Justice Gethin Edward of the Ontario Court of Justice suggested physicians essentially want to “impose our world view on First Nation culture.” The idea of a cancer treatment being judged on the basis of statistics that quantify patients’ five-year survival rate is “completely foreign” to aboriginal ways, he said.
“Even if we say there is not one child who has been cured of acute lymphoblastic leukemia by traditional methods, is that a reason to invoke child protection?” asked Justice Edward, noting that the girl’s mother believes she is doing what is best for her daughter.
“Are we to second guess her and say ‘You know what, we don’t care?’ … Maybe First Nations culture doesn’t require every child to be treated with chemotherapy and to survive for that culture to have value.”
More from Jonathan Kay.
h/t Kevin B
And then turn around and attack other “faith” based people like Jehovah’s Witness for the same thing. Thank you progressive thought! The cognitive dissonance would be strong with this one I am sure.
“First Nation culture” isn’t.
Or rather it is like Guinea Pig, neither a pig nor from Guinea.
Having said that should we f*** with Darwinian selection?
Also should we allow the state to overrule the parents? Yes, in this case the parents are obviously wrong. Still seems like a lesser evil than letting Child Abduction Services run amok as they do in Ontario…
… Of course they are much more careful around certain groups than other. One does not need to wonder what would happen if some faith based therapy was chosen by deeply Christian parents.
They’re also self appointed “keepers of the land” and don’t recognize closed seasons or ‘limits” on any fish and game.
How, Ug!
That’s the first thought that entered my mind also. Same group as well.
Progressive thought is very selective.
I read this this morning just shaking my head. I know health care workers who’ve dealt with exactly this sort of situation.
My take on it is this. Essentially the ones who should be prosecuted are the so-called “healers” who purport to cure illnesses they can’t even diagnose using film-flam treatments. They enrich themselves at the expense of the most vulnerable people i.e. the distraught parents and their sick children. It’s interesting that while legislators around the turn of the twentieth century came up with legislation such as the patent medicines act and the health professions act to protect the public from quackery and snake-oil salesmen, “learned judges” aka a collection of scientifically illiterate poll-sci/LLB grads dressed like 19th century fops, having been protected long enough from a thing called, “reality”, that they’ve determined that snake oil and quackery are back in vogue.
Ultimately, let Darwinism take its course. Science is the best (not perfect) protection against self-deceit. The laws required to protect fools from their folly are ultimately too draconian and therefore inimical to freedom to be tolerable in a free society. Provided basic public health measures (herd immunity etc) are enforced, I believe the lesser of evils is to allow parents to govern the treatment of their children. While it’s harsh to say it, perhaps the “stupid” gene will be somewhat reduced in the population, and the alternative is worse.
What is the process for impeaching this judge? Clearly and demonstrably he/she is incompetent.
I say we give the tribes concoction, slippery elm and turkey rhubarb root, a chance to work. From my personal experience, I can tell you it cures athlete’s foot, is a great hair conditioner, and makes a tasty and nutritious salad dressing.
Practicing medicine without a licence.
Is that still an offence?
It some lawyers and government bureaucrats want to live in a land of voodoo and witchdoctors, let them move to Haiti.
Let Canada retain its first world achievements in medical science, and also in moral reasoning, one that places human well being over and above superstition.
The 3rd worlders, they can move to a 3rd world country if they truly want to.
Thank you progressives. Thank you ‘community leaders’. Thank you Your Honour. You have just condemned this child to a horrible, agonizing death. As a cancer survivor of 25 years (Hodgkins, I was 25 at the time) I know what chemo feels like. The only thing that keeps you going is knowing that the alternative is death. And that that alternative is phu#@ing certain. No matter what you have to go through with it. Or you die.
Justice Edward is a consummate disgrace on so many levels. He could have said that he understands the pain the girl is going through. He could have said that he knows how the mother feels wanting to keep pain away from her daughter. He could have sympathized with the Native leaders that are suspicious of being sidelined by arrogant Whites. And then he could have said that it was his job to ensure that THE LAW IS THERE TO PROTECT THIS LITTLE GIRL’S LIFE AND NO MATTER WHAT THE CONSEQUENCES IT IS HIS DUTY TO DEFEND IT. THAT HE TOOK AN OATH AND THERE WAS NO GETTING AROUND THE FACT THAT WITHOUT THIS PHARMACEUTICAL REGIME SHE WILL CERTAINLY DIE. He abandoned it for the most facile of reasons; political expediency.
God damn you to hell you son of a bitch.
