Shame on you John Thompson and Richard Mostyn!
If you had bothered to do your homework instead of running while still frothing in your excited delirium of finding fault in an MLA, who, by the way, doesn’t swear away human rights when swearing into office, you would have found that she had already voluntarily paid the $250 fine for the parking violation.
The day in question was supposed to be a day out with her granddaughter, who was visiting for the week from university. Instead, it turned into a day that her granddaughter, among others who witnessed the verbal interaction between you and Horne, will remember as a spectacle of verbal harassment on your part, that you even had the gall to record.
You have failed to mention in your article that this lateral violence is what brought her to tears. Until we change our attitudes toward violence against women, in any form, our society will continue to use articles such as yours as humour and degradation of women.
The picture that you ran in the paper which refers to “a bad hair day” was taken during the sitting of legislation last year when the minister was suffering from pneumonia and it probably was a “really” bad hair day.
Publishing her licence plate number in the newspaper would serve what purpose but to draw a more clear line in the sand of where you stand in relation to the Yukon Party, or do you and your editor really want Horne to feel threatened when she goes out in public? What other purpose can it serve? Violence against women? Equality of women?
I find myself wondering if a parking violation would warrant such front page headlines in any other respectable news journal or if such blatant hostility and preference is reserved for us northerners who, you presume, can’t think for ourselves. She paid her fine, was shamed to tears, and will be changing her licence plate and, thanks to your picture in the paper, will probably have to trade in her truck as well. What more do you want?
A public flogging? I imagine that all of us with public parking violations will have to line up in alphabetical order.
Instead of chasing grannies around town, why not chase a real story that requires real testicles.
How about pushing the whistle blowers act? How about teen suicide rates? How about elder abuse? How about violence against women?
I can think of so many more important newsworthy issues, Thompson and Mostyn.
Shame!
Marina Bailey
Whitehorse