Why do people want to believe the worst?

A terrific piece written by Brian Giesbrecht, a retired Province of Manitoba judge and Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, that provoked a nasty reply from a reader who called Giesbrecht a racist, an accusation those you who recall the Saskatoon issue he describes may wish to reply to.

I post the reader’s comment first followed by Giesbrecht’s opinion article on the other side of the paywall.

Reader Reply

Ken MacDougall Sep 7, 2023 11:56am

If this "Brian Giesbrecht", a former judge in Manitoba is the same one who professed to an APTN reporter that a similar article reiterating nonsense about taxes unpaid by Indigenous status holders was "satirical" in nature, then this column should be treated in the same fashion - OR, more appropriately, just simply call THIS "Brian Giesbrecht" nothing more than a professional racist whose record as a judge should - and must - be examined as to how many innocent people, especially those of Indigenous ancestry, should be made subject of a provincial inquiry at the earliest possible opportunity.

My reason for stating this has to do with the two Saskatoon police officers, Ken Munson and Dan Hatchen, who did 90 days in Stoney Mountain for having deliberately dumped Darrell Night, who without a proper winter jacket nor boots, was MADE to walk back from the Queen Elizabeth Generating Station to his home, a distance of some 5 km in -26C weather and -34C wind chill by the officers, after having been picked up outside a bar on the city's west side, and allegedly intoxicated. As a friend of one of these officers (who, by the way, admitted guilt), I was disgusted with his actions, but attended every day of their trial, and was occasionally quoted in the Star Phoenix on the matter. The officers OFFICIALLY apologized for the trauma placed upon Mr. Night, and asked for a sentencing circle to mete out appropriate justice - an acceptable way under Indigenous law to seek closure and healing for the victim. While this process was NOT accepted by the courts, it DOES raise the issue that the officers appear to know more about Indigenous law than former FSIN Chief Lawrence Joseph, who first laughed at the suggestion of even having the sentencing circle to later professing that maybe it was a good alternative to healing this matter. NEITHER officer upon release intimated that the entire issue was seeking to turn Saskatoon police into targets for racist behaviours, although both admitted their actions were consistent with such accusation. At the time there were FOUR similar issues, three of which resulted in frozen bodies and tied to the generating station, but having nothing to do with having been dropped there by police. Two were even further out of the city, one of which was at the time being treated as a drug-related execution, while the third was found in a vacant field south and west of Avenue P and 11th, and was deemed to be the result of a combination of weather inducing hypothermia and drug overdose, where the individual as a result of the weather/drug combination felt himself "heating up", then taking off clothes to cool down. His body was found naked. What SHOULD be annoying, and therefore of greater interest to readers of this media source is that Saskatoon's media virtually ALL referred to these three cases as being somehow related to the two officers' activities in forcing Mr. Night to walk home, and being dumped out there by SPS. In further investigation, it was found that the RCMP had at least 5 complaints laid against their officer that never made it into court, as well as another 15 or more TAXI driver complaints, many involving the same driver. Notwithstanding ANY of these facts, and despite the FSIN attempting to use the SPS as a target for investigation, Mr. Giesbrecht's comments should be taken for the trash and stupidity that they truly are, and labelled accordingly as "disinformation" and a crass attempt to foment supplementary racist sentiment in the Western Standard's readership, much of which is further outlined by the comments made by some of this media source's lesser informed individuals who still like to pretend that they know about what they're talking, yet take great delight in exhibiting the exact opposite in behaviours.