Next a research paper will be published finding that death from childhood leukemia is significantly higher among aboriginal people…racism will be cited as the likely cause…/sarc
“They’re also self appointed “keepers of the land” and don’t recognize closed seasons or ‘limits” on any fish and game.”
Too true. I was just down at our river in advance of the fishing season for Coho beginning. Two native young men, fishing tidal waters (not allowed for me)were ‘snagging’ fish by yanking on their rods – also illegal for me. Between casts, I noted they each had VERY large, treble barbed hooks. Both of which are REALLY illegal for me.
One law for me, another for thee.
My somewhat liberal, social worker daughter is coming over tonight, so it will be interesting to hear her ‘real world’ take on the child’s situation. She’s been in the game long enough to understand what she was taught in her social working education bears little connection to the reality she faces everyday.
A few weeks ago I believe this was on the Roy Green show and all I can say that the parents are making a pretty expensive political statement.
I have the right to refuse chemo and can’t imagine a situation where I wouldn’t refuse chemo. If I get cancer I’m going home and hoping its over before I run out of morphine.
What this case boils down to is, whose child is it? Does the child belong to its family? Or is a child the chattel property of our Socialist State?
“What this case boils down to is,…”
… state, in the name of political correctness, making an exception for a protected minority and allowing them to get away with what the rest of us never would.
Another case of: double standards twice as good.
Should the parents be allowed to pull their kid out of chemo is a separate matter. Yes I agree they should be allowed, but not because they are members of savage primitive pseudo culture that has never contributed anything to civilization.
They deserve it. But the poor child doesn’t.
My son went to a screwl that had some curriculum that involved the “aboriginal ways of knowing”. There was a handout about it. I expected a blurb about how they magically could detect where the nearest liquor store was but instead I was treated to a magical fantasy about how the aboriginals of BC have a proud tradition of environmental stewardship. The problem is I went to high screwl right near a reserve and would take the screwl bus through it everyday and I can tell you if that’s environmental stewardship and a model for the future I say it’s time to start building the bunker.
The state is evil for interfering in aboriginal affairs, and the state is evil for NOT interfering in aboriginal affairs.
You know what? I don’t care any more. If they want the consequences of living like savages, then so be it. All I want to do is stop paying for it.
There are examples of native medicine working that just amaze us. Chief Spend-a-lot of the Attawapiskat tribe actually gained weight on her 6 week hunger strike contrary to medical science. So there must be something to this alternate medicine.
The whole concept of first Nations is nothing more than a scam inflicted on the country by the bureaucrats at Indian Affairs. What better way to ensure your career advancement and increased federal budget allotments each and every year. Let these supposed ” First Nations ” boil their tree bark and listen to the Medicine Man if that’s what they choose to believe, just stop sending the rest of us the bill when your 18 th century ideas and beliefs don t work out. After all they are the ones insisting on the right to ‘ self determination “.
“LET them die!” James Tiberius Kirk.
On a somewhat less militant note, I have to say that I’ve heard some guff from supposedly educated White people no less crazy than this aboriginal healing bilge.
Quote: ““There’s a fear of [aboriginal remedies] or denial of it. If things can’t be quantified or qualified, to them it’s irrelevant,” said Ms. Hill, as she shopped at Ancestral Voices Healing Centre Thursday. “Who are they [doctors] to say she will make it with their treatments. Just because they have a degree, that makes them more knowledgeable?”
Well, yeah. It does. Having an MD does mean doctors really do know more about cancer than you do. And most likely they are smarter than you. Not a little smarter, a LOT smarter. Like, you ain’t going to keep up with them smarter.
But that sentence could have been said by any number of “vegans” or crystal worshipers or dowsers or homeopathic medicine types. I hear it a lot, from people who should bloody well know better too.
My answer is that its a free country. Your kids are YOURS. You want them to die for your pride, because you are STUPID, go for it. I’m fine with it.
But don’t come to me looking for sympathy and a donation for the funeral. I gave at the office, and my heart just isn’t big enough to forgive someone who killed their own child by willful, prideful stupidity.
Oh, and Mr Justice Gethin Edward is a lying sack of politically motivated sh1t. Bear that in mind, Ontarians, when you think you’re going to get justice in an Ontario court. Ain’t. Going. To. Happen.
I’m with you, Phantom.
That is the main point.
Like the JW’s and their religious refusal of transfusions, where does the state step in, and should it ?
A parent does have primary authority over the child.
But, that does not allow them to abuse or neglect the child.
