On Point by Andrew Holota
When Jamie Bacon and company were spreading their brand of drug-related violence throughout this community in 2008 and ’09, there were plenty of suggestions as to what should be done with them, but sending them “back to where they came from” was not among them.
It would have been a ridiculous suggestion, because the Bacons “came” from here.
They’re Canadians. Patently bad ones, but Canadians nevertheless.
One of them is actually past tense; shot and killed a few years ago. Live a violent life, odds are you die a violent death.
But to the present…
For the past several months, there have been ongoing violent altercations between groups of young men in a west Abbotsford neighbourhood. Police have dubbed it the Townline Hill Conflict.
It’s not entirely clear what these guys are fighting about. Vengeance for perceived past transgressions? Dominance over territory? Just young ego and testosterone?
Whatever is at the core, the nature of the violence has been escalating. The confrontations have gone beyond physical scuffles and fights, although those continue.
Recent incidents have seen cars torched, and a gun dropped during a temple parking lot brawl. That weapon turned out to be a pellet gun, but it looked extremely real – enough so that if someone else was carrying a real firearm or knife in the melee, it could have sparked a deadly reaction.
And that was before last week’s revelations via government court seizure proceedings that a fatal shooting in the area last fall was gang-related, although not necessarily linked to the previous violence.
Nevertheless, the situation is of serious concern to the police, the residents of the neighbourhoods involved, and the community in general.
No one wants bands of troublemakers sowing mayhem in their town.
And this isn’t the first time local streets have festered with violence perpetrated by groups of rivals, hence Jamie Bacon and company come to mind.
Yet there is a major difference between that prime example and the Townline Hill situation.
The Bacon brothers are white. Thus, deportation is not among the simple solutions of the less-than-nimble public thinkers.
In the Townline case, the combatants are primarily brown – therefore: “send them back to where they came from.”
“If they don’t want to live by Canadian laws, then leave.”
Social media and online comments are littered with those vapid statements whenever law-breaking involves individuals who are not white.
It’s blatant racism.
There may be an odd exception, but I’m guessing the majority of the youth involved in the Townline Hill conflict were born and raised in Canada, to parents who are either citizens themselves, or have permanent resident status.
Those young people “came from” here. They are Canadian citizens. Bad ones, but citizens nonetheless, and Canadian citizenship by birth cannot be lost by bad behaviour.
Should commission of a criminal offence have been grounds for deportation, for the past century or so tens of thousands of misbehaving Canadian citizens would have been shipped back to Britain, Scotland, France, Germany, Ukraine, Russia, Sweden, etc.
After all, that’s where many of us first- and second-generation Canadians “came from.”
But in the narrow minds of some, it’s different if the miscreants come from India, Pakistan, Vietnam, China, Uganda, or any other non-Caucasian country.
Fortunately, regardless of skin colour or ethnicity, all Canadian citizens are subject to Canadian laws ... including those who disrespect and break them.
Sitting in their prison cells, the two surviving Bacon brothers could speak to that.
Andrew Holota is the editor of The Abbotsford News.