The Toronto Sun Editorial on CBC's "The National" Coverage
Monday, March 27, 2000
Fight the Power
If you've ever wondered how we ended up with a law as outrageous as the Young Offenders Act, or how our leaders could possibly
propose replacing it with a new one that is in many ways. worse consider the story of Joe Wamback.
Joe is, as most Sun readers know, the father of Jonathan Wamback, the Newmarket teen nearly beaten to death last year.
Jonathan has since recovered from a coma and regained some ability to move and speak, but remains severely injured.
Thanks to the Young Offenders Act , three of the teens charged in the beating easily got bail and have their
identities protected. Since the Crown recently reduced the charges, they face a sentence that, should they be convicted, will
likely be, at most, a few years in jail.
Joe, his wife Lozanne and Jonathan have launched a campaign to toughen the YOA, particularly when it comes to violent crimes.
They want the youths who are charged with serious, violent crimes to automatically face adult trials and sentences. (Hardly
radical!)
They have collected more than 700,000 signatures of support on their petition (which you can join online at
www.jonathanwamback.com) and made a pitch to the Commons committee studying the proposed new Youth Criminal Justice Act.
So far, the government's response has been cold. (The day after Wamback's presentation in Ottawa, Justice Minister Anne
McLellan made a speech insisting that "despite what some might say, putting kids in jail... is not an effective response to
youth crime.")
Then, last week, in a feature on tough responses to youth crime, CBC -TV's Magazine portrayed Joe as a hard-nosed
crusader who would like to see minors thrown in adult prison.
That is false and the CBC has admitted as much in a clarification.
But Wamback wasn't satified with that, nor should he be.
The underlying problem is that the system is stacked against people like him, and dominated by a liberal elite that believes
only those who make and write the laws are qualified to discuss them.
When the great unwashed - or even worse, real people who have been victimized, like the Wambacks - dare to criticize the
status quo, they as dissed and dismissed as ignorant, reactionary and vengeful Neanderthals, not concerned, informed citizens.
Yet Joe Wamback speaks for hundreds of thousands, for millions. When, oh when, are the powers that be going to get it?
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