Tragically, there would be no ambulance to chase in the hunt for eight-year-old Tori Stafford.
By the time her small body was finally found, hidden under a pile of rocks, there was no need to rush to hospital. By then, she’d been dead for three months. During those long days and nights, hundreds of desperate cops, the shocked citizens of Woodstock, Ontario and, most of all, her traumatized parents would have given anything for the sound of an ambulance siren. It would have provided some hope, at least.
The murder shocked the nation and would eventually lead to the first-degree murder convictions of Terri-Lynne McClintic and her then-boyfriend, Michael Rafferty. Both rightfully got sentenced to at least 25 years in prison.
It was the 18-year-old McClintic who’d lured the youngster into Rafferty’s waiting car with a promise to show her a puppy, and who later ignored the girl’s cries for help as the atrocity unfolded.
Unlike the dreadful deal done with Karla Homolka, there was no need for the cops or courts to be lenient on McClintic in order to get her testimony against her co-accused. They both went down for the maximum.
But evil takes some ignoring – which is why, when news broke that McClintic had been moved to an Indigenous healing lodge in south Saskatchewan to continue her sentence, all hell broke loose.
In Ottawa, the Tories roasted Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, who promised an investigation as pressure and anger mounted. Even our prime minister was incensed, though not for the same reason as most Canadians.
Nope, Justin Trudeau walked out of the House of Commons and called the opposition ambulance chasers for harping on the issue.
“The Conservatives are terribly upset that I referred to them as practicing ambulance-chasing politics, but if they’re upset, it’s probably because it stings a bit,” is how he termed it.
No, what actually stings and surprises is this man’s total lack of understanding of the way regular Canadians think and feel.
Of course, there is politics involved with the Conservatives continually raising the issue, but there’s also an overwhelming valid reason why such outrageous injustice should be highlighted. Spitting out caustic one-liners instead of taking it on the chin, as a prime minister sometimes has to do, is unseemly, uncaring and arrogant.
And although this is an extreme example of Trudeau’s lack of empathy with ordinary folk, it is hardly a stand-alone occurrence. The further into his term he goes, the more of that initial ‘good guy, hipster’ gloss falls away.
We have seen his cavalier tweets about Canada always open to those in need, which caused desperate people to flood across our borders only to find no such welcome; we watched a former terrorist get a $10-million cheque for having his rights impinged upon; we have cringed at the gaudy silliness of playing dress-up in India as another one-time terrorist joins the Canadian delegation. And we have laughed at the utter silliness of interrupting a woman to declare we don’t say mankind any more but peoplekind.
There’s a pattern to these otherwise diverse actions. It speaks to a man playing a role with no grounding of ordinary life and to those living it. It is the former drama teacher in him writ large.
He’s playing at being prime minister. At first, his good looks, charm and the cool cachet that his father also displayed made him the darling of the media here and overseas.
Not any more. Increasingly, he is looking more and more lost, reacting with irritation as the good vibes of his first 18 months in office vanish and, in their place, stands naught but a hollow man.
Chris Nelson is a long-time journalist. His columns on Alberta politics run monthly in the St. Albert Gazette.