Bountiful(B.C.’s polygamous tribe)is a good example.
Where is the line drawn? What you and I may classify as abuse, may be acceptable in their community.
IMHO, you abide by the laws of the country that you live in.
“First Nation” communities are not countries. They are not ‘nations’. They must abide by Canadian law.
Heck, they need outside help to control stray dogs that eat their children.
This judge got it wrong.
I actually wish that there was a “cure” of some sort for the cancer that’s slowly killing me, unlike this child’s parents turning up their noses at a shot at life for their kid. I’d gladly trade my form of cancer for her’s, because then there would be a good chance at beating it. All the medical people can do for me is spend a lot of money on drugs to delay the inevitable. Three years and still kicking. I even went back to work because I didn’t see lying around waiting to croak as a fun way to end my life. May as well continue to do something productive. As for fear of pain in the process, the medical world have lots of ways to make that go away.
I think this is more a thumb-in-the-eye of Western culture than parents making an informed decision on the best treatment for their child. Their kid is going to die in an attempt to prove a point and an unelected judge helped.
Totally copasetic with the Phantom. If Indians want to have a decadent death oriented culture, well that’s their contribution to multiculturalism.
Do I want the government to protect me and mine from myself and so-on? No. Same-o with the Indians. Let-em be ignorant as owl-shit, and if they don’t learn from their mistakes then, Oh-Well.
“They deserve it. But the poor child doesn’t.”
~Clive
Says you, boo-frickin-who. Life isn’t fair. Deserve has nothing to do with it.
You want to remedy it? Do it yourself, without drafting me or mine.
I can’t be responsible for what other people do with life. If you want to be responsible for what others do with their lives, I guess you’ve got your own life down pat and totally perfected. Congratulations.
“refusal of transfusions,”
If you saw the sorts of people who donate blood you might choose to refuse transfusions as well. That’s a basic human right to decide what gets injected into your body.
This is tragic on so many levels
We all agree, kids with cancer is awful
We can probably all agree that if they have an incurable disease, where there are very few treatment options, anything goes. Yo yo therapy? Go for it!
BUT – childhood leukemias are eminently curable. Can these decisions be made by children, or alternatively superstitious people? (Yes I’m looking at you all super religious who eschew science)
The courts are now saying that superstitious lore ~= medical evidence
Thank you law people. You are treating native peoples as wondrous noble savages, mythic in nature
Sad sad sad for everyone, especially the poor young girl
I love this. There is nothing like an enlightened librul judge that is willing to enforce EVOLUTION IN ACTION against his own constituency. A bit more of this, and Canada won’t have an abo problem. Now, if you could just get the communists and their librul/socialist useful idiots to stop vaccinating their children, eventually, all will be right with the world. Somehow, I thought the ruling socialists thought it was going to be the other way around.
Heaven help us, if there is an Ebola outbreak at a Reserve
Stephen, right now we have an Ebola outbreak in Dallas Texas, I can’t see that a reserve full of drunks and drug addicts would have handled it much worse.
This is not a vote of confidence for drunks and drug addicts. This is an observation on the criminal negligence of the CDC’s response. Two women are going to either die or wish they could because of it, and that is a best-case scenario.
I think if we see Ebola show up for real on reserves (or in Toronto for that matter), all this PC wonderfulness will go away awfully quick. Question is how many will die before the rest of us have had enough.
The Dukhbours were also treated similarly to Jehovah Witness religious believes. Their communal style of living was forcibly disbanded around the time the Bureaucratic home for the less capable siblings and offspring was being created in the Department of Indian Affairs.
At least this is what was learned when visiting the small privately funded museum on a trip by car to Canada West. Cheers;
Did the judge just say “Let the effing Indian die.” Probably not. He would have said “Let the effing First Nations kid die.”
Rights do tend to be fashionable and prone to trends.
Some poor sap of a mayor up in the Saguenay is pilloried for wanting to start council meetings with the Our Father.
The same people who pillory him will be all oohs and ahs over some government conference opening with a sweetgrass ceremony.
This decision seems part of a building series of legal steps to put together a string of
lower court precedents that will overthrow the basis of law in Canada. Provincial govts
such as Ontario are very sparing of their use of the courts and police in these scenarios
and at the same time very weak in opposing first nations legal initiatives.
Wonder how Bob Rae keeps busy these days?
And yet these same liberal judges and the media go apeshit when Jehoval Witnesses do the same thing. As far as culture and keepers of the land goes, anytime I see a reserve it looks like a junkyard.