Legalities and Moralities

Cardus recently published an article criticizing the legalities of the Insite decision, and my friend Prof. John Stackhouse has responded publicly here.

There is something embarrassing about having a group of the wealthiest people in Canada criticizing the legalities of a decision that saves the lives of a group of the poorest people there, without acknowledging the moralities of the decision.

I don’t know much about legal matters, but I do know that we have consistently left our epic moral issues up to the Supreme Court to decide.  It is ridiculous to believe that we are a country above morals, that all we need are good laws. Our laws are based on morality, and so to discuss the Supreme Court decision and leave out any discussion on the morality of the decision seems to me inherently flawed. I don’t know if the way the judges ruled was legally bad. I do know that it was morally good. The fact that Insite has stayed open is a moral victory and a humanistic one, and should have been acknowledged as such.

As I work among the Somali people who have a “every man for himself” mentality bred from years of instability and famine, I can now say that I come to them as a messenger from a nation that thinks differently.  In Canada, our official stance is that we care about the marginalized, we pay attention to the high death rates among people who suffer from addiction. In Canada, we practice grace. We have the luxury of doing so, but because we do so, we can offer hope to others.

So the Supreme Court decision has affirmed my trust in the Canadian way of doing things. Legally, that means nothing. But to those people living in the downtown eastside of Vancouver, it is the difference between life and death.