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How many times have you said, “I’ll kill you” in jest? PhD and freelance journalist Neelam Vir will now always think twice before she utters those words again. In this week’s Toronto Star readers learned that the 40-year old writer and teacher had been arrested twice for allegedly uttering death threats against Ontario Liberal Premier, Dalton McGuinty ( for all of you who don’t know what a premier is, it is like a U.S Governor not Senator as previously written).
On September 30th Vir, whom after previously meeting McGuinty at a community event, dropped off a package containing an instant mix to prepare gulab jamun an Indian sweet, to his assistant. Later that evening, she emailed the Premier to see if the assistant had given it to him. In the message, she wrote “If she didn’t give it to you, I’ll kill her.” Almost two months later, she was arrested at her home for conveying a death threat. After six hours in custody, she was released and two days later, she was arrested again, after she emailed the Premier in an attempt to explain herself.
In The Star article, Vir is portrayed in a way that I am sure is accurate: A smart and kind woman, both her and her husband obtained their PhD’s in India and emmigrated to Canada in 2002. Fustrated that they could not obtain the same careers they had in India, Vir’s husband eventually opened a butcher shop and Vir became a supply teacher; worked as an airport security guard and freelanced for a Punjabi newspaper in Mississauga. As a writer, she would obsessively email Municipal, Provincial and Federal politicians about her and her husband’s situation and the problems that foreign trained professionals faced when emmigrating to Canada. Prior to meeting McGuinty, she had written around 200 emails to his office, beginning from July of last year until her arrest.
"In India, you can't even approach a politician. Here, they're accessible and open to hearing from constituents, so that's what I was doing," Vir says.
Thrilled to get a form-letter reply from McGuinty that used her first name, Vir mailed him a rakhi (symbolic thread) last August, referring to him as "Big B," her big brother.
At a Sept. 17 Liberal news conference at a Toronto bookstore, Vir handed McGuinty's teacher wife, Terri, her resumé in the misguided hope she might help her find a job.
Since the article appeared on February 26, there has been a flood of letters to the newspaper and on Canadian blogs about Vir's arrests. The most contentious part of this story that Vir used as a defense to her actions has been widely discussed, as she says that it was a 'cultural misunderstanding' that led her to be arrested. She didn’t know the North American etiquette about email and more importantly she argued that the phrase, ‘I will kill you,’ and / or similar phrasing used in jest, is common in Indian culture. As an immigrant, she says, she was unaware of Canadian political correctness. She blames the Liberal party and Canada for her predicament.
So did the Premier’s office overreact? The politician said that he wasn't even aware of the details about the situation until reading the reoprts in The Star, claiming that he had been in the dark. Blogs like Sepia Mutiny that focuses on South Asian culture and politics, has a hot debate going on. Even though it is usually not that great to post comments, there have been quite a number of South Asian people who are upset that Vir is accusing Canada for her arrest:
Her behavior is embarrassing. She seems well qualified but apparently not well educated.
Some are sympathetic:
I have a pretty mixed (leaning negative) view how Canada's official multicultural policy has played out. The sentiment's good, and desirable, but in practice it (or rather, it, in conjunction with a variety of other peculiarities of how a good portion of immigration plays out in Canada) has lead to a lot of counterproductive self-segregation.
Of course, the more 'right wing’ Canadian bloggers have weighed in on the situation, upset that the Canadian government might have to foot the bill for Vir’s legal defense:
I predict no criminal charges for Vir. Instead, a judge will order we spend tens of thousands of dollars for her therapy and orientation course on acceptable cultural Canadian language. Deportation? Forget it. She's sick, remember?
If I had written a death threat against any politician's staff I'd be jailed and fined. Why? I'm a native Canadian
