices; a cell phone and a USB memory stick, during a secondary search. Then the prosecutor went into graphic detail of three videos that were found on these devices.
I鈥檝e heard a lot in court over the years. I have never heard that. The first two involved graphic sex acts between two boys around the age of five or six. The third involved a child around 12 or 13 involved in bestiality. The defence attorney noted that there was 鈥減olitical commentary鈥� audio denouncing these acts. He called them 鈥渒nown propaganda videos.鈥�
What the hell sort of propaganda is that?
The defence attorney also said the videos were sent to his client, but he had failed to delete them.
There was a joint submission on these charges; smuggling prohibited items, i.e. obscene material. That鈥檚 Canadian legalese for what you would call a plea bargain on American court TV shows. The sentence was forfeiture of the cellphone and memory stick, and a fine of $1,500.
It just so happened I had taken along Brady Bateman, our new reporter with Estevan Mercury. On the way back to the office, he noted the fines were the same. He also questioned how these items could have ended up on the memory stick. That鈥檚 an incredibly astute realization, one that I hadn鈥檛 come up with on my own. Phones have inboxes, and you can鈥檛 control what people send you.
Fair enough. But how does this material end up on a thumb drive unless it was purposefully put there? And since it was forfeited, at least one of the videos found its way onto the thumb drive.
When you take the drunk driving cases and the child porn case together, you realize that the drunks (some of whom were barely over the limit, at .10 or .13) got a much harsher sentence than the guy with kiddie porn on this thumb drive.
One year without the ability to drive, especially if you live out of town, becomes an enormous hindrance. It鈥檚 not just the ability to get groceries or take your kids to the rink. It鈥檚 the ability to get to work, period, so you can buy those groceries. Sure, there are programs to shorten that driving prohibition, but they only shorten it, not eliminate it.
The guy who was convicted in the smuggling case was a truck driver for the last 20 years, and specialized in long-haul. I don鈥檛 know what the border implications are for a Customs Act offence, but they probably aren鈥檛 good if your profession is hauling things across the border. I don鈥檛 know if they are similar to a criminal record. There鈥檚 probably a good chance he鈥檒l lose his job hauling to and from the U.S., but that won鈥檛 preclude him from finding work within Canada. There鈥檚 usually always a job for someone willing to take the wheel.
Canada is not a 鈥渢hrow the book at them鈥� nation, in the way the United States is. Our sentences across the board are substantially less than what you would get for similar offences south of 49. But look at what the U.S. has become? The nation with the highest incarceration rate in the world; one where frequently throwing away the key has solved nothing.
Still, something seems grossly wrong with a drunk getting a harsher sentence than someone who brought the most heinous child porn imaginable across the border. We might want to think on that.
