Once again Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has taken small steps when big steps were needed. She has failed us. She promises much and delivers little. She said she would release the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) report on the Andrew Loku death. What her government has released is just going to cause more distrust of our police services. This has satisfied nobody.
Whenever you see a government report released late on a Friday, you know it will not bear close scrutiny. It used to be that government or business news released at that time would receive the least scrutiny. That is no longer the case in a twenty-four-seven news environment.
But it fits the pattern of the Wynne approach to governing. Wynne’s is a government that promises the voter a sumptuous dinner and then hands the voter a bologna sandwich. It is a government that promises beer in grocery stores. And it did, if you can find one? It promises fund-raising reform—for the opposition parties. It promises lower automobile insurance rates—if you will settle for far less coverage?
And the list of failures goes on. The time of reckoning is two years away.
But who is the government serving with releasing a heavily edited sham of an SIU report. Do you want to believe a man with a hammer is a danger to armed police officers? Was drunkenness why they shot him? Who was he endangering? And why was there an ‘improper’ attempt at securing of surveillance video of the event? Are the police beyond our control?
Premier Wynne seems to have forgotten that the Ontario government is responsible for regulating police services throughout the province. It is the government that makes the rules on behalf of the citizens. If the people lose confidence in their police services, they are also going to lose confidence in the government.
You can read what the Ministry of the Attorney General has released for yourself. It is not worth commenting on. All we know is that a man was shot to death last July in a confrontation in a Toronto apartment building. Was he attacking someone with a hammer? We do not know that. We do not know why he was shot. We do not know who is to blame. It is as though we knew more before the report was released.
Premier Wynne should know the difference between a report that tells you nothing and a report that explains the circumstances. It is something that you should know if you want to be premier.
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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