In my opinion, this incident was overly sensationalized by
the media: Canada's prime minister manhandled a member of parliament; physical
altercation in the Canadian Parliament; prime minister physically assaulted a
female member of parliament and so on and on. The opposition party politicians certainly
took advantage of Justin's mistake and kept pounding at him even after he had
repeatedly apologized.
Justin was impatient to get a procedural vote on an assisted dying legislation, to
meet a soon coming June deadline set out by the Supreme Court of Canada. He
crossed the floor to get Gord Brown because the opposition party members were playing
political games in the house, by blocking Gord from moving. Justin lost his cool.
In getting Gord, Justin accidentally elbowed Ruth's chest. It was an accident,
not an assault. If such body contact was interpreted to be an assault, then
many people on the big cities' crowded transit trains and buses would become
both offenders and victims.
All said, Justin was wrong in crossing the
floor to get Gord Brown, but he was right in quickly giving his complete and
repeated apology.
This whole thing is a serious matter, but it also
makes me laugh. It reminds me of the politicians in other countries who
literally fought and got into physical violence. This happened in Taiwan,
South Korea, Ukraine
and other countries. Compared with these nations, what happened in the Canadian
Parliament on Wednesday was something so very mild.
In South Korea,
I learned that the politicians would preplan how
to fight, and make sure that they would be captured in the news footage. The
purpose was to show their constituents how hard they worked, even willing to
literally fight for them in the legislature. In Canada, it is the first time that something like this happened
in parliament.
Putting seriousness aside, I now
dream of making a funny movie showing such fights in different countries. For
the U.S., the politicians would dress up like cowboys and shoot
at one another with jumbo guns. For Canada, they would fight with hockey sticks. Needless to say,
the theme song for the satirical movie would be 'kung fu fighting'. Ouch Canada!
