The voices grow for an inquiry as we seek more answers. We want to show our respect for the women who lost their lives; to act and speak on their behalf. To implement protocol and accountability to prevent future breakdowns.  To deal with the frustration and feelings of helplessness that comes from an injured system.

It goes without saying it is hard to find closure in this when we are talking about so many lives; whether we assign 26, 49 or 100 it was one death too many. There is no doubt in my mind he (and maybe others) were able to continue killing because of the way we as a society view these women. They are disposable, living a high risk life with multiple issues and we are simply not prepared to appreciate, empathize or look deep into their existence and our role.

They stayed under the radar of police and news worthiness because it wasn’t a series of women in my neighbourhood disappearing on their evening stroll. Thankfully, eventually the media played and plays a role in keeping this top of mind. Why am I thankful? Without that spotlight, featuring the families and organizations that aim to expose the inequities of justice, we the public would go on to the next tragedy and these women would fade even further from our view and consciousness.

Can an inquiry help? I believe it can. Providing, concrete steps are taken to ensure understanding and compliance with recommendations.

Inquiries can be time consuming and expensive but those are not good enough reasons to silence this particular issue. We have a responsibility to get to the bottom of this, we can not trust that this was only one bad situation that won’t be repeated. Yes, the Vancouver Police Department has some openness, maybe the RCMP will come around to examination of the facts but we the public must exercise our due dillegence! Many lives were lost on their watch, it was a mass murder of women.

These mothers, daughters, sisters, cousins may have lacked the self esteem and ability to advocate for a better life. Abandoned, abused, abusers or survivors it is important we do right by them once and for all. As I sat at one social gathering a few weeks back, the topic of Pickton came up.  One guy said, “He did us a favour.” Briefly proceeding to say “those women deserved it.” As he went to continue his venom I turned around and said “I don’t agree with you!” “They didn’t deserve it, I have met with women who have lived and worked on our streets, they don’t deserve this!” I chose not to continue dialogue with this man, it is a waste of breath. The use and abuse on women continues because of attitudes such as that.

I want justice for each of these women. If it can not be in the form of a voice in court or a sentence increase, then at least let us here the truth and implement change that addresses not only the systemic breakdown but gives rise to a new way of supporting women to not need or be lured into the survival sex trade. Prosecute Johns heavily and put a magnifiying glass on the street pimps and traffickers that make women vulnerable to people like Pickton. Give answers, tell me what went wrong and fix it!

What do you think? Should there be an inquiry and what would you hope comes from it?

Development – as our preoccupation for being better at everything exploded, so did our need to speed up the process of childhood. Babies development encouraged by new and improved “scientific” studies that lead us towards wanting super infants – educational marvels whose parents line up for their Einstein tools and mini-college enrollment.

Play – for many children is structured too but it comes with confusing and often opposing expectations. In one camp is the parents (and so called experts) pontificating “everyone is a winner” but in the other camp is the screaming competitive sideline coaches. Play has been redefined with a more adult take on its relevance.  “To just  have fun or just be the best?” … that is the question.

Fun - all on its own has been transformed from interacting with family and friends through indoor/outdoor games, to participating in the dark room with self and a screen. On that screen children can be exposed to many sides of life and make believe that have real adult themes but lack any responsibility to determine whether the fun is healthy, pacifying or just plain inappropriate for their age.

If we talk about the girl child, look out! Checking out toys and characters such as Bratz one would think our little girls are now just miniature women. Words to describe their Dolls “Flirty” “Glamorous” “Feminine” one character is also thankfully “not pretentious.”

“Mommy what does pretentious mean?”

Clothing and accessories – the available clothing, the makeup, polished nails and dyed hair have changed any reason to look forward to growing up. To hit milestones in terms of age, responsibility let alone understanding. In its worst form clothing demonstrates the hyper-sexualization of our children and teens.

You don’t have to look far to find the images and stories that prove innocence lost. There was one American retail company I was going to feature as an example; after viewing the slide show images they use of children/young girls I decided I couldn’t give them yet another forum in which to highlight their exploitation. (if you want the link email me directly)

Wrapped in misrepresented words such as “empowerment” or “freedom”, laced in “it’s cute” “work it” or “show it off”, embraced by a pornified culture comes the undoing of childhood.

What are we doing? Why are we taking away their right to have fun without adult influence? Why are we giving them so much to see and think about without the context? Why do we enjoy partnering with our children and teens in a way that does not define the differences between adult/child relationships and development? Why do we believe they are capable of doing many things so early in life but then step in to protect them when it results in a wrong decision that causes them harm or costs society? Why are we unable to see that these mini adults will not be any better prepared for adulthood? Why did we need to take away what was positive about innocence?

Dance – if there was ever a moment when I felt sickened by our move towards taking our little ones too far into adulthood it was with the following video. The debate opened up early regarding this; anger on one side, sadness for others and as you can see with some of the comments people who support it. Talent aside – given the song lyrics, costuming and moves I had to remind myself they are only 7 YEARS OLD! It is no surprise that some adults are viewing our young as prey, as we package them up for display and sell them in our online, public and retail markets.

