Different Season, Same Stupidity

In August, I took the time to talk about leaving kids in cars in the summer heat. Fast forward to this weekend, where a bylaw enforcement officer in Ottawa is trying to be a nice guy (an anomaly itself) by looking inside a vehicle to check for a parking slip that may have fallen off the dash. Instead of seeing a slip of paper, he sees a small hand move. Minutes later, at around 11:20am, police arrive and remove two children, an infant and a toddler, from the freezing car.

The vehicle's hood was "stone cold". Witness accounts confirm that the vehicle was parked at or before 10:30am, meaning that the children were in the -6°C weather for at least an hour. The children are fine, but taken to hospital for routine examinations. Over an hour after they are rescued from the car, at 12:30pm, the parents return to their vehicle to find police waiting for them. Less than two hours later, at 2:15pm, the parents leave the hospital with their two children and a parking ticket that will cost $35 if they pay early. No charges are laid.

One more time: if you lock a baby and a toddler in a car in sub-freezing temperatures, but pay the meter, you're good to go.

Am I the only one who doesn't understand the legal system in Canada? How can this kind of behaviour warrant little more than a wrist-slapping from CAS? How are these people allowed to retain custody of their children? How can they not be punished, or at the very least, charged, for such an offense?

And what about the fact that the bylaw officer saw a hand move? He didn't see a glove, but a hand. That means that not only were these two babies locked in the freezing cold, but they weren't even properly dressed for it! Think about standing outside without gloves on in -6°C weather for an hour, without the ability or the experience to put your hands in your pockets. What would your hands feel like?

To reiterate what I said in August, what if the law in Ontario were changed, and leaving a child in a car is attempted murder, or at a minimum some form of aggravated assault? In reality, leaving someone in a car in extreme heat or cold is risking death or at least significant injury - so why not make the punishment fit the crime?

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Comments

[kittenpie]

I would think that we need to go with the assumption that people do NOT necessarily have common sense and maybe removing the children or sending the parents to prison isn't the way to go for a first-time mistake, though this is a big one.

I am not saying this is fine and should go away without repercussions, but perhaps some mandatory parenting classes and a set of visits from CAS to check on the house and the parenting, and decide from there if they are okay to continue as the parents of these kids?

[Don Mills Diva]

I'm with kittenpie. Such a stupid, stupid, mistake to make and it should definitely be punishable by more than a $35 fine BUT not sure if it's in everyone's best interests to send people to prison over this. Parenting classes and monitoring would probably be more effective.