Dear Editor:
Twenty years ago my wife and our three children came to this country as immigrants from the U.K. Our first residence was a motel room in North Vancouver, indeed our children started school from there. Through hard work over those 20 years we have been successful, we now own a motel.
When Samantha Jackson came to our motel with two small children, she seemed very pleasant and genuine. When she explained that she was between rentals and was having difficulty finding anywhere short term, my wife remembering how we started out tried to help her.
This act of kindness was seen as an act of weakness by Ms. Jackson who soon started to show her true colours. The abusive boyfriend was kept well in the background, and unknown to us.
It is beyond our comprehension how our actions could in anyway be discriminating when taking into account the behaviour of the individual concerned, however, the world we live in is nothing like the one we grew up in, when the concept of right and wrong still prevailed.
As a boy my playground was a bomb site and when I went to work as a young man nearly all the older men I worked with had participated in World War II as did my father and father in law. Many of them had either been injured or spent time as prisoners of war in the Far East, they rarely spoke of their experiences but what they did say was harrowing, no human rights for them!
I’m sure it was these men and the millions like them that Eleanor Roosevelt was thinking of when she worked so tirelessly to include a Human Rights charter as part of the UN Constitution when it was first set up, it was certainly not the hurt feelings of the young punks who seize up the workings of the judicial system day after day with their multiple court hearings and probably have never held down a job in their lives.
We have been lucky, that the generation before us were willing to give up their human rights in order that we can enjoy ours, but we have now moved past this and the present day human rights brigade, trivialize human rights to the point of ridicule, by interpreting legislation to the nth degree and empowering those with malice by giving them a platform to attack ordinary working people who have done something with their lives.
In my opinion what my wife and I have just been put through is an insult to those who came before us and gave up so much, it was nothing more than a show trial, with a pre ordained conclusion. Evidence given which would have made the final outcome even more unbelievable than it is, was totally excluded by the tribunal in its summing up.
When people like us no longer have faith in the “system” and feel that the country we call home has disassociated itself from us and the millions of ordinary people who make up the hardworking middle, our home grown version of Mr. Trump will not be long in coming.
Democracy to me means majority rule, common sense laws for common sense people, unfortunately our elected representatives appear to be running after every minority view or pressure group and the middle ground is ignored.
I would urge anyone who reads this column to get hold of their MLA and MP to demand repeal of these ridiculous laws that cause ordinary folk to look over their shoulder before considering doing an act of kindness, rather than enjoying their hard won freedoms.
John and Karen Lathey
Summerland Motel
Summerland