7 year old girls dancing to Single Ladies

As a follow up to my post earlier this week and my article that just ran in TimeFinders Magazine I wanted to share more about the issue of animal captivity and the differences in philosophies that keep this a hot button issue. Months have gone by since our original interview and through that time there have been many twists and turns. Porter knew he was in a race to get people to support his campaign and understands fully that aquariums, activists, governments and the public can’t get to common ground.

Like anything, each can find reasons to stand behind their cause but behind that, is what drives this world MONEY. We are talking huge amounts of money that come from our pockets directly to organizations and businesses that deal in animal captivity. How much of that investment positively impacts the wild animal species and their habitats is what we don’t know. I venture to guess, after talking with Porter, the dollars are not floating towards where it makes the most sense.

Christopher Porter’s switch from dolphin dealer to dolphin freer really made a stir and getting support has proved extremely difficult. One group that I contacted after speaking with Mr. Porter was Ric O’Barry’s organization Save Japan Dolphins, where I spoke to Mark Berman regarding their support of the Free the Pod campaign:

“We have congratulated Chris Porter on getting out of the dolphin trade and we want to see the project move ahead. We are getting all the details ironed out. Dolphin trading must stop and Chris has the first step in promoting dolphin protection; we are continuing to look at his proposals to move forward.”

“The Government of the Solomon Islands is in favour of the capture and trading of dolphins, we want to guarantee the safety of these dolphins. The Government has to guarantee the elimination of dolphin capture and trade.”

“It also takes others to cooperate, we can’t do this alone.”

As the clock ticks away towards the final release of the remaining dolphins, I can’t help but wonder how much cooperation went on and in the end who, if anyone, stepped up to help?

Ultimately though, I think public awareness is the key as Porter suggested in our interview. We, the public, either choose not to know or clearly don’t know, what goes on behind the scenes to provide us with the pleasure of viewing, touching or swimming with wild animals. (Well, lets just take the word “wild” out of that statement because we are not seeing a wild animal anymore we are seeing a captured, controlled, manufactured image of the species.) Attending shows, parks, zoos and aquariums believing (or hoping) they are happy. Believing they are well taken care of…we are doing these animals a favour. It is the conditions with capture and captivity that we would rather turn away from.

Porter says:

“We do have an effect on them in captivity and we would feel the same way. Separated at birth from parents, living a separated life because of breeding and security purposes, spending many hours a day in a small pool, in solitary confinement like Tillicum. Of course, if you are an intelligent being it’s going to have an effect. It does have an effect on these animals because they are so intelligent and because they are so intelligent we need to preserve them in the wild.”

Of course, the argument that animals could be intelligent or feeling in a way that may compare to humans really gets some people on their high horse. They can’t fathom that something less than a human would be traumatized being abducted from its pod, group, pride or family. In their minds an animal on land or in the sea that travels for miles in a day, communicating with its members and instinctively living as it’s species has for hundreds of years would eventually lose all of its instincts, memory and needs. It will just adapt to its new tiny, artificial home.

I agree with Chris Porter’s next point:

“If the argument is that we are displaying these animals to preserve their wild counterparts then we would be preserving these wild counterparts more. We wouldn’t have drift net fishing, we wouldn’t have thousands of dolphins captured still, we wouldn’t have killer whales who are getting hunted off of Chinook Salmon so that sports fisherman can get a photo and have something for their barbecue. We are not having that impact.”

Around the world they are still capturing animals for multiple purposes that serve the human need to be even closer to them. Unless, of course, you live up the top a mountain in some expensive development and one of these lovely wild animals happens into your garden or garbage then it is “We’ve done everything to keep these things out but they keep coming back…it even went after our cat!”  Now, that is some hypocrisy there, spend money to see them contained behind glass but complain when we actually really interact with them.

As for the dolphins and whales, (that thankfully can’t just show up at the door) aquariums and their paid scientists find new reasons to collect more.

Porter:

“They are talking about going to collect whales again and justifying it because the population assessments are done and determine “Yes, that population could support a removal” “It’s scientifically justifiable and so we are going to remove these animals.”

“What if one country has an over abundance of whales or dolphins? We are not talking millions; we are talking maybe thousands, maybe hundreds. Maybe in theory we could take six away but if the rest of the world has a depreciation of these animals then we need some places that have an over abundance so that we can start getting the balance back and start changing people’s opinions.

“Even in 2010 zoos and aquariums are still talking about catching whales and dolphins. That’s not helping the wild population.”

I’m not sure as a society we are prepared to give up our addiction to pleasing ourselves with show stopping performances, dolphin swim programs and animal displays. We are too self centered, bored, needy and entitled to explore the real business that feeds our obsession. Even Mr. Porter understands the public’s draw to aquariums, zoos and the like:

“There are people that have told me I go to zoos and aquariums and I know it’s not right but it makes the kids happy and I forget about them for two three hours and they have so much fun.”

