Toronto – Premier Dalton McGuinty has decided there are two different rules for those who threaten anyone in public life – one for politicians and the other for the rest of us.
The premier notified police after a woman immigrant from India e-mailed she would “kill” one of his aides and she has been charged with uttering a death threat and could go to jail for up to five years.
The immigrant has explained people in her former country often use this expression when merely slightly irritated and have not the remotest intention of carrying it out.
She says the words should not be taken literally, others add similar language is common in several countries and there is a lot, including this writer’s personal experience, to support this.
The legislature also has been through a similar incident before, when it refused to rebuke even slightly an immigrant MPP from Britain, who said an opponent “should be shot,” but maintained this is an expression of only mild disagreement in that country.
The premier and police have been much harsher in the case of Neelam Vir, 40, of Brampton, who emigrated from India and became a freelance writer for a Punjabi newspaper.
She met politicians in her job and was thrilled by her easy access to them compared to those in India. She became concerned immigrants have difficulties obtaining jobs for which they are qualified and wrote to federal and provincial ministers and in five months sent about 200 e-mails to McGuinty.
His office replied to her by her first name and she felt recognized, went to a news conference, heard him say he enjoyed Indian candies and took one to his office and left it with an aide.
Later she e-mailed the premier asking if the aide had given it to him and added “if she didn’t give it to you, I’ll kill her.”
She wound up taken to a police station and held for six hours until her husband bailed her out, and says her dream of a life in Canada is ended, but she cannot leave while the charge hangs over her.
McGuinty said the incident was “sad, but obviously if I or someone in my family or staff receives some kind of threat, we turn it over to the police and they deal with it in the way they see fit.”
Clearly people in some countries commonly say they will kill someone without meaning it.
Others have added the term is common in other countries and parts of Canada, particularly Newfoundland.
Vir sent an extraordinarily large number of e-mails to McGuinty in a short period, but this is no proof of an irrationality that might prompt murder.
It could more easily be the exuberance of someone, not previously listened to by authority, who found a premier corresponding with her, using her first name.
The MPP who used an expression with similarities in the legislature was a normally jovial, well-mannered and respected New Democrat, Gordon Mills, who a decade ago shouted “you should be shot” at a Progressive Conservative, Gary Carr.
Mills explained saying someone should be shot was not meant or taken literally in Britain. Carr and another Conservative said they had no fears of Mills, but were concerned his remark might incite some “kook or wing-nut.”
The legislature, which included McGuinty in opposition, accepted the MPP’s explanation and did not reprimand him -- the premier should have shown the same leniency to the immigrant who is not a politician.
Eric Dowd is a veteran member of the press gallery at Queen’s Park.
