Richard Bane, the Let me preface this blog piece by saying that unlike the jury who in the trial of Guy Turcotte acquitted the good doctor by reason of insanity in the murder of his two young children, I hope that Bain gets the max and rots in jail for the rest of his life for depriving a three year-old girl of her father just because the unlucky sap, her father, got in Bain's way on his way to kill Pauline Marois.
If Bain is found to be 100% nuts, it wouldn't change my mind, the consequence of being found not criminally responsible via the insanity defence is too high a price for society and more importantly, the family of the victim to pay.
In advancing the so-called right of the criminally insane to an acquittal, we hinder the grieving family from achieving closure and healing, the idea that the murderer will be walking around society, free as a jaybird, because he is somehow 'cured' is akin to imposing upon the aggrieved family a lifetime sentence of pain and suffering.
So I'm not much interested if Bain is certifiable, I've no interest in seeing him acquitted via the insanity defence. That's just an opinion, you may or may not agree.
That being said, it isn't going to happen, unlike Guy Turcotte, no Quebec jury will ever let him skate on the murder, the idea of him eventually getting out after a couple of years in a prison hospital, amazingly cured, is a cup of poison that nobody, English or French will tolerate.
That being said, who can deny that Bain lost his marbles that night when he tried to kill Marois and truth be told, he actually has a better case of temporary insanity than did Turcotte.
Up to the incident at the Metropolis, Bain seemed to function reasonably well, providing for himself and keeping out of trouble, a seemingly productive member of society.
Who but a seriously afflicted person goes on a political assassination mission dressed in a bathrobe. I think that this fact alone speaks for his deranged mental condition, Res ipsa loquitur .
At his preliminary hearings, Bain probably said it best, joking that he was "75% sane, not bad" according to him, "considering that the 'separatists' who want to separate need only 50% of the vote."
Very clever...er.... Link
But in the end Bain isn't going to get to enjoy the compassionate side of Quebec justice, it's already in the cards.
He's going to be found competent and guilty, and will be sent down for the maximum, anything less would have the militants leading marches in the streets.
And so it brings me to ask the question that nobody will ask, that is, will Bain enjoy the relative light hand of the justice system that the murderers of the FLQ enjoyed?
You might recall that the FLQ was responsible for over 160 terrorist attacks resulting in eight deaths and a multitude of injured.
The entire terrorist group numbering around thirty was treated rather gingerly by the justice system, starting with Gabriel Hudon and Raymond Villeneuve who were sentenced to 12 years in prison after their bomb killed Wilfred O'Neill, a watchman at Montreal's Canadian Army Recruitment Centre. Wikipedia The two were paroled after just four years.
The murderers of Pierre Laporte, Francis Simard and Paul Rose received a life sentence but were paroled after 11 years.
Jacques Lanctôt, Yves Langlois,, Jacques Cossette-Trudel and his wife, Louise Lanctôt the kidnappers of James Cross, were allowed to flee to Cuba in return for his release.
They all returned to Canada a few years later and received ridiculously low jail sentences, most about two years with parole after just eight months.
The most notorious FLQ terrorist is Pierre-Paul Geoffroy, an unrepentant bomber who received the harshest jail sentence for his various terrorist crimes ever handed out by a judge in the Commonwealth, 124 life sentences. He was paroled just ten years later. Link{Fr}
The longest jail sentence ever served by a Felkist was that of François Schirm who was actually sentenced to death for a murder committed during a robbery at an armoury in an attempt to secure weapons for the FLQ. In the end, he served 14 years before being released.
So the question begs, will an Anglo terrorist be treated as tenderly as these FLQ terrorists?
I somehow feel that Bain is going to pay a price that no FLQ murderer ever paid. As for public sentiment towards Bain, I'm reminded of the old movie line from Silverado;
"We're gonna give you a fair trial, followed by a first class hanging."
Already the media has created a cordon sanitaire, refusing to let Mr. Bain tell his side of the story and explain exactly what he did and why he did it.
Against legal advice Bain called English radio station CJAD in Montreal where he gave a thirty-eight minute interview, of which only two minutes were aired, which caused a firestorm of criticism in the French press for allowing Bain a tribune to push his partitionist views
So I wasn't surprised that in another interview he gave, this time with Claude Poirer, Quebec's veteran crime reporter, Bain was treated as if he was radio-active.
Usually these calls are a reporter's wet dream, a scoop of inestimable value, but Porier on advice from his bosses, danced around the interview like a child licking icing off a cake, trying hard not to disturb its appearance, lest she be caught.
It seems that the word is out in the media (anglo + Franco) not to let Bain speak his mind when he phones media outlets (against his lawyer's instructions)
I certainly would like to hear what he has to say, just like I'd like to hear an interview with Luka Magnotta.
Doesn't the public have a right to hear to the story directly from the horse's mouth?
At any rate, I don't think Bain will be treated as well as the ex-FLQ terrorists who have largely been re-integrated into Quebec society, many quite successfully.
As for being murdering terrorists, they hardly seemed stigmatized and enjoy very open public careers like Pierre Schneider and Raymond Villeneuve.
For Quebecers, its largely forgive and forget.
Do you think the media and the public will ever forgive Richard Bain to the extent of those in the FLQ?
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