“It’s our busy, stressful lives and sometimes we sacrifice the affects we are having on these wild animals. If they were people everyone would be sounding their alarms but when you have organizations from both sides recognizing that they are social animals then we have to accept that it is a bit like containing people.”

“We are imposing our views on how they should live in the wild and captivity.”

I will offer yet another unsolicited opinion…we have closed our minds. Public, aquariums, zoos and activists all covering their ears when hearing the truth about our actions. Not cooperating with each other, unable to sit at a table to discuss better management of species and habitats we have already impacted. We suck at managing anything that has been given to us by mother nature! No matter how great the intention, how masterful the brains, how much money or effort we throw at conservation we always screw it up.

Meanwhile, we take and take and take. Make excuses, point fingers, do studies, employ more people while the animals suffer worldwide. These dolphins that will get released have an unknown fate ahead but not because the ocean didn’t welcome them back to freedom but because humans just can’t let go of the controls.

He was arrested, charged on 35 various sexual assault, procurement and pornography related counts and found guilty after pleading on 14 counts. There are probably many victims through his travels that we and the courts will never hear from which makes it all the more hard to take. Such is the trail of destruction left behind from these creatures.

What first goes through my head is the frustration with an 11 year sentence which by some standards is a large sentence to be handed down for such a case. Secondly, his apparent apology “I”m sorry for what I have done with all my heart” which nobody ever takes seriously – if anyone buys that line they are as sick as he is.

He is one man who got caught, in a sea of others of like mind, that continue to exploit, abuse and degrade these children. As their appetite for abuse is not satisfied in their own backyard they make a well calculated plan to research and travel to destinations that have vulnerable, innocent children forced into sexual slavery.

It is not like these countries Cambodia, Columbia, Philippines, Thailand or Africa don’t know this is going on. Due to poverty, corruption and a lack of will to properly protect defenseless women and children the pornography and sex tourism industry flourishes. It is not underground anymore. We are all familiar with its existence; we are disgusted by Klassen but behind the hat and glasses that he tried to disguise himself with, is a normal looking man.

That is a problem, we just can’t pick these less than animals out of a crowd. They lead seemingly normal lives and yet here they are taking off to foreign lands to do what is the unthinkable for the rest of us. How much is that girls life worth? Over a dozen girls images and stories were brought to this case but knowing there is more… that is not even one year per victim. What do you think his time served will be?

Eventually, Kenneth Klassen will be out. Yes, he will continue to have restrictions placed on him. No, there is no way to ensure he will be reformed. Yes, our laws are not strong enough. No, we don’t want him in our neighbourhoods or to travel elsewhere.

It is a fact of life that these monsters inhabit our earth but given how much our world has opened up both through travel and Internet we have a whole other playground these guys frequent. What can we do?

For other stories I have covered such as this check out:

A Sparkle of Hope

Jack Crone – Curiosity Killed the Cat

Last year I wrote a blog post that garnered a tremendous amount of attention Dolphin Dealer – Christopher Porter. Not only did blog readers notice but so did Christopher; after leaving a comment and an email I suggested we talk further.

We talked about his campaign to free the very pod of dolphins he helped to capture, among other important matters concerning captivity and the various roles humans play in this lucrative business. It was a fascinating discussion that took countless hours to transcribe just to figure out where to focus my article which is now out in TimeFinders Magazine called Christopher Porter: Politics of the Dolphins. He needs support for his campaign but first it is helpful to understand the goals he wants to reach:

1. Release the pod and secure partnerships that would allow for ongoing follow up.

2. Secure meaningful related work for the people of the Solomon Islands, that would reduce their dependence on the killing and capture of dolphins.

3. Research beyond the standard captivity studies and provide a template which others worldwide could adopt. (proving release is possible and research is valuable)

4. Facilitate dialogue between all interested parties including aquariums, activists, partners, governments and the public on better management of the oceans and its inhabitants.

Porter is a very vocal, often described as aggressive, opinionated and knowledgeable man. He covered multiple issues for this interview. With the expertise of Jill, who worked her magical editing wand, we managed to provide readers with what I hope is an interesting, thought provoking look at the world behind the show and tell life of dolphins and whales in captivity.

You will be able to make up your own mind up as to who Christopher Porter is, the value of the Free the Pod campaign and explore the political mess that surrounds the business. There is more to discuss which I will provide in another post next week which includes a quote from Mark Berman from the SaveJapanDolphins.org - Ric O’Barry’s campaign to save dolphins.

Meanwhile, Vancouver is currently raising the debate of the appropriateness of continuing to support our own Vancouver Aquarium. Line ups at the zoo show the public still can’t get enough of those animals in a pool perhaps understanding a bit more about what is really at stake here may change their mind? Or not.

Where do you stand on the issue of captivity?