I was sitting here thinking back to the beginning of the movie Gone with the Wind, and how the horsemen came riding up and announced that there was a great civil war starting, that it was only going to be a matter of weeks, that it would be over soon and everything would go back to normal. And think in terms of the devastation that happened beyond that. As well, think in terms of this commission that, if it were following the protocol, would have been addressing this particular case based on a sentence that would have to be restorative to rehabilitate the person and reintegrate him.
And somewhere in all of this.... Every combatant who is at war has a good chance of killing somebody in battle, and how is this case different? It's tragic that the two individuals died in that firefight. Certainly it's tragic, as any loss is. But I am mystified at how people have lost sight that this was a boy. I don't care if he's 82 now; he was a boy at the time. He was a young teenager when he left here, and he was only 15 in the middle of this battle.
You get to the point where you just wonder how we got to this place. How did our government get to this place, that the sense of vindictiveness is there?
I'll ask you one last question. What do you think will happen if the Canadian government just walks away from it and doesn't intercede? I've left that generally wide open on purpose to give you free rein.