For My Canadian Friends

I’m a big fan of our friends from the Great White North. Our ex-colonial brothers to the north have given us Rush, Bob & Doug McKensie, the racing Villenueves and Champ Car bad boy Paul Tracy, and MLS stars Dwayne DeRosario, Pat Onstad, and Frank Yallop. So I’m being quite genuine when I say I’m really sorry that we’ve apparently decided to start dumping sex offenders off in Ontario.

Malcom Watson, a New York teacher, pleaded guilty to molesting a 15-year old student. At sentencing, he was given a choice by the “town court” – serve three years in jail or go to Canada for those three years (his wife and children live there), returning to the US only to see a probation officer. Aside from the issue of whether a New York “town court” can exile an American citizen, it’s a pretty shitty thing to do just to fob him off on another country! In the words of one unmanned official, “[h]e's Canada's problem, not ours.” Nice! That’s diplomacy